Trump’s CPAC…

Activists watch President Donald Trump address CPAC 2018. (Jared Holt for Right Wing Watch).

Activists watch President Donald Trump address CPAC 2018. (Jared Holt for Right Wing Watch).

If you’re curious about the latest happenings in the Lunatic Fringe, Right Wing Watch has all the details, and they aren’t pretty.

This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference was—to borrow a phrase—“low-energy.” Except, that is, when it came to praising President Trump. CPAC has historically been a measure of what people and ideas are allowed into the conservative movement’s big tent. This year, the ideology that seemed to matter most was love of Trump.

Trump’s influence on the larger conservative movement was apparent on stage at CPAC, but it played out also in the surrounding circus at the Gaylord convention center in National Harbor, Maryland, where white nationalists rubbed elbows with “New Right” internet celebrities and far-right European politicians, many of them echoing Trump’s talking points.

On the conference’s schedule, more traditional conservative fare about the joys of capitalism and national security threats was mixed in with sessions dedicated to aggrandizing Trump.

There’s a long article about all the comings and goings, who’s there and what they’re up to, along with all the nonsense being spewed at RWW.

Books.

The Hazel Wood is the debut novel of Melissa Albert, and it is a fine story. This is the story of Alice, and Alice-Three-Times. Alice is a young woman who is very angry, she is prickly all over, and with more reason than she knows. It’s a very nice change from goody two shoe and syrupy sweet protagonists. This is a fairy tale about fairy tales, and if you prefer your fairy tales on the moderately twisted side, this one is for you. It’s not full dark and twisted, but there are seriously dark moments, and a couple sprayed in gore. There’s a pleasant mystery twining through, which isn’t a terribly tough puzzle for those who enjoy the challenge of unraveling ahead of time, and it’s a story full of doors. All in all, a delightful tale, well told.

Electromagnetic Witchcraft & Techno Demons, Oh My!

Full Court Batshit.

Today, we have full on bugfuck for you, courtesy of one Pat Holliday, of the Miracle Internet Church, chatting with conspiracy fantasist Sheila Zilinsky.

“The government had a plan called Blue Beam back in the ’80s where they were going to fake a rapture of the church through blue beams and being able to shoot holographs up into the sky,” Holliday said, insisting that this was evidence of the “electronic magnetic witchcraft” that controls the world through everything from satanism and astrology to holistic medicine and sports.

Sigh. Y’know, it’s quite easy to spot a hologram and expose it, so just what would the fucking point be? I’m sure you’d be surprised just how much a whole lot of people wish you would get whisked off somewhere. Anywhere but here. Best be careful about including sports in all that nonsense, that’s damn near a religion in itself here in Amerikka.

“Did you know that the witchcraft powers in America had total control under the NFL over Obama?” Holliday asserted. “What Trump is doing and has done is he has disconnected the NFL from the powers of the former government.”

Oh, that’s why you included sports. Just had to get a snipe in at people of colour being damn tired and deciding to not fucking take it anymore. Sweet of you. Unfortunately for you, the NFL is not disconnected from great swathes of the population, including most in government. Amerikkans love their sportsball.

“Trump is doing a lot of things,” she said, including saving the world from certain calamity. Claiming that there is an “educated and refined witch or a wizard that is pulling the strings” over America, Holliday asserted that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have resulted in a world war that would have killed nearly the entire human population.

Oh FFS, now we’re living in a simplistic Harry Potter plot? Can’t you come up with something better than that? Think. Try to be original, and that’s a tough call, given all the speculative fiction floating about. Ever so nice that educated and refined are now code words for evil. You obscurantist idiots might love your lack of education, but I embrace mine and keep on learning every day. That you fear learning so much is all the more reason to love it.

“If Hillary Clinton had won the presidency of the United States of America, we may not even be here talking to you,” Holliday said, “because they did have a World War III planned where they were going to destroy 90 percent of the people. What they wanted to do was take control over the world by going down into their underground cities, we would all be dead and then, when it was time, they could come out of their underground cities and rule the world with Satan. That was their plan and they were almost there, but God has intervened.”

Pardon me asking, but where’s the thrill in dominating a decimated population? Sounds like a bad plan to me, more like the idiotic plan you would come up with, Ms. Holliday. You all really need to shut up, you’re doing a great deal of damage by breathing such profound stupidity into the air. We have enough climate problems.

The whole thing is at RWW, with a Soundcloud.

Sculptures of Wishes.

all photos courtesy Yusuke Aonuma.

all photos courtesy Yusuke Aonuma.

all photos courtesy Yusuke Aonuma.

all photos courtesy Yusuke Aonuma.

Amazing, and full of wonder! I so wish I could see these in person.

One would be hard-pressed to find a more delicate material to create art from. But for Japanese artist Yusuke Aonuma, single dandelion fluff, the feathery, umbrella-like structure that carries the seed to faraway lands, captivated his creative mind.

Aonuma begins by harvesting the dandelions (tanpopo, in Japanese) and drying them, thereby creating an abundant supply for him to work with. He then “plants” them upright in acrylic slabs to form three-dimensional geometric and architectural shapes. Over 50 different slabs were on display recently at an exhibition in Tokyo, a show that Aonuma titled “Iki wo tateru” (息を立てる), which roughly translates as “to breath.” Aonuma encouraged visitors to gently breath on the dandelion fluff sculptures as a way of visualizing that they were real and standing upright.

Although Aonuma’s exhibition has since closed, the artist has announced an upcoming exhibition in March of 2018, which will take place in the Omotesando district of Tokyo. The exact location and dates have yet to be revealed. You can follow the artist on Twitter and Instagram.

You can see more at Spoon & Tamago.

Darwin’s Polar Bear.

“Polar Bear”, artist unknown, ca. 1870s — Source.

Musings upon the whys and wherefores of polar bears, particularly in relation to their forest-dwelling cousins, played an important but often overlooked role in the development of evolutionary theory. Michael Engelhard explores.

As any good high school student should know, the beaks of Galápagos “finches” (in fact the islands’ mockingbirds) helped Darwin to develop his ideas about evolution. But few people realize that the polar bear, too, informed his grand theory.

You can read and see much more at The Public Domain Review. The artwork is stunning.