Auto-da-fé

I know I’m walking right into the trap they have set, but what the hell…

I spent the weekend trying to make sense of the public immolation of the persona of Harvey Weinstein. I looked at it from several economic angles and nothing made sense. Film, streaming, gaming, they are all chugging along at record profits. What’s Harvey Weinstein to all of that? His crap wins awards. Prestige is a thing in Hollywood and he delivers. He’s a valuable asset to the propaganda machine. Continue reading “Auto-da-fé” →

Thanks Obama

Josh, in his paper (part one) on the Business Plot, took a look at racketeering while on his way to other destinations. It works as in this example: Suppose you have a small business in an urban neighborhood, and a man comes in (wearing, if course, a Trilby hat and dark trench coat), and offers to sell you insurance to prevent your windows from being broken out. You have to buy the “insurance,” as it is understood that of you don’t, your windows will be broken out.

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Trotter and LeBon … Trotter and LeBon … Trotter and Le ….

This may seem off-topic given our current focus on Las Vegas, but I think plays right in.

Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud and “father of modern advertising” wrote a book in 1928 called “Propaganda,” an easy read and accessible for anyone with basic reading skills. But the content of that book surely was not meant for the everyman, so I have to suspect that the reading habits of the American public then were like now, only a few engaged. He was talking over the crowd to the people in the balcony who could rattle their jewelry in appreciation.

Continue reading “Trotter and LeBon … Trotter and LeBon … Trotter and Le ….” →

The Columbine effect

In the discussions below we have described a large herd out there, the unthinking majority of Americans, as “the 95%.” Some think that too generous. Perhaps half of the adults are easily herded into voting booths. They can easily be reduced to ridiculous debates about whether one of two despicable candidates, say Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, offers a better choice.

Half doesn’t bother to vote. Some might take comfort in that, as it is the proper choice. I  doubt, however, that the decision is a result of critical thought. They are just distracted by poverty, football, substance abuse, entertainment and low-paying repetitive jobs that destroy their minds. The sad conclusion is that the 95% are hopelessly under control, so that from the standpoint of those in power, their only task is to isolate them from the minority of people who do learn how to reason and solve problems.

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Controlling the Aftermath

(In an effort to provide more manageable comment space for this very Clues Forum style debate over what happened in Vegas, I offer a few thoughts on some of the topics raised.. and yes, ‘Troll’ is right there in the headline…)

I walk in and out of a hospital almost every workday. During a crisis, beyond the private security in the building, local police help with crowd control. My hospital is part of a state university so the campus has its own full time police department. When needed in the building, officers are stationed in the public pathways, not in the ICU or convalescent areas. To secure a portion of a hospital for phantom vicsims beyond public scrutiny would not be difficult. The police are certainly not going to ask inconvenient questions when so deployed. Continue reading “Controlling the Aftermath” →

Words of hope for the five percent

I don’t read much anymore, or better said, I don’t find much worth reading anymore. I love reading. It has been my morning activity for decades, the reason I come bounding down the stairs after awakening at ridiculously early senior citizen hours. (For any who wonder, I am 67 and in excellent health, still able to do all of the very hard work involved in living in a mountain home. Every year my wife and I look at the future and wonder how much longer we can keep this up, and the answer is always … five more years.)

But what is there to read? You can take every book in the current events or history section of the library or at Barnes and Noble and have a bonfire, and nothing of value except paper would be lost.

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Just one photo …

IMG_1611

Here is just one photo from the latest event, taken from the comments in the post below. Stop and have a gander, and then ask …

  • Why is no one tending to these victims? How long will they just lay there?
  • How much time did the photographer spend on this photo? He got the angle right, and the lighting is superb. His camera, obviously a very good one, was f-stopped in such a way that objects in foreground and background are blurred, and only the victims are in focus.

Continue reading “Just one photo …” →