I do not honor the dawn of a new rotation around the sun as any special occurrence since the selection of the “starting point” is random. I do not make lists of events in the past rotation seeking to rank them in order of importance. I do not resolve to do things differently in the near future. I am going to the gym today, but I’ve been doing that for years, and not out of some resolve but rather because I enjoy it. For the next month or so it will be crowded.

Regarding this blog, it will carry on as before. If there were 365 days in the last year, there were probably 300 posts. I’ll probably do 300 more this year. My repetitive themes will continue to repeat – we are deeply mired in thought control, Democrats are the problem, and nothing is at it appears. Health care is still a huge problem, a solution far away. The ongoing attack on the social safety net continues, currently under titular leadership of a black dude (death by a thousand knife cuts versus death by the sword). American world power is in decline, but American military spending has not declined, so that in the absence of prestige and hegemony, there will be blood, blood and more blood.
Continue reading “There will be blood, like always, this coming year” →

Lest the post below be taken as a slam against mythological belief systems, I wish to recount a conversation with my late brother. As part of this studies for the priesthood, he was required to read the gospels in their original form, Greek, and claimed they had therein far more than the English text offered.

He was defensive at that time, and for a reason. Like all intelligent people, he knew that the simple myths of virgin birth and a corpse rising from the dead were not true. But he wanted to take me one level above that. He said that mythology, like science, was a vehicle for passing information from one generation to the next. He found myth to be a much better vehicle, and that the truths thereby transmitted to be of far more value than those given us by science.

For me, mythology is a matter of curiosity and not much more. I look at life’s passing in the same way that Bill Hicks did in the video above – it’s a ride. We get on, we get off. What happens while we are here is horrible, wonderful, fascinating, intriguing, and we are powerless to change it. Evil people seem to have control of this place. Good people, like Hicks himself, make early exit. But what the hell – 30, 40, 90 years … what does it matter?

If it is some kind of test, most of us are doomed to repeat second grade. We leave this place knowing not much more than upon entrance. Yes, the myths carry within them important truths. Just as importantly, one must strip the wrappers off the mythology for current use before repackaging it and handing it on. It’s not the wrapper, but the content that matters.

The truths are simple: love, comfort and care for one another, take care of our home and leave it in good shape, remember that you leave your stuff behind when you go. It’s not complicated.

I do not understand why it needs to be packaged as it is. All that does, as I see it, is to empower shamans as intercessors when we can engage our own minds without such help. I see TV preachers taking undue pride in their expertise in memorization of passages of the Bible, pretending that they thereby have superior wisdom … and are therefore worthy of cash contributions from helpless followers.

As George Carlin said, this God we worship who made everything and knows all past, present and future … is always short of cash.

I don’t mind the mythology. Metaphor and storytelling enrich our existence. The recent movie Gravity was a metaphor about a woman who lost a child, and her suffering and survival. That final scene where she gets up, recovers her balance and starts to walk again is so very moving. How wonderful it is to tell the story that way rather than just act it out in real time.

But please remember when you leave the movie theater that it was just a story. That’s really all that bugs me – that serious grown ups believe in angels and demons, and think that movie was about astronauts in space rather than people on earth.

Phew! What a relief now to have my continuing education credits in place, and a grueling 16-hour tax conference behind me. My daughter, a non-accountant who works for a CPA firm in Montana, tells me that the people in that office all behave as if they are the exception to the rule that accountants are rigid and dull and humorless. They are not exceptions, she says.

She also says that I used to be like that when she was young. My daughter, you see, is very smart in human relations, knowing how to play her dad.

My most lasting reflection on the conference is how it focused almost entirely on the problems of the rich, and at the opportunities we have to save them a buck here or there, keeping a slice for ourselves of course. The tax law has yielded many new opportunities in that regard. There was also quite a bit on the health care law, nothing earth-shattering. As it is a room full of starched-shirt right-wing accountants, few are aware that the lower classes are now a conduit for a huge subsidy to the important classes: the corporations, their well-paid managers and employees. (I mean only the upper-tier employees.) No one in the room questions the need for health insurance companies, as worthless a societal segment as those who used to make their living bringing slaves to the new world. Some institutions we can do without.

The trade magazine for the profession is called the “Journal of Accountancy,” and not the “Progressive Magazine.”

Ah, but I am light of foot today, full of new energy, ready to clear my desk and get on with life. It’s over! My license is in place for two more years. My brain is hereby clicked to its “off” position.

I can tell you from my viewpoint that spinning Montana’s newspapers was as easy as spinning a top. There’s precious little congressional news that is actually broken by a Montana newspaper. That works to the advantage of the politician. Absolutely. When you are free from a burrowing press, you pretty much have clear sailing. (Pat Williams, on leaving office in 1997)

Speaking of managed news, what I’ve seen today reminds me of an event involving former Montana Senator Conrad Burns back in the election campaign of 2000. One of his campaign staffers called a newspaper reporter and went on a rant about his opponent that year – Bryan Schweitzer. The words and accusations were so hard and furious as to cause the reporter to go directly to press with it, and the story caught wind.

I later interviewed Schweitzer for my little public access show at that time, oddly enough called “Piece of Mind.” I mentioned that event to him, and he gave me a bit of inside baseball. Burns had gone off leash, gotten drunk and went into a racist anti-Indian tirade with enough people witnessing to cause problems. The campaign was in damage control mode, and used the telephone call to the reporter as a deflection device. It worked. The phone call became the story, and the rant never made the news. Our news media is ever so pliable!

This came to mind this morning as I read the following two stories. Judge for yourself what the underlying reality might be.

From RT.com: ‘Whole families murdered’: Syrian rebels execute over 80 civilians outside Damascus

From Huffington Post: The Butcher kills another 76

One might be tempted to assume that the truth lies somewhere between the extremes. That’s a logical fallacy, in my opinion. The truth can lie anywhere, on the edges, in the middle, or not even apparent. From my frame of reference, I am inclined to think that HuffPo is lying or exaggerating or dissembling, as it has been my experience that the US news media is corrupt at the top and clueless at the bottom.

But I am open to suggestion.

Those who know me also know that my older brother was a Catholic priest. He died in 2011. Anyone who knew Fr. Steve Tokarski also knew that he was a man of impeccable character and credentials. Nary a hint of scandal came within a thousand miles of him during his life, and for good reason.

The logo to the left, taken from a Meanwhile in Art post, was designed for a Catholic Archdiocesan Youth Commission in 1973, and seems appropriate. It won an award at that time, and now appears creepy. But there is a reason for the misbehavior of priests.

I can explain part of it. I do not condone it. I can explain the behavior of an abused child who in turn abuses other children as an adult. That does not mean that jail sentences, shame and shunning are not in order. Explaining does not justify.
Continue reading “The unnaturalness of celibacy” →

In my younger years I did not understand why people believe lies, and thought that mere presentation of the truthful alternative would be enough to open eyes. There was so much ground to cover, so much to learn, and so little reward ahead for me that given the opportunity again, I might simply slip into slumber with the rest of the American public. It is so much easier.

I’ve spent decades now trying to gain a better understanding of the world, and to what end? Only to be laughed at and ridiculed by people who have not read beyond Glenn Beck or Ayn Rand? It has to be a reward unto itself, or there is no point to it.

Anyway, today we celebrate wondrous leader bringing Iran to the table, forcing that rogue nation to abandon its nuclear program and allowing us to give thanks for a safer world. Good for him! I celebrate along side all of you with the following caveats:

• He’s not even in charge, nothing more than a ribbon cutter. The US has not had a real president since around this time of year in 1963.
• Iran had no nuclear program. They gave up the idea in 1988.

So I raise my glass with the rest of us in honor of a nobody doing nothing. That’s how we roll. Happy Thanksgiving!
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PS: Lizard 19, about all those writers that went before you over there, we must be polite, I realize. But you’re waaaaaay better then them. Without you it was just another Democratic blog, kind of trivial and boring and predictable. You’ve become perhaps the best writer on the Montana blog scene. You’d share that space with Budge had he not given it up.

We are traveling again today, this time by car. We’re going to Billings, Montana. I grew up there. Towns are like minds – they can be narrow confines or exciting adventures.

Boulder, Colorado is an exciting adventure. Billings, for me, was a narrow confine. (Also, all of the interstate accesses to Billings are ugly. The town itself so not bad, but it strikes travelers as refineries and truck stops.)

Billings is a hot and dusty prairie town, close to mountains but part of that semi-desert region called Eastern Montana, about 12 inches of rainfall yearly. Like all home towns, we don’t appreciate what they really are until they are in our rear view mirrors.

The times I have visited there since leaving I’ve been surprised at how little activity there is after hours, and how scattered it is. The downtown area is lifeless, and its center of gravity has moved west, but no one seems to know where.

Billings is not an aesthetically pleasing place to the outside eye. New neighborhoods sprouted up, and all of old Billings is not much more than old houses spliced with long straight roads to get to new Billings. Out there on the west end is brand new infrastructure with roundabouts at most intersections, new shopping malls and planned housing, parks and commercial islands.

It’s all predictable, even boring. I used to drive out in the corn fields west of town looking for birds or passing the time. Out there you will find lots of … corn. East of town is more corn, but more varied geography – some hills, cliffs, viewpoints, streams. East of town are farms and cows, west of town are feedlots and gravel pits.

Overlooking Billings are the Rimrocks – a long cliff-like feature that extends perhaps forty miles west or more. A local geologist told me that the theory was that it was the remnants of a Fire Island-type sand reef where retreating waves built it up in the ancient sea beds. I’ll take his word for it. On top of the rims is riverbed gravel, so it was once a streambed for the Yellowstone River. The importance of the rims in community life is a long stretch overlooking the city where kids can park and drink beer and grope each other while adults pretend they are at the sock hop. That is the city’s Blueball Lane.

Before someone chimes in and tells me of the city’s rich culture, music, and intellectual life, I ‘ll concede the point. There are two colleges there, large medical facilities, three refineries in the region, and all of that requires smart and well-educated people to run it. There’s an NPR outlet that is NPRish to the hilt, playing classical music all day and Car Talk and Wait Wait on weekends just to keep people aware it even exists. Yellowstone Public Radio offers all of the news that the other news outlets offer, identical news in fact, but somehow they think they are better at it. Never did get that.

In 2000, my last general election there before moving up the road to Bozeman, Billings turned out 2,144 votes, 3.73% of those who bothered, for Ralph Nader. That turned a few heads. WTF? Billings?

I did that. I went door-to-door for weeks collecting signatures to get him on the ballot. …[redacted by my editor]… I walked house-to-house evenings with the petitions. It was relaxing, satisfying, better than watching TV. I collected maybe 2,000 signatures during that time.

Here’s what I think happened, at least with the ones who didn’t think the petition was for Rob Natelson* (it is Billings, after all): people were vaguely aware of a Ralph Nader, a consumer protection guy, the Corvair and Pinto and all of that, and maybe even heard he was running for president. There was scant news coverage, but after signing the petition they were alerted to his existence. Once keyed in, they began to pay attention. He wasn’t radical, and the things he said sounded more like New Deal or New Frontier than The Internationale.

Bush and Gore were doing their best to drive people into staying home. Nader was something new, perhaps something old. Those who signed the petitions were probably the bulk of those who voted for him, including the Natelson faction.

I did that. We, the local Greens, also staged a publicity stunt: We got together one Saturday and went along a highway atop the rims and cleaned up all of the litter. We had a big sign that said “Clean Up Politics – Vote Nader!” That got a little TV time, which is the primary way people know politics. We did that.

Anyway, ten-hour drive, and evenings in a place where you can drop a quarter on the pavement at night and then hear it bounce. I’m not saying that you can’t go home again. You can. But why?
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*Natelson was a statewide phenomenon, the regional Randian and well-known throughout the area. Last I heard he had moved to Golden, Colorado.

Two voices that I have come to depend on regarding Syria (and Libya and every war of aggression since Obama took office) are Thierry Meyssan, French intellectual and proprietor of Voltaire.net, and Moon of Alabama, one of those sites that just seems wired somewhere and which has a way of staying on top of things and offering counter-media insight. The latest article I read on Syria by Meyssan gives a nice capsuled history of the conflict as follows:

• The United States planned the destruction of Syria at a meeting on September 15, 2001, at Camp David. They began to prepare this by adopting the Syria Accountability Act on December 12, 2003. They tried to plunge Syria into war first by causing the adoption of Resolution 1559 by the Security Council, then killing the former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri and accusing President al-Assad of ordering the assassination. Continue reading “Capsule history of the Syrian conflict” →

Stay with me on this, as it leads to a point a little closer to home. Back when the Iraq War was on everyone’s mind, studies done indicated that civilian casualties were extremely high – perhaps as many as 1.2 million overall. At that time – it’s still going on.

Here’s what happened: The sources of the studies were viciously attacked, and reasonable people concluded that such numbers could not possibly be true.

No other studies were done, of course. No counter-evidence was offered. Mere denial became the reasonable intellectual position regarding casualties inflicted on another country by the emperor. End of story.
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Lizard put up a link at 4&20 Blackbirds that cited a study done by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent (UK) that concluded that people who hold “conspiracy theories” tend to be more reasonable and thoughtful than those who believe official stories about some events.

The negative stereotype of the conspiracy theorist – a hostile fanatic wedded to the truth of his own fringe theory – accurately describes the people who defend the official account of 9/11, not those who dispute it,

according to an article that Lizard linked at Before It’s News.”

I’ve known this from the beginning just based on my own encounters. But who believes a conspiracy theorist? Think about it – refusal to look at evidence, anger and hostility and ridicule against those who do, is not a thoughtful way to go through life. That is not the typical skeptic of 9/11, one not wedded to official truth, not claiming to know the whole story, and having a better overall historical perspective.

Anyway, follow the link. Draw your own conclusions.

Here’s what prompted me to write this. Polish Wolf quickly chimed in,

Those sound like truly atrocious social scientists/psychologists. First, to a take online comments as a representative sample of anything whatsoever, and second, to posit that the beliefs of a majority of people have any bearing on the plausibility of those beliefs.

That’s what triggered my memories of the Iraq casualty deniers – in essence he’s saying “I’ve got nothing of my own to counter this, but what you’ve got is not good enough. After all, I don’t like what they concluded. And oh, yeah, I’m not going to think about it any more.”

I’ve encountered this again and again … there is so little credible evidence to support such theories as Oswald or 19 Arabs that a thoughtful person should be embarrassed to hold such beliefs. But in a thought-controlled environment all of the social pressure favors mindless following. Skeptics are subject to abuse and ridicule. In public life, mere mention of doubt about official truth will end a career.
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I am not familiar with legal details of this matter, but apparently 11 counties in Colorado with 365,000 people can vote to secede from the state and form their own, tentatively named North Colorado. If so, they would get two senators and one representative (taken from somewhere else as that body has limited itself to 435 seats).

They say Colorado proper is too leftish. The article describes Governor john Hickenlooper, a descendant of local old money aristocrats and a right-wing Democrat, as a progressive. The Governor wants to reach out to the disaffected northerners – something he’s never done for progressives.

It’s odd – Washington, DC with 632,000 residents has no representation in Congress. Alienated Coloradans can decide for themselves on such matters?