Author: Mark Tokarski

Just a man who likes to read, argue, and occasionally be surprised.

Resist much, obey little

Not sure I want to publish this, as it is something I ran across via someone to get to the original, and I am not even sure it is an exact quote nor have I read the entirety of the original, nor will I. Poetry to me in all my life has only had meaning when read to me by someone else with the necessary inflections, deep voice and added drama. If it is just words on a page with me alone, it deflects off me like wind outside as I drive my truck, sheltered from it. It just doesn’t affect me. I wish I knew more than I do and appreciated more than I do how poetry works. There are a few phrases that move me, and I have them on a bulletin board behind me, so well known that I don’t need name the authors …

If you can hold your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you …

Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though…

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day…

Continue reading “Resist much, obey little” →

Necessary Illusions

Necessary Illusions is a 1989 book by Noam Chomsky which I most likely read in 1990 or so, long before I was capable of grasping the message delivered by the book. It is subtitled “Thought Control in Democratic Societies.” I could see at that time that propaganda was a major industry, but thought we had escape chutes to exit, exist and think for ourselves. I had no idea of the degree, in 1990, of control that already existed. I would be fated to indulge in partisan politics, voting, and permitted exit chutes, Ralph Nader and Chomsky himself, for example.

I don’t have the book anymore, but won’t go looking for it. Wikipedia does a short blurb on it, comparing the phrase “necessary illusions,” which I understand to have originated with the Canadian cleric Reinhold Niebuhr, with the works of others: “noble lies” (Plato), “public relations” (Edward Bernays), and “myth making” (Machiavelli). All for our own good. We’re sheep, and need to be herded.

Continue reading “Necessary Illusions” →

The Ted Bundy nightmare … a hoax

Ted Bundy was an American serial killer who had 30 or more victims in the 1970s, and is suspected of even more. He was captured in Florida, and executed on January 24, 1989. He was 42 years old.

BundyThat’s the official story. I just spent the last hour or so re-reading two papers by Miles W. Mathis on Bundy, one from 2014, and the other 2018. That part was fun, as the papers read well. In the 2014 paper, MM tries to tie Ted Bundy, pictured to the right, as a true member of the Bundy family, Boston ultra-wealth and lineage with members like Willliam (foreign affairs advisor to both JFK and LBJ), and McGeorge (yes, that was his real name) (National Security Advisor to the same two presidents). He might well hit that nail, as Ted Bundy bears strong resemblance to the Bundy line.

In the 2018 paper, MM follows the Bundy trail of murders through Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado and finally Florida. It’s really hilarious to read, the things they expect us to believe. I won’t repeat anything here as the papers are easily available to the reader. Just enjoy them as I did. I am neither going to add to or detract from the Mathis work, as what I do here is my own research. His stands by itself, as does mine.

Continue reading “The Ted Bundy nightmare … a hoax” →

Is Jerry Sandusky innocent?

A hat tip to another blog for posting last week in regards to Penn State convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky, and allegations of his innocence from investigative reporter John Zeigler. To get deep into it as I have, you will have to listen to a couple of two-and-one-half hour broadcast from Thaddeus Russell, starting here. Zeigler also runs a website called Framing Paterno. In addition are more interviews and a long series of blog posts, 2012-present by Zeigler.  You are, like me, on your own. I spent a weekend, maybe ten or twelve hours of listening and reading and came out refreshed. Now is time to write, hopefully capturing the immensity of the injustice done to Jerry Sandusky.

I am a walking thinker, that is, I cannot just sit and listen to people talk. I have to move about. Maybe this is why schooling never did me much good, as I watched the mouths of teachers and saw the cascades of words coming out of them, but they did not cross the divide. John Cleese, quoting someone else I am not going to run down, told us that a teacher’s lecture is a series of notes on paper that become a series of notes on the student’s paper, without passing through the mind of either.

Continue reading “Is Jerry Sandusky innocent?” →

Comment by TimR for discussion

Mark, I have a topic request, if you or any of the blog authors would consider addressing it – to wit, I’d like to see a post/ discussion about your views of what the US – and other countries around the world – may look like five, ten, and twenty years down the line.

Especially I’d like to read your take on Ab’s and MM’s projections, insofar as they’ve sketched them out. Ab has laid out a thumbnail sketch in many recent audios. I think you’ve said you listen while puttering around the workshop so maybe you’re familiar? In a nutshell – Ab sees the US and Canada as destined to be turned into resource colonies for a voracious China, their populations abandoned to the vicissitudes of some flavor of technocratic communism, herded into city centers, and so on (I’m sure he’d tell you himself if you’ve missed his comment on this.)

Miles, meanwhile, has outlined a ramping up of the current pseudo-liberal craziness, followed by a planned “conservative” backlash designed to generate support for a return of Trump (or other front man) to spearhead a more robust totalitarian police state (further details of what he’s projected escape me at the moment, or have not been forthcoming.)

Of course, I’d also be interested in what many of the commenters here have to say about their projections for future conditions – hopefully such a post would spark that discussion.

I’d ask that the post (and discussion) especially might address projected outcomes in the US, and other Western or “developed” nations, vs the “global south” or “developing nations” such as South America, Africa, etc. Western Europe vs Eastern Europe. And so on.

Personally, I find myself very persuaded by Ab’s thumbnail – although, it is very thumbnail – and, while it may be based on WHO or WEF projections, I’m sure their projections of fifty or seventy years ago didn’t always go exactly according to plan, or at least not quite according to timeline (as given out by their oracles at the time.) “There’s oft many any a slip between the lip and the cup.” Miles’ more limited and short-term projection also seems plausible, and compatible with Ab’s projection broadly speaking.

(While I’m making requests, I’d throw this out to Ab as well if he happens to be reading – maybe this would make a good topic for a roundtable discussion on Fakeologist, if he could gather some of the best voices there and get them to opine.)

Continue reading “Comment by TimR for discussion” →

Good Germans

I am aware of suspicions surrounding the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, and can only reinforce my attitude that the program, while not “working” in any sense, is a somewhat reliable gauge for intelligent speculation on the full range of adverse events, including death and hospitalization, surrounding various Covid-19 vaccines, most prominently Pfizer and Moderna.

First, the larger context: This morning I reviewed mask requirements in Colorado, finding that there are none in most places due to small populations. In my county, Jefferson, Dr. Mark Johnson, former head of county health, perhaps in a fit of freedom and conscience, vamoosed, but I don’t know that. I only know he is gone, replaced by Dr. Dawn Comstock, referred to by a friend as a wild lady. Masks are still required here in Jeffco, and compliance, while not at 100%, is very near that. I only see one person not wearing a mask in stores … me. I’ve had clerks happily whipping theirs off when I approach without one, but for the most part, crickets.

Continue reading “Good Germans” →

h/t – Ab

I could do a post like this every day, so productive is Ab at Fakeologist. (Be sure to use fakeologist.com/blog/ when you visit the site to get the latest.

Here is one that caught my eye that needs to be spread wide and far – It’s not PPE – it’s a religious garment. Ab is bringing to us a study done (quietly) at Stanford University (linked in an American Conservative Union article) [see note at end] showing what we all know anyway, that masks are useless. I regard them as nothing more than ritual shaming.

However, I am on the other side of a barrier in this debate, as arguing about the effectiveness of masks against something that does not even exist (SARS-CoV-2) seems not only moronic, but oxymoronic. That puts me squarely outside the framing of the debate.

Continue reading “h/t – Ab” →

Down the river

Note to readers: It is apparent that this blog is going in two directions, and this troubles me not in the least. We have Stephers, Steve and me, and we each have our own ideas. Please note on the left (on a desktop) that you can follow the writer of your choice. The following piece is my type of thing, a reminiscence about a man I admired, mixed in with a trip we took and some side canyons. Stephers is writing about the intricacies of Covid and the vaccine. Steve is about wildness (and a man I suspect he might know, Howie Wolke, turns up in this piece.) There is no conflict among writers on this blog. If I was any kind of a computer guy, I would redesign the blog to accommodate all three of us. That is way above my pay grade.

AbbeyLast year we took a trip north to my old haunts growing up, the Beartooth Mountains of Montana, and Yellowstone National Park. We revisited places I had known as early as a youth of ten years old, finding them intact. I vowed that the trip would not be sullied by electronic communication … no blogging, no email, and certainly things I had already quit doing … no Facebook, Twitter, and things I had never done, like Instragram.

It was a rough trip in some regards, sitting on the bank of the Gallatin river, nothing to do but watch the passings by, the birds, boaters, fishermen and sons, but no way to exhort my family and friends and former classmates to share in the adventure. It had to be done without outside approval, those obnoxious “likes” that take on unwarranted importance in that small world. I had to watch the river, the boaters and their dogs, a flock of wild geese stupidly imprisoned by wire fences (we set them free), and the father and son sharing the adventure of fly fishing. I took it all to heart without broadcasting, as in the old days, the small events of my life, shared with no one, the meaning of which were in my heart, meant to stay there, but unlike most, later shared by written word.

This year my wife and I revisited our adventures of twenty years ago and more recently, and a place that defies description, though I will try … Utah. It is vast and beautiful and charming, haunting and harsh. The desert has unique flavor and beauty, and can kill a man. We’ve just returned from that trip, and I’ve been writing off and on about a man I much admired, Edward Abbey.

Continue reading “Down the river” →

SNITCHES

The local gym I use, Anytime Fitness, has an angry sign on an art tripod as we enter –

ALL MEMBERS MUST WEAR MASK COVERING FACE AND NOSE AT ALL TIMES. JEFFCO COUNTY HEALTH HAS THREATENED TO SHUT US DOWN! ANY MEMBER NOT COMPLYING WILL BE SUSPENDED FOR A PERIOD OF TWO WEEKS.”

The level of compliance is as it was before, about 50/50. For myself, since I was indeed suspended for one week, I opted for a fake mask, one with slits cut that allow me to breath. No one notices, and if they do, the mask says on it in large letters SHEEP, which acts as a distraction. Put off by that word, they do not notice the opening.

Continue reading “SNITCHES” →

Friday notes

I do not understand “blockchain” but know it is somehow intertwined with “bitcoin.” Just brief reading on the subject this morning told me that it is coming down [the pipe], and that we cannot stop or change it.

It is like that with most things … if a discussion is allowed, it means that the matter is already decided. For instance, there was much talk and trepidation concerning “one world government” over my decades of being alive. I never knew to fear it or welcome it, but it is now apparent that we have it, have had it for a long time, and that good or bad, we cannot change it.

Continue reading “Friday notes” →