I recently returned from Kenya with 464 photos on my camera, and as I said to friends and family, “one or two of them are actually quite good.” Of course, the essence of a good photo is to be there, and to snap the one above I had to be in a Land Cruiser, and the lion, while aware of us, needed to be indifferent. As noted by our driver, were I to get out of the vehicle, she would eat me. If this shot were taken from a helicopter above, you would see perhaps five Land Cruisers surrounding the beast. The lion’s attitude reminds me of what is the proper way to view American politics: Studied indifference.
I write a lot, and as with photography, now and then I write something I want to remember, even if no one else cares. Thus the paragraph beneath the fold here, a comment originally addressed to our friend Petra, and modified to include part of her wise response and to remove her personally from it, with respect.
We all take note here of the Trump executive orders since his inauguration, and while I am not optimistic about Trump, welcome them nonetheless. He has removed us from the Paris Accords once again, and this time has gone after the endangerment finding, that goofy piece of agitation propaganda that set the stage for a host of administrative rulings shutting down fossil fuel activities that benefit all of us. In brief, that ruling says that CO2 is a pollutant. Such a grievous outcropping was the result of years of stage-setting by the people behind the climate change hoax. It was set in stone when a sitting president told an outrageous lie as follows: Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: Climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.
Obama tweeted that.
Presidents lie all the time – it’s right there on the job application: “Are you prepared to use all of the status and prestige of high office to tell egregious lies? If the answer is “Yes,” you have just a shot. If the answer is “YES!!!”, and you are young and handsome and well-spoken and able to control a forum, we’ll make you president. We’ll even dummy up a fake education and change your place of birth to make it happen. The job requires at its very soul a complete lack of character. Only exceptional criminals need apply.
I am not going to belabor this subject, as I’ve had a couple of other insights that play along with it. I do want to stress the following:
Nutrition has not changed since the nineteenth century, when it was understood that a diet rich in animal fats led to better health than enjoyed by most people coming out of that dreary and unhealthy time.
The formula has not changed: balance. Animal fats should be at the center of a healthy diet, though carbohydrates have a part to play.
In modern times, ease of production of carbohydrates in the form of sugars delivered by bread and pasta, starchy vegetables, high-fructose corn syrup (now labeled simply “corn sugar”) have led to super-abundance of carbs, simple and complex, in the modern diet.
“Complex” carbs like pasta and bread take a day longer for the body to process, but in the end, the body does not know the difference between complex carbs and simple sugars.
Hand-in-hand with this are epidemics of diabetes and obesity, often morbid obesity.
Just as medical doctors are not trained in healthy nutrition, nutritionists are not either. If they had the ability to walk backward through time, they would discover that they are in large part responsible for our epidemics.
The 1960s were a breeding ground for psychological operations—whether it was the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, the Manson family saga, or the Kent State massacre. These events shaped a generation, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that the architects of mass perception found their perfect formula.
Initially, I set out to catalog the most infamous psyops of the 1990s, highlighting their patterns and implications. But in the end, I’ve succumbed to the sheer futility of it all. As one astute commenter noted, perhaps the better course is to forget—to untangle oneself from these constructed narratives and move forward.
Still, for the sake of posterity, here are some of the most notable psychological operations of the 1990s, ranked in no particular order:
The Simpson Trials (1995) – A media circus that turned a double homicide into the ultimate courtroom spectacle, setting the standard for sensationalist legal coverage.
Lorena Bobbitt (1993) – A domestic abuse case twisted into tabloid gold, shifting public discourse on gender and violence in ways both grotesque and performative.
Y2K (1999) – A manufactured panic that convinced millions the world might end at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2000.
The Gulf War (1990) – A conflict sold with precision-marketed propaganda, complete with staged testimonies and made-for-TV missile footage.
Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding (1994) – A bizarre, soap-opera-style scandal that turned figure skating into a battleground of class warfare and villainous narratives.
The Waco Siege (1993) – A tragic standoff that played out like a scripted horror, setting the stage for future debates on government overreach.
The Oklahoma City Bombing (1995) – A national tragedy that reinforced domestic terrorism as a dominant fear in the American consciousness.
The Monica Lewinsky Scandal (1998) – A presidency consumed by sex, scandal, and the relentless 24-hour news cycle.
The Columbine Massacre (1999) – A defining moment for media-fueled moral panic, spawning myths and policy shifts that still linger today.
Long Island Lolita (1992) – A lurid crime that became a spectacle of tabloid excess, reducing real-life violence to daytime talk-show fodder.
Olympic Park Bombing (1996) – A moment of terror at the Atlanta Olympics that ignited debates on security, civil liberties, and the dangers of trial-by-media.
Ultimately, my humble suggestion is this: expunge these events from your mind and experience. They were never meant to inform, only to distract. Even as I list them here, I recognize the irony. But perhaps acknowledging the game is the first step toward moving beyond it.
The 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing was supposed to be the work of a lone extremist Eric Robert Rudolph, a radical anti-government survivalist who, we are told, managed to pull off a terrorist attack in the middle of the Olympic Games using little more than a pipe bomb and backpack. But, as with so many stories of national tragedy, this one follows a very familiar script: an explosion, a rapid scapegoat, a media feeding frenzy, and government response that – coincidentally, of course – expands state control.
Insert different names and locations, and you could be talking about Oklahoma City, 9/11, the Boston Marathon Bombing, or any number of suspiciously convenient crises that just so happen to lead to increased surveillance, stricter security measures, and a general tightening of the noose around personal freedoms.
I’ve been in a bit of a fugue lately between jet lag, ten times zones and west to east, tripled with intestinal troubles coming out of Kenya and (which in my mind led to) a nasty head cold. Through all of this, and being upside down on the clock, I decided it was time to write. The result was several hours at the keyboard leading to a very long piece, knowing all along it was too long to be publishable. It was suggested I break it down into shorter pieces, which is where I am at this morning. I am fully recovered now, sleeping on the clock (up at 4:30 AM, but that is just my age) and head, sinuses and lower regions all operating as proscribed.
The United States and other places (Mexico for one) are in crisis brought about by bad eating habits that lead to obesity and diabetes. I’ve long known a cure for both but run into obstacles getting the information out. These are created in large part by two factors that interfere with simple nutritional eating: Television (and media in general), and professional nutritionists.
I’ve decided to post summaries on what I consider to be the Top 10 hoaxes of the 90s. This absurd and lurid tale came in at #10. The follow-up at #9 will be the Olympic Park Bombing.
In the summer of 1992, Long Island – a land known for big hair and even bigger attitudes – became ground zero for a love triangle so absurd it felt like an R-rated after-school special gone wrong – an intricate mix of media hysteria, suburban drama, and one too many perms. Enter Amy Fisher, a semi-fictional 17-year-old femme fatale/high schooler whose hobbies included wielding a .25-caliber handgun and teasing middle-aged men – when she wasn’t busy teasing her hair.
I’ve had quite a time since our return from Kenya. For one, I’ve suffered from what I am calling “Hakuna Matata’s” revenge, thinking that Hakuma was just a character in the movie Lion King, rather than a Swahili phrase meaning “no worries.” (I never saw the movie.) Enough about that. In addition, maybe part of the whole, I came down with respiratory troubles, aka head cold. Couple all of that with east-west jet lag (we traveled out ten times zones and back in two weeks), and I’ve been overwrought. The result is that I write long posts like the one (formerly) down below (now removed) about dieting, which occur at 2 and 3AM, and for which I devote considerable brain muscle, all for naught as no one reads them.
I have decided that a paragraph I inserted as an afterthought will be enough on the subject, and so unlike me, ’nuff said.
The title comes from a memorable line in Unforgiven, spoken by Clint Eastwood’s character in response to Gene Hackman’s Little Bill, who, in his final moments, protests, “I don’t deserve this. To die like this.”
In a tragic real-life parallel, Hackman’s lifeless body was discovered in the foyer of his home, partially decomposed. Data from his pacemaker revealed that his heart had stopped nine days earlier. At 95 years old, there was no question of a staged disappearance—only the stark reality of time catching up. Yet, no one deserves to be left undiscovered for weeks, a poignant reminder of life’s quiet, often unceremonious endings.
I came upon a post about Petra Liverani and the moon landings at Fakeologist. Petra and I have gone round and round on the subject until I decided just to let it be. I cannot change her mind. I won’t try. In the meantime, Petra came out with a post called 12 logical fallacies unmasked in the use of the terms “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist“. I like the post. Petra started out by naming 12 logical fallacies.
Piece of Mindful 