KomanSense

An Argument for Glass Ceilings in Politics?

2009-05-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

The Weirz on Video!

2009-05-14T16:42:00.001-07:00

Just found -- the best song by the greatest band you've never heard of! From over 3 decades ago, playing Jupiter Moon, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: Estelle, Cathy, Pixie, Theresa, Maria, Joanie, Larry, Tom, and Mikey: The Weirz!

Is Bea Arthur also Jane Ross?

2009-05-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

Bea Arthur is dead. OK, I can accept that, though I hesitate to say that when I was 15 I had a slight thing for Maude. Can't explain it, but I recall that I responded to her regal self-confidence, snarky attitude, and... tallness. She'd have made a good Hera. So when other actors were interviewed about her death, Leonard Nimoy stated that he had met Bea when she had acted in an episode of Star Trek and that he remembered her as being a very nice person.

Huh? I didn't recall Maude traipsing around in the 23rd century! She was not listed in IMDB as having been on the series, so I searched the mighty Web and found an article by Joseph Stevenson at Answers.com that stated she'd acted as "Jane Ross" in Rocket Attack U.S.A. and Light Fantastic. Sure enough, IMDB states that Jane Ross was in both those movies and played Tamoon, Chekov's drill thrall, in Gamesters of Triskellion. Rushing to my complete set of pre-remastering Star Trek DVDs, I fast-forwarded to the scene where Tamoon enters Chekov's cell and talks to him.

Chekov's reaction was similar to mine (I remember the same feeling from 40 years ago: is that a chick or a dude?). Watching the scene, I noticed that her voice was even deeper, as if it had been processed or she was trying to sound weird. However, some words sounded distinctly Arthurian in their inflection. In addition, her chin and earlobes matched photos of Bea Arthur. Jane Ross's nose, though, seemed sharper in certain angles than Bea Arthur's, though I only had more recent photos of Bea by which to judge (age adds cartilage to the nose). Bea Arthur is 5'9" and Walter Koenig is 5'6", yet Tamoon appears to be shorter than Chekov in the scene (he might have been standing on an apple crate). In this photo, she appears to be shorter, but she's in flats and he's in boots and she's standing further back than he. Nichelle Nichols is 5'5" and seems to be about Tamoon's height in this phot o, but she's in her Starfleet uniform, which included very sexy high-heeled boots. (Now if you want to talk about major things, I definitely had one for Lt. Uhura!)

It's important to note that IMDB is usually very good about attributing pseudonyms to actors. If Bea Arthur were widely known to be "Jane Ross", she would have been noted in her Bea Arthur listing as having been in that episode "(as Jane Ross)". However, the Bea Arthur and Jane Ross entries are not correlated in any way. In addition, there is a date of death for Jane Ross of 6/27/85. And she's listed as being born 10 years later than Bea. Interestingly, Golden Girls premiered in 1985, so Jane Ross's date of death could be an inside joke (i.e., no need for her now that Bea had a second hit series).

So what's the story? Was Leonard Nimoy misremembering Jane Ross as being Bea Arthur? Was Answers.com mistaken? Bea Arthur denied being in Star Trek in 2001. Was she lying to protect her opinion of her reputation? I haven't been able to locate the two old movies to see if Jane Ross (sans thrall makeup) looks and sounds like Bea Arthur circa 1960-ish. I found a copy of Rocket Attack U.S.A. on eBay, but the postage from Australia is prohibitive. So until a local copy is available, the mystery continues...

New Books from KoPubCo

2008-12-17T22:35:00.000-08:00

Narrowly in time for Christmas (and well ahead of Russian Christmas!), two new books from KoPubCo: the libertarian classic An Agorist Primer and the children's novelette The Legend of Anarcho Claus.

Told with clear and concise prose, An Agorist Primer is exactly that — a primer on all the important aspects of Agorism and Counter-Economics: how they work together to enable you to free yourself and expand freedom to your friends, family, and the world!

Samuel Edward Konkin III wrote An Agorist Primer in 1986. A small number of Xerox copies were circulated to investors in the hope that they would finance the publication of a high-quality, hardcover edition. Though some money was raised, it proved insufficient to produce the book. Even though the photocopies bore text reading “First Edition”, it was meant to refer to the proposed hardback edition. This, then — the book now available in hardcover from KoPubCo — is the true first edition as SEK3 intended it.

And just for fun, there's The Legend of Anarcho Claus. Sam always loved Christmas. In both Christmas issues of New Libertarian Weekly, he wrote installments of the secret story of Santa’s rebel agorist son, Anarcho, who brings counter-economic toys to non-coercive girls and boys. I expanded the story into a full-length children's book that I hope will become a Christmas classic.

Order copies now and get 20% off! More important, sales of these books will fund the publication of SEK3's unfinished magnum opus, the appropriately titled CounterEconomics. It will be quite an effort to take the book from typewritten manuscript to published book, first because it was indeed left undone at the time of Sam's death in 2004, and second because it contained very topical examinations of late 1970s/early 1980s events that supported his counter-economic theories. More on that as it develops.

Mr. Science Fiction

2008-12-06T09:07:00.000-08:00

Forry Ackerman died Thursday, having heroically made it to his 92nd birthday Nov. 24th, despite pneumonia and congestive heart failure for which he had been hospitalized a few weeks before. I'll miss him. One of the first magazines I'd ever purchased with my own money was Famous Monsters #27, March, 1964, the one with the Cyclops on the cover (yes, I still have it -- it's one of my prized possessions).

I met Forry many times over the years, beginning in the mid 1970s at science-fiction conventions in Los Angeles. He was always the most joyous and polite of men (and that's saying a lot in fandom!), and when my daughter Vanessa was old enough to show up with me, he doted upon her like a loving grandfather. In the 1980s, I found out that he hosted Saturday tours of his Ackermansion and Vanessa and I made several pilgrimages to that sacred place.

Forry has been disparaged by many fans for somehow sullying science fiction with his childlike enthusiasm and his coining of the term "sci-fi". I -- and anyone who ever leapt with joy at the arrival of a copy of FM or Spacemen -- declare otherwise. He did more to bring science-fiction to popularity than nearly anyone else. Without Forry, would there have been a Steven Spielberg or a George Lucas? Early influence is everything in human development, and Forry caught us all as kids, at our most malleable.

His influence on generations will not be adequately gauged until decades from now. He has inspired innumerable people to enter the arts and sciences. He helped to build the future he wanted to see.

As an atheist, he did not think he would "go" anywhere when he died. Many hope he's wrong, and that somewhere he and Wendy can hang out with Bela and Boris and all the citizens of the ImagiNation. Mi amas vin Kvari.

RINOs Lose Big -- Conservatives Poised to Regain GOP

2008-11-04T22:32:00.000-08:00

John McCain's people may try to blame their embarrassing loss on Sarah Palin, but her nomination is all that kept the GOP from losing every single electoral vote. The utter failure of McCain proves the futility of reaching across the aisle. Being a "low-tax liberal" didn't work Ed Crane and it didn't work for McCain. The RINOs are in full retreat and will no doubt now re-register as Democrats to be part of the winning team again.

Here's hoping that flint-hearted, uncompassionate conservatives regain control of the party and run someone who would rather win the war and win the presidency.

The good news is that now all talk of America being a racist country will and must cease. Barack Hussein Obama, President-elect, has put the lie to that century-old canard. We look forward to the disbanding of all race-focused organizations and all race-based quotas and criteria now that the final frontier has been conquered. Affirmative action has achieved the highest possible prize and is no longer needed -- America no longer sees color, and no longer needs to. Their considerable energies can now be focused on the most important goal for America -- a return to the Moon and the settlement of Mars and beyond (OK, that was my audacious hope talking).

Let's get behind our new President and keep him focused on America.

Remember -- if you voted, you can't complain!

Palin To Pursue Schwing Vote

2008-08-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

"Why, Madam Vice President, with your glasses off and your hair down, you're..."

I think Palin is a great choice for McCain. Can't be attacked for inexperience when the Democrats have the same problem with their presidential choice. Palin's solid conservative positions force feminists to admit that they don't support women in politics per se, and will vote for an all-male ticket over a male/female ticket if the woman is not a socialist.

McCain just made the race extremely interesting. Noses around the country are no doubt being un-pinched as we speak.

A Handshake Away from Clark Rockefeller?

2008-08-09T19:47:00.000-07:00

OK, so I'm watching Geraldo At Large and he's talking about how the erstwhile Christian Gerhartsreiter became Christopher Chichester and lived in San Marino with John and Linda Sohus. When they vanished, he told people that they were spies on a mission to Paris and even (allegedly) sent postcards in their names to people in the US from Paris as part of the coverup. Then he vanished to become Clark Rockefeller in Boston.

Geraldo waves around some postcards and we see images of them on the screen. One of them is clearly addressed to Lydia Marano at Dangerous Visions bookstore!

Apparently, according to the Boston Herald (Herald, Geraldo? Hmm...), Lydia said that Linda Sohus worked at DV for 3 years then just one day never showed up again. Linda allegedly sent the postcard to Lydia from Paris. Lydia turned it over to cops in the hope that perhaps Gerhartsreiter's DNA might be on the stamp.

Eerie. Seeing Lydia's name on TV felt like being told that an acquaintance of yours is embroiled in an tangled web of murder and false identities. Wait... she is!

Shameless Capitalistic Promotion, Pt. 1

2008-07-25T12:28:00.000-07:00

OK, I have to use this blog once in a while to tout what I've been doing. I've got a growing collection of really snarky, transgressional, anti-liberal bumper stickers, T-shirts, and miscellaneous stuff at Triplanetary Traders. To the left is an example. Click on it or on the link below and you'll be taken there at the speed of light!

Drill Our Way Out? Yes We Can! (Uses the positive attitude of liberals to attack one of their "No We Can't" rants.)

The Great Autograph Slaughter

2008-07-25T12:04:00.000-07:00

Autograph hunting can be a deadly business...

I was responsible for two deaths in the Tolkien family, which led to the rumor that refusing an autograph request from me can be fatal. I had a copy of Smith of Wooten Major that I thought I'd send to Tolkien for an autograph. This was in 1971. Months passed and I received the book back with a note from his agent saying that Mr. Tolkien was not signing anything right now because his wife had just passed away. I understood. So I waited a year or so, and then sent the book to him again. This time it came back with a note from his agent regretfully informing me that the book was being returned unsigned because Mr. Tolkien had, sadly, passed away.

Yikes! That's one book I'm wrapping in lead and never sending anywhere again.

Something similar happened to me and Rod Serling. I met him at a speech he gave at West Valley College in the 1973 or '74 (where I also first met Ray Bradbury, Buckminster Fuller, and Arthur C. Clarke!). I asked him for an autograph and he said in that great voice of his, "I'm sorry, I don't sign autographs."

A year or so later.... dead.

So it's unwise to refuse me an autograph or even to tarry in responding to the request....

The Plame Truth

2008-07-10T08:12:00.000-07:00

I just heard Bill Handel's interview with Valerie Plame in which she touts her new novel-- er, biography -- and claims that "99% of what the CIA redacted" from her book "had nothing to do with national security."

Gee, I thought everything she did was super-secret spy stuff. Could it logically follow that just maybe her ultra-clandestine mega-spy desk-jockey identity in reality actually "had nothing to do with national security"?

Move a Mountain? Start With a Seed...

2008-07-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

OK, however you may feel about religion, someone has come up with an Internet test of faith: mustardseedchallenge.com. A webcam is trained on a mustard seed and the goal is -- by faith alone -- to move the mustard seed from the left side to the right.

I am assuming this is a sincere experiment and that the seed is not glued down...

Hey, Geroge Noory, time to get your remote viewers and psychokinetic experts in there to nudge it!

Remember Heinlein's observation:

"If you pray hard enough, you can make water run uphill. How hard? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of course! [Expanded Universe]

Rush Limbaugh Plagiarizes KomanSense?

2008-06-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

Or do great minds simply think alike? On May 20th, I wrote my observation that "Barack Hussein is running for Jimmy Carter's second term, right down to promising to screw things up again with Iran." The very next day, May 21st, Rush Limbaugh observed that "It's going to be Jimmy Carter's second term. They don't care about ruining the country. We're running against people who want doom and gloom to happen."

He replayed that clip today when he noted that John McCain used the same line on MSNBC's Nightly News: "Senator Obama says that I'm running for Bush's third term. It seems to me he's running for Jimmy Carter's second."

So did McCain plagiarize Limbaugh... or me? I don't care -- a good joke deserves a wide audience!

Green: It's the New Red!

2008-05-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

Vaclav Klaus , Czech Republic president, has finally torn the mask off the environmental movement by pointing out that neo-communists have merely replaced "the environment" for "the proletariat" as the reason for our enslavement. As someone who grew up under Communism, he's hip to all their lingo, and the semantic equivalents he draws are enlightening indeed.

The ecology movement has always been a haven for leftists, so it's no surprise that their relentless quest for power over the lives of all has taken up this new Inquisition ("Are you using CFLs, unbeliever? What is your carbon footprint, knave?").

Do we now need to inquire if there are environmentalists in the State Department? Will the Neo-Coms be unopposed in their goal to establish a Dictatorship of the Climatologists?

Stay tuned.

The Great Continuation

2008-05-20T09:14:00.001-07:00

OK, so McCain is running for Bush's third term (or The Bush Dynasty's fourth term) and Hillary is running for the Clinton third term. From the sound of it, Barack Hussein is running for Jimmy Carter's second term, right down to promising to screw things up again with Iran.

Mr. Peterson for President?

2008-05-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

I've finally figured it out. That whiny, wimpy voice... John McCain reminds me of John Fiedler, the character actor who played wimpy, whiny, but sometimes angry and psychotically violent little men. He was the shy Mr. Peterson on The Bob Newhart Show and Juror #2 in 12 Angry Men. He was also Cadet Alfie Higgins in Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. It's unlikely, however, that President McCain will get America as close to outer space as Cadet Higgins did.

Lamest Choices Since Carter/Ford

2008-05-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

As much as anyone talks about 2008 being 1968, it's more like 1976. And our choices appear to be amongst Tweedledumb, Tweedledumber, and The Red Queen.

The Unspoken Assumption

2008-04-25T07:39:00.000-07:00

What I find most disturbing about B.O.'s pronouncement (and subsequent, dissembling attempts at explanation) that small-town Americans cling to guns and religion because they're frustrated with government is the implication (not noted by any pundits I've heard since) that if people were pleased with government they would gleefully surrender their guns and abandon their religion.

What does that tell you about how Obama views the power, seductiveness, and overwhelming allure of The State?

Perspective Inversion in Obama-Rama

2008-04-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

Senator Barack H. Obama spoke about how small-town folk cling to certain attitudes out of bitterness. Switching on the old tu quoque machine, let's see if we can come up with a parallel observation...

“You go into these big cities in California and, like a lot of big cities in Europe, Communism has been gone now for 16 years. And it’s not surprising, then, that they get bitter, they cling to victim disarmament or Big Government or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-citizen sentiment or anti-business sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

How many liberals do you know that fit this description?

The Chavez Doctrine

2008-03-05T11:57:00.000-08:00

So let me get this straight. Hugo Chavez is poised to invade Colombia -- a country that has not attacked Venezuela -- because of Colombia's attack on a FARC compound in Ecuador? I thought invading a country that has not attacked yours was the province of Hugo's personal El Diablo, George Bush. Perhaps Hugo is proposing a Chavez Doctrine of preemptive war?

10th Anniversary of... Nuthin'?

2008-01-15T21:20:00.000-08:00

OK, I know I promised in 2005 to be more... consistent with postings on this blog and then I promptly slacked off. Not good for a writer. I get e-mails from fans asking "Where's the next Captain Anger?" "Will there ever be Book Two of The High Pilgrimage?" "Why is there no KoPubCo edition of Death's Dimensions?" and the ubiquitous "Didn't you used to be a writer?"

I've got tonnes of excuses, but to enumerate them would be whining. I've not produced a new novel since 1998 (Millennium: Weeds, which was only published in German and Japanese)(and Captain Anger: The Microbotic Menace was published in 1999, but written earlier). So I guess 2008 is my tenth anniversary of writer's block.

The good news is, I'm weaning myself off of self-pity and am outlining a new novel, as well as working on new publications for KoPubCo. Progress is slow because of... well, that would be whining, wouldn't it?

As time goes by, I'll probably reveal some of what's going on in my life, but I've never been one for the public confessional, so expect a lot of elliptical evasiveness.

2007-12-18T13:49:00.000-08:00

Sorry — I just wanted to see this:

Rosie-Not-So-Riveting

2007-03-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

The View has its value -- it allows us to see the insane, hateful face of those who would deliver us to the enemy. ABC.com only allows 500 character e-mails, so mine was necessarily brief and far softer in its demand than I could have written:

Rosie has gone too far. She is aggressively defending a murderous terrorist and implying that he -- who granted no mercy to the 3000 dead on 9/11 -- is the VICTIM of American justice rather than the proper recipient of it. Her words go far beyond entertainment or commentary. She is a conscious apologist for an enemy who would not hesitate to kill us all, and I will boycott Disney until she publicly and SINCERELY apologizes for her hateful, traitorous support of the enemy of all that is decent.

Does she really think that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will love her for defending him and refrain even for an instant from slaughtering her and her family along with the rest of us if he could? Does she think radical muslims would be tolerant of her and her lifestyle out of gratitude for her betraying and denouncing her fellow countrymen?

Don't liberals get it that someone who would plot to kill Jimmy Carter -- a recently professed opponent of Israel -- doesn't care what positions infidels take? They merely consider her one of what Lenin called the "useful idiots."

Tom Selene -- In the Arms of Eris

2007-03-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

This is getting depressing, writing about friends who have died. I'd been wondering about former AnarchoVillage inhabitant Tom Selene, on whom I'd based a character in my novel The Jehovah Contract. I tried ZabaSearch, but that turned up nothing (not surprising, when trying to find an anarchist). I Googled his name and found this mention of him from Rancho Todos Santos, which mentions that he passed into the waiting arms of Eris, goddess of Chaos, on June 26th, 2006.

Tom was a valuable source of information about pharmaceuticals and the Ordo Templi Orientis. In fact (if I recall correctly), it was through Tom that I first met my friends in the OTO (Lon DuQuette, et al.)

He was a colorful figure, full of joy and life, and once told me that when he worked as a perfusionist, he had the opportunity to hold a living human heart in his hands and felt the true magnificence of Life.

"Unto them from whose eyes the veil of life hath fallen may there be granted the accomplishment of their true Wills; whether they will absorption in the Infinite, or to be united with their chosen and preferred, or to be in contemplation, or to be at peace, or to achieve the labour and heroism of incarnation on this planet or another, or in any Star, or aught else, unto them may there be granted the accomplishment of their wills; yea, the accomplishment of their wills. AUMGN. AUMGN. AUMGN."

So mote it be.

Gross Gems -- Funny Forgotten Films

2007-02-25T12:48:00.000-08:00

If you view my Blogger profile, you'll see a couple of Favorite Movies listed of which you have never heard: Tarzini of the Garbanzo and Mission: Imbroglio. You won't find them listed on IMDB and (until my profile) a Google search would turn up nothing (Tarzini) or coincidental couplings of the two words "mission" and "imbroglio" (although there seems to be a foreign film trailer of that name).

The two films -- and several others -- were the creation of a "studio" called Gross Gems. What was Gross Gems? In the late 1960s/early 1970s, a bunch of high-school guys in the Los Gatos-Saratoga area (one-horse towns back then, but now "wealthy suburbs of Silicon Valley") somehow got hold of a 16mm camera and proceeded to create a handful of one-reelers that spoofed the culture of the times. While I remember Tarzini (a great take-off on every Tarzan film ever made) and Imbroglio (a dead-on satire of Mission: Impossible that predated anything the Abrahams/Zucker trio ever did), they also created Utter Confusion, Jet Car, Golfer, Scramble, and more. I had seen some of the films at our high school (I think) and then, most memorably (since I kept the program book) at Villa Montalvo, a ritzy arboretum in Saratoga.

I remember the night well (or do I? Time may have played with my memories). It was my first date with Terry Sicular, and my dad drove us there. I had overcome my shyness to ask her out because I suspected she would appreciate their wicked humor. I must have been a good judge of intelligence, because I Googled her name recently and discovered that Dr. Terry Sicular is a globe-trotting economist at the University of Western Ontario! She's written tonnes of articles about China.

The show consisted of the Gross Gems films interspersed with "Gross-Outs" -- short blackout skits with titles such as "Snake-Charmer Gross-Out" and "Rod McKurihanihanO'Clancy Gross-Out". I recall them being amusing-to-hilarious and alternating very well with the films.

(After the show was over, I tried calling my parents to pick us up, but the phone was busy -- this was long before call-waiting. So the curator of the arboretum drove us down the hill to the gate, racing at breakneck speed and honking loudly at every curve. Terry and I looked at each other as if we might become a headline in the Los Gatos Times-Observer about the fatal dangers of the Montalvo access road.)

But I digress.

The producer/writer/actor was Rick Harper; Doug Harrison played piano, acted, and did some soundtrack work; Sandy Stotzer wrote and acted; Don Langston wrote and acted; Peder Jorgensen provided production assistance; Roger Pease, also PA; Don Stewart and Lane Parker were PA's; Roquefort the Lizard engaged in Public Relations and The Ape (see photo above) provided backstage noise.

My favorite line from Mission: Imbroglio was from the opening scene in which the Jim Phelps-type is receiving his orders from the tape recorder, which reminds him that "...if you or any of your IM force is caught or killed, the secretary will miss you guys around the office."

I just wanted it on the record that the Gross Gems films ought to be resurrected, digitally restored, and made available to the world. They were that funny.