I do not need to instruct most of my readers on the meaning of the Latin phrase used as the title of this piece. For the few uninitiated, post hoc, ergo propter hoc is a phrase used to describe a logical fallacy, one of the most common in use. It translates to “after this, therefore because of this.” Better to illustrate by example rather than ‘splain, John Brown, the man who initiated the beginning of the US Civil War by attacking the weapons storage facility at Harpers Ferry, was supposedly superstitious and guided by stars in the heavens to dictate his moves. If they aligned, he moved. The fallacy here is that stars had anything to do with his movements. That translates to after this, therefore because of this.

I worked on John Brown quite a bit, assisted by Kevin Starr, who added much more. My initial trigger was the fact that the armory at Harper’s Ferry on the night of the attack had but one guard on duty, and was in essence left unguarded. That told me that the event was staged, and that both Northern and Southern elements were in on it. Then we learn that Brown was juiced, part of the British peerage, and that it does not take much sleuthing to realize that his public hanging was staged, and that he walked away. It then logically follows that if the trigger event of the Civil War was staged, that the war itself, while costly in terms of lives and property, was a planned event. Lincoln, who would later fake his death, was in on it as well. The object of the war? Another time, another story. Slavery was part of it, but the driving force was a new kind of union of the states, and a major rewriting of our governing document, the Constitution. Power was transferred from the individual states to a new and powerful federal government.*

Continue reading “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc” →

Who’s got time on his hands today?

Not too many readers will remember the words in the title above. It is from 1970, and the  words are attributed to Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. He acted as a distractive force for President Nixon, and was dispatched regularly to grab some headlines. The nabobs in question here were the sad lot of pundits known as “journalists”, said to be one of the easiest college degrees to attain.

Natter: To talk continuously for a long time without any particular purpose.

Nabob: An Indian ruler within the Mogul empire; someone of great wealth or importance; a person with a grandiose style or manner.

Agnew certainly did his homework on this one, drawing out two obscure words and making them memorable, so much so that I still remember the quote 54 years later.

Below the fold are some more quotes from the 31 pages I have preserved:

Continue reading “Nattering nabobs of negativity” →

Christmas is mostly for kids, and I think it is perfectly OK to let their imaginations be filled with Santa and reindeer and chimneys. When my kids were little we had a tradition that lasted for a brief while until some cynical brat ruined it.

We lived in Billings, Montana. It’s a nice town, mostly, and is under what are called the Rims, a long geological formation, part of it seen above, that runs the length of the town. I am told that they formed as waves from an inland sea washed in and out, not unlike Galveston, Texas.

Continue reading “A magical Christmas” →

Over the years I have been collecting bits and piece of witty snarks and insightful comments in a file I called “Wit and Wisdom”. I pulled it up last week and found that I had a little over one page of items, meaning I had lost the original. But wait! There were two files by that name, one with a different suffix, and it turned out to be 31 pages. I remember sitting at our dining room table in Bozeman when I first decided I needed a way to save stuff, and putting these gems onto my laptop. That it survived all these years, perhaps twenty or more, is no tribute to my competency, but rather to good luck, nothing more.

I’ve gone over those 31 pages now, and found quite a few items that I am going to repeat here, a few at a time. There’s a lot in there that I would not now take trouble to record, notably Edward Abbey, whose every written word (except some of his fiction, which I found over-the-top) I have read. I also made it a point to read everything written by George Orwell, but he does not turn up very often in this file. I suspect that is because somewhere I have a separate file for him.

Continue reading “Orgies are vile …” →

I came upon the following lines from an obscure source, quoting Horace, among the many legends of ancient literature whom I have not read.

“Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.”

The line  translates to “Mountains will be in labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be born.” This phrase comes from Horace’s Satires (Book 1, Satire 8) and is often interpreted as a commentary on the disparity between expectations and outcomes. I am plagiarizing that last line starting with “This phrase…”.

Continue reading “The Christmas letter …” →