Canadian tourists

In dinner discussions on the Haute Route, people who learned we are Americans gingerly approached the topic of Donald Trump. The most in-depth conversations were with a young and very intelligent German man, and two people from Wales.

What I learned, and to my mild surprise, is that these folks, just like most Americans, take him at face value. They assume he really is the president, that he really was elected, and that all of his antics intended only for effect are quite real. When I suggested to Allan, the man from Wales, that Melania Trump is just a beard, his wife had to explain the meaning of the term to him. It was a delightful exchange. He is an accomplished man with a great sense of humor, educated in one of the best universities. But I find that virtually all people, no matter the baseline intellect and education, are encased in a hard shell of propaganda. The psyops from Trump to Obama the intellectual juris doctor all work on them. They do not question reality as presented by news.

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Musical crap factories

Traveling and hiking in Switzerland there has been one constant: bad music. A few days ago we were waiting on a tram and did not feel we could leave the building and chance missing it. We felt like prisoners in a psychiatric ward undergoing torture. It was loud, and one bad singer after another assaulted our ears, often enough that throaty and emotive teen-something girl pouring out her deep and bitter angst.

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Mary Sheehy Moe, baton twirler and … controlled opposition

This is written on an iPhone, so will be mercifully short. We are off the Haute Route, tired and smug and self-satisfied, two people in our late sixties climbing and descending thousands of feet, crossing a glacier with fast-running streams and icy banks, enduring seemingly endless rock slides, some unsettled. Magnificent views we had, and wonderful people we met, and we are tired.

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Love Your Lymph

 

The lymph is interstitial fluid that bathes our cells, brings them nutrients and removes waste.  First and foremost, detoxification occurs through the lymph.  As more chemicals enter our bodies through the air we breathe and the food and water we ingest, maintaining the lymph, a vital route of detoxification often goes unnoticed.  In most people the lymph is operating far below its capacity because it is clogged with dead skin cells and un-removed waste excreted by perspiring. Continue reading “Love Your Lymph” →

Grizzly Bears, Endangered Species Act Win Big in Federal Court

Yaak, MT – On Tuesday, August 22, U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is prohibited from reinventing the legal definition of an endangered species.

In 2014, when FWS managers declined to list as endangered the remnant population of grizzly bears that live in Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem, in northern Idaho and northwest Montana, the agency broke the law.  After almost three years of battling the agency in federal court, that crucial decision would ultimately lead to a huge conservation victory for grizzly bears, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the plaintiff, Alliance for the Wild Rockies. Continue reading “Grizzly Bears, Endangered Species Act Win Big in Federal Court” →

Who would do such a thing?

In the comments for Maarten’s recent post regarding the flying Yugo, the conversation turned towards the inevitable question of who would participate in such a ruse?

My immediate guess is military personnel. No big headline, that, but it should be stated once again to ward off the suspicion that actual criminals may be involved. The people used in hoaxes have to be reliable, and the notion of a criminal being reliable long term doesn’t really add up, in my opinion. Continue reading “Who would do such a thing?” →

When unspoken is best left that way

“But if I really say it,
The radio won’t play it,
Unless I lay it between the lines.”
(Dave Dixon, Noel Paul Stookey, James Mason, “I Did Rock and Roll Music,” Performed by Peter, Paul and Mary)

The above lamentation is from a song from the early 1970s that has not weathered well. Artists named in it, Donovan, the Mamas and Papas, are relegated now to “oldies” radio stations. Those are disappearing now, along with the listeners.

There was pressure during that time to be free of censorship, usually concerning sex. In fact, there was a group from that time period, The Fugs, that simply bypassed the censors and let fly with masterpieces such as “Boobs a Lot” and “I Feel Like Homemade Shit.” We can easily see here how censorship restrained profound artistic expression.

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Mackinac Machinations?

Mark’s recent post, Fake events of my lifetime, got me thinking: what news stories of the past left me feeling … unconvinced? A certain incident immediately popped into mind. Either I am an insensitive lout who is pitilessly digging up a family’s grief, or I have put my finger on an old school hoax—one from the days before cellphone videos and crisis actors. You help decide …

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Smedley Butler, call your office. Someone is on to you …

The Bogus Business Plot: Part 2: Smedley Butler, The Lying Quaker

The revered general who saved FDR from Wall Street takes a pounding as Josh undresses him in Part Two of his essay. Butler, like John F. Kennedy,  John McCain, John Kerry and others who came to prominence via military heroism, turns out to be a paper tiger whose exploits were phony.

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