I have a practical outlook regarding the behavior of certain public figures. But first I want to quote from Joseph Sansone, M.S., PhD, a psychiatrist, who offered a statement submitted to a Dutch Court in the case highlighted in this link. It is a case filed in the Netherlands, and Bill Gates and many others are named defendants. They are accused of using the covid vaccines as a means of pushing hidden bioweapons. I’ve no doubt they are guilty. The problem is that we don’t have justice, so no court will find  them so.

I have my own outlook on lies and lying liars in the public sphere. Joseph Sansone, M.H., PhD, has filed what I think in our country would be called an amicus brief to the Netherland proceedings. He is not part of the lawsuit. He says that the defendants in this case are “psychopathic authoritarians”. That’s a name dreamed up by the psychiatric professions, probably listed in the DSM-5. I imagine members of his profession voted on it, with a majority of psychiatrists deciding by a show of hands what is a disease, what is not. By this means we also have ADHD, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, intermediate explosive disorder (which I would have guessed relates to diarrhea), and a host of others. All made up. But I want to quote Sansone on this:

Psychopathic Authoritarianism is the systemic elevation of power, control, and domination above truth, empathy, liberty, moral integrity, bodily autonomy, and human dignity. It is the collective manifestation of traits identified as the Dark Tetrad,  sadism, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. On a systemic level, these traits operate together with fear and coercive control to produce obedience, conformity, and subjugation of persons to institutional authority and may include a callous disregard for human life.

Continue reading “Psychopathic authoritarians, or just mundane bureaucrats?” →

Me: Is “Tokarski” in the Jewish registry of names?

 AI: Yes, the surname Tokarski is included in major Jewish genealogical registries, such as the Consolidated Jewish Surname Index (CJSI) and JewishGen databases.

• Origin: It is classified as a Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) surname, derived either as a patronymic from the occupational name Tokarz (turner/lathe operator) or as a habitational name from places called Tokary in Poland.
• Registry Presence: The name appears in the Consolidated Jewish Surname Index, which aggregates data from 31+ Jewish genealogical databases.
• Specific Records: Jewish burial records for the surname Tokarski exist in Argentina (e.g., Buenos Aires), and the name is tracked in the JewishGen Family Finder.

While the surname is ethnically Polish, its presence in these indices confirms its usage within Jewish communities, particularly in Eastern Europe and among diaspora populations.

Continue reading “Ashkenazi this!” →

I am not much for poetry. When in seventh grade, the principal of our school, Sister Angelina, assigned my class of 30 and others too the task of writing some verse, which I think was going to be used in some larger project. I surely I did my part, and probably scribbled some indecipherable nonsense. Later our teacher, also a nun, relayed Angelina’s disappointment that not one useful line had been generated by the brain power of the seventh grade class of Little Flower School, Billings, Montana, in the year of our Lord 1963. We didn’t have much of that.

I don’t get poetry. I’ve read it, but for the most part it does not register. It bounces. I know to ignore the end of a line and read the next as if the two were not disjointed. I was singled out for praise in high school for reading a poem in that manner when called on in class. And I once saw an advertisement, probably for some airline, about the White Cliffs of Dover, read by someone with a deep resonant voice, talking about “this land, this England”. (sic) Just reading words in such a manner often passes for greater intelligence than exists in the reader.  Thus do we honor Morgan Freeman as we do. He could read The Da Vinci Code and make it sound like Shakespeare.

Continue reading “Angelina’s fool” →

[Operating in memory in writing this piece. Harper’s Ferry became “Fort Sumpter.” I’ve changed it and acknowledge the error.”]

I received in my inbox this morning the following comment:

it’s the easiest thing in the world to recognise patterns. less so to analyse the event in full detail.

I had another go-round with AI, which I found interesting. I’ll spill it beneath the fold. It is not terribly long, and has a twist or two in it. I wonder what it would be like if we had real AI, that is, something that is objective and not part of the propaganda system. For instance, I could suggest that the existence of viruses was not proven. As it is, AI comes down completely on the side of virology and dismisses critics. That sort of talk has to be programmed in. Were it not, AI might say something like …

Yes, the subject has inspired both advocates of the existence of viruses, and detractors alike. In fact, most holding the title “virologist” cling steadfastly to their being real. However, detractors point out that while it is claimed that viruses enter human cells and reproduce, thereby creating disease, this has never been proven to be the case. Further, detractors claim that the very experiments that “isolate” viruses have done so merely by changing the definition of the word “isolate”, and that further, Koch’s Postulates have never been satisfied. Virologists dismiss this criticism, citing, for instance, Rivers’ postulates as having replaced Koch.

Just one example. Note in my idealistic example above, AI would not be an advocate for either side. It would merely spell out the facts of the debate. As it is, AI is just another cog in our massive propaganda machine.

But it is useful. We must get used to it, and use it to its best advantage. If people learn to use it properly, they will easily do their own taxes, prepare household budgets, fill out resumes, repair their vehicles, and maybe (longshot) assemble Ikea furniture. Schools would have to change their teaching methods, as all of the answers to multiple choice and true/false questions would be a click away. They would have to line the walls of the classrooms with lead.  Better yet, they could start discussion subjects in give and take forums, inviting students to explore on the own. As Chomsky said once offered (he's quotable on many things), the job of a teacher should be to throw out a rope, and guide the student along as he follows it to places known and unknown*.

But that’s not what we have, and we have to get used to the propaganda system still front and center in our lives. Just use it for good, ignore the bad.
___________________

*I once listened to a private tutor, a student of John Taylor Gatto, who had a young boy as client. The kid was caught up in space travel, aliens, flying saucers and ETs. The tutor’s attitude was “Fine. I won’t tell him he's wrong or off on a tangent. He'll figure that out for himself eventually." Or not.
Continue reading “Close encounters of the ethereal kind” →

While in Washington, DC, we had a couple meals at a restaurant called Busboys and Poets. What a trip! It was right out of my life years ago, when freshly sprung from my right-wing Catholic conservative upbringing, I did what I called “the bounce”. Assuming my prior life had misled me about everything, I discovered there was a left, and assumed I would find some truth over there.

Continue reading “Stumbling into the past: A left wing enclave in a DC restaurant” →

That’s the best I can do for a photo from the back set of our Uber. How unfortunate! We are in Washington, DC for one day, and it happens to be at the same time as a two-day visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. That’s not something we care about, but it means that they have blockaded side streets in the area of Reagan Airport down to where we are staying. Our poor Uber driver was patient, but totally frustrated at almost standstill traffic. It took 90 minutes to get to our hotel, a trip that should have lasted 30. Each intersection was blockaded to prevent side street traffic, and had high barrier fences across to allow only one car at a time. What nonsense! Such a frightened way of life.

Continue reading “Guess where we are …” →

Of all the instruments in an orchestra, my favorite is the oboe. Its sound haunts me, and perhaps as in the screen grab above, has the same effects on the clarinetist sitting next to the oboist in the London Symphony Orchestra. And, perhaps as you read this and think I am going to write about classical music, you’ve decided that you’ve better things to do.

I’ll be brief. The oboist is playing part of Dvorak’s 9th Symphony, second movement, a beautiful haunting piece.  I recognized it instantly as I flipped on my iPad this morning. I tried to save it but could not. It only wants to show the entire video, and take you to Facebook in the process. You’re on your own.

I first came upon this piece of music years ago in a piano piece by Charlie Haden and Hank Jones, used by the producers of the TV series Bosch. In the episode a young boy had died before his time, and as the piano music, called “Goin’Home“, played, two detectives were informing the mother of her son’s death, and Harry Bosch uncovering the body at the morgue. The emotion that the piece invoked was overwhelming. I sent away for the CD on which Haden and Jones*** played it, and a couple of months later it arrived from England. The entire CD consisted of that piece and familiar religious compositions, none of which appealed to me. But I hung on to Goin’ Home piece because of its powerful evocative quality. Later I learned that the piece was played at FDR’s funeral, during a time when the whole nation was in mourning. (Have I ever written about FDR faking his death? All of the hallmarks of a fake presidential death are there, but I’ve never had the energy to write it up.)

I put the lyrics to the piece at the end here for anyone interested, as it was written to be a Negro spiritual. Lovely though they are, I think the lyrics ruin the music.

Continue reading “Musings, what is to become of this blog, and other more important stuff” →

Sometimes in arguing about this and that, we are reduced to absurdity by official truth: The view of the sky from the Moon was total blackness. Yes, I know, we are told that the cameras used by the astronauts had to be shielded from intense light and so were f-stopped down so that the surface was visible while the stars invisible. But honestly, folks, you would think that one or two of the guys who walked there would have said “Holy shit, Batman! It’s beautiful beyond belief! We gotta get a photo before we leave!”

The above image is said to be taken from the surface of Mars, and a commenter or two has noticed that Moon pictures are oddly lacking a night sky. OK, it’s NASA. They claim to have landed a rover on Mars, Curiosity, and this is the view. The panoramic view has all the colors of the rainbow, and I only grabbed what looked real, and I don’t buy all those colors, obviously doctored. This by itself is reward enough, if if is real. A big IF, as always with NASA. But we have all seen doctored images from Hubble, so we know it is amazing once we get out of Earth’s atmosphere, even after the Hubble doctors do their graphics.

Continue reading “View from the Moon” →

Just for fun, now and then, I have a go-round with AI, which is provided and appears on my desktop screen via my browser, Brave, without my authorizing it. I print one such exchange beneath the fold here.

What I have discovered about AI is that it uniformly reiterates mainstream views on everything from Moon landings to virology, so that it is, in effect, just Snopes, writ large.

Snopes is, in my view, an intelligence front, an intellectual swindling operation in which advantage is taken of the confidence the victim places in the swindler, aka a “Con game”.  Snopes has gone to great lengths to offer satisfactory explanations of routine phenomena, and so is able to easily dispatch claims that sporting events are rigged, news is fake, and certain events are or are not real.

In so assuring us of its integrity, Snopes thereby gains our confidence in other areas, and so will assert things understood by many possessing skeptical intelligence to be fake, such as the Moon Landings, the origin of the collapse of the twin towers, the number of victims who died from Covid-19 (my view: -0-). This allows Snopes to lie with ease, knowing it has gained trust. That is why I maintain it is a way to reaffirm official lies and keep the majority of people in line with standard beliefs.

AI is the same animal, but now available on a much larger scale. As such, I view it as a force closing the door on skeptics and independent thought. I view it as a danger to our collective well being. The objective of AI appears to be to reinforce the alleged words of former CIA Director William Simon, who said, according to witnesses, that

“We’ll know that our disinformation campaign has worked when everything the American public believes is false.”

In fact, I asked AI about the William Simon Statement, and got this answer:

No, William Simon did not say this quote; it is widely attributed to William J. Casey, who served as the Director of the CIA from 1981 to 1987.  The quote is: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” 

The authenticity of this quote is highly disputed:

• Alleged Source: The primary claimant is Barbara Honegger, a former White House domestic policy researcher, who stated in 2014 that she heard Casey say it at a February 1981 cabinet meeting and told journalist Sarah McClendon. 

• Lack of Corroboration: No contemporary news reports, official records, or other attendees corroborate Honegger’s claim. The quote first appeared in the late 1980s on conspiracy radio show hosted by Mae Brussell. 

• Debunking: Investigative analyses conclude the quote is likely false and fabricated, noting that Honegger provided no notes and had a history of unreliable claims. 

Of course, that proves nothing, and means nothing except that we can count on AI to come down on one side only on all of these debates, that of the state and its official truth. Did William Casey say those words? I don’t know, but he might well have, as they ring true. For example, “It is easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled”. Did Mark Twain say that? No. But it’s rings true anyway.

Below the fold is an exchange I had with AI regarding virology and SARS-CoV-2. It is all for naught, of course, as AI disposes of all queries and answers a short time after they happen, and never adapts future answers to any opinions offered by those making queries.

Continue reading “AI and the battle for freedom of thought” →