tagged w/ muscle men
-
The 42nd Annual Chicago Gay Pride Parade kicks off from the northside Lakeview neighborhood at noon on Sunday, led by Chicago’s new mayor, Rahm Emanuel. It will be the first time in a long time that a sitting mayor has appeared in the parade, a salute to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
Emanuel is a regular at the parade, having appeared at the festivities almost every year while he served in Congress. He has been a relentless advocate of gay causes, including HIV/AIDS funding, civil unions and gay marriage. Joining him in the parade will be Governor Pat Quinn, recently who signed the Illinois civil union legislation, as Illinois became the sixth state to allow civil unions or their equivalent, giving same-sex couples the same state-level rights that come with marriage.
The parade usually draws around a half-million celebrants, but coming right on the heels of winning the long-sought right for same-sex couples to enter into civil unions and the historic passage of the New York bill allowing same sex marriage Friday night, this parade is expected to swell far beyond a half-million rainbow-clad spectators.
This piece includes a number of color photographs and two parade videos.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/mayor-rahm-emanuel-leads-chicagos-42nd-annual-gay-pride-parade/The 42nd Annual Chicago Gay Pride Parade kicks off from the northside Lakeview... more
-
-
“Getting High in Venice Beach, LA" is a very trippy short film by The Cool Hunter, which invites you to experience a state of floating ecstasy without even needing to leave your chair or coconut tree, and whenever the desire strikes you.
In the 1950s and 60s, Venice Beach became a center for the Beat Generation, with a mind-altering explosion of young counterculture artists, poets and writers. Even today, Venice Beach is a summertime hotbed of activity, which includes the beach, the promenade or boardwalk, the fabulously hot Muscle Beach, the handball courts, the paddle tennis courts, Skate Dancing plaza, the numerous beach volleyball courts and the renowned Venice basketball courts that are known all across the country for their high level of streetball. And “Getting High in Venice Beach, LA” takes you on a dizzily buoyant trip through all of Venice Beach, accompanied by Brian Eno's dreamy soundtrack, “Deep Blue Day.”
This piece includes a number of color photographs, as well as the dreamy short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/getting-very-high-in-venice-beach-la/“Getting High in Venice Beach, LA" is a very trippy short film by The Cool... more
-
-
“Hollywood Abs” is a ridiculously silly short film produced by Terry Richardson, variously acknowledged to be either one of New York City’s very favorite “edgy” fashion photographers, or a totally creepy camera-wielding predator. Luckily, in this short film, Richardson’s only being just plain goofy.
All the guys who really, really want to become fabulously fit absolutely need to watch this film to see how a famous fashion photographer becomes the next promotional customer of a very popular (but completely non-existent) work-out routine that ‘s taking over Hollywood like hot bananas. “Hollywood Abs” is all you need to get those defined steamy, sexy super-muscular abs versus the merely “so-so” look of New York abs. Actor Matthew Gray Gubler tells you in his very convincing and happy tone of voice how you too can get to this point. Just watch this bit to see pure ridiculousness.
Includes a number of high-resolution sexy color photographs, as well as the ridiculously goofy short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/give-me-some-hot-and-sexy-hollywood-abs/“Hollywood Abs” is a ridiculously silly short film produced by Terry... more
-
-
An eclectic mix of stars, The Stanley Cup with Blackhawks defenseman Brent Sopel, The Chicago Cubs’ Ernie Banks and country singer Chely Wright, basked in the celebration of an estimated 500,000 people who attended the 41st Annual Pride Parade in the Lakeview neighborhood. Sopel, who stood on the float of the Chicago Gay Hockey Association, said he participated in the parade to honor the memory of the gay son of his former general manager.
This piece is composed of a number of great color photographs, as well as two videos of Chicago's Gay Pride Parade.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/be-proud-the-2010-chicago-gay-pride-parade/An eclectic mix of stars, The Stanley Cup with Blackhawks defenseman Brent Sopel, The... more
-
-
Major-General Smedley Butler (1881-1940)
Major-General Smedley Darlington Butler, a 33-year veteran of the Marine Corps who was twice decorated with the Medal of Honor, blew the whistle on the fascist plot to oust FDR. He also confessed to having been a “high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
In his book War is a Racket, 1935, Butler opens with these lines:
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope…. [and] the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it…. I must face it and speak out.”
In “Time of Peace,” Common Sense, Nov. 1935, Butler said:
“There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its ‘finger men’ (to point out enemies), its ‘muscle men’ (to destroy enemies), its ‘brain men’ (to plan war preparations), and a “Big Boss” (super-nationalistic capitalism).
It may seem odd for a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups.
I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested….
I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket…. I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents….
Our exploits against the American Indian, the Filipinos, the Mexicans, and against Spain are on a par with the campaigns of Genghis Khan, the Japanese in Manchuria and the African attack of Mussolini. No country has ever declared war on us before we first obliged them with that gesture. Our whole history shows we have never fought a defensive war.”
Butler made these conclusions in his book War is a Racket:
“* We must take the profit out of war.
* We must permit the youth…, who would bear arms, to decide whether or not there should be war.
* We must limit our military to defense purposes….
Secretly each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of annihilating its foes wholesale…. Ships will continue to be built, for shipbuilders must make their profits. And guns still will be manufactured… powder and rifles will be made, for the munitions makers must make their huge profits…. Victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists.
If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of building greater prosperity for all peoples. By putting them to this useful job, we can all make more money out of peace than we can out of war – even the munitions makers.
So…I say, TO HELL WITH WAR!”Major-General Smedley Butler (1881-1940)
Major-General Smedley Darlington Butler,... more
-
