The Mote and the Beam

Our own Mark Tokarski has been the victim of a slanderous and completely unwarranted attack out of the blue recently by a certain Taos-based blog site. You know the one. The paper called Mark a “scumbag agent”. I write this not as a formal response, but rather as an olive branch specifically intended for the man in Taos. There are very few reasonable explanations for the web of oddities surrounding this man and his background, and one of the best explanations would indicate that the man in Taos is currently in trouble. Stay with me here.

I am writing this post to serve as an intervention of sorts. Speaking directly to the Taos blogger: If you are in trouble, then please let us know. We like you. If you need help, just tell us so. Send us signals. Perhaps you could make the first letter of each row spell out H-E-L-P-M-E in the next paper or something. You may not like or respect us, but we both like and respect you.

Readers may be confused at this point. If that is the case, then I ask that you push on. Below, I will take readers on a deep journey of the life and times of the man in Taos. This post will represent much of my body of work validating what I could about our Taos blogger friend. Diving into this information should help readers understand why I have come to believe that he might be in trouble.

(Author’s note: For the record, I did not pay a penny for the information that is to follow. It was all available for free on the internet. At most, I signed up for a few free trials. Do not be fooled into thinking that I am using “the database”. I am just a guy who set out to verify what I could about the Taos blogger. This post is going to be a long one, so buckle up.)

There are no agents writing here at Piece of Mindful. We are just truth-seeking individuals who are disappointed that the Taos blogger has chosen to act in such a nasty and uncalled-for manner. The Taos blogger has always loved to take disrespectful pot shots at PoM, and we will ultimately see that this is because we differ from him in some very fundamental ways. Specifically, the megalomania of the Taos blogger has reached alarming and absurd levels.

What megalomania do I speak of? Well for starters, in the recent attack paper, the Taos blogger somehow believes that the entire Q-Anon phenomenon is specifically designed to push down his search results, yet in the same breath also says that his search results are being censored. Pick one, Taos friend! Either they can squash you like a bug, or they need to create complex ops solely to push down your results. It is not going to be both. You are indeed being censored in some very minor fringes, but this does not mean that the world revolves around you. If they can block your papers that easily, then it does not make any sense that Q-Anon would be all about you. I honestly cannot believe I actually have to point that out.

It is crazy that the Taos blogger apparently believes that such vast government ops are specifically aimed at him and him alone. For the record, anyone who has written on as many hoaxes as the Taos site should not be surprised that certain search results are being blocked. That is par for the course and should actually be confirmation that the idea itself is good. It is not grounds to go on a grandiose rant lashing out at anyone and everyone. The vast majority of the Taos blog’s traffic is already captured (not search-engine driven), so the blocking of search results is virtually meaningless and he sure as heck knows this. A simple search of his statistics shows that only 8% of his traffic comes via searches, and a huge portion of that 8% are from searches for his name directly or his name with the word “updates”. These are not blocked, nor are 99% of his papers. It is only the very obscure phrases that he mentioned at the margins that are blocked.

Interestingly, the censorship has seemed to operate strangely in cooperation with his arguments. The day that he first released the recent censorship paper, he was still coming up as the 4th result if you Googled “Mark Staycer”. A day later, he disappeared completely on that particular Google search (PoM is 2nd!). This was the topic that he had a specific gripe against PoM about (that Mark did not give him credit). Mark added a whole facial analysis all his own on that subject, which I feel was a uniquely valuable contribution and bolstered the Taos blogger’s case…it was certainly was not detrimental to him. Perhaps he is just jealous of our search result. Very strange that Google would censor him on that topic alone immediately following his paper and in direct support of his paper’s argument. At the end of the day, his getting censored on the fringes only functions to give him “cred” among conspiracy sites. It is the equivalent of a gang member being able to brag that they had been shot. We had better be sure that the Taos blogger has not shot himself in the foot here.

Our trip down memory lane will begin where our Taos friend’s story begins: His early life. All we can really say is that he is indeed from a wealthy and “connected” background. In fairness, this does not inherently mean anything about an individual’s character. Previous write-ups on Piece of Mindful have shown that our Taos friend’s ancestry does not withstand the scrutiny that he applies to others. He comes from wealth…this is certainly true, but I feel it is the wrong approach to take. Genealogy will always mean playing on the Taos site’s home turf. To really understand our friend in Taos, we need only look to his documented life, not that of his ancestors.

What do we know about his life? For starters, he is most definitely of the country-club set. Both of his parents are well-documented in local papers dating to their early lives because of their membership to country clubs. His father was an especially talented golfer who won several golf tournaments at his country club course. His mother is also a documented country club member and participated in tennis tournaments that were commemorated in the local newspapers. I don’t know about you, but my parents certainly didn’t belong to any country club. Pairing this with the genealogy analysis, we can at the very least confirm that our friend in Taos does indeed come from wealth. Take from that what you will. Above is a photo from his high school yearbook with him sitting on the hood of his Mercedes Benz, grinning ear to ear. I don’t know about you, but I certainly didn’t have my own Mercedes Benz when I was in high school.

Next, we move to the first true oddity of the Taos blogger’s life: In college, he pulled an Obama-esque disappearing act and is not pictured ANYWHERE in any of the three annual college yearbooks from his time at the University of Texas-Austin (1982 – 1984). We can verify his supposed attendance at the University of Texas-Austin through the registrar, yet he is a complete ghost in the yearbooks. He is not pictured once. Everyone else is, but not him. Not once. Not even in the club photos that we should see him in, such as for The Daily Texan (where he is said to have been a comic artist).

This is remarkable for several reasons. I can understand missing a single yearly photo, but not every single yearly photo and every single club photo for three years running. It is absolutely inexcusable. The only place we actually find him is listed (not pictured) as a member of a fraternity in one single instance his final year. This is not exactly a firm reference, as fraternities are known spook factories. The idea that this person is a complete ghost during their university years is very concerning, as it would indicate some kind of obfuscation that we would typically see in a spook. Pair that with the known wealthy upbringing, and we are left with very bad vibes from his being a ghost in his college yearbook.

This mysterious college period actually fits in well with the stated biography on our Taos friend’s website, where the college years get very spotty and strange. He is said to have jumped around quite a lot. First, he is said to have dropped out of a Quaker university (Haverford College) far away in Pennsylvania, then the University of Texas-Austin for the remainder of his undergrad. His yearbooks do not support that, as he is a complete ghost in them, and yes…I checked all classes in all three yearbooks. Go ahead and look for yourself; it is not very hard to find. Then we move to graduate school, where he again makes a point to say what a prestigious situation that he dropped out of at the LBJ School of Public Affairs in Washington DC. One is left with the sense that these schools are mentioned to explain why he might have a documented connection to these places at these times. I certainly wouldn’t be bragging about dropping out of two different colleges, so what else can we make of this?

The most reasonable conclusion is that he was doing something that we are still not privy to during these college years. Was he attending the University of Texas-Austin on paper only? Covertly being trained for some purpose? It is hard to come to any other conclusion. Where was the Taos blogger from 1982 thru 1984? Your guess is as good as mine. I am oh so excited for the response to this being “Oh, he was shy and didn’t like pictures!”, as though failing to be pictured once in any year of his college yearbook is innocently explainable. It is not. The class photo seems to have been a requirement for the rest of the students, so why do we not see our Taos friend anywhere for three years straight? It is a big piece to this puzzle, and something to hold onto for later.

Next up, the Taos blog takes ownership of two literary works published under pseudonyms (or at least it did at some point, seen via the Wayback Machine below). We already know about the Liam Tesshim work because the Taos blog links directly to it. This is the 300 page document written in the style of JRR Tolkien (which will be touched on later). What does that mean for the remaining mystery work? I will tell you, because I found the other work, and boy is it a doozy. Brace yourself, because this is both ridiculous and disturbing. Let me introduce you to The Diary of George by Melisa Smith. This was originally hosted by a GeoCities site ending in “/melisasmithus” (you know, like the melisasmithus@yahoo.com email address that the Taos site used for Paypal donations for many years) and contains another anagram for the Taos blogger’s name. In a nutshell, this story is the fake diary of a 13 year old girl written from the voice of the girl, and she is having sex with an adult artist man named Eliot who paints nudes. This man is constantly worried about being busted by the cops if they are caught. This story is incredibly cringe-worthy. There are mentions of tampons, the Backstreet Boys, and many other ridiculous things. I dare any reader to try reading this without being horribly creeped out. I sure couldn’t.

One of the strangest details about this work is that many of the details the Taos blogger gives for his own life are translated onto this young female protagonist. For example, she claims to have corrected an answer to a PSAT math question (where have we heard that one before?), but interestingly she later realizes that she was wrong. It is all in all just a terrifyingly creepy work, and if I could I would just quote the most ridiculous lines for you on and on. You will have to read for yourself. Her code name for sex is “treats” and she is quite the promiscuous little one. This does not mean the Taos blogger is a pedophile, but hebephile or ephebophile could certainly fit. It certainly adds a disturbing twist to his photo book of a young girl in this age range accessible on the Taos site. And it certainly leaves open other possibilities for his later life and current predicament. I will leave you with one sample from this work:

February 25

Eliot’s paintings are getting really good. He is doing this nude study of me where I am just laying on the bed, with that nice orange light at about 4 or 5 o’clock. It’s not sexy at all, I mean I haven’t got my legs open or my ass in the air or something crazy. I’m just laying there reading a book. He’s studying skin tones. I can only pose for about an hour at a time, because I have to study at home and usually eat dinner at home and be the good teen so I don’t get grounded again. Eliot says he hates it when the paint dries because then he has to repaint the edges, where he stopped. The canvas is about sixty inches long. He painted my face first and then my hands. He says he does the important things first. I said then you should have painted my ass first. Then he said he painted the mouth first because he does the biggest things first. And I said he should have painted my boobs first then. Then I said no, you should have painted your cock first…He said you can paint that. I said really, right now? And he goes sure. So I got up and grabbed the biggest brush I could find, and I didn’t put any paint on it because then I would have to clean him off with turpentine and that would be yucky, I just pulled down his jams and sort of pretended to paint him, and I think it tickled at first but then he got all hard, so I took him in my mouth. He smells so good down there, the hair and the skin. Its like his armhair, but even nicer. It smells like sex. It makes me so excited but also comfortable, like smelling my own pillow.

Yikes. This connects us with the inability of the Taos blogger to hold a steady girlfriend or female presence in his life, a thing that he has made a few scant references to. Among the girlfriends that he has let us know about, there are details hiding beneath the surface that are fairly concerning. One photo that has been removed from the Taos blog is that of the blogger with his arm around a woman named Bonnie McNairn from 2011. The implication clearly being that they dated. Who is Bonnie McNairn? She is a singer in a band called Voice of Eye. This band plays occult-oriented music. The genre is “Ritual Ambient” or “Occult Ambient”. Now, I don’t know about you, but the photos below of the Voice of Eye cover art look to me like some seriously creepy occult stuff. I have listened to the music, and it is only more terrifying. If the Taos blogger is mixed up in such a world where these are the only types of women that are available to him, then it really makes one question the people that he is surrounded with.

This all reminds me of the story Mark told about his attendance at the one “conference” with the Taos blogger that is known to have actually occurred. Afterwards, in retrospect, he found this whole encounter very odd. Most specifically, he found the little meter maid buggy that the Taos blogger had to get around on especially strange. A house arrest arrangement had been hypothesized in the past, and the Diary of George would certainly add credence to that idea.

The next point worthy of mentioning is that mother of our Taos friend has hooks in the Texas Democratic Party. The Taos blogger friend has not been shy about his liberal leanings, bragging of his early life support of Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky (whom he later disavowed). His mother actually ran for Congress in 1986 and received over 35% of the vote. Did you know that? The Taos blogger’s mother ran for Congress…it bears repeating. She also had enough hooks with a local political newspaper, The Texas Observer, to be of use for regular pull quotes on political topics in the 1990s. This is not only because of her run for Congress, but also because she was briefly Chairwoman of a nonprofit organization called Common Cause of Texas, which is “an advocacy group for minorities and the working poor in urban areas”. She was a Board Member for the Texas part of Common Cause for 43 years and a national Board Member of Common Cause for 4 years (1982 – 1986). The photos we can find of his parents later in life were shot at a dinner for the same newspaper, The Texas Observer, where we find that she is currently a Board Member. That is a lot of Board Memberships. Among the other available pictures online of his mother show her with Ariana Huffington, another liberal media elite. This is pointed out simply as further connection to an elite and wealthy existence.

What does this mean for our friend, the blogger in Taos? Well, it would seem that his life after the disappearing act in college was equally mysterious. He lived on paper in 1985 and 1986 as a contributing artist for guess who? The Texas Observer! But critically, we see no actual art of his in the paper during his time as a supposed “contributing artist”. Other contributing artists have very prominent drawings associated and signed along with various pieces, but our friend in Taos was apparently a contributing artist who did not contribute. Once again, he is listed in name only and is conspicuously absent. It is this way across all issues of the Texas Observer that are publicly available from this direct post-college period (1985 – 1986). He is listed as a contributing artist, but when we search the whole issue for any art signed with his name, we come up empty. Not to mention that his stint as a not-so-contributing artist for The Texas Observer corresponds to the time his mother was running for Congress and connected up through DC in 1986. Almost like his connected mom helped to keep up his cover by pulling some strings.

Speaking of a “cover”, the Taos blogger’s life after this period does not get any less strange. Seems to be a theme here. I will walk you through the timeline and his listed résumé for the period beginning in 1988 through the 1990s as an artist. The years 1988 thru 1990 are the only period in the Taos blogger’s life where art seems to have actually been the main focus, at least on the surface. Why do I say “on the surface”? Because there is much for us to find beneath it, no matter which period we look related to the art. The art auction results that we can find for the Taos blogger prove that he is full of hot air on making his living as an artist. They are downright embarrassing. To understand the art period of his life, we must first take a look at his art auction results.

The Taos blog recently put up a “sale” for pencil drawings at $900 “half price”. This personal valuation at $1,800 for an unframed pencil drawing is very, very comical. What do we find when we look up auction results for his works? Items that he would put a personal price tag in the thousands are seen selling for all of…sixty bucks. Yes, sixty bucks. As in three twenties. Hilarious. Now, I personally feel that the absurd prices on the Taos site are set that way so as to specifically NOT draw interest. You would hate to have to slap together some art if it is not actually how you make your money. And these auction results tell us that the Taos blogger could not possibly be making a living through art.

If we look at his artworks, they are decent. I have some background with artists, and I would grade his work a B+. It shows a natural ability and is above average for an amateur, but it is certainly nothing in the “grand master” category. In the Taos blogger’s own piece on copy-work, what really stands out is the superior nature of the originals. His copies are clearly amateurish copies. As gifted as this amateur might be, they are an amateur nonetheless. If these works are actually by his own hand (a separate question worthy of consideration), then we can say he is decent enough at art. The real issue with these artworks becomes the fact that the vast majority of “available” art has been available for upwards of 15 years with little or no movement. There is no wave of new artworks in more than a decade. Most “new” postings related to art are simply new scans. This is not “making a living” at art. Real professional artists must CONSTANTLY churn out new works. It is a game of volume, and our Taos blogger does not have any such volume. He glorifies his old works to death and shows us a few newer pieces, but ultimately the art page is his own shrine to himself and little more. Look at his auction results and the lack of movement on his art pages and try to really make sense out of how a living could be made at art. You will not be able to. The Taos blogger himself teaches you to be sharp in analyzing evidence in this way. Apply this method to whether he could be making his living at art. You will find he does not pass his own test.

More than the anything else, the art appears to be a front or a cover. Moving along into the Taos site’s art pages and art-related résumé items, we again find much of interest.

In the above image, we see an official announcement of the results of the American Society of Portrait Artists annual contest for the year 2001 with the top prizes, honorable mentions, and finalists clearly shown. The Taos blogger claims to have been both an honorable mention and finalist in this contest. That is a bald-faced lie.

We see a lot in the same vein when we work our way down his résumé. It is a lot of strange padding, lies, and exaggerations. The section at the top for colleges include three in total: two which he dropped out of and one which he was a complete ghost at. The bottom section is also unusual. Many of the entries at the bottom are simply exhibitions that he submitted works to. This is not an accomplishment. Oddly, most of the linked works are dated between the 1988 – 1990 period but they were apparently displayed at shows all throughout the 1990s. This does not match how a professional artist operates. The reason that the 2001 entry caught my interest specifically is because this portrait is very clearly dated “1990” and yet would have been entered into a contest in 2001. This again does not match how professional artists operate, as it is all about your latest and greatest works. This seems more like he milked his 1988 to 1990 active art period for all it was worth by entering it in various competitions and claiming this as an accomplishment. We already saw the claimed award in 2001 is a complete fabrication. There are other inconsistencies in the awards mentioned, such as the “NOAA Award”…was it 1990 or 1993? The Taos blog is inconsistent on this. Moreover, many remaining items on his resume are simply his saying that he sat at a museum somewhere and did copy-work there. This is not an accomplishment. Overall, the resume is a collection of lies, padding, and inflated importance.

One other item worth mentioning on the art front is the idea of “promotion”. There is sure a strange amount of promotion going on in the 1990s for the Taos blogger. This is unusual, because it is difficult for an amateur artist to gain the support of a gallery (or win some fellowship trip to London), yet our Taos friend seems to have popped up with many such supports in the 1990s. He went into college with no connection to the arts, graduated with a Philosophy degree, yet came out of this as a promoted artist. Remarkably odd. Even if he turned to art as a hobby, for anyone else (without hooks) this would have remained a hobby only. Anyone else would have needed to get a job and work for a living, but not our Taos blogger friend!

As for an idea of what work he could actually be doing to support himself, we return to his résumé and the “Basil Alkazzi Award”. There are many strange things about this one. Basil Alkazzi is supposedly an 82 year old Kuwaiti-born man who is really more of a philanthropist than an artist. He has given away many millions, including this award in his name (dating back to 1987) which includes a large cash prize and trip to London. What is odd about this? Well for starters, this is a Kuwaiti man from the 1930s named “Basil” who somehow has millions of dollars to throw away. That is definitely odd. At the Royal College in London, Basil Alkazzi is in the highest tier of philanthropy right with the Ford Foundation. What else? It is next to impossible to find photos of this man. He seems to have only popped up once in his life to actually be photographed. That is extremely unusual, as is his background, as is his money. What about his art? Well, he is apparently a known abstract artist. This is exactly the kind of art that the Taos blogger rails against. It is comically bad stuff. The other winners of this Basil Alkazzi Award are also abstract artists, so why did the Taos blogger get this award out of the blue in 1989? It is extremely strange. Also extremely strange is the website reference to support his winning of this award. This site is found at basilhalkazziawardusa.com (UPDATE: THIS SITE WAS TAKEN DOWN LESS THAN TWO DAYS AFTER I WROTE THIS PIECE! Linked via Wayback Machine now). This website has no links in, and no links out. Someone apparently created and continues to fund a website that exists for the sole purpose of confirming the Basil Alkazzi winners from 1987 to 2000. This is…very strange. Someone at Clues Forum actually referenced this site when trying to make a case for the existence of the Taos blogger. Just an interesting tidbit there. I find this award extremely strange, as though it is an easy way for Intel to send people on assignment to London. In the movie The Fifth Element, when the government needs to send their agent to a specific place at a specific time, they simply make him a random contest winner for a free trip there! I get similar vibes on the Basil Alkazzi Award. Mr. Alkazzi certainly seems to be the cardboard cutout of a person who has inexplicable millions to throw away.

Speaking of unexplained wealth, one of the listed photos on the Taos blog site shows the Taos blogger standing in front of a stone-patterned wall (titled “Vista Lane Studios”) and we find that this is an actual house we can trace back to Vista Lane in Austin, TX. It turns out this house is in a swanky part of Austin, and we can confirm through BeenVerified that he actually lived there. The address is 1908 Vista Lane, Austin TX and it has an estimated sale value of over a million dollars. The idea that an artist studio would be set up here is comical, as there is a reason we have the archetype of the “starving artist”. Most professional artists struggle to make a living…even successful ones who are producing at a high volume. Apparently our blogger friend was the inexplicable exception to the rule with his ritzy studio and widespread promotion.

What are we left with then? A hidden source of income. It is essentially impossible that the Taos blogger has actually ever made his living as an artist without a tremendous subsidy from somewhere. I cannot tell you whether his parents have simply funded his lifestyle from the beginning or whether it is the same place that Basil Alkazzi’s magical money comes from, but it is a very fair assertion that the Taos blogger is not making a living out of being an artist. Art may or may not still be a hobby for the Taos blogger, but it is certainly not their profession. Recall, this man has not worked a day in his life on paper. He is said to have traveled to France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, England, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and more. There are no matching art auction sales to have financially supported him, or even just regular listings of him being an artist of significance. One of the most repeated of lines of the Taos blog is that the art world is full of agents, and I would have to say there is a good chance he knows by experience.

In terms of other interesting information, I think back to the many papers that have been outed as using ridiculous British slang. Allan Weisbecker first wrote about this. Certain papers randomly will refer to money as “a tenner” and going “to hospital” or being “at University”. Odd language that could not be natural to our Taos friend, who is an American. I do not care if you spent a month in London, you are not going to call money “a tenner” a dozen years later. This leaves us with a strong impression that the Taos blogger is not the sole author of all the works on the site. The guest author papers began appearing shortly following the Weisbecker letter. The Taos blogger began to intentionally use British slang after this to throw cold water on it…a nice attempt to muddy those waters. Whether or not you are willing to accept his poor rationalizations for these inexcusable slips is up to you. The Liam Tesshim 300 page writings effortlessly move in and out of poetic references to plants that are only native to the European continent. If you actually believe this is feasibly explainable, then you are too far gone. You have drank the Kool-Aid.

Another point worth mentioning on this front is the way that the Taos blog accidentally writes using the pronoun “we” in the biography page in several places. Take a look at the photo included here to see these slips, which are still actively showing on the Taos blog’s bio page. This is a particularly funny slip-up that would be completely inexcusable for a guy who is adamant about operating completely independently. If you were a sole guy running a site alone, you would never refer to yourself as “we” in your biography. There is just no reason you would ever do this. Who is the “we” that he is referring to? It is a very good question…clearly this blogger views himself as but one part in a collective entity here. These are his own words.

(Later edit: it has been claimed that the Cirque du Soleil performer who is claimed to have written his bio explains the use of “we”, but this detail only adds to the weirdness. If this is the case, then he should have been saying SHE (as in “she included that”, not “we”). Also, this made me catch something even more interesting. Prior to the first “we”, he says “notice my wording”. MY wording. So it’s his wording now and not the Cirque du Soleil performer? It’s his, but it’s hers, but it’s theirs…I guess? This bio addendum still stands out as very strange.)

Ultimately, all of this brings me back to why I believe that the man in Taos may be in trouble. What are we left with? Nothing concrete. An inexplicable life story that we are asked to treat as feasible and well-explained. By the story we are given, the man has not worked a day in his life yet has lived a life of comfort. Could this be his family wealth, or something else? Is it really true that he has not worked a day in his life? I see no reason this should be taken as true. The available evidence leaves us feeling like the stated career is a sham and a cover. The possibility of blackmail is what becomes really interesting to ponder. Ultimately, the roots of this person’s privileges in life seem to go deeper than that. That may be why he is living freely in the middle of nowhere rather than behind bars. This is only a guess. We are left wondering what fraction of the ideas on the site truly originate with him, if any. This analysis did not even touch on the ridiculousness of this person becoming a scientific genius seemingly out of the blue. Add that to the rest of the oddities and they really must think we are stupid. It also makes me concerned for the man. Who knows if he really even wants to be mixed up in all this?

We have seen on the Cutting Through The Fog (CTTF) blog that they refer to the Taos blogger in strange terms as though they collectively ARE this entity (could they be the “we” from earlier?). Piece of Mindful will no doubt be flooded by such people in response to this post. To these people, I only have one message: If you are actually willing to put your Taos friend up to scrutiny, then how could you possibly see no significance in any of this? Why do you require a rabid, unquestioning, cult-like support of this main figure? It is claimed on CTTF that PoM is attempting to convince people that up is down and black is white (hmm…which group has the black and white tiled floors again?), but I suggest they are projecting their own sins on this blog. All I have done is share the things I have found and tried to make as much sense out of them as possible. Isn’t that what we are supposed to do? I do not believe that the collection of information presented here could possibly have an innocent explanation.

The bottom line here is that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. I know Mark Tokarski well enough to be confident that his intentions are pure. When I began as a writer here, I was given absolutely no restriction and no set of topics to work from. I was told “Go ahead, write anything you want”. Does that sound like the kind of person who is an agent? It sure doesn’t to me. I suggest that the Taos blogger take a good long look in the mirror and consider whether it is worth it to be in such an arrangement. If you can escape, I say go for it!

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

— Matthew 7:1-5

Post-Script:

Many of the photos on the Taos site show odd manipulations. These alterations are hard to find specific relevance in, but I still wanted to post these examples for all to see.