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My first daughter Nisa was born on my
birthday, today, November 10th. I'm 55 and she's 18. As a legal adult,
for the first time in her life she is no longer under the jurisdiction
of a custody arrangement from a court that ordered me to stay away.
She is free to contact me, I'm free to contact her,
and there's nothing any court can do about it.
Unfortunately, from my side, there's
nothing much I can do but write this, a blatantly sentimental attempt
to regain a lost relationship. Short of kidnapping her years ago and
living our lives as fugitives, there's no way I could have been Nisa's
father. The decks were too stacked. I've had no choice but to wait
until this very day, November 10, 2006, to initiate contact, but the
barriers are still in place. I live near Palm Springs in California.
She lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her aunt who controls every aspect
of her life. She has no phone of her own, and the last time I called to
talk to her, auntie told me she couldn't come to the phone because she
was "busy playing." Auntie doesn't allow access to the internet, always
answers the phone first, blocks the mail, and has taken away all
pictures of me. I can't call or write so what's left but
journalism, my paltry slice of the World Wide Web, and the
hope she'll Google herself someday, find this article, and try to
contact me.
Sure, I could linger around her school,
but what school? Who knows if she's still in school. I don't even know
if her name is Nisa Dare or Nisa Paris or Nisa Paris Dare. Does she
hate me? Does she have any idea I've done things of which she should be
proud? Does she have plans for college? What kind of music does she
like? Has she seen "The Man who Would be King?" Democrat or Republican?
Bush Bozo or free thinker? Sure of herself or emotional wreck? Does she
smoke? Drink? Date? What does she want to be? Did she go to the prom?
What does she look like? Have any of my talents filtered through? Can
she play a musical instrument? Does she write or draw? A million bucks
she's never heard Elvis Costello or seen Kandinski. These, and
countless other things, are what Nisa's dad wants to know.
I also want Nisa to know that whatever
she's been told, I never gave her up, never let go, fought every inch
of the way, not just that she's got a father but has always had one.
There isn't a moment in the past eighteen years that I haven't been
here for her when she needed me. It's just that contact had to be
initiated by her, and decades of brainwashing can be mighty effective.
I have no idea the level of hostility she may feel towards me, or even
if reconciliation is emotionally possible. I only know I've spent
Nisa's childhood a wounded animal, my baby ripped from my arms, a hole
in my life effectively filled by the constant privilege of raising my
boys, knowing that I love all my children equally, no matter what the
circumstances. It's amazing that I've been able to accomplish anything
in the intervening years considering my constant emotional distress.
It's not the kind of thing I can let go. It's my subtext to everything.
I think of my girls every day.
Nisa was taken from me when just a baby,
and I participated in her life to the best that circumstances would
allow, considering the fact she had been moved out of state and I had
limited resources to fight the enormous legal battle I found myself in,
one of the most complicated imaginable, five children, all under the
jurisdiction of different courts.
One day Nisa's mom simply drove to
Phoenix, Arizona, gave Nisa to her mother, and drove back. Ta-dah! No
more Nisa. She's been there ever since, in the care of her grandmother,
who eventually bestowed custody to another of her daughters, one with
little likelihood of starting her own family.
In order to keep my daughters in Arizona,
they succeeded in implementing a diabolical scheme from which I'm
suffering the consequences to this very day. How easy it is
make a false charge in the middle of a custody hearing, especially one
that crosses state borders. One word from a social worker in Arizona
who never met me and I was suddenly a child pornographer in California
until proven otherwise. During the nine months it took to get the court
to just look at the goddam tape, not only was my career as a
professional film critic destroyed, but the rest of my kids were
shuffled around from mother to wards of the state to father to group
home to grandmother to aunt to homeless shelter, from court to
court, from one ruthless social worker to another, each with
their own agenda, advocating one way or another, dozens of ruined lives in the
wake of an endless succession of different judges given
ten minutes to read through paperwork a foot high, a total gamble, just
as I'd get a judge in my corner they'd be replaced and I'd have to
start all over again.
All for what? I ended up with legal and
physical custody of my boys with orders to protect them from the rest
of the family, and grandma ended up with legal and physical custody of
my girls with orders to protect them from me. You are cordially invited
to find the logic in that.
They protected my daughters from me with
a vengeance. Here's my favorite stunt. The California court
miraculously ordered a bunch of monitored visits with Amanda and Alex,
my two other girls. During these visits I always saw all three of my
daughters, but one day grandma and auntie realized that Nisa
was under a different jurisdiction - that the visits
with her weren't "court ordered" - so they deliberately left her out of
the visits, sometimes in particularly diabolical ways.
One time they sent Nisa to the pony
rides. Amanda and Alex wanted to go too, but were told "You can't go to
the pony rides, you've got to stay home and visit with your father."
They were crying when I showed up. It took all of ten minutes to calm
then down and have a loving visit, but the court was later told that my
visits were traumatizing the children, that they cried when I showed
up. End of court ordered visits.
It all came down to money. 10,000 bucks
and I could have gotten Nisa back, but to what? If my career had
skyrocketed, if I was perched on a Hollywood hillside with film deals
and money for private schools, there would have been no contest, but
instead I lost everything in a series of seriously unfortunate events
including bankruptcy, treachery, and theft. All I would have had to
offer the past few years was welfare, foodstamps, an abandoned house in
the middle of the desert, and no car. Judges are always interested in
improving the lifestyles of children in their care, but the only group
of people for whom my lifestyle would be an improvement is the homeless.
 Pink
Amanda, blue and yellow Alex, and green Nisa
In
a photo smuggled out of the house years ago by their mom
Here's what I remember about my last
visit with Nisa, when she was about seven.
We were all playing in grandma's living
room when I remembered something I wanted to get from the car. I was
sitting in the driver's seat looking through baggage when Nisa ran out
of the house and gave me a big hug. She thought I was leaving without
saying goodbye. I kissed her and reassured her I'd never do such a
thing. She sat in my lap and we talked and cuddled. I looked back
towards the house and there stood grandma and auntie looking at us like
I was raping her. It was the worst thing they had ever seen, this
blatant display of genuine affection between a father and daughter. I
could see them making up their minds then and there to prevent anything
like it ever occurring again. I haven't seen Nisa since then.
Nisa, this is for you sweetheart. You
probably think I'm dangerous. Maybe I am. Here's me with a sharp
object. (That's Max behind me.)
 Nisa, you were kidnapped, a legal
kidnapping endorsed by a court, but a kidnapping nonetheless. I miss
you and love you as much as any father has ever loved a daughter. Your
brothers miss you too, and we all hope this finds you well. Send us a
picture.
Michael Dare
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Posted October 30, 2006 THE
CANDIDATES
GOVERNOR
John Wayne
(Rep): Promises to help the rich, fuck the poor, cut taxes,
and make up the difference with more federal military
contracts.
Rock Hudson
(Dem): Promises to help the poor, fuck the rich, raise taxes, and have
the first gay wedding in the State Capital.
David
Crosby (Peace & Freedom): Promises to put mandatory
solar panels on all new home construction, ban the internal combustion
engine, make sure all "free range" chickens actually have access to a
range, legalize all drugs, and smoke pot in his office while getting
blown by hippie chicks under his desk.
Carrot Top
(Green): Promises more props in the State of the State address.
Tony Soprano
(Ind): Promises a free mink stole to every woman and a free lapdance
from one of the strippers at the Badda-Bing to every man who votes for
him. Refuses to divulge his political agenda because "it's none of your
fuckin' business."
CONGRESSMAN
Reverend Truman
Capote (Rep): Promises to deal with the congressional page problem by
replacing all his pages with choirboys. Wants to put the "fun" back in
fundamentalism.
Mr. Smith (Dem): Promises to tour all the national
monuments in Washington, get a rebirth of the spirit of freedom that
made this country great, filibuster the next Republican attempt to
renew the Patriot Act, then die in a plane crash under mysterious
circumstances.
Osama bin Laden (Peace & Freedom): Promises to
work with the terrorists to move the Iraq war somewhere else.
Swamp Thing (Green): Promises to get back at
arch-villain Anton Arcane, prove to his daughter Abby that he
still loves her, and that a trace of Alec Holland's humanity still
lingers under his weed-encrusted shell of a body.
Jesus Christ (Ind): Promises to sell out all his
principles and get as rich as possible by selling favors to any major
corporation trying to fuck over the public.
THE
PROPOSITIONS
Proposition
A
Authorizes the
sale of $16 billion in municipal bonds to fix every crack in every
sidewalk in the state. Sponsored by the M.W.B.B. (Mothers With Broken
Backs)
Proposition
B
Changes the
state "Three Strikes" law to a "One Strike" law, giving a mandatory
life sentence to anyone found guilty of anything. Sponsored by the
Prison Guards of America.
Proposition
C
Changes all EPA
regulations to the "honor system."
Proposition
D
Parental
notification. Any criminal contemplating breaking any law must notify
their parents one week before the commission of the crime.
Proposition
E
Authorizes the
sale of $30 trillion in municipal bonds to clean up the mess authorized
by Proposition C.
Proposition
F
Creates an
oversight committee to monitor all government agencies not already
monitored by a vast bureaucracy. Creates thousands of meaningless jobs
for those whose jobs were taken by illegal aliens.
Proposition
G
Authorizes the
sale of $5 billion in municipal bonds to build a wall around the state.
Sponsored by the Handball Association of America.
Proposition
H
Authorizes the
sale of $2 billion in municipal bonds to print up more municipal bonds.
Pick the Speaker of the House
Your Answers to the
Last Stupid Question of the Week
The Honorable
Congressman Mark Foley was busted by some unfortunate e-mails that
became public. What are some other congressional
e-mails they don't want us to see?
Unfortunately I
was the victim of a cybersquatter. Not only was my website down for a
few weeks but I didn't get any email to the disinfotainmenttoda
Stupid Question of the
Week
For
many decades it was believed that aluminum caused Alzheimer's Disease.
Millions of dollars were spent protecting the American public from
consuming aluminum, including special coatings on aluminum cooking
utensils and the insides of aluminum cans. But it was recently
discovered the opposite is true; Alzheimer's Disease causes aluminum
build-up in the human body. It makes no difference how much aluminum
you consume, which got me thinking. Hey, maybe fat causes overeating
and cancer causes smoking. What other examples of cause
and effect might actually be the reverse of common knowledge?
Google Smackdown of the
Week
 VS.
 and the winner is "you know nothing" by 1,120,000.
Christmas Gift from Hell
 Everybody needs a steam powered laptop
Don't Take My Word For
It
"I believe that
people would be alive today if there were a death penalty."
- Nancy Reagan "The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name." - Aldous Huxley -
"I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room." - Blaise Pascal -
"In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known." - Thomas
Pickering -
"This is what I say: Your mind is spiritual and so too is the sense-perceived world. The spirit is timeless and it dominates all existence as the great law guiding all beings in their search for truth. It changes crude nature into mind, and there is no being that can't be transformed into a vessel of truth." - Brahmajala Sutra - "Newspapermen learn to call a murderer 'an alleged murderer' and the King of England 'the alleged King of England' to avoid libel suits." - Stephen
Leacock -
"The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world
history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor
power, the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just
enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a
country so powerful, so big that it can afford to give freedom of
dissent to the small number who is not pleased.
"There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, leeways, flexibility, rewards for the chosen, winning tickets in lotteries. There is none that disperses it controls more completely through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media - none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty. "One percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth. The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 % against one another: Small property owners against the propertyless, black against white, native born against foreign born, intellectuals and professionals against the uneducated and unskilled. These groups have resented one another and warred against one another with such vehemence and violence as to obscure their common position as sharers of leftovers in a very wealthy country." - Howard Zinn: The People's History of the United States of America - "Internal peace is an essential first step to achieving peace in the world. How do you cultivate it? It's very simple. In the first place by realizing clearly that all mankind is one, that human beings in every country are members of one and the same family." - His Holiness
the Dalai Lama -
"In fact, grassing over that portion of the world's cropland now being
used to grow grain to feed ruminants would offset fossil fuel emissions
appreciably. For example, if the sixteen million acres now being used
to grow corn to feed cows in the United States became well-managed
pasture, that would remove fourteen billion pounds of carbon from the
atmosphere each year, the equivalent of taking four million cars off
the road. We seldom focus on farming's role in global warming, but as
much as a third of all the greenhouse gases that human activity has
added to the atmosphere can be attributed to the saw and the plow."
- Michael
Pollan: The Omnivore's Dilemma (Mandatory
reading) -
"Three things
cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."
- Buddha - "Justifying space exploration because we get non-stick frying pans is like justifying music because it is good exercise for the violinist's right arm." - Richard Dawkins - "Your vision
will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks
outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."
- Carl
Jung -
"When a man
finds no peace within himself, it is useless to seek it elsewhere."
- L. A.
Rouchefolicauld -
"If you ask me, this country could do with a little
less motivation. The people who are causing all the trouble seem highly
motivated to me. Serial killers, stock swindlers, drug dealers,
Christian Republicans. I'm not sure that motivation is always a good
thing. You show me a lazy prick lying in bed all day watching TV, and
I'll show you a guy who's not causing any trouble."
- George Carlin -
"My taste runs
towards pieces with a lot of characters, a fairly large canvas. And
that doesn't fit most commercial movies, where the formula is one guy
has to learn a big lesson by act three. To me, what's funny is that
people don't learn lessons in life. That's the essence of comedy."
- Harry Shearer -
"One has a stronger hand when there's more people
playing your same cards."
- Dubya: Washington, D.C., Oct. 11, 2006 -
"Nothing is more
humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed
at."
- Gustave
Flaubert -
"It's worth remembering that only five years ago, the US was reeling
under anthrax attacks which killed five people and ground postal
services to a halt. It's also worth noting what happened next.
"Even though the
Bush administration soon realized that the anthrax source was domestic,
Vice President Dick Cheney played the war card in claiming Osama bin
Laden's terrorist training manuals teach "how to deploy these kinds of
substances." While Congress admirably resisted adopting the odious
Patriot Act in the weeks following 9/11, both chambers quickly caved
when two Democratic senators' offices were subsequently targeted with
anthrax-laced letters. Coincidentally, Congress once again resisted
renewing the Patriot Act in February 2006, but after a nerve agent
scare on Capitol Hill led to the quarantine of 200 people, it caved
once again.
"The big story
behind the 2001 anthrax attacks, however, was never properly covered:
White House staff had started taking Cipro, an anthrax-treatment drug,
a full week before the first attack even occurred. You've got to wonder
what prior information the Bush administration had - and why it was not
communicated to the US public.
"While serious
questions behind the anthrax incidents may never be answered, the
attacks were phenomenally successful in two ways: providing
justification for the Bush administration to rev up spending on
bio-defense and adding more fuel to the fire for an invasion of Iraq."
- Heather Wokusch
-
- Alan Kay -
"There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function." - Georges Clemenceau - "To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening." - Dogen: Actualizing
the Fundamental Point -
"I have given two cousins to war and I stand ready to sacrifice my wife's brother." - Artemus Ward -
"No 'I,' No 'mine.' He knows there is nothing. All his inner desires have melted away. Whatever he does, He does nothing. His mind has stopped working! It has simply melted away... And with it, Dreams and delusions and dullness. And for what he has become, There is no name." - Ashtavakra Gita 17:19-20 - "On my income tax 1040 it says 'Check this box if you are blind.' I wanted to put a check mark about three inches away." - Tom Lehrer lecturing in "The Nature of Math" - "Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad." - Norm Papernick - "What is old friendship? It is when neither friend objects to the liberties taken by the other." - Tirukkural 801 - "There exists something that cannot be described." - Maharamayana - "There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise." - Gore Vidal -
"The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority." - Ralph W.
Sockman -
"Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty." - Leo Rosten -
"He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed." - David Frost -
"You mean you haven't read the The Ultimate Halloween Horror Story? What's the matter with you?" - Mohammed O'Brian - Satan Doesn't Want You
to Know
 You could be living here.
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Last Disinfotainment Today, Issue #194, was much better than this one,
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Iraq Body
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Contact George W. Bush
- president@whitehouse.gov
Contact
the Freemasons
- president@whitehouse.gov
Contact
Skull and Bones
- president@whitehouse.gov
Contact
the Carlyle Group
- president@whitehouse.gov
Contact
the Illuminati
- president@whitehouse.gov
Contact
Satan - satan@whitehouse.gov
Contact
both houses of
Congress - president@whitehouse.gov
Contact
the Supreme Court
- president@whitehouse.gov
Contact
Dick Cheney -
vice.president@whitehouse.gov
Contact
Halliburton -
vice.president@whitehouse.gov
Contact
Bechtel -
vice.president@whitehouse.gov
Contact
Saddam Hussein
- tightywhities@whitehouse.gov
Contact
Osama bin Laden
-
deepthroat@whitehouse.gov
Contact
Jeb Bush - jeb.bush@myflorida.com
Contact
Fidel Castro
- jeb.bush@myflorida.com
Contact
Kim Jong Il -
eng-info@kcna.co.jp
Contact
Jacques Chirac
- france-presse@un.int
Contact
the new Pope
- accreditamenti@pressva.va
Contact
the old Pope
- thirdlevel@hellfireanddamnation.com
Contact
God - president@whitehouse.gov
Am I supposed to believe
you don't drink coffee?
You
need a Disinfotainment
Today mug.
Boo
hoo
My
life's a fucking wreck.
Please
donate
to the cause.
 |
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HARARE, Zimbabwe (04-04) After 20 mental patients disappeared from his bus, a driver replaced them with sane citizens and delivered them to a mental hospital. The unidentified bus driver was transporting 20 mental patients from the capital city of Harare to Bulawayo Mental Hospital when he decided to stop for a few drinks at an illegal roadside liquor store. Upon his return he was shocked to discovered that all the mental patients had escaped. Desperate for a solution, the driver stopped at the next bus stop and offered free bus rides to several people. He then delivered them to the mental hospital, informing the staff they were easily excitable. It took the medical personnel three days to uncover the foul play. The real mental patients are still at large. |
Chapter 1
The Inmates It was a good night to be insane. Pitch black, rain pouring heavily, lightning striking again and again, perfect for lighting up the old wooden sign outside the crumbling gray stone walls of "The Gainesville Asylum for the Insane," with the word "insane" crossed off in crayon and the words "mentally handicapped" scrawled nearby, and the words "mentally handicapped" crossed off in chalk with the words "perfectly normal" scribbled next to them. There must have been an insane cackle breaking the momentum of the storm as lightning struck again and again, barely illuminating a skeleton key opening an old lock on a dirty door, heavy with age, squeaking open with a rusty creak. Another insane cackle. Yep, the insane like nights like this. It takes them outside themselves, forcing them to ponder the outside world as it really is, a random series of powerful illuminations, rather than the inside world, which varies splendidly in the sparkling synapses of the cerebral cortex of each individual, sane or not. |
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The Critics Agree
Looks like it might be “REALLY GOOD” - Publisher’s Discount Outlet Not quite as “HILARIOUS” as I thought it was going to be - New York Times Falls far short of “THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL” - Joyce Carol Oates Tries very hard to be “THE FUNNIEST BOOK YOU’LL EVER READ” - Norman Mailer “I WISH I’D THOUGHT OF IT” because if it had been written by me it would have been much better - Dave Barry When I stopped reading and turned on The Family Guy, “I COULDN’T STOP LAUGHING” - Carl Hiaasen Almost achieves something “INCREDIBLY GREAT” but falls far short - The Village Voice The author obviously thinks he’s a “GENIUS” - Psychiatry Today If you want something “ENORMOUSLY ENTERTAINING” look elsewhere - Books in Print “INSPIRED” me to write a better book - P.J. O’Roarke It starts out fairly RATIONAL, but about halfway through you're bound to tell yourself "this is NUTS." A second later, you will nod as another voice in your head says "PRECISELY." - Sigmund Freud $20 for the quality paperback from Cafepress. $10 for a PDF file directly to your mailbox, preferably with Paypal, or write me and tell me why you think you deserve a free copy. "Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization." - Lincolm Steffens - "Artists lie to tell the truth. Politicians lie to hide it." - V for Vendetta - |
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Acknowledgment
dIsInFoTaInMeNt
ToDaY
consists of information from dozens of sources, cut up, thrown in the
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accept
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if
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use.
Thanks,
Pastor Akanonto
Korea
Your
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