I read one source years ago suggesting that the primary control mechanism of bison was the human population on this continent, as many as eighteen million at the arrival of the Europeans. Thus followed a human die-off, and the bison population exploded. Migrating settlers were confronted with millions upon millions of the beasts. The slaughter of that era had two purposes – to open range for cattle, and deprive natives of their primary food source. Both succeeded.

In the real power structure, the Montana Stockgrowers Association is the group that makes and enforces policy regarding bison in Montana. The Montana Department of Livestock holds titular authority, and underneath that is the governor, charged with grabbing a baton and leading the parade after it is moving.

In the early 1990’s, the Governor or Montana was Stan Stephens, and during his administration Montana became a nationwide laughing stock. The Yellowstone bison herd had overgrown and had to be culled. To do so, Stockgrowers invited a public harvest. The nation was shown images of “hunters” dressed in hunting garb standing fifty feet away from their trucks and prey and dropping them. It was disgusting to watch.

The next governor, Marc Racicot, had better advice. He built a wall, and did the slaughter away from cameras. No images, no outcry, no problem.

I was a writer for Writers in the West at that time, and reacting to the buffoons masquerading as hunters, wrote a column describing the cat-and-mouse game played by Racicot. I was ego-boosted when a friend of my daughter’s, in school in Wisconsin, said my WITW piece was a subject of discussion in one of her classes.

At issue are brucellosis, wolves, the real power structure, and the real effect of absence of apex predator on the landscape. Once it was humans. Now we rely on wolves and grizzly bears.

Brucellosis is a disease that causes abortion in elk and bison, and undulant fever in humans. It is under control in our cattle population, but the mere threat of species transmigration is enough to affect markets and cause quarantine. So the Stockgrowers watch it closely. Even the perception of threat to cattle will cause them to bring out the big guns. I get this, and given the unbridled power of the MSA, not much can be done to stop them.

There is not enough predation in Yellowstone national park to keep the bison herd down to a reasonable number. Wolves are great hunters, grizzlies less so, but in bison they both meet their match. Wolves prefer elk, and bears the carrion created by wolves. As a result, the bison population in Yellowstone regularly gets out of hand. Three methods of control are die-offs, migration, and culling.

Culling by humans is not allowed in the park. When food supply wanes, bison migrate into the greater ecosystem, and the Stockgrowers spring into action. These days, the killing is done out of sight, and the meat carted off to Native American reservations.

I do not know of a better solution. The effects of bison overpopulation on the landscape are devastating. Perhaps we could invite our Native American friends in each year to enjoy a harvest, as their ancestors did.

But culling is essential. There is no way around it. Nature is out of balance. Human management is essential. In my view. I invite others to set me straight.

From the book Bloody Treason by Noel Twyman (1997), pp 633-634

… let us examine this incredible ménage of millionaires, industrialists, extremists, and corrupt politicians – bringing into the scene their various secret transgressions and liaisons. It is not a pretty picture. For example, Clare Boothe* Luce was at one time the mistress of Allen Dulles and another time bedded with the anti-Communist fanatic General Charles Willoughby. Meanwhile, Allen Dulles’s ex-mistress, Mary Bancroft, had an affair with Henry Luce, husband of Clare Boothe* Luce and owner of Life magazine. Then we have the rabid, racist billionaire H.L. Hunt with his three wives simultaneously; now adding in the crackpot General Edwin Walker, who turned out to be a closet homosexual, and J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson and lackey Roy Cohn all in the same category. Mix this with John F. Kennedy and his multiple adulterous affairs, including one with Marilyn Monroe, and Robert Kennedy and his affair with Marilyn Monroe; plus the mendacious, criminally minded Lyndon Johnson and his mistresses, and Johnson buying every election he ever won, and the Kennedy’s involvement with the Mafia in buying the 1960 presidential election. Added to this we have the partnership of the CIA with the Mafia to assassinate foreign leaders, the CIA’s involvement in Allen Dulles’s grotesque, ultra-secret mind-control programs to develop robot assassins, and the CIA and organized crime’s participation in illegal arms shipments and drug running, and we have a picture that is so outlandish and complex as to defy the imagination; and we are not even getting started with a long list of other dangerous secrets that can be enumerated. These people did not play by the prescribed rules. They made up their own rules as they went along. They all lived lives of deceit and betrayal. Out of is mise en scène exotique** emerged the decision to assassinate John J. Kennedy.

[My personal footnotes]

* Not to mention that the “Boothe” in her name is a changed spelling of the original name, Booth – she was a relative of John Wilkes Booth, as is Theresa Cara Booth, aka Cherie Blair, wife of the former British Prime Minister.
**translation from French: exotic staging

Henry Ford, a Nazi supporter, said that history is bunk, and indeed it is. But a trip down the aisles of Barnes and Noble shows that most works of history are written to reinforce the official stories of our wars and other mechanizations.

Two well-known names are Allen and John Foster Dulles. They worked for Sullivan Cromwell, highly influential Wall Street law firm, and were drafted into public service by Dwight Eisenhower in his first term. John Foster headed State, and Allen CIA.

They are not the names I am highlighting, but Allen Dulles was instrumental in the rescue of one highly placed Nazi, enlisting him as an American intelligence asset. It was part of a much larger operations called “Paperclip” wherein thousands of ex-Nazis were brought in to help with rocket science, mind control experiments, and intelligence. His name ought to be a household word, but is not. He is General Reinhard Gehlen.

A picture of Gehlan reminds me of Deputy Barney Fife without the humanity. He was a scrawny man, 130 pounds, who possessed a large amount of arrogance and a nasty temper. Gehlen was given control of $200 million to spy on the Soviets. He ran about 4,000 agents in Europe on behalf of the US, as our own intelligence operations were fledgling. When he retired in 1968, Allen Dulles gave him a Swiss chalet, reinforcing my belief that old Nazis never die, but rather retire in luxury. The US shepherded many of them to exile in South American, Argentina a prime destination.

Carl Oglesby wrote about Gehlen in his book The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate. He claimed that Gehlen’s role was primarily to protect Odessa, and relocate tens of thousands of ex Nazis throughout Europe, and South and North America. He did this at the expense of US taxpayers.

Gehlen died in 1979. His legacy lives on in CIA, State, throughout Latin American and Europe, but he is never mentioned. How many people of curious mind, once they learned of this man, would go on to read and wonder about the origins of the CIA, the JFK execution, and all that has followed.

Ergo, there’s no mention of Gehlen in our history books.

The Harper Bone Fragment (Source: HSCA). This bone fragment, measuring 2-1/2” by 2” was found at the rear and to the left of the location of the [JFK] presidential limousine when the fatal head shot occurred. It was found by medical student Billy Harper the day after the assassination. He took it to his uncle, Dr. A.B. Cairns, who was the chief pathologist at Methodist Hospital in Dallas. Dr. Cairns examined it, along with another pathologist, and they both stated that it came from the occipital* region of the skull. The fragment was photographed in the Methodist Hospital photographic lab. The bone fragment was then sent to Dr. George Burkley, the White House physician. From that time on, no one knows what happened to the Harper fragment. It has vanished completely and has not been seen since. The Harper fragment is strong evidence of a shot from the front, perhaps explaining its strange disappearance. If it were available today, it could be analyzed and scientifically identified as to its location in the skull. (Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason, page 222)

What are the implications here? One, the Harper evidence is the strongest evidence available that President Kennedy was shot from the front.

Two, it is very strong evidence that the x-rays of the president’s skull on file in the National Archives are forgeries. The region of his skull from which the fragment came is intact in those.

Implications, anyone?
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*Take your hand and place it across the back of your head, above your neck but below the top, where you would rest it if you were learning back on a pillow. That is the “occipital” region.

In attempting to understand American politics, it is wise to ignore received information – the stuff we are given by mainstream media. We tend to internalize it without question. It could be just fluff, or cover.

One aspect of the career of Barack Obama that simply does not fit with his beliefs and personality is a stint he did in Chicago in the 1980’s as a “community organizer.” It is plain to see from his record in the White House that he is neither a leftist nor an idealist. He is cagey, smart and secretive. What then was he up to?

There is so much mystery around this man that it is hard to know, but safe to assume, that he was doing something other than what we were told. During this time he formed relationships with Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Ayers and Dohrn bear the hallmarks of agents provocateur:

• Their activities in the 1960’s were widely publicized. Like another agent provocateur of that time, John Kerry, they were moved to the front of the line in media coverage of dissent.
• They became magnets for true radicals of the era.
• They led them it acts of violence, which discredited their movements.
• They faced minimal consequences for their behaviors, having charges dropped and jail sentences minimized.
• Most importantly, unlike so many other radicals of the era, they are still alive. Neither has been run over by a car.

The Rev. Wright seems a genuine man of great influence in the black community. Obama struck up a friendship with him that he described as almost familial.

From this sketchy beginning, I would venture forward on the theory that Obama was not a “community organizer,” per se, but rather a mole, or infiltrator. In this role he would follow in his mother’s footsteps, as she apparently did similar work in Indonesia in the 1960’s prior to the violent purges in that country that left hundreds of thousands dead.*

The US Government has long had an active interest in ground-level organizing in the black community. If there is ever to be an uprising in this land, it is there. So it is no coincidence that black leaders are routinely spied on, compromised, framed, jailed and murdered, and befriended by moles and infiltrators.

It’s all cursory at this time, of course. But all of the above, taken together with the intense secrecy surrounding Obama’s background, place of birth and education, his “community organizer” stint in Chicago smells bad. There is much to learn, much hidden from view. I operate now on one premise only, something I know to be true: Prior to our presidents being elected, they are selected.
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*Indonesia was a bloody massacre during the time that the one in Indochina occupied center stage. Perhaps due to restraints of troop commitments in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, the US relied on internal forces to murder 500,000 or more people there, and reform the country more to western liking. The CIA provided the lists, the Indonesian military, in Phoenix style, went about killing the people on that list.

I have often written here that if a person seriously undertakes and examination of the research done around the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, that he or she will gain a better and deeper understanding of our country and how it is run. It is largely a criminal enterprise with department store windows masking the corruption.

We may never know who did shot poor old John, just as we do not know to this day the machinations and agents that brought about such events as the Reichstag fire, the blowing up of the Maine, the attack on the USS Liberty by Israel, Jonestown, the murders of Sadat, Benazir Bhutto, Milošević, David Kelly, Bruce Ivins … on and on.
Continue reading “Of worthy and unworthy” →

This part of Italy is called “Cinque Terre”, or five towns. They are primitive tourist towns near a national park with miles of hiking trails, part of the Italian Riviera on the west side of the peninsula.

We had some bad luck – there was a rail strike on Sunday, which delayed our arrival, and then rains the night before last which caused them to close all the trails. The hillsides can be very dangerous.

Consequently, we rode the train yesterday to the five towns, Rigamortis, Corningware, Motorola, Vernazza  and Monty Python. Those are not the real names (Vernazza, where we stayed, is the actual name), but that was the only way I could remember them.

Today we travel to Milan, and from there fly home tomorrow. It has been so much fun, but we’ve been gone so long. Italy is like a drug, with its climate and food and wine. The people are beautiful to look at and friendly. The place is affordable. unions are strong, and jobs like bus and train work, waiters and cooks are all held by Italians. There is no need for tipping, as the jobs pay well enough to support them, due to the unions. The trains run on time (when not on strike). The water is clean and fresh, the European coffee is a treat by itself. We don’t eat much, and locals don’t seem to either, so we don’t see too many overweight people (except Luca).

I hope you all have a chance to travel, as we have. We know we are fortunate souls.

Among the many ghastly offerings given us by PBS, America’s answer to how to stay uninformed and really, really not know it, is a guy named Rick Steves. He is to travel as Doris Kearns Goodwin is to history, all over it like the Rio Grande – a mile wide and one inch deep. His shows offer a brief glimpse of various places, most often in Europe. It’s all done with aging white people in mind, with excellent tips on how to pack (he sells a line of travel books and luggage).

My favorite scenes are those where he pretends to have walked a long staircase to a monument (more often restaurant), gasping for breath after having done the last five as the camera waits. The end of each show is outtakes, or bloopers. Goodness gracious, the humor.

Anyway, we are in Ljubljana, Slovenia, victims of Rick Steves. We bought it, and even rented a car to drive here.

Slovenia is a pretty place, Ljubljana (pronounced “all right Rick, you got us”) is a moderate large city that has awoken in the last 25 years to cars and western dress. At the center of it is an area where cars are not allowed, and which contains fancy clothing stores, restaurants, one of them damned cathedrals (a small one), and three bridges over Ljubljanica River (designed by a famous local architect – if you want to know more, consult Steves. He’s all over Giolvanni Picco.)

Not to be too hard on Ljubljana, a nice place, a bustling city with a long history and many nice things to see and do. But the concept of our trip here, to see the area at the City Center with its shops and restaurants, was Stevism, silliness, a mistake. It is like deciding to visit Colorado, and instead of spending time in the Rockies, spending your whole trip at the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder.

Today we are heading north, if we can find our way out of here. This is the first time we’ve rented a car while traveling abroad. It is a mixed bag … we have freedom, but not really. We are bound to roadways with thousands of other cars. We waited for long periods yesterday due to line painting crews at work, backing up traffic for miles. I think that is known as “the illusion of progress.” Steven Weinberg, the astrophysicist, mentioned this. He noted that it takes as long now to drive from one side of Manhattan Island to the other as it did in the old days of horse and buggies.

We’ll head up to Lake Bled, another Steves recommendation, and with that in mind, will drive by it without stopping. We are all caught up on modern dress and modes of dining. Ideally, we’ll wander through the less well-known parts of The Julian Alps and Northern Italy, stopping who knows where for the night.

One very favorable thing to report to anyone wanting to travel Europe: Once we got out of Switzerland, it got very affordable. Fifty euros will get you through a whole day, including meals. Lodging is cheap. Yesterday we stopped at a grocery store and bought two bottles of wine, crackers and vegetables, and the bill was nine euros (about $7 $11). The wine is not top-shelf, but for my palate, fine wine is overkill. I cannot distinguish between a Cabernet and a Chevrolet. And frankly, in this part of the world, bad wine is a rarity.

Sorry, no photos to show. Consult Steves.