Coffee time with David Crisp’s Billings Outpost

We’re sitting in a coffee shop in Billings MT, my home town. My only remaining connection here is my mother, 95 and hopelessly memory-deficient. We visit her, and she pretends to know me. She does not, although staff says that in a lucid moment recently she referred to “my boys,” as in “they don’t visit much, do they.”

I have been reading David Crisp’s Outpost as we sit here, a delight. Crisp is a baseball fan, small town variety, or real ball. He covers the local team, the Rookie League Billings Mustangs, a farm team of the Cininnati Reds, which is why I am branded on that team.
Continue reading “Coffee time with David Crisp’s Billings Outpost” →

Barbaric practice deemed illegal

A German court has ruled that religious circumcision is a crime. It’s about time! The practice, irreversible, ought to be delayed until the boy has all the facts and the judgement needed to make his own choice.

I’d go a step further and insist that religious organizations be prohibited from entering a child’s mind until the child is of age to make informed choices. I still haven’t forgiven the Catholics for invading my six year-old head and filling it full of images of demons and burning flesh. This was given to me as the alternative to believing what they told me I must believe.

That is barbaric. But then we all know that if respect for youth was the accepted practice, religion as we know it would disappear, to be replaced by even crazier shit. Like Scientology.

Skulkers

They could have just said that they want their little newspaper to be about food and music.

This post caught my eye as at another place we discussed the meaning of “hubris.” Lynne Foland, publisher of the Missoula Independent, referred to those who read columnist George Ochenski and who are upset at his firing as “disaffected.”

The word means alienated and resentful of authority.

It reminds me of a fellow who used to manage Yellowstone Public Radio in Billings, Montana. He had read a book describing “conspiracy theorists” as mentally unstable, and took great comfort. He too exhibited this arrogance.

In each case here, Our YPR guy and Foland (and Robert Meyerowitz, I take it), they are attempting to cast themselves in a superior light by demeaning those who disagree as being out of the mainstream, as if that in itself is grounds for contempt. They take perverse pleasure in siding with authority.

It does not require chops. There is no attempt to be right and no desire to engage opponents. They take their cues from group consensus and authority figures. Thought is not required, and spirit even less so. They mirror the status quo, an easy thing to do.

But it is no way to go through life. As I view things, they exhibit cowardice.

Uncommon valor

Julian Assange is a desperate man. He’s fighting extradition to Sweden, which at US behest is attempting to bring him there for the sole purpose of allowing his extradition to the United States. Sweden has not charged him despite his repeated offers to stand for questioning. If they do question him, they must either charge him or let him go. This is an indication of lack of evidence to bring charges.

Once here he’ll most likely be railroaded, imprisoned for life, and/or executed. (There’s a secret grand jury at work in DC as we speak preparing charges.)

His crime: Journalism. Naturally, Americans don’t recognize it.
Continue reading “Uncommon valor” →

The need for secrecy: To keep Americans in the dark

As I learned here, the mind of the Democrat is malleable and able to absorb any betrayal without loss of loyalty to Democratic office holders. So Obama’s support will not be affected as news spreads that he has violated yet another campaign position.

Trans-Pacific Partenrship (TPP) a trade agreement with countries on the Pacific rim, and one that its negotiators hope will be the last ever. This is because once in place, any other country will be able to join it in the future.

Negotiations have been shrouded in tight secrecy for the last two and one-half years. Even the Senate committee overseeing trade is cut out of the loop. However, 600 US business executives are provided a running text of the documents and allowed input.

Finally someone leaked, and Public Citizen has published the secret document. In it they learn that US negotiators want to give foreign corporations preference over city, county and state governments in dealing on US resources.

If a foreign corporation, say Mitsubishi, were to contract to cut timber in Colorado, and state officials insisted it comply with our federal and state regulations, it could appeal to a triumvirate of non-elected officials given status under the treaty who would make the final disposition, overriding state and federal laws if they so desire.

Now we understand the need for such tight secrecy. Such odious provisions might create a stink. Indeed, it has started.

Offensive

From Ingamar, or Swede, now “Big Johansson” – a Billings, Montana farmer, posting at 4&20 regarding the news that George Ochenski was hired to write for the Missoulian:

Of course I still remember that Rodger Clauson left the editorial pages of the Billings Gazette to grace Crisp’s liberal beacon.

Where he’s now no body knows or frankly cares.

Mr. Big usually posts non sequiturs. This one was especially offensive. He went out of his way to take a shot at Roger Clawson, a Billings, Montana writer, who died several years ago. Roger was a gem, an independent thinker, a bit of a gadfly (if that causes no offense – none intended). When I think of him, the name Ed Abbey comes to mind. The two had much in common. Their writing was crisp (npi) and witty, full of insight and disrespect for their betters. They knew, after all, that their betters were not better.

Notice the shot here at the Billings Outpost (“Crisp’s beacon”)- it’s “liberal.” There’s more to understand here, but I’m not going to bother. It’s the black/white with-us-or-against-us authoritarian mindset that so many right wingers and Democrats exhibit. Kinda funny.

Jobs

I am highlighting a comment from down below, Democrats who don’t even bother with the lipstick, by Steve Kelly here. I tend to focus on the elements of thought control and crowd behavior, and so am fascinated by the behavior of groups like Democrats. They are unaware of how their own common thought patterns are identical to their supposed opposites. In the example I wrote about they are seemingly unaware that they are advancing a corporate agenda identical to the other party, even adopting the same language.

This is what I think of as the “magnet” effect – imagine metal particles scattered about on a table top, and someone waving a powerful horseshoe magnet above. The particles, heavily influenced by the magnet, will form patterns of alignment. This is the effect of money in politics. Continue reading “Jobs” →

Why dead Syrians matter

There is much to learn from American news coverage, but not in the news that is covered. Most of what passes by us in the cycle is waste product, or filler. They are trying to generate interest in order to attract readers and viewers and thereby sell advertising. Audiences are the product, content the bait.

“News” coverage merely focuses our attention on places that the power centers want our attention focused. What is not covered is always more interesting, but takes conscious effort to find. When certain stories are covered and attention is highly focused, there is usually an unstated reason.

Take two examples: Dead Muslims as they appeared in legions in Iraq, and in small numbers in Syria. The Iraqi dead elicited not much coverage, and few Americans have any idea of the extent of that massacre, 1991 forward. When there were attempts to get a sense of the numbers, as with Johns Hopkins on two occasions, those attempting to count the bodies were vilified and marginalized.

Syrian deaths, on the other hand, elicit wide coverage appearing in lead stories and on the front pages of some newspapers. We get exact numbers, and officials in Washington are crying in the morning cappuccinos about it.
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Fighting the one-party-two-right-wing monopoly

It is very difficult for independent candidates to run for office in the US, and deliberately so. The “two” parties have a monopoly on finance, and also want the same for ballot access. Consequently, independents have to jump hurdles, launch lawsuits, collect signatures and raise money for filing fees to challenge the major parties.

Here’s an example: In Montana, independents are required to collect ballot signatures by mid-March to be on the ballot in November. Two people, Steve Kelly and Clarence Dreyer, sued to move this date up, saying it was arbitrary and imposed an undue burden on people wanting to run for office. After losing at a lower court, US District Court ruled on appeal that Kelly/Dreyer had a valid case, and ruled in their favor. The March deadline was set aside.

Montana’s Secretary of State, having lost the decision, then decided on May 29th that the new date would be set at … May 29th. In other words, independents are once again screwed.

The SOS is Linda McCulloch, a Democrat. Does anyone really believe a Republican would act differently?

See details here.