Nobody asked but … Are you noticing how Black Friday is edging forward, moving the bread and circuses to an expanse stretching from halloween to new year. The media are going for a 61 day vacation at work — if you just cover shopping, you may never have to leave your desk. In fact, you…
Author: Kilgore Forelle
An Enormous Gap
Nobody asked but … “The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology.” — Michael Parenti Thanks to WhatReallyHappened.com It’s after 11 pm somewhere in the world. Where are your children? Kilgore
Braveheart
Nobody asked but … Yesterday, Skyler wrote about power struggles and today I picked up on the continuing story of Scotland’s upcoming vote on whether to be independent of the UK. I would be so happy if they were to make this break toward freedom, and to continue the dissolution of the British empire. I…
Query
Nobody asked but … Were the seven Samurai an early DRO? Kilgore
Words Poorly Used #6 and Unused
Did you know that FDR did not use the words free, freedom, liberty, or individual in his first inaugural address in 1933? He did use words like fear, terror, nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, paralyzed, withered … in the first two paragraphs! Is it a coincidence that the state took an iron grip on the lives of…
Libraries
Nobody asked but … There are, I confess, two state-provided services I like — public libraries anywhere, and public restrooms in little villages in places like New Zealand and the Dolomite Alps. In the USA, We combine the two. I think the Library of Congress is the one federal government artifact I might argue for…
Words Poorly Used #5 — Quality Assurance
If you call a grizzly a squirrel, will it not eat you? Today’s linguistic rant may seem like small potatoes, but the degeneration of our communication is big time. See the tower of Babel. “Quality assurance” is a good, and very low key example. Rather than delivering good stuff, it is there to make…
Words Poorly Used #4 — Democracy
The trouble with the word democracy is that it can mean almost anything. And politicians, along with manipulators in general, love almost-anything words. Since the very languages which contain the usage democracy are themselves sets of rules made by people the very use of language is democratic. Any learned behavior is democratic — rules by…
Re: Compliance Training
Nobody asked but … Parrish, you are right in that it is sneaking up on us. But the politicians have been running amok with their law and order demagoguery for nearly 50 years. Again, I am reading Radley Balko’s new book, “Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces” and the record…
Dirk Dickenson
Nobody asked but … When I was in college the first time I was kind of a hippy, although I could often be seen in an Air Force ROTC uniform with a haircut (more or less) to match. That was up through the Fall of 1967. In 1972, I was busy making a home for…