A Chicken Is Not Pillage

Call It As You See It, I Guess

It's possible that with the discussions of the last week that my irony meter is a little over charged.  A commenter at Don's thoughtful and exceptional website, while railing against the symbols of the racist American "losers" of the most formative conflict the country has ever faced, had this to say:

Our state does have the sin of racism, whether it be our black history, or our redmans history( whites tried to erase it). What went wrong years ago in a less civilized world, can be made right today. and should be as an olive branch to the future of all mankind.

A religious pronouncement, for certain.  Fundamentally exceptionalist, what with us being all more civilized and all, absolutely.  But no, what flipped the laughter switch was the term "redmans (sic) history".  When I was growing up, Redman was a loose leaf chewing tobacco, grown in them there loser Souther states, whose name has come under fire for many years from the Indigenous people of America for it's racist nature.  It's brand recognition has shrunk considerably due to advertising restrictions and the decrease of tobacco use, so much so in fact that it is hardly recognizable outside of that 'loser' South.  Disney, the megacorp, has restricted the distribution of the movie Peter Pan, in no small part because of it's portrayal of the 'red man'.  "What makes the red man red?'  Still, those of us who have worked and striven to get the Washington NFL team to change it's name sense something dirty when we see reference to the "red man".

What makes this comment so ironic is that screeching about how "loser" symbols matter to racism completely ignores the obvious.  The symbols most precious to human kind are words.  They inform us and shape our reason.  We should know, since we are all so civilized now, that black people don't like being called African Americans.  They aren't African.  They are simply black Americans.  This is a message conveyed even by our President, a black American, who strangely the racists still wish to be African.  Anecdotally, I haven't met one single Native American, or Indigenous person or member of the First Nations who liked being called "red".  (That is with one exception.  I knew a young Crow man in college who had red hair and freckles because his daddy was white.  He loved to refer to himself as the only 'redman' in America.)

I am certain, and I mean that sincerely, that the person whose comment I am harshing on here has little understanding of the Faux Paux I refer to.  'Redman' was just an innocent little bit of racism, ignorant but not malicious.  I completely accept that.  I would however point out that this person while attempting to shut down another she accused of racism in the past blatently stated that Lewis and Clark encountered 'brown people', Hispanics, when traipsing through Montana.  Well it's named Montana, right?  Certainly the Spanish explorers came here, right?  No, they never did.  The ultimate irony is demanding correct opinion from others when engaging in the "sins" they commit.  I won't call that hypocrisy, due to the ignorance of the offense, but I will certainly laugh my ass off at the irony.

"They Started It!"

To anyone who has been blogging for a while, I strongly suggest taking a hiatus.  It does offer some decent perspective, if not clarity or wisdom.  When fun stuff happens while reading blogs, you begin to sit back and examine, without the urge to 'fight the good fight', and get your two cents in before anyone else. 

As many good liberal thinkers here in Montana re-fight the Civil War with rhetoric to define who the "bad guys" really are, in vainglorious attempt to end racism in 1865, certain arguments stand out as both amusing and juvenile.  My favorite to make fun of is the middle school argument "they started it".  Technically, yes, the Confederate state of South Carolina did fire the first shots of the Civil War on a Union held fort within South Carolina.  It doesn't matter what era you live in, an enemy holding within your borders is a threat.  Faulting the Confederacy for reacting to the provocation of such a threat is the same as crying to mommy that your sibling 'touched you'.  The argument that 'they started it' is simply a way to pass blame onto another, a foolish way that denies any complexity to the situations presented to people by history.

At another good liberal Montana website, pointing out that a complex situation is not subject to juvenile ignorance is cause for the equally juvenile threat of being banned.  There's a significant problem with that.  As James Conner notes, only education will teach people the history and import of the Civil War, and any understanding that is coerced into a particular view is only subject to the correction of time, generations learning facts and truth.  I don't have to suggest; I can state with absolute certainty that replacing one form of propaganda with another equally foolish does nothing to advance education.  The South removed itself from the Union because the inclusion of Kansas as a free state would have given Congress the ability to dictate the Southern economy built on slave labor.  The balance of power was shifting such that a Constitutional Right would no longer be guaranteed, as the Southerners thought.   Tell me again, who fired first?

It is in no way surprising that Democrats want to use coercive learning to advance what they see as their causes.  Faux 'News' has been doing that successfully for years.  Sadly, people aren't as stupid as many, agenda driven, think that they are.  The argument "they started it" doesn't really wash anymore, with anyone save the dimmest who have forgotten the wise words of the Bible's chapter of Proverbs:

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

A Neccesary Repost

I'd almost forgotten I'd written this.  But given that others have been so recently and terribly concerned about A Post About Rob Kailey, What Rob Kailey Did, How Rob Kailey Did It and Why Rob Kailey Did It,

It seems apropriate to point out that what the conspiracy theorists care about is every bit as deep and significant as what they accuse others of.  Climate denial seems based on the profit scientists can garner.  The killing of Osama Bin Laden seems based on what witnesses can garner.  To some, everybody's got an angle, except themselves.  Uhh, no.

Rob Kailey wrote this.  Rob Kailey stands behind this.  Rob Kailey thinks this the truth, or at least as close as most of us come to such a thing.  Believing in conspiracy theories doesn't make you important, or special.  It makes you the very thing you tend to revile:  human.

Curiousities Of The Modern World

I'm just noodling things out here.

If one is astute enough to figure out that the math of a plane hitting a building doesn't matter as long as you repeat a base understanding of Newton's third law enough times; such that it must have been an unknown energy beam weapon used on 9/11;

If one is so committed to the shallow understanding of Newton's third law of motion that he can clearly detect that the people who design pumpkin cannons fake their videos of a pumpkin blowing the door off a minivan;

If one is so very attuned to reality that he can clearly see that amputees were hired to fake the Boston Marathon bombing, and that Newtown was a black-flag government op;   (For the record, Mark backed off those conspiracies very quickly when he noticed that their rediculous nature actually pissed people off)

If one is so definatively sharp as to have solved the mysteries of every high profile death since the 50s.  If one is so completely enraptured with the concept that power (the Illuminati) control our perceptions and our very lives and deal swiftly with those who know too much;

How can it possibly make sense that a 'bookstore clerk' (his words) could have taken his honor and impugned him so?  In such a fog of reality, wouldn't it make much more sense that the power had manipulated the situation such that he look bad?  Such a person could have chosen any number of powers to be his foe.  But no, he chose a guy who he professes has no power, no wisdom, no intelligence and no character.  Hmmm.  That I have such enormous strength in the face of such drawbacks, disabilities and difficulties makes me feel kind of proud.  I must be something of a stud!

Now, Mark and his salad-tossers are theorizing that I coerced an intrusive tax audit against another Montana blogger to silence his voice.  I'm lovin' it.  Hell, if this keeps up,  I'll be remembered for having the power to possess people and control time itself to beniifit my own base desires.  Bwahahaha!

The two things that bother me the most about many online potificants, mostly on the right, are 1)  their insistence that the left is out to get them and at the same time the belief that those of leftward thought are incompetant and stupid.   That's called cognitive dissonance, and seems to fit Mark's review of me to a tee.  See, that's the problem when you begin and explore from defending your own lie.  You end up running into your own contradictions and become humorously averse to being self-aware.    Self awareness is being cognizant of your fantasies, aware and questioning about what effect they actually have in the 'real world' and constantly questioning how they color your perceptions of others.   Most of us call that living, and the point of Buddhism isn't to alleviate the pain of living but to mitigate the damage of self-delusion.  Maybe that's what your family was trying to tell you, Mark.

Number 2)  The absolute certitude that only one path can be the correct path.  Many think they've discovered 'the truth' and hopelessly, helplessly cling to the idea that they've discovered such a thing.  Any threat to that, any at all, is a danger and a horror and those who threaten that certitude are monsters.  The climate can't be changing because it was chilly yesterday.  War on Christmas because a clerk said "Happy Holidays".  The government has lied to us many times so any who don't believe that a space based energy weapon destroyed the WTC are being blind, blind I tell you.  Nothing brings out the vehemence of those so commited (or at least should be) as being noticed when they are obviously in the wrong.

In a fantasy world, I gain strength as those who revile me afford me more power.  I grow strong in my dark will ...

Or, I'm just a guy with a website who notices things.  I will admit, it is fun watching Tokarski flop around like a useless whitefish on a rocky shore.  To me, it's all a curiousity.

Cosplay We'd See At The Montana Blogicon (1)

Against my better judgement (call it a personal weakness), I have again been commenting at Montana blogs.  Bad idea, really really bad.  The thing is, I've been doing so simply for the enjoyment of it, with actually a minimum of anger.  One of the mental games that's helped with such effort is this:  I'm starting to view bloggers and frequent commenters as comic book characters.  Since it helps to put things in writing, just to get them out of my head, over time I will present such things to y'all.  Let's start with Mark Tokarski, shall we?

Mark T, in2it, in4it, and others too numerous to mention: 

Ra's al Ghul!  A fine villain, or is he?  Removed from standard morality, Ra's sees things as they *REALLY* are, and seeks balance between power and weakness.  Mind you, he has no concern for the lives of any caught in the struggle of duality, for they are pawns in a greater game.   The strength of Ra's is his magical ability to see things as they fit his puzzle.  His weakness is the same.  He attracts followers of people who think themselves like minded, yet their's can never be the mind of Ra's al Ghul.  He sees the Alpha and Omega, and will offer nothing to the mere who cannot pierce the veil which charges the League of Shadows.

Larry Kralj:  Environmental Ranger, L.K., anonymous when it suits (though he seems upset when people figure out who he obviously is):

Deadpool.  Scarred.  Twisted.  Sarcastic, and mental.  An assassin who cannot be killed. Kraljpool has been banned from nearly every website, but finds his way back to poison the well, always.  And he does so with screeds, moments of normalcy (very few) and outbursts of humor that, very much like Monty Python, encourage the reader to either laugh or puke.  There is no internal consistency with this character, nor should any expect such.

Don Pogreba

Pogie, and that's about it for nom de plume.  Perry White.  Demands a jounalist be a journalist and tell the truth.  Still doesn't notice that Superman is Clark Kent without glasses, but damned well wants to know what's going on in Metropolis anyway.  A champion of the individual with a view limited by disbelief that super powers make one a "better" person.  An excellent guide for the ambitious (Jimmy Olson) and a restraint for Lois Lane.  Very much a man of the people, but gravely disrespected by those who don't admire his idealism.

 

That's about all the time I have, so I won't go farther.  I haven't any doubt that some reading this will think I am Mickey Mouse or Wiley Coyote or actually anyone who doesn't respect the authoritAY of the folk who post online.  Fine.  Don't care.  I'm certain that some will find this amusing.  And I will continue with the series.  Salute. 

A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings In China and ...

Pursuant to the post down here,  some false-flaggers are now showing how insane their theories are.  Those who claim a 'free energy beam weapon' was involved in 9/11 will invariably point out that a large storm system was headed for New York City shortly before the events of that day.  But something, ~wink wink~, something steered that storm out to sea.  Hmmmm...

Enter Alex Jones, again.  The Government surely has some energy weapon that can control weather, and maybe used it against the hapless citizens of Moore, Oklahoma.  How else can one explain tornadoes, in Oklahoma?

 

Not Ended

Just questioning.  'Must admit that I'm not surprised both of you self-absorbed fucking dipshits missed the point of that post completely.  After all, it wasn't about *you*.

Update:  Just because I think she's a lying witch, I really have to ask:  Jhwygirl 'claims' that no blogger at 4 and Ego is "paid" to blog, yet other bloggers around the state are.  How does she know?  More to the point, how does any reader know that no blogger at that website isn't blogging on the state dime, yet supposedly obvious others are?  Others blog using 'inside knowledge' of state function obviously only acquirable from someone who garners government pay, yet strangely the 4 & 20 folk just pull what they know from the ether.  So obviously one website is "paid" and the other isn't.  Curious, don't you think?

The Ad Hominems have taken control of the Montana web'o'sphere, and I guarantee you right now, that the worst offenders are the ones who cry most foul that I point this out.

A Few Well Earned NFL Awards For Fail

Much is made every year of the NFL awards that will soon be forthcoming.  Will the MVP be Peyton Manning, or Adrian Peterson?  Will the ComeBack player of the year be Peyton Manning or Adrian Peterson?  Rookie of the year, RGIII, Andrew Luck, Russell Wilson or Alfred Morris?  Defensive player of the year, J.J. Watt, Justin Smith or maybe Von Miller?  Last year's winners were pretty easy to pick; this year, not so very much.  So, I'm not even going to try.  (Save for MVP.  That one belongs to Peyton Fucking Manning!)

No, what's more fun at this stage in the game is to pick some of the failures worthy of the spotlight in the 2012 season of professional football, and its resulting post-season.  If'n you don't mind, I will pick the categories and winners, though you are encouraged to provide alternates in the comments.  So let's begin.

Braggadocio Fail of the Year:  Several worthy candidates.   Any number of pundits who picked Green Bay to go undefeated through the season, or picked San Diego to win the AFC West.  Terrell Owens who fired agent Drew Rosenhaus and hired Jordan Woy, hoping against hope for the chance to poison another NFL football team.  Joe Flacco petulantly claiming (again) that he could be as good as any quarterback in the AFC.  Twitterer @TebowsourQB who incessantly harangues Shannon Sharpe about how Tebow would be the second coming of football Jeebus if only he were given the chance.   Roger Goodell demanding a harsh sentence against the New Orleans Saints, and seemingly unable to get any court or even Paul Tagliabue to support him in his mandate.  But, no.  The winner of Braggart of the year must once again go to Rex Ryan, for again predicting the Jets would make the Super Bowl.  Give it up, Rex.  Nobody's buying it any more.

Creepy Dude of the Year:  Seriously, this one is easy, and it is again a winner for Rex Ryan.  After the Jets lost their last game of the season, Rex skipped the post game press conference to fly off to the Bahamas with his beloved spouse.  While basking in the sun, Ryan exposed his arm tattoo, a tattoo of his pantless wife sporting a Mark Sanchez jersey.  Ewwww.

Defensive Fail of the Year:  4th and 29.  In week 6, the San Diego Chargers hosted the Denver Broncos on Monday Night Football.  The Chargers' record was 3-2, the Broncos was 2-3.  At halftime, the Chargers led 24-0.  The Broncos then scored 35 unanswered points.  The Chargers never really recovered.  They lost to Cleveland, 7-6 and to the Broncos again a couple of weeks later.   Entering the game against the Baltimore Ravens, expectations were very high.  The Chargers defense was stellar through most of the game, and San Diego had the wrap.  They buried the Ravens into a 4th and 29.  All the Chargers had to do was stop the Ravens and run out the clock.  Easy-peasy, right.  Flacco hit Ray Rice on a screen dump, essentially a running play.  Through a beautiful melange of confusion, missed tackles and generally poor play, San Diego allowed Rice to run for the first down.  The Ravens won.  That play, more than any other, sealed Norv Turner's fate.  Turner has been fired, and many lament his loss as a head coach in San Diego ... many of us in Denver, that is.

Offensive Fail of the Year:  two words, Butt Fumble.  This level of awesome fail has got to be seen to be believed.

 

Just watch it.  I can add nothing.

Disappointment Fail of the Year:  Absolutely everything from the Detroit Lions.  Don't get me wrong, some individual players had great years.  Megatron broke the single season receiving record set by the great Jerry Rice.  But almost never has a team set the standard for inverse proportion of talent to failure quite so high.

Humble Pie Fail of the Year:  This isn't so much a fail as a sad reminder of what could have been if not for so much fail before.  Speaking of Jerry Rice, he was angry when Randy Moss was unceremoniously booted out of the league.  Not because Moss deserved better, he didn't.  Rice was angry because Moss had more talent than Rice did, but wouldn't work to achieve greatness, an ethic that Rice exemplified beyond nearly all others.   Rice stated that Moss could have been the very best.  But Moss was lazy, and got his due reward for it.  San Fransisco saw fit to give Randy another chance, as a third string wide-out.  Moss has performed for the most part.  And more to the point, he's kept his mouth shut and worked for his team.  If anything, this is a lesson in overcoming fail, because Moss could easily be in the same position as Terrell Owens.

Executive Fail of The Year:  Jim Irsay.  I've read a whole lot of anger about  this article.  Frankly, I find it spot on.  I agree with every word of it, and have since late last summer.   I've wanted to write the same myself.  Irsay screwed up.  Imagine how awesome Andrew Luck could be moving into the future with the tutelage of Peyton F. Manning.  But no.  Irsay wanted to save a buck, and threw Manning under a bus to do it.  Stupid.  Seriously, seriously stupid.   If Irsay really wanted to forge a new future for the Colts, then Robert Griffin the Third would have been the far better choice for the first round draft pick.  But no.  Irsay thought that a young Manning clone would get the job done, with little consideration for what truly drives NFL success.  Luck is good, exceptional even.  But he can't abide on expectation alone, and the receivers which make the Colt's gel will not be there forever.  Speaking of RGIII ...

Coaching Fail of the Year:  This one still has me pissed off.  One does not sacrifice gladiators to win a game.  But that asshole Shanahan did just that.  A coach does not, should not, let a 22 year old player prove his prowess and threaten the hope of the entire franchise by doing so.  RGIII is the future of the Redskins, or at least he was.  Who knows now that he has elevated an injury for a cause that needn't have been immediate.  Dammit, Shanahan, you are the coach, not some rookie.

As I suggested, feel free to add your complaints, laughter and observations in the comments.  please.

My Money Is On The Vampire Hunter

(via Metafilter)

People online love to play intellectual (or often juvenile) games of reasoned curiosity.  Face-of-Evil book thrives on such things.  "How long would you survive a Zombie apocalypse?"  "What is your spirit animal?"  Sometimes the games get more in depth and appeal to special interests, for example when Moorcat blogs about the best firearm for a Zombpocalypse. 

Geoff Micks poses a doozy, one I feel compelled to share with you here:

In a Mass Knife Fight to the Death Between Every American President, Who Would Win and Why?

Lincoln.  No doubt in my mind.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm (part 3647)

The list of Greatest Hits for my very favorite Really Awful Political Candidate keeps growing.  In a discussion about the GOP war on women, a political gadfly once again tried to derail the discussion by calling President Bill Clinton a rapist.  ~yawn~  What perked up my interest, however, was a comment from candidate Norma Duffy (slogan: Fuck off and get a life!)  It was typically reactionary, and full of her trademark mangling of the written word.  She wrote:

Ah Ingy, let’s just say there were no victims in the Clinton /Lewinsky thing. She was an immature sleaze( yes a woman can call another a sleaze, but a man shouldn’t) who had done this sort of thing before and President Clinton was an Testosterone accident looking to happen.

Let's just disregard, for a moment, that men have "Testosterone accidents" (I think I've only really had those while sleeping, and it's kind of embarrassing), and the implication that women's sexual desire is simply an 'estrogen accident' .?.   The part that stands out is the claim that women can call each other "a sleaze", but a "testosterone accident" prone man shouldn't.  Hmmm.

Now, it could be the case she was alluding to the idea that the term can rightly be used ironically or as a bridge of conspiratorial comradery, the way that some folks use "nigga" or how girlfriends might call each other a 'slut' or 'bitch' in fun.  But that's not the manner in which Norma Duffy used it.  She referred to Monica Lewinski in purely judgmental terms as a "sleaze", a mark of shame for desiring sex with a man who is attractive, powerful and receptive.  By extension, it was okay that Ann Coulter referred to Sandra Fluke as a slut, but not that Rush Limbaugh did so.  Hmmmm.

My response was inquisitive:

This is only tangentially related to the topic, but someday, just once, I’d love to read you posting a moral, or even rational, foundation for such idiocy, Norma.

It is my bad for calling her pronouncement "idiocy".  After all, it's possible that she did have a moral and/or rational reason for why women can judge other women's sexuality and men "shouldn't".  After all, we don't have 'estrogen accidents' the way women do.  Ms. Duffy's response was - disappointing.  Certainly not moral and absolutely not reasonable.

And then we Hear from the Righteous Man who continually believes he is better at knowing a woman’s definitions about others, then the woman herself.

So, apparently, I was wrong to even ask for a definition.  Two things:

This kind of bullshit is what makes it very very difficult for men to get involved in the ideal and cause of feminism, or be accepted if we already are.  There are apparently some unwritten rules which we aren't even allowed to ask about.  (that isn't typical of most women who espouse feminism, but very typical of RAPC Duffy.)

If I were Jeffrey Welborn, I would publicize this comment from Norma Duffy widely across Beaverhead County.  I'm certain every voter who believes in gender equality would love to know that, as a legislator, Norma would reserve to herself the right to decide what you are allowed to think and questioning what she thinks is merely 'sexism', if you are prone to testosterone accidents, of course.

Hmmmmm.