{"id":399750,"date":"2019-03-16T11:54:37","date_gmt":"2019-03-16T10:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/betos-secret-life-as-teenage-hacker-bovine-erotica-poet-in-cult-of-dead-cow-rt-usa-news\/"},"modified":"2019-03-16T11:54:37","modified_gmt":"2019-03-16T10:54:37","slug":"betos-secret-life-as-teenage-hacker-bovine-erotica-poet-in-cult-of-dead-cow-rt-usa-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/betos-secret-life-as-teenage-hacker-bovine-erotica-poet-in-cult-of-dead-cow-rt-usa-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Beto&#8217;s secret life as teenage hacker, bovine erotica poet in &#8216;Cult of Dead Cow&#8217; \u2014 RT USA News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        Democratic presidential candidate Beto O&#8217;Rourke waxed nostalgic about his youth in a hacker collective called the Cult of the Dead Cow in a book teaser that is being released just in time to revive interest in his primary run.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Beto O&#8217;Rourke, the photogenic son of privilege who entered the crowded Democratic primary field earlier this week, had an alter ego called &#8216;<em>Psychedelic Warlord&#8217;<\/em>\u00a0that hacked long-distance phone services to post on internet bulletin boards as a member of an early hacker collective called the Cult of the Dead Cow, according to a book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/investigates\/special-report\/usa-politics-beto-orourke\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">profiling<\/a> the group credited with coining the term &#8220;<em>hacktivism<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\">\n<p>Read more<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/451610-us-mexico-wall-dems\/\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<picture><!--[if IE 9]><video style=\"display: none;\"><![endif]--><source media=\"(-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) and (min-resolution: 120dpi)\" data-srcset=\"&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/xxs\/5c67bfe3fc7e9357378b461a.JPG 560w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/xs\/5c67bfe4fc7e9357378b461b.JPG 640w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/thumbnail\/5c67bfe3fc7e9357378b4619.JPG 920w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/m\/5c67bfe4fc7e9357378b461c.JPG 1080w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/l\/5c67bfe4fc7e9357378b461d.JPG 1536w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/article\/5c67bfe3fc7e9357378b4618.JPG 1960w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/xxl\/5c67bfe4fc7e9357378b461e.JPG 2480w&#10;                        \" srcset=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAJCAQAAACRI2S5AAAAEElEQVR42mNkIAAYRxWAAQAG9gAKqv6+AwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\"><source data-srcset=\"&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/xxs\/5c67bfe3fc7e9357378b461a.JPG 280w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/xs\/5c67bfe4fc7e9357378b461b.JPG 320w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/thumbnail\/5c67bfe3fc7e9357378b4619.JPG 460w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/m\/5c67bfe4fc7e9357378b461c.JPG 540w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/l\/5c67bfe4fc7e9357378b461d.JPG 768w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/article\/5c67bfe3fc7e9357378b4618.JPG 980w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/xxl\/5c67bfe4fc7e9357378b461e.JPG 1240w&#10;                        \" srcset=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAJCAQAAACRI2S5AAAAEElEQVR42mNkIAAYRxWAAQAG9gAKqv6+AwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\"><!--[if IE 9]><\/video><![endif]--><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\u2018I\u2019d take the wall down\u2019: 2020 hopeful O\u2019Rourke says he\u2019d \u2018absolutely\u2019 knock US-Mexico barrier\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAJCAQAAACRI2S5AAAAEElEQVR42mNkIAAYRxWAAQAG9gAKqv6+AwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/xxs\/5c67bfe3fc7e9357378b461a.JPG\" class=\"read-more__cover lazyload\"\/><\/source><\/source><\/picture><!-- noscript pattern --><noscript><br \/>\n                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.02\/xxs\/5c67bfe3fc7e9357378b461a.JPG\" alt=\"\"\/><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p>    <\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Texas politician, long before he ever thought of challenging Ted Cruz in the 2018 Senate race with the hope of flipping a perennially red seat for the Democrats, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/448520-beto-navarro-cringe-stunt\/\">instagramming<\/a> his dental cleaning, was writing short stories about running over children in his car and\u00a0bovine erotic <a href=\"https:\/\/totseans.com\/totse\/en\/ego\/cult_of_the_dead_cow\/cdc050.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">poetry<\/a>\u00a0on the prehistoric equivalent of Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s almost as if someone in the Beto campaign saw the less-than-ecstatic reaction to his announcement and thought, &#8220;<em>How can we shake things up?<\/em>&#8221; Reuters reporter Joseph Menn claims to have interviewed O&#8217;Rourke during the early days of his Senate candidacy, though his book hasn&#8217;t yet been released.<\/p>\n<p>Confirming the story from the campaign trail in Iowa, O&#8217;Rourke told reporters the Cult was &#8220;<em>not anything that I&#8217;m proud of<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<em>Thrust your hooves up my analytic passage, Enjoy my fruits<\/em>,&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke allegedly wrote in a 1988 poem called <em>The Song of the Cow<\/em>, which opens with plaintive desperation: &#8220;<em>I need a butt-shine, right now \/ You are holy, o sacred Cow \/ I thirst for you, Provide Milk<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Another essay mused on a future without money, or even government \u2013 though he didn&#8217;t &#8220;<em>think the masses would support such a radical move at this time<\/em>.&#8221; As a member of the Cult, he posted his thoughts online on a bulletin board called Taco Land and connected with fellow &#8220;<em>misfit teens<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But O&#8217;Rourke is no Julian Assange, Reuters is quick to note, claiming no evidence exists the teenage techie &#8220;<em>ever engaged in the edgiest sorts of hacking activity, such as breaking into computers or writing code that enabled others to do so<\/em>.&#8221; Instead, he stole long-distance phone service &#8220;<em>so I wouldn&#8217;t run up the phone bill<\/em>,&#8221; \u2013 a misdemeanor punishable by a fine and rewardable with street cred.<\/p>\n<p>The El Paso enigma also downloaded cracked software, but conveniently &#8220;<em>realized his habit wasn&#8217;t morally defensible and stopped<\/em>&#8221; before he was old enough to be prosecuted for such acts under Texas law.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"read-more-big\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/453771-beto-announces-democratic-primary-candidacy\/\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n    <span class=\"read-more-big__container\"><br \/>\n        <span class=\"read-more-big__content\"><br \/>\n            <span class=\"read-more-big__subtitle\">Also on rt.com<\/span><br \/>\n            <span class=\"read-more-big__title\">Beto strolls into 2020 Democratic primary, gets upstaged by his own dog<\/span><br \/>\n        <\/span><br \/>\n            <span class=\"read-more-big__cover lazyload\" data-bgset=\"&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.03\/xxs\/5c89c417dda4c8fd0c8b4589.jpeg 280w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.03\/xs\/5c89c417dda4c8fd0c8b4589.jpeg 320w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.03\/thumbnail\/5c89c417dda4c8fd0c8b4589.jpeg 460w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.03\/m\/5c89c417dda4c8fd0c8b4589.jpeg 540w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.03\/l\/5c89c417dda4c8fd0c8b4589.jpeg 768w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.03\/article\/5c89c417dda4c8fd0c8b4589.jpeg 980w,&#10;                            https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.03\/xxl\/5c89c417dda4c8fd0c8b4589.jpeg 1240w&#10;                        \" data-sizes=\"auto\"\/><br \/>\n    <\/span><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>O&#8217;Rourke was\u00a0already doing battle with gender barriers before he was through\u00a0with puberty: at the tender age of 15, he &#8220;<em>tried to do something about sexism in the male-dominated world of hacking<\/em>&#8221; by recruiting a friend to join CDC who happened to be female.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Psychedelic Warlord<\/em>\u00a0neatly complements the rest of the founding mythos of Beto the Candidate, which includes a punk rock phase, a drunk driving arrest, and a point at which he just decides to forget all this rebellion and follow in his father&#8217;s footsteps to political office.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>If you like this story, share it with a friend!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/453972-beto-hacker-cult-dead-cow\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democratic presidential candidate Beto O&#8217;Rourke waxed nostalgic about his youth in a hacker collective called the Cult of the Dead Cow in a book teaser that is being released just in time to revive interest in his primary run. Beto O&#8217;Rourke, the photogenic son of privilege who entered the crowded Democratic primary field earlier this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":399751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-399750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}