12/21/2001: “MacArthur Park” Becomes NOTHING SO STRANGE
The website for “MacArthur Park,” Brian Flemming’s anticipated documentary film about the Gates’ assassination, revealed a whole new look this week, and a new title — NOTHING SO STRANGE. Flemming also announced on the website that the film is finally hitting screens in January, although only at a film festival in Utah (of all places.) I might actually haul myself to the January 13th premiere out of professional curiosity. You can find more of my thoughts on the film in the discussions.
12/12/2001: New Perspective Two Years Later
I debated with myself for hours over the weekend about whether or not to publish the “Two Years Later” piece that I wrote the evening of December 2nd. In many ways, I had hoped for a more thoughtful reflection on the anniversary of his assassination, but the lethargy of the entire community left me in a sour mood. In the end, I’ve decided to run it, even if it ruffles some feathers — if you aren’t happy about what I think, feel free to gripe at me in the discussions.
12/7/2001: Jack is Back
Alright, folks. I’m back, full-steam, and dedicated to getting this memorial kicking again. If you’re really interested in the details on why I’ve been absent, you can find them in a post I made to the forums. In the meantime, I’m putting the finishing touches on a new “perspectives” article I’ve written about the second anniversery of the assassination, which should be available this weekend.
12/5/2001: Cleaning Up Discussions
You know, while I’m in here still repairing things broken by my “poor and ugly friends down South,” I started noticing what complete wreck the discussion boards have become. The inappropriate and childish posts have finally reached my limit — and now I’m ticked off enough to do something about it. So, I’m wholesale deleting messages that are inappropriate to this site, and turning on a feature that takes more of my time reviewing your posts before they go live, since some of you seem unable to behave yourselves.
I should take some of the blame for this, and I apologize to those of you who used to use these forums in the way they were intended — as a forum to talk about life and times of Bill Gates, to reflect upon how his tragic murder affected you personally, and to discuss the investigation into the murder. Let’s make the forums that again.
11/11/2001: BGID is hacked
Yes, I know I’ve been away for a while. Yes, I know things are quiet on the site. Yes, I know I’ve been hacked by South American anti-capitalist thugs. No, I don’t know how to read Portugese… but apparently they are proclaiming theselves poor, ugly and happy. Good for you, compadre.
The ability for Bill Gates to remain a magnet of controversy and classist stereotypes … even nearly two years after his death … continues to astound me. People seem fixated on defining who Bill Gates was by how much he was worth, which seems as pitifully miserable as throwing around stereotypes about people who collect unemployment checks.
I don’t speak Portugese, but Alta Vista’s Babelfish does. It helped me write this response for our little friends:
Agradecimentos para visitar BillGatesisDead.com. É sempre agradável fazer distante fora amigos novos — aos especial deficientes, feios em países. A vez seguinte, começa por favor seu próprio webserver em vez de usar a mina. Você deixou-lhe um mess e faz me para scare meu Ruby da matriz com meus explitives e a.lot waste de meu tempo. Vão agora afastado, seus quinze minutos da fama funcionaram apenas para fora.
3/7/2001: Denial, Macs and Microsoft
A reader alerted me to a recent article by The Mac Observer, “parodying” Microsoft’s recent controversial statements that Open Source is “un-American” by pasting heads of Gates on photos from the Macarthy-era Communist witch hunts. I really feel this is another example of the dual rush-to-judgement we frequently see among the alternate computing community: “Bill Gates is Microsoft” thinking coupled with denial that Gates no longer is Microsoft. I have gotten into a bit of a debate with the publisher of that site about the appropriateness of his editorial approach: while parody is an important part of social criticism, I feel this is horribly insensitive to the Gates’ family and all of those still reeling from his death. I encourage you to post your comments to that article as well.
3/5/2001: Hicutus Explores Illuminati Connection
When Hicutus posted a few days ago about his feelings of being shut out from the legitimate research community, it was just hours after sending me a short manuscript about the basics of the Illuminati theories that I had suggested might be of use for the non-initiated like myself. Seeing the considerate, even-handed approach that Hicutus takes to this controversial subject matter was impressive to me, and leaves no doubt to me of his legitimacy as a researcher (even if I still have questions about many of the details.) So, we offer his primer to you as a Cliff’s Notes guide to the Illuminati and secret societies rumored to be involved in Gates’ murder … a BillGatesisDead.com exclusive!
3/2/2001: Insider Glimpse of CfA
Just got off the phone with David James while he gave me sneak peek of the soon to be launched Citizens for Action website (a BillGatesisDead.com Exclusive!) Besides the obvious organizational materials you’d expect to find on his website, the biggest part of site is a complex and detailed organization of many of the facts and theories and Citizens for Truth hasn’t paid as much attention to. Cataloged around an intricate “conspiracy chart,” the notes and analysis clearly cast a wide net of suspicion (and included a number of details that I wasn’t aware of before.) DJ says to expect a public site launch sometime in March, and I anticipate it will spawn an aggressive new interest in the tangled web of connections surrounding Gates’ murder.