ANNALS OF MOCKERY: JULY 2014 EDITION.

By Iris Vander Pluym on 08.10.14

[CONTENT NOTE: ableist language; slut-shaming.]

I am an unrepentant, die-hard proponent of mockery in the political sphere. There is a reason witty dissidents, clever cartoonists and pseudonymous snarkers have historically been persecuted by powerful regimes, and that reason is that mockery is potent stuff. Humorous ridicule has long been an effective tool of subversion, and there are many masters of it in the 21st century United States. Jon Stewart and Andy Borowitz among others have made careers of it, and of course Stephen Colbert is a world-class mocker: consider his recent one-line zinger, “If we put a woman on the one-dollar bill, it’ll only be worth seventy-seven cents!” Hahaha.

Read More
More info

TPJ MAG

21ST CENTURY DESCENDANTS OF IMPERIALISM

By Harry Targ - 08.10.14

A Military Coup in Honduras

Sunday, June 28, 2009 the Honduran military carried out a Coup ousting duly elected President Manuel Zelaya from power. Almost immediately leaders of Western Hemisphere nations condemned the actions taken in Tegucigalpa, the capital city. For example, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) asserted that the days of military coups as a mechanism of the transfer of power were over in Latin America.

Read More
More info

TPJ MAG

Iraq: War & Remembrance

By Conn Hallinan - June 28, 2014

 

“So far as Syria is concerned, it is France and not Turkey that is the enemy”

                                                      T. E. Lawrence, February 1915

It was a curious comment by the oddball, but unarguably brilliant, British agent and scholar, Thomas Edward Lawrence. The time was World War I, and England...

Read More
More info

TPJ MAG

Want to be Happy, Well and Free? Accept That Life Is Meaningless and You’ll be on Your Way

By Donald B. Ardell - 08.10.14

Introduction: Embracing Meaninglessness

The first step on the road to REAL wellness is to give up any thought that your life has been ordained as part of some mysterious grand plan. It hasn’t!

Seekers of wellness orgasms, or WOs, embrace the knowledge that their life has occurred by pure genetic chance. It was never meant to be, it just happened.

People who experience multiple WO’s understand the chance nature of their existence and the...

Read More
More info

TPJ MAG

SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME

By Loren Adams, 08.10.2014

The contradiction could not be more distinct. Jesus welcoming little children to be fed, clothed, comforted and housed. Republican rightwing “Christians” rejecting thousands of needy children, demanding deportation without even essential provisions – in direct violation of the law signed by George W. Bush in 2008. But, more importantly, in direct violation of Jesus’ precepts.

The so-called “Christian” religious right is the driving...

Read More
More info

TPJ MAG

Getting Reality in 21st Century America: Adrift With a Minnow’s Brain in a Sea of Whales

By Mickey Walker-August 10, 2014

First, try to remember the basics you learned in high school sciences like physics, chemistry, biology, and geology, and try to equate those times  with today.  Take global warming.  In 2014 we have scientists and counter-scientists (Have Gun Will Travel hired out by those who wish to defunct the reality of manmade global warming).  The real scientists are in consensus that global warming is caused by Nature and Man alike.  But the pseudo-scientists hired by smokestack industries debunk the real scientists when it comes to holding ourselves accountable for warming up the planet and causing terrible consequences like melting ice caps and glaciers...

Read More
More info

TPJ MAG