Author: Mark Tokarski

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

A conversation with my dentist

I’ll recount this as faithfully as I can and with a caveat: I was not about to ‘clue him in’ on anything I might know or suspect. That does no good, and anyway, his own curiosity has brought him quite a ways farther than most Americans. I like the guy, and he is a smart man. It so happened I was having a crown put in place, and that involved a lot of sanding and stuff to make sure it fit properly, which is why my mouth was not full of dental equipment as we spoke.

Dr. D: “Did you happen to watch news over the weekend? There was an assassination attempt on Trump.”

M: “I did! Some odd stuff going on there. Did you notice that the Secret Service stood him up, making him a target even as there was, as far as anyone knew, shooters about?”

Continue reading “A conversation with my dentist” →

Trump’s smoking gun (what the hell is that?) (By Omar Jordan)

h/t Petra Liverani

Petra says “I hope Omar doesn’t mind me republishing his post which entertainingly points out a few key features of this event and makes interesting connections.”

by Omar Jordan

July 15, 2024

Don’t you worry, I’ll make it quick so that you don’t have to read through pages and pages of analysis. As usual, this is just my opinion, based on the available evidence, the vast majority of it, bullshit and misdirects.

Continue reading “Trump’s smoking gun (what the hell is that?) (By Omar Jordan)” →

There were real people on a phantom flight?

James Burrows, now 83 years old, is indeed a “legendary director”, having directed Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Friends and Will & Grace and other stuff. He wrote a book, a fun one about his professional years and all the people he came to know and work with. Normally I would not keep a book like that, called Directed by James Burrows. But I kept it for sake of the following paragraph on page 218

David Angell, God rest his soul, was a wonderful man. He was always teased about how he could write so funny and still be the dullest person in the room. David and his wife, Lynn, had been in Cape Cod and were flying back to Los Angeles for the Emmys (as executive producer of Frasier, he had been nominated  for Best Comedy Series) when their plane, Flight 11, was taken over by terrorists during the 9/11 attacks and crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. We had a memorial ceremony for him at Paramount. Steve Weber, who worked closely with David on Wings, said “I can only imagine the last moments, when David and Lynn looked into each other’s eyes and held one another, knowing what was going to happen.” Continue reading “There were real people on a phantom flight?” →

The origins of European dominion over the New World


By: Steve Kelly

Newsflash! Property law in the U.S. is not rooted in the Constitution. America’s legal foundation for property law (possession), “anti-Indian law,” and the concept of nation-states is religious, not secular.

Where did this deep sense of entitlement, hierarchy, and dominion over unknown lands and its original sovereign peoples originate?

Continue reading “The origins of European dominion over the New World” →

Riding on Substack

I am technically challenged when being offered new stuff – that is, and I think this is common – I fear change. I am going to continue to write on this blog, but I now have a Substack counterpart:

https://marktokarski.substack.com/

I am also on Twitter now, or X:

@MarkTokars6086

I ask now that any people who are interested in following me on either of those forums do so now.

I plan to do more with Substack than just regurgitate blog posts, but for now that is as far as I have progressed. My next step is to get comfortable with Zoom, and then self-promote using that medium. After that I want to bring in people to interview. Dave Klausler has already enthusiastically volunteered, telling me he’d be a boring interview. It reminds me of 1997 when I sat my mother and dad down to interview them on cassette tape.  Mom especially did not think she would have much to offer. Fourteen single-spaced pages later, she had done a marvelous interview that I have since forwarded to all her relatives still with us.

But for now, baby steps. Go to Substack and X and sign up to follow. It will be much appreciated.

MT

 

Censorship, real censorship

A friend of ours (since deceased) spearheaded an effort to construct an elaborate display that traveled around, including at the public library in Bozeman, Montana of “banned” books. I only recall two of them: Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, and Fools Crow by James Welch, which was banned in the Laurel, Montana school district. (I can only think that calling attention to that book by banning it made it a very popular item to have for school kids.)

I tried to recall some of the other books on that display – there may have been as many as twenty. The Brave search engine lists Howl, by Alan Ginsberg, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Animal Farm (in Canada), by George Orwell, so maybe they were part of the display.

The problem is that none of these books were banned. How do I know this? The group that made the display had copies on hand! That means the books were published, had a press run, were distributed and sold. If that is banning, it’s a very lousy job of banning.

Continue reading “Censorship, real censorship” →

The propaganda term, “misinformation”

Note: To read this post at Petra’s site, along with quite a few comments garnered already, go to this link.

By: Petra Liverani

Why do we need information other than that provided by the authorities in order to reject the official narrative?

There is a propagandistic implication behind the term “misinformation” that the authorities make valid claims and the reason people reject them is that they are being misled by information from other sources, however, those who reject their claims may base their rejection merely on the information provided by the authorities on the basis that it doesn’t support their claims, they may not take a single step towards any other source but simply reject the claims using their critical thinking skills.

It’s often not a question of which information is relied on but how information is interpreted.

Continue reading “The propaganda term, “misinformation”” →

Obamacare: The greatest scam ever, and 2.7%

I’ve written enough about this over the years so that if you are curious of the underpinnings of ACA, the “Affordable Care Act”, you can use our search bar. On a desktop or laptop it is off to the right, and on phones and tablets, you must scroll down below comments and other stuff.

The essential feature of Obamacare was Obama himself, sold to us as a juris doctor, highly educated, charismatic, and kind. His most important trait was that he was half black, which released the virtue-signaling passions of liberals to vote and support him as some sort of demigod who could do no wrong, The One. Obamacare in any other form – McCaincare, Trumpcare, Bidencare, would have been dead in the water. Obama’s being a black man triggered release of the largest tax increase in history, and some of the largest subsidies ever given the private sector.

Continue reading “Obamacare: The greatest scam ever, and 2.7%” →

Deus absconditus

The phrase used in the title above, Deus absconditus, is new to me. It means “the hidden God”, or “God who hides from me. I ran across it today in a book by Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I am borrowing it from her just as she borrowed the expression from Pascal.

“Pascal uses a nice term to describe the notion of the creator’s once having called for the universe, turning his back to it: Deus Absconditus. Is this what we think happened? Was the sense of it there, and God absconded with it, ate it, like a wolf who disappears round the edge of a house with the Thanksgiving turkey? “God is subtle,” Einstein said, “but not malicious.”

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