Foxholes

I tend to look at things with a view from the bottom. I think that this has a lot to do with my former status as an 11B20 in the long ago.


Even when I was in the rarefied realm of "Boss" and "Manager", I never was able to shake this worldview.  I think that is why I tend toward avoiding responsibility and "success" as defined by American culture.  I learned the hard way that folks who rise in a hierarchical culture see their minions as disposable.

Successful middle managers in largish organizations are heirs to the tasks that the overseers of southern plantations used to accomplish.  They are there to to perform the day to day extraction of maximum effort from the field hands.  They do it for a pittance, a title and the vanishingly tiny chance of proceeding to the upper realms of income and status.

Oh sure, they will make noises about their commitment to whatever ill-defined mission, but the truth of the matter is that most of them just pay lip service to the idea that they make a difference to the mission. In fact they just create an artificial echo chamber in the ill-defined gap between the people who actually do the work and the bosses.  That way the bosses can blame the middle managers and the workers can keep working.

Getting their paycheck is the only goal, making it bigger is the only reward for these people.  The job itself isn't that important, only your status.

And a pathetic status it is.  I think that I will stay a worker bee rather than a drone.

OK: Asking about the next step

I really, truly think that there may be something to magic.  But, as a caveat, I also think that Marty Fleischmann and Stanley Pons (My P. Chem Profs) did see something that they just weren't able to reproduce.

As you all are aware, I am warming up to the idea that there may be something to "Magic".  In that vein, I sent the following missive over to the Cast and Crew at https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/.

Well, after attempting for a couple of weeks to figure out just what the heck the mechanism is for "occult" practices I have come up with NADA.  I asked our benefactor John Michael last week and was set right about the ability to "see" what is going on before jumping in: 

In the "Big Ecosophia" blog this last couple of weeks, I learned that there is a difference between "speculative" and "operative" mages. 

Since I am getting NADA by trying to look, and since there are a goodly number of different "paths", would our good host and kind readers care to give suggestions about what tradition might be a good fit for a semi-retired ex-scientist with a moderate case of aspergers and an irreverent attitude in general

Now, this is an experiment.  I have no idea how this will play out.  

I Miss Walter Cronkite

 

“There are two ways to slide easily through life: Namely, to believe everything, or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking. The majority take the line of least resistance, preferring to have their thinking done for them; they accept ready-made individual, private doctrines as their own and follow them more or less blindly. Every generation looks upon its own creeds as true and permanent and has a mingled smile of pity and contempt for the prejudices of the past. For two hundred or more generations of our historical past this attitude has been repeated two hundred or more times, and unless we are very careful our children will have the same attitude toward us.”
                                                                         ― Alfred Korzybski

I think that you can argue that the biggest loss that has occurred since that fucker Ronald Reagan is the loss of an independent media. 

Lord oh Lord.  What a spectacle.  What a bunch of self-serving bullshit.  The "media outlets" seem to spend the bulk of their time serving up regurgitated bullshit that serve the interests of their corporate masters.

I can't remember the last time I saw someone from the big outlets have an article sent in from a paid staff reporter on the ground.  Nope, no one does that shit anymore.  They trot out to the suburbs of New York or Washington and hire some ex-official flunkey to be a talking head. 

News isn't about reporting what is going on.  News is now "control of the narrative".  What passes itself off as news now is someone telling you what to think.  They are providing you with the right answer, and they feel that you should have to take it.

The world is a complex place.   The fallacy of attributing to one cause what is due to many causes permeates the world.  By controlling the narrative and limiting the news presented, you are being controlled by those who do not have your best interests at heart.

Mirror World

The Democratic Party (an odd misnomer is ever one existed) of the good old USA is currently insisting at the top of their lungs that those stalwart souls residing at the J.E.Hoover building and out in Langley and environs are the protectors and saviors of our embattled democracy.

My, things have changed.  My salad days were an exercise in distrust of these two institutions.  They had proven themselves invasive and completely unfazed by the vagaries of the constitution.  They were then, and still are, a secret police.

The idea that the FBI is a political tool has been bandied about for years.  I think that the reason this is the case is simply that the FBI and CIA have always has been just that.

The average American quivers in exquisite terror when imagining the trespasses of the Stasi or the KGB.  Truth be told, I think that with the recent additions to the technology sets of internet, cell phones, and banking make them even more capable and intrusive than any of these rookie organizations ever thought of being.

Nope, the Democrats have thrown in with the devil.  The way that I see it, Cheney began the trend with his brilliant suborning of the intelligence agencies to execute on his plans to control the oil supplies of the Middle East.  The agencies very much liked this active use of power and were encouraged to expand their use and abuse.

After Cheney left the scene, a young and beholden Chicago machine politician came in and made subtle and finely honed use of the blade.  I really have no doubt that Obama used the resources of the FBI to try and undercut Little Donnie.  It also appears that Hillary had her own little cabal within the FBI to do her bidding also.  You gotta remember, she did inherit the power base of her husband (#42).

Look, when Mr. Spook is out busting folks for robbing banks or infiltrating and turning a drunken Russian scientist, I have no problems.  Good job, stop by and I'll buy you a beer.

But if anyone thinks that the leadership of the FBI or CIA in Washington is non-political or doesn't have its own political axe to grind, I have some bad news for you.  Trusting these folks is as useful and as smart as trusting a politician.

Well: I'll be Damned

I have no idea what this thing is!

 
It looks to me that I am a member of the Black left!!

Take a read of this article: 

Russiagate is a Ruling Class Diversion

I am really curious about the way that different pieces of the American puzzle view the goings on.  I find the black community very interesting.  

Donald Trump played the "white" card brilliantly.  Like it or not, the black community has taken it in the shorts worse than the white community.  That is not to say that the white community has not taken it in the shorts, but unless you become a serious token and cast aside all but the most innocuous of black culture, blacks have a vanishingly small chance of making it into the inner sanctum of our political cracker barrel.  

The Donald made the noise about white America getting screwed.  Which is true for around 90% of population.  The 10% that make up the squire-archy of upper minionhood in the corporate world are being weeded to increase the 90% number.  This makes this little coterie of syncopants nervous and wanting to vote for Hillary.

I am wondering when the white lower class and the black lower class are going to figure it out and make common cause.  The white folk at the top and their mostly white suburban managerial class will certainly do everything to prevent such a thing from happening....except for maybe giving up on any of their perquisites or wealth.

So, the way that I see it, the ball is in the poor-white-folks hands right now.  Little Donnie got you to believe that he was going to do something for the poor-white-folk.  Donnie might be doing more than Hillary ever would, but he really has no intention of helping poor-white-folk.  

It isn't until the poor-white-folk make common cause with the poor-black-folk and the poor-brown-folk will we ever be shut of the oligarchy and their minions that rule us.

Proof

A pretty Little foxglove up by Cape Horn

What I find most entertaining in the current kerfuffle over Little Donny is the way that both sides of the derangement bandy about the word "proof".  I have seen precious little of this reagent since the whole process started.

I think that we are in the middle of a partisan cage fight where two political wings of the general population are trying, by any means available, to smear the other.  The hatred between the two wings of the general populace is extraordinary.  I am seriously considering looking into the TradeMark status for 'My Emotional Wounds Are Bigger Than Your Emotional Wounds Victims’ Society" so that both extremist sectors can join and maybe find some common ground.

Everything that is being bandied around as truth is being purveyed by talking heads who have history of an astonishing error rate and no solid history of telling the truth.  Brenan??  Really??  Comey??? Really??  Trump??Really??  Hillary???  Really???  Pence???  Really??  Sessions???  Really??  Pelosi??? Really.......well, you get the point.  The powers have muddied the waters so thoroughly that it now impossible to govern.  Even if Little Donny were capable of such a thing, we have exited the possibility of ever finding out.  So who knows what will happen.

What passes for truth in America today and what is passed off as truth is merely personal opinion and taste.  You choose the news you like and the hell with the rest.  They agree with me and my kind of people, so they are the good guys.

Everyone, take a breath.  Nothing has changed.  We are still sliding downward.  We have been sliding downward since 1980.

Maybe, rather that thinking and ranting about an inconsequential person in the White House who you hope or fear is going to save us or doom us (but really is not going to do either), maybe you should put on your big person pants and go out and save yourself.  If you don't want to to do that, maybe, just maybe, you ought to read something that disagrees with your beliefs and fears and maybe consider the possibility that it might not be wrong.

Sunday Morning III: The Big Tree

Or, is this a big deal?

I was walking down to the Max when I saw this sign.

 

The tree in question is located on school property, and the 1930's era school building is being torn down ( the reason it is being torn down is an entire post in itself, but let's just say that a poorly maintained school building had to go to make way for a shrine "for the children".

Damn tree is beautiful.  I am guessing 100+ feet high and 4-5 feet across the base.  I am betting you that it is 100+ years old.

At first I was kind of enraged.  What kind of people would do such a thing.  Then I started to think about it.  It is really the only honest way to go about the process.  The only way that the society around us can deal with such a thing and stay true to what brought us here.

Here in suburbia, that kind of thing is important.  When you look about you, the place is mostly populated with a ring of low-income apartments and subsidized housing.  Just outside of this first ring is a smattering of what was once high end local gentry housing set in a medium  of 1960's tract homes.  In other words, I live in the close suburbs built post WWII.

The place is getting "gentrified".  Which means the folks with money are coming.  Houses are getting bought for absurd prices.  Remodeling firms are doing just fine.  The 9.9% are on their way and they will require a school adequate to their spawn.  So the first reason the tree has to go is that it doesn't fit the modern progressive idea of "better in the future".

The teachers hated the place too.  Used the old school building as an excuse for the poor performance of the students.  Didn't fit into the requirements of their self esteem that only the best is good enough.  And the best is just barely good enough.  No mentioned of a dumbed down curriculum or cell-phone addiction or just plain crappy teachers to be found everywhere.  It was all the buildings fault.

Nope, I think that the tree had to go as a sacrifice.  Maybe appeasing the god of Abraham is the ticket.  Consider for a moment the tale told in 8th century Vita Bonifatii auctore Willibaldi. Thor's Oak was cut down to cow the pagans and a church was put up in its place, using the wood of the oak as a building material.  That showed those pesky pagans

Well, I am thinking that this is the same story writ anew.  The purveyors of progress chop down a beautiful old tree and "Display and Repurpose" the wood throughout the new building.  That will show those damned environmentalists and nature-lovers that a tree has no place in a progressive society.

Getting a Little

The youngest was pissing and moaning the other day about how Social Security was going to bankrupt his generation.

Well, he is right.  I really never expected to be able to dip into the pot myself.  But now that I am getting closer to my dotage and there is an off chance that I can get some of the $143,574 that was put into the giant ponzi scheme for me, I think that I will take what I can when I can.  

So buckaroo, you are right, the system is broken, the money is spent.  All of the "trust fund" is invested in government bonds.  In other words, the government has already spent what was given them.  They did have the courtesy of leaving  an IOU that promises that they will pay it back.  I'm certain that will work out.

But, I ain't a rich man.  Next year in December I will take my place in the queue and see if I can recoup some of my money.  I genuinely wonder how much of it they will pay back.

I am hoping, but at best, I think that I stand no better than a 30% chance of recouping what I put in when you factor in fund insolvency and human mortality. 

Active Suppression

I have asked AF to ID these, I will update the ID when I get data

I tend to be drawn toward investigating things that didn't fit into the prevailing worldview and were suppressed.  I think that this tendency is at the root of my current recherches concerning witchcraft.

Now to be truthful, it is probably a fool's errand.  But I am of an age and disposition where I can't really say that bothers me.  I have seen too much of the world to think that my way of thinking is the norm.  I would like to say it is my humility that allows me to keep and open mind, but it is merely the too-late realization that me and my beliefs tend toward "wrong" when I first formulate them.

So, being armed with a suspicious mind, some time on my hands, and a too-acute sense of my own limitations I have been casting about for a way to look at the world that allows a more accurate representation of the facts on the ground.

That is why things that were actively suppressed are so fascinating.  The trouble is that, for the most part, what you can get out of this kind of stuff is pretty thin ore.  But I have the sneaking hunch that sometimes, just sometimes, the work/thought was suppressed because it challenged the prevailing world view in a manner that was not tolerated by "The Man".  The suppression came about not due to lack of validity, but because the beliefs ran against the power structure and eroded their power.

So, if the power structure took the time and energy to actively suppress something, that something, in my opinion, might have actually contain something that sufficiently potent which awoke the fear/loathing of the power structure.  Seems to me that something  might be a of a meter of possibility.

Before I get too much ahead into witchcraft, I think that I will pause and spend some time making a list of this kind of thing and getting and overview of claims.  Maybe that will help.

Not Clever

One of the nicer things about working at the VA Spa. 
Our groundskeepers are top drawer.  If I find out what these
are I will update.  If you know what they are please tell me

Further thoughts on this article.

One of the most irritating aspects of Western Medicine and thought is the idea of the "Model".  It pervades everything.

One of our self-anointed geniuses who inhabits the halls of academe that provide the future practioners of anesthesia once told me, with a straight face, that "the plural of anecdote is not data"!!!

This guys claim to fame is that he lost on Jeopardy.

I can see why.

That particular statement is why the current way of doing science is doomed for failure.  Because the individual observations that make up the body of the data are trivialized.  Service to the model comes before everything.  If the data does not fit the model, the data must be made to disappear.  Most importantly, data not fitting the model and must be trivialized.

I think that what we are looking at is overreach.  Science and the scientific method worked for a long time because the hypotheses generated were sufficiently non-complex that the results generated actually applied.

Now, when a model is proposed, scientists think that they need to "prove" that the model works.  All sorts of statistical gyrations need to be laid down to stretch the tattered weave of data over the model.

Nope, science works best when there is a clear question with clean measurement methodology (preferably yes/no).  As soon as a scientist starts yammering about the need for a statistician, you can rest assured that the data to be presented has a strong chance of being less than conclusive.

Think about these:

If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to do a better experiment.

Lord Ernest Rutherford 

It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.

Richard P. Feynman

All models are wrong, but some models are useful.

George E.P. Box (1979) Robustness in the strategy of scientific model building, in Robustness in Statistics, R.L. Launer and G.N. Wilkinson, Editors. 1979, Academic Press: New York. 

The Real Problem with "Retirement"

“When the healthy pursuit of self-interest and self-realization turns into self-absorption, other people can lose their intrinsic value in our eyes and become mere means to the fulfillment of our needs and desires.”

P. M. Forni

Thus far I am not that impressed with what I see when people retire.  I mean, I can understand not wanting to continue going back to the same rut, but it seems to me that the emptiness of not being a part of something greater would be daunting.

I am not impressed with the freedom of not having anything in particular to do.  I am even less impressed with  the way that people pursue trivialities and label them as the center and focus of their lives. 

I know a lot of folks my age who are retired.  I don't think the bulk of them are all that pleased with what they are seeing there.  Oh, don't get me wrong, a whole bunch of them tells me about the fabulousness of their lives, but, with a few notable exceptions, most of them have the air of someone who is trying to convince themselves along with you.

Sunday Morning II: Have a go at this one

Abstract:  I am currently prepared to tentatively accept the idea (formulated a hypothesis) that there are available methods and techniques that allow certain (all?) members of Homo Sapiens to observe and affect the world outside of the current understanding of physics (to go all Aristolian, these would be considered under the broad rubric of "metaphysics").  If this is so, is there a "reproducible" method one can use to observe the mechanism behind methods?  I am quite uncomfortable with the idea of attempting to actively use the mechanism without studying it first. 

Now, how does a person who was raised in a Western Society, educated by Jesuits and scientists, and who is approaching his dotage go about testing this hypothesis.

I can't say that I like the idea of "spirit guides" of other such tommy-rot, but John Michael Greer and the readers and comments over at the two Ecosophia's (I refer to them as BIG and little) have been the best set of non-whackadoodle advice and discussion I have found (and there is some whackadoodle there, but as a spice, it is very important to the discussion and actually seems to advance the discussion.

I asked a couple of questions at the last "Magic Monday" over at the little Ecosophia:

John Michael:

Do you have any recommendations on non-bulls%=: books on "witchcraft". I have tried a couple modern books on Wicca, but have been less than impressed.

Thanks in advance for your kind consideration.

 I received a direct response from JMG and some discussion in the comments that was very helpful.  So right now I am starting to plow through Carlo Ginzburg's insights into "High" and "Low" knowledge.  Now we seem to be getting some traction.

So, I am looking around for the shadows of something long lost.  But I have no fucking clue whatsoever what it looks like, what it is made of, or how to go about finding it.  Ginzburg points out that the knowledge that I have learned in the past with its obsession with shoving the particular down the throat of the general may not allow me to see what it is I am looking for.

So, I have to figure out how to change my world view to allow me to see things.  Yeah, that should be easy.  So now I am reading through philosophy and metaphysics and trying to figure out the outlines of what I am supposed to be seeing/doing.  I meditate and try to clear my mind of distractions in order to become aware of some flow that I haven't noticed in the past.  Thus far, I got nuthin'.

I will try again for a bit to see something there, then I might go to the next step;  trying a very simple "spell" to see what happens.  Though I feel uncomfortable about f'ing around with something that I don't even slightly understand. 

Expectations

Folks in the whackjob left wing and the nutjob right wing are steering us toward a civil war.  It would appear that these two sectors of the population, while together constituting maybe 15% of the population are dead set on personifying the other pole of the debate as deliciously uber-evil and needing to be either herded into a reeducation camp or otherwise disposed of in the traditional manner.

You can start to see the outlines of it now.  Antifa and the Proud Boys having a sissy-boy-slap-fest in Portlandia is the tip of the iceberg.  I think that the corporate media fanning the flames should hold a special place in the future works of a "reconciliation commission".  The Q crowd is whipping up the flames.  The Resistance is throwing an extended tantrum.

Now, here in the USA, with our nearly complete lack of historical context and astonishing ignorance, will probably go and rewatch Ken Burns and from that piece of drivel imagine the pure nobility of this future abomination.

But the America of today isn't the America of the 1860's (though truthfully, I would be all for a Senator kicking the ass of another Senator on the floor of the senate, that would be sport).  We aren't the country of a mercantilist/industrial North ruthlessly oppressing a export-driven agrarian South.  That war had distinct regions and a sufficiently diffuse political system to allow for a "nation against nation" type of war that was the first American civil war.

Nope, this time we get us a belief-driven and diffuse civil war.  A civil war of beliefs and rage.  Think the Spanish civil war.  Think the Thirty-years war.  This will be a civil war of atrocities and wandering.

Chairman Mao and the Red Guard will be watching.

Delicate Taste Buds

I love the folks who are either foodies or enophiles or boozophiles.

They are, almost to a person, fairly generous with samples and long-winded explanations of their fabulous good taste in whatever the fuck they are into.  Truth be told, I suppose the list above could be expanded to religion, politics, and philosophy as well, but the samples of those are not nearly as welcome.

But mostly, these folks in their petty passions give us an insight into, what appears to me, a deep-seated human need to "excel" and be considered an "expert" in some esoteric field.  I don't know the roots of such a need.  I think that is somewhat tied up in status and mating and some other primitive limbic nonsense.

But I am fairly certain that the variability of the connection between some sensors on a tongue and the processing center a couple inches away really isn't all that variable from person to person.

People love to be snootier than thou.  People want others to count their opinions as "the most important" they make efforts to do this by any number of means.  They do it across all subjects.

Look, what tastes good to you tastes good to you.  Your political opinion is your political opinion.  When folks start lecturing you on how their opinion of something is better than your opinion of something, you can rest assured that they, are for that moment in time, telling you to shut up and do what you are told because they are better than you.

Perhaps a better view

Of late, The Donald has been branded a reincarnation of our old Buddy, Silvio Berlesconi.   Ahhhhhh, the days of bunga-bunga and little girls in different countries.  I have never seen a Wikipedia entry with a "Controversies" section having fifteen entries.

It is unfortunate that ones vulgarity shows through so cleanly.  The only thing more unsettling is the arrogant and sniffing posture taken by the Puritans and Neo-Victorians in the genteel enclaves of Manhattan and Hollywood (really, just the coast in general).

But, truth be told, I can't really see that much in the way of similarities.  Oh, if you look at Donald fifteen to twenty years ago, maybe...But I would wager a pretty goodly sum of money the little Donny is no longer in the poon-hound game.

Nope....Donald isn't really all that much like Silvio.  But I think that a pretty fair case can be made that he is like another leader...cast your thoughts back to Thaksin Shinawatra.  Consider the following little bit from our friends at
Wikipedia:

Thaksin's government launched programs to reduce poverty, expand infrastructure, promote small and medium-sized enterprises, and universal healthcare coverage. Thaksin declared a "war on drugs" in which more than 2,500 people died and took a strong-arm approach against the separatist insurgency in the Muslim southern provinces. He was the first democratically-elected prime minister of Thailand to serve a full term and was re-elected in 2005 by an overwhelming majority.

Thaksin was hated by the Bangkok elite.  Politics in Thailand have always been a chancy deal, the country still a royalty for gods sake.  The elite rarely like anything about a man who the riff raff support

Nope, the Donald just keeps doing stuff that pisses off the left and the left hates Donald.  Pretty much the same deal that got handed Nixon.  Tricky Dick got us out of Vietnam and tried to push through a National Health Care plan that was infinitely better than anything the Demos have ever done.  The Demos killed the health care bill because they couldn't take credit for it, and the Scoop Jackson wing of the Dems opposed anything that kept the complex from their spoils.

Nope, Nixon got busted by a relentless picking at a minor indiscretion of politics that "Landside" Lyndon and Jack "the zipper" would have found trivial when compared to their brand of politics.

The elite have decided that the Donald has to go.  There will be no rest until he leaves.

I won't shed any tears over his departure.  He is, at best, a piss-poor president.  But I am getting a little concerned about how little the elite seem to care about the opinion of us proles. 

A Curious Thing

I will be forever shocked by folks who can't seem to get the idea of unsustainable through into their brains.

Let's talk about the way that we live our lives here in the US.  Specifically, lets talk about the idea of success.  The US, being a thoroughgoing and completely bourgeois society rates success as the height of the pile of what will be garbage in the future and the cost of the same.

I am going to talk about folks my age now.  The older folks lived in a different world with different resource availability and different population profiles.  They operated on a planet that was well away from the limits we face.  Their actions did accelerate society into the increasingly fragile state we now inhabit.

I look at 1972 as the point where we went wrong.  Going wrong was an easy thing to do at that time.  There was so much more cushion and room for error than there is now.   The hippies had pointed the way and had just begun to retreat from the back-to-the-land hippiness after finding out, much to their chagrin, just how hard the land was to go back to.

This is when I first came in contact with the rules of physics and the book "The Limits of Growth".   That is when I realized that it just wasn't built to last.

After the Nixon mess (The hatred of Trumpy is every bit as bad as the hatred of Dicky) we elected a good man who was smart enough to see what lay ahead and warn us.  Well, we got rid of him lickety-split.  Anyone who has the termerity to understand the  second law of thermodynamics had no place in OUR White House, Nosiree.

Then we got back to old us we could have anything that we wanted.  From there we have made a somemn pact among the voters of this country to not have anything to do with anyone who mentions that we can't have everything that we want.

That is the legacy my generation leaves.  An America where constraints and limits are not important.  Where the desire for "Mine" outweighs any idea of leaving some for others and for the future.

The younglings are waking up to our bullshit.  They are realizing that they are on the hook for promises made three or four generations ago when we weren't bumping up against the limits.  They will have a pretty bad go of it, I don't blame them if they cut us loose and break the promises made for them by a bygone society that only looked to its own wants.

Sunday Morning I

As you can see, I am trying to get better at writing every day.

And I have been working on trying to swap out the world-view lenses that came equipped with my birth in the USA during the zenith of its empire.  It is a lot harder than you can imagine.

Look, that world view worked for a long time and made a whole bunch of people fat, dumb, and happy.  Your humble correspondent being one of the FDH crowd.  But, as I have noted here many times before, the times they are a-changin'.

So I am trying to figure out how to drop a lot of the Abrahamic thought processes and shallow bigotry that it so thoroughly engenders.  Abrahamic thought is either seriously tribal (see Judaism) or aggressively intolerant (see Christianity and Islam).  Though not to put too fine a point on it, tribalism and intolerance is the core of all the Abrahamic faith's all we are discussing in this particular paragraph.

You have to tie this intolerance into why here in the USA we are struggling so hard to deal with the changes coming upon us.  Our way or the highway (or regime change, take your choice) is the order of the day.  And it appears that the rest of the world is beginning to see through the illusions that we have thrown up to justify our incessant needs.

So I am going way back.  Nietzsche called Christianity "Platonism for the Masses".  The guy was pretty messed up in the cabeza, but he nailed it on that one.

So, lets go back to philosophic systems of thought that predated or in place at the same time but were independent of Platonism.  What is piquing my curiosity now is the systems of thought and philosophy that were actively sought and and destroyed by the "Abrahams".

The real big problem with this is that the Abrahams were so damn efficient at their task.  I started down this line of thought trying to figure out why witchcraft pissed off the Abrahams so badly.  Good luck with that.  When you go through what tries to pass itself off as Wiccan, lack of authenticity is almost frightening.

So, a reading I go.

Strega

John Michael should be proud of himself.  with the below sentence he managed to sound just like the three Jesuit's (Father K, Father H, and Father H) who spent so much time in the 1960's responding to my questions in a manner that made me ask why I asked them.  I smiled when I drew this comparison and hope that, should JMG read this, he will be flattered (as well he should be).

The quote itself is pretty simple and a response to a request for a suggestion on book that outlines "Witchcraft":  The response:

that the material this book covers has precisely nothing in common with what the vast majority of today's self-proclaimed witches do. If you have something else in mind, well, let's discuss the meaning of that much-vexed word "witchcraft" and go from there.

I spent time last night thinking about just what the hell the reason is behind my current curiosity about an effectively extinct practice.  As it was a Friday and the match between my physical "pooped" and my mental "let's go" was at an equilibrium point that allowed relaxing on the couch with a glass of brown stuff and just thinking.

What I mean by witchcraft is trying to chase the shadow of what was lost. 

The previously mentioned Jesuits were a cantankerous crowd, and I am fairly certain that they were banished to the frontier of civilization that was Northern Utah in the 1960's for their less than slavish questioning of dogma.  I remember listening (actually eavesdropping) on a conversation between one of the old Italian women who was talking to Father H about witches (Strega).  She was contrite about it, he told her that it was fine.

So I have always harbored a curiosity about witches.  For a long time it was buried in the exigencies of molecular biology and parenthood. Now being older and having time on my hands, I am indulging that curiosity.

I have tried a couple of books now.  They suck.  It seems that most of the movements that claim modern witch-hood are a bunch of make-believe pulled out of the author's nether regions. 

What did the witches who the pre-1900 CE Christians so fervently hunted, repressed and killed know?  I have a sneaking hunch that a lot of their practice can be found at the local naturopathy med school. 

But what else is there?  I will try this book that JMG did suggest. 

The Cunning Man's Handbook: The Practice of English Folk Magic 1550-1900

I'll get back to you.

Poor Sods

Spent time finishing up an article over at the Nations.  I actually went out and bought the book reviewed and if anything, it might have been more poorly written and thought out than the review.

The Review is:

https://www.thenation.com/article/political-theory-for-an-age-of-climate-change/

The Book is:

Climate Leviathan published by Verso Books

I think that folks should read these and get back to me.   My take is that the left is just as lost to the illusion as the right ever thought of being.

Look, the core of the review and the book article boils down to one sentence and the corresponding conclusion.  First comes the money quote.

no one really wants to think about something so depressing, and what politician in his or her right mind would call for lowering living standards in order to decrease carbon emissions?

Having gotten this uncomfortable little bit aside, Mr. Mann, Mr. Wainwright, and Ms. Battistoni then goes on to enumerate which of the three impressively ucky futures we have ahead of us and holds out hope for some as-yet-undisclosed "eureka" solution that is astonishingly vague.

The three "ucky" solutions are remarkably unoriginal:

1. Climate Leviathan, which is effectively a one world government set out to save the planet.
2. Climate Behemoth, which is a rewording of mercantilism where corporations continue oppressing and put in subsystems to save their marketshare
3. Climate Mao, which is one of the more remarkable pieces of backdoor racism and hatheting of the yellow peril that I have ever seen.
4. and Climate X which is astoundingly vague.

Nowhere does any of the authors come up with an original idea.  Nowhere does any of the authors deviate from the academic "truths" thought up in the past.  They toss about theorist names and derive a set of outcome oddly comforting in their familiarity.

I get the impression that the authors and the reviewer were excellent students of the new system.  Certain that, should they study hard enough, will find the right answer in a book.

The world has changed.  It will change even more as global warming gains traction.  These authors only see the future as increasingly monoculture, one way or another.  Nothing can be more myopic.

The future won't look like the past.  M (slope of line/curve) is either negative or getting that way.   The authors want to promise everyone a future of "more" when only a future of "less" is an option. 

Exile

I am seriously considering it.

I am not at all certain that the work needed to be done to keep the country from a civil war can be accomplished.  Portlandia most certainly ain't the place to ride out the storm.

But arrangements need to be made, I am not the youngster who can plump myself down and rebuild from scratch.  At my age I have to make concessions to energy, drive, and their impact on economics.

So, the plan is to keep a weather eye peeled for geezer jobs in out of the way places.  Southern Oregon, Eastern Washington, and Eastern Oregon are the geographic targets.  

Like it or not, the high population density areas are most likely to go crazy.  Seeing as Portlandia is half-way there already......well.

The Cult of the Ubermensch

My sons and I always argue about which of the nine "Star Wars" movies is the best.  They are always appalled by the idea that I find "Rogue One" to be the most compelling.

This isn't going to be an article about movies, this is going to be an article about the way that people think about their world and their wishes.

The bulk of the Star Wars franchise is oddly built around the plot device of midichlorians.  Everyone has them, but there are supermen out there who have a buttload of them and those high-mitochlorian folks are who either:

1. The Bad Guys who want to take over the world and oppress the shit out everyone in sight, or, 
2. The Good Guys who beat the crap of the bad guys in a predictable dramatic arc of weak..get strong...challenge...almost lose...come back and win.  Lovely and time-proven dramatic arc.

Rogue One is lonely in this fantasy universe.  One movie.  Everyday people working to fight back against what is arrayed against them.  Not a Jedi Superman in sight.  People get shot and die, people trying to better themselves but with merely human powers.  People willing to do what needs to be done and pay the price.

Now, the odd segue into the political realm.

We look at our "leaders" and our high level politicians in the same way that we fantasize about the high-mitochlorian folks.  They are bad guys or good guys.  They have powers to oppress us or save us.  In most peoples minds the struggle is between light and dark at the highest levels.  Us low-lifes are mere pawns.

What I propose is that we stop looking at Donny and Hilly as either the demon or savior.  They are just people who are out in front.  They really don't have that much say in the way things are run. 

The politicians are subject to the same massive tides of change that all of us are caught in.  They are trying to steer the unsteerable  They serve different portions of the general population and are trying to steer the ship so that it hits the iceberg on the right side or the left side.

All the argument and angst about Donny-boy and Hilly-girl and their legions of shrieking followers are missing the whole point.  All parties in our entire country and all ideologies have to look at what they most firmly desire and figure out how to do with less. 

Because, at the end of the day, what we have and what are our desires just aren't sustainable, and sacrifice is the only tool that we have.

Looks innocuous, doesn't it?

But check out under properties when you take a peek.  Lots of info there about your humble blogger.

As I have stated in the past, using Windows or Mac is a choice for those who don't care what our alien overlords know about us :-)

In Linux, there is a photo editing program named GIMP that can do this.

Everyone Knows

Look.  The way out is simple.  Not easy, simple.

Military needs to be reduced by 60%.  No new weapons for a minimum of ten years.  Honest reappraisal of our defense needs to protect the country, not  to stick our spoon in everyone else's soup.

Pharma and Health care need to be rationalized and nationalized.

The FIRE sector of the economy need to be gutted.  The banks need to be brought under control.

News Media needs to be cut away from corporations.

Education needs to be stripped away from people who don't know how the world works and start preparing people to work. 

Corporate taxes need to be collected in full.

Rich people need to be taxed a lot more.

Back Home in Portlandia

I think that before anyone goes too far ahead, they should read this little gem.

https://www.unrv.com/government/political-violence-in-the-roman-republic.php

Yesterday, the jackasses of ANTIFA attacked a bunch of right-wing whackjobs from a group named Patriot Prayer.  I can't really say that I would mind horribly if these two groups beat the living shit out of each other, but there are bigger fish here to discuss.

We seem to be entering a period of time where mob violence and direct violent action against political opponents is gaining some cachet.  Maxine Waters, her astonishing lack of forethought only matched by Trump, has publicly called for mobs to form in order to attack political opponents.

An extended aside here, to be completely honest, MW never said to physically attack anyone, but she did say to:

“If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd,” Waters, 79, told supporters. “You push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

OK:  that is physical intimidation of a political opponent.  That is quite simply where political violence begins.

Now of course, the tweeter-in-chief could not manage to come up with the dignitas to defuse the situation.  Where he could have stood a little on the high ground and tried to defuse a situation, he chose (of course) to go low and call MW stupid and issue a challenge.

The trouble with populists (and Maxine is a populist as well, just playing to a different population) is that they use very blunt tools.  Whipping up the hoi polloi is an easy thing to do, but it is a knife without scales or quillion.  It can very easily turn in the hand that tries to wield it.

Another thing to read