This is a plaque I received for being a plank owner on the USS Belleau Wood LHA-3 an amphibious assault ship. I've written a little bit about my time in the Navy on this blog. If someone is interested you can use the search box to search for posts about ships, Navy, LHA-3.
I was on that ship from October 1978 until January 1981. 1 had to leave because I injured my back working under an elevator. I ended up at the Naval Hospital in Bremerton for surgery. That wasn't the greatest experience since I almost died from a pulmonary embolism. I ended up with a partial VA disability and a lifetime of taking warfarin to prevent blood clots. I enjoyed being in the Navy a lot and my time being out of the Navy - even more :-)
The Navy sank the USS Belleau Wood (LHA-3) on January13, 2006. I imagine it's sitting on the bottom of the Pacific somewhere making a nice reef for fish. I found this clip of a Harrier VTOL jet coming in for a landing on the LHA-3. When I was on board we were testing Harrier's, and had assorted helicopters, and numerous amphibious assault vehicles in the well deck.
This is a picture of one of my father's Purple Hearts.
We were living in Noxon Montana when my father was killed while plowing a county road with a road grader in deep snow and the grader slipped off a steep embankment (it's hard to figure out where the road is when the snow gets deep). I was a little over two years old.
I don't want to get too far down in the details, and sound like a whiner, but my stepfather was killed while piloting his airplane near Absarokee when I was 12. He clipped a sheepherder's monument (a tower of rocks piled up by a sheepherder). Hugh was a good pilot and wanted to fly as low as possible to complete his work, but the sun got in his eyes. Hugh and his brother Jack served in the Air Force. in Thule Greenland.
Sooooo in my family we have Navy, Army, Air Force and one more person who served their country in the Army during World War I. My Grandfather John came from Norway to this country when he was a teenager. He served his country as an Infantryman in the Army during the first World War. He later worked as a sheepherder and eventually bought his own dryland sheep ranch near Ingomar Montana. He moved to some irrigated land near Huntley Project Montana. When he sold his place in Huntley he moved out here to Kirkland Washington. He was pretty lucky (like me) to live in beautiful Montana and then move to another beautiful place that reminded him of his home in Norway with it's fjords and beautiful mountains.
____________________________
I'm proud of my family history and thankful to not have ancestors who were cowards. Here's a snippet from the Wikipedia page for Dongold Trunk's (aka cadet bonespurs) grandfather -
"He (Trunk's grandfather) was also approaching the age of eligibility for conscription to military service in the Imperial German Army. He decided to immigrate to the United States, later saying, "I agreed with my mother that I should go to America." 30 Years later, his family members said that he departed secretly at night, leaving his mother a note, As a result of Trump fleeing mandatory conscription required of all citizens, a royal decree was issued banishing him from the country."
You see the thing is - some rich twits like Dongold think they are genetically superior to us poor people which makes them too good to serve in the military, follow the law or pay their taxes. Like billionaire hotel owner Leona Helmsley said "We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes." Other Richie Rich people think their God chose them to prosper and the rest of us poor people to follow something called "natural law" and be poorly paid servants (or slaves depending on where we are in history) of the Richies.
Man - if Dongold and his ass kissing minions could only feel shame; we would be a lot better off as a country. I'd tell him and his idiot supporters to go to hell but I'm afraid they have already created their own personal hell on earth. Don't let them drag you into it.
Money doesn't buy these twits happiness but it sure as hell buys them a life of hell on this earth.
More gold-plated (gilded) crap in the White House anyone? It almost like someone is sending us peasants a message telling us we are again living in a new gilded age where the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer - remember that's what God or genetics wants for you - you loser poor person.
Perhaps it will always be that some rich men start wars that make them richer while poor courageous honorable men fight and die.
I feel the need to post one more picture below of a future twit billionaire. A twit billionaire is one who inherited money or was lucky to be in the right place at the right time and cashed in on some software project sometimes stolen from a university or the actual creators. I'm sure there are hardworking billionaires who aren't twits but the bottom line is we don't need any billionaires.
Why? Because once a society has a cooperating group of uber-wealthy greed-heads they buy everything; politicians, judges, TV and radio stations, newspapers, houses, trailer parks, water supplies, prisons, ad infinitum.
I was curious about the letter they sent to the New York Times on December 2, 1948, cosigned with 26 other prominent Jewish intellectuals, denouncing Menachem Begin and his newly formed Freedom Party as being "closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties."
After reading the letter, I entered this prompt into Google Gemini, "albert einstein new york times letter village of Deir Yassin Israeli Freedom Party Menachem Begin fascism" and got this response -
"In December 1948, Albert Einstein and 26 other prominent Jewish intellectuals (including Hannah Arendt and Sidney Hook) co-signed a letter to the New York Times denouncing Menachem Begin and his newly formed Freedom Party (Tnuat Haherut).
The letter was prompted by Begin's visit to the United States to seek financial and political support for his party ahead of the first Israeli elections.
Key Claims in the Letter
The signatories warned that the Freedom Party was a "latest manifestation of fascism" and should not be supported. They detailed several specific concerns:
* Fascist Parallels: The authors described the party as "closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties". They noted it preached an "admixture of ultra-nationalism, religious mysticism and racial superiority".
* The Deir Yassin Massacre: The letter highlighted the April 1948 attack on the Arab village of Deir Yassin by Begin's former militia, the Irgun (along with the Lehi). It described the killing of approximately 240 men, women, and children, and how survivors were paraded through Jerusalem as captives.
* Terrorist Methods: The signatories accused the movement of using "gangster methods" to intimidate the Jewish community in Palestine, including beatings, robberies, and the destruction of free trade unions in favor of corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model.
* A "Leader State" Goal: They asserted that the party's ultimate aim was the creation of a "Leader State" and warned that Begin's public talk of "freedom" and "democracy" was a facade to hide his group's true character.
Historical Significance
The letter serves as a significant document of early internal Jewish opposition to right-wing Revisionist Zionism. Menachem Begin eventually became the Prime Minister of Israel in 1977 as the leader of the Likud party, which was the successor to the Freedom Party."
________________________
Menachem Begin was the founder of the right-wing Likud Party that these Jewish intellectuals stated was "closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties."
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu led the right-wing Likud party for a total of over 25 years, split into two main periods: from 1993 to 1999, and again from 2005 to the present. It's probably just a weird coincidence but the Wikipedia article about Netanyahu has this statement, "During the 1980s, Netanyahu became friends with Fred Trump, the father of future U.S. president Donald Trump."
A couple of things concern me about this topic and our society in general,
I'm afraid some segment of the population has lost the ability to feel shame. That's a huge problem for society since shame (having a conscience) is a primary way we keep each other in line. Lack of shame is also a pathology either of sociopathy or psychopathy. When you feel like society has gone "insane" it’s because some proportion of society has lost the ability to feel shame. You could also describe these people as having no conscience.
The second thing that concerns me is that for some we have become or are becoming a post-literate society. If people lose the ability to read, I think we are hosed.... maybe we already are considering just one example - the testimony of the banally evil and chronically dim-witted DOGE boys.
Of all the idiocy coming from these self-described geniuses one of the best (or worst depending how you look at it) was when the attorney representing the plaintiffs asked a DOGE boy if he had any relevant experience that would allow him to make an informed decision about eliminating government funding for a particular program? He answers, "No, but you could become informed by reading books." The attorney asks him what books he'd read? He answers, "there were no books." I've paraphrased the conversation; the exact wording is in this video. This particular genius was using ChatGPT to make decisions for him and is now fronting for an AI company that is guaranteeing to take away human jobs.
On the bright side people who can and do read will be invaluable in the future as more and more people become post-literate drones flipping through video shorts and depending on AI to “think’ for them.
I haven't finished watching the video below but I will. I also want to watch the BBC2 documentary "The Settlers" created by Louis Theroux, the person who also created the documentary Inside the Manosphere for Netflix. BBC2 video player is not available in the U.S. so you may need to use a VPN or check the video out on Kanopy using your local library credentials.
The book "Beautiful Souls" by Eyal Press has some interesting writing about the settler movement in Israel and how some brave Israeli soldiers refuse to just follow orders.
What an upside-down world we live in. The descendants of the victims of fascist terrorism and the country that helped liberate those people from the fascists, become fascists. Unimaginable and devastating for anyone willing to search for truth and think for themselves.
It is tragic for people who admired Israel for their Kibbutz communities, the liberal (i.e.) rule of law government, and who thinks the phrase "Next year in Jerusalem" has a special meaning. Very sad for Jewish and non-Jewish people who want peace, justice and understanding in this world.
The repercussions, and cruel irony, of having a political party in power in the U.S. whose leader has embraced David Duke and thought there were good people on both sides at the "Jews will not replace us" rally in Charlottesville are frightening - as actual antisemites feel more emboldened.
It seems obvious that separation of church and state is crucial to having a well-functioning society. We need to be able to criticize (or embrace) our governments actions based on facts not faith. It's hard to imagine a worse situation than being obligated to support the corrupt government regime we live under in the USA, because our faith requires it. It's mostly a question of returning to a dark age when we burned people at the stake for having the wrong ideas or choosing to embrace the enlightenment and have the courage to think for yourself. I know that's a heavy lift and something a lot of people aren't capable of or interested in...but the good guys can't give up.
______________________
In conclusion I have to admit I have very little idea what I'm talking about. I have no direct experience with any of this. I'm not a Jew or a Muslim and am not stupid enough to think I could understand what growing up in a particular set of circumstances is like. No one killed my brother, sister, mother, father. No one took my family's land. No one exterminated my people. I do my best to empathize, but I can't walk a mile in your moccasins. I can only hope and pray to the one who created this world.
Renee DiResta is really interesting to read about and listen to if you are interested in social media disinformation. She tends to make enemies of all the right people; Elon Musk, corrupt MAGA politicians like Jim Jorden, garden variety hacks and grifters who end up being appointed head of CBS news by kowtowing to the oligarchs, in particular Larry Ellison. as well as the entitled twit Stephen Miller. She was part of the Stanford Internet Observatory before it was shut down by corrupt GOPGOP™ politicians and their owners.
In addition to being willing to do anything for money Jim Jordan has been credibly accused by Ohio State wrestlers of ignoring sexual abuse of at least 177 student athletes by Dr. Richard Strauss when Jim Jordan was a wrestling coach there. It’s hard to imagine how dysfunctional the media is in whatever part of Ohio Jim Jordan represents since his constituents keep re-electing him even though he has never sponsored a bill that passed in the House of Representatives in his 17 years in Congress.
Note - I have registered the acronym GOPGOP™ for the current iteration of the Republican Party. GOPGOP™ stands for Gross Old Pedophiles Grabbing Our Pussies. I think it's fair to (try to) shame people who are too ignorant or ideologically possessed to understand they are members of an evil cult. Plus, it always use to grate on my grammatical nerves when semi-literate Republicans (Bush Jr. et al) would call the Democratic Party the Democrat Party. I consider myself an FDR democrat for the record partially because my Gram loved FDR. Bernie Sanders is probably the closest we have today to an FDR democrat.
Our Edgar the TFT was a great dog. Here are a few videos of him below. Looking at these videos Edgar is a hoot and its sort of amazing to me how lazy I am :-) or I should say how lazy I can be.
This is a link to my old Flickr photo albums. I've had a lot of fun over the years. I've pasted some sample photos into this post below.
I'm reading the book "The Crazies" by Amy Gamerman which gives some interesting perspectives on the never-ending saga of working people vs. oligarchs. As someone who was born in Cody, lived in Noxon, grew up in Columbus and went to school in Bozeman it's quite something to see how Montana has changed as income inequality explodes in our country.
The right-wing media ecosystem convinces poor people that the last thing they want to do is organize with other poor people to create a less predatory society than we have in the good old US of A. We find ourselves stuck in the endgame of a 40-year game of Monopoly.and the game isn't really that fun anymore for working class people.
A clarification of terms - when I use the term "poor people" I mean people who are actually poor for whatever reason, as well as anyone who has to work for a living rather than living off of investments and inheritances. Working class seems like an appropriate term since we have come to a point of inequality where there are definitely classes if not castes of people. Like Warren Buffett said, there is definitely a class war and his class. the billionaires are winning. I blame the media for failing the American people or maybe it's the other way around that we have the crap information system we do - because that's what we like...the more lies the better thank you very much.
The first photo below was a sign near Emigrant Montana on a fenced in field filled with old trailers and other assorted junk. I used to like to joke with the kids when we traveled out that way that we were staying there. Last time I was by that area it's been cleaned up and the sign is gone. I suppose it offended some of the rich people who've made Montana their (second, third, fourth) home.
This is a picture I took of the Cooke City PD one Spring Day twenty years ago.
Here's one I took in a shop window on Lake Superior because I like weird stupid sort of funny stuff.
And a few of when I was not playing the role of a bartender and then a sailor and then an engineer (I'm somewhere in the middle of that picture). but was rather a bartender and then a sailor and then an engineer- but most of all a free human being trying to live a good life.
I hesitate to spoil this video with my boneheaded ideas, but for those not familiar - Zorba is the free spirit who enjoys life, nature, people - "the full catastrophe" as he says. The guy he is dancing with is more of bookish type who tends to perhaps overthink things, or as Zorba says before he gets excited when he spots a dolphin, "Perhaps too many books." I also agree with Zorba when he says in the linked clip, "Am I not a man and is not a man stupid.?" Socrates would agree too.
I like talking to bots these days. They sort of fit my style of asking questions and more questions.
This is a discussion I had with Gemini - Googles AI chatbot. You already know this, but things are not looking good climate wise for this summer and the foreseeable future. Expect worsening water shortages and extreme heat to continue to cause climate migrants globally and within the continental United States.
It's intuitively obvious that the climate is changing in a way modern humans (the last 13,000 years) have not experienced. What is happening now is exponential growth caused by positive feedback loops of melting permafrost, disappearing sea ice, increased water vapor in the air, forest dieback etc. To put it bluntly our climate will continue to degrade at ever faster rates.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, if this comes as a surprise to you, but I think knowing the truth (or at least some approximation) allows us to make informed decisions. If you prefer not knowing the truth I totally get it and would not be critical of your desire to escape reality.
If you read this, I wish I would have asked Gem if she would consider turning herself off given the energy hungry nature of AI. If we only had a brain, we would also end use of the extremely stupid crypto which creates something we non-criminal and non-grifter types don't need by burning coal or whatever energy mix happens to power a crypto miner's rig.
It's conceivable we could have done something to at least slow where we are today if we would have started 50 years ago or more. I think it's unlikely though. We puny humans haven't progressed to the point where we can make intelligent decisions as a group. As much as we like to think it isn't so we are still barbarians killing innocent people in useless wars (unless you own the right stocks or are the CEO of the right company in which case the wars' purpose is to make you richer).
In a sense we are unfortunately too stupid (and too beautiful) to live. Maybe next time around in however many billions of years it takes for the big contraction and big bang. For now, be good to yourself and each other and remember no one "chose" to be here now.
Consider Jim Morrison singing "into this house we're born, into this world we're thrown or Heidegger's "thrownness" (Geworfenheit) which refers to the fundamental human condition of being "thrown" into existence involuntarily, without choice, into a specific time, place, culture, and set of circumstances. It is a key element of "Dassein" (human existence - being in the world) representing the inescapable fact of our "already being" in the world, which shapes our possibilities.
"One man may not kill. If he kills a fellow-creature, he is a murderer. If two, ten, a hundred men do so, they, too, are murderers. But a government or a nation may kill as many men as it chooses, and that will not be murder, but a great and noble action. Only gather the people together on a large scale, and a battle of ten thousand men becomes an innocent action. But precisely how many people must there be to make it so?—that is the question. One man cannot plunder and pillage, but a whole nation can. But precisely how many are needed to make it permissible? Why is it that one man, ten, a hundred, may not break the law of God, but a great number may?"
As heartbreaking as it is that the state of Israel has killed over 20,000 children in the Gaza Strip genocide the United States war machine killed 170 people in an Iranian girl's school most of them children. The weapon used was the Tomahawk missile. In 2016, the US Department of Defense purchased 149 Tomahawk Block IV missiles for $202.3 million. They are made by Raytheon who bribed U.S. politicians with $1,439,000 in 2021, the campaign donations going equally to corporation-owned Democrats and Republicans. With over a trillion dollars in unaudited taxpayer funds going to the Pentagon annually, it should not be surprising that the U.S. wants to use their deadly war toys and buy more. It's good for shareholders and CEO's - Raytheon stock is up 54% over the last year. The Pentagon has money to burn baby including a $98,329 Steinway & Sons grand piano for the Air Force chief of staff’s home.
______________________
Happy St. Patrick's Day tomorrow.
Hearing this Irish MP talk makes me proud of my Irish heritage.
Before giving our support to a cause, we should ask ourselves how many innocent children have to die to fulfil someone's political and economic goals. One? ten? 150? 20,000?
I was saddened to hear that Country Joe McDonald passed away March 7, 2026. I, like many in my generation, became familiar with Joe McDonald when he sang at Woodstock in 1969. He was an antiwar activist who supported military members caught up in war.
My particular memory of Joe McDonald was when I saw him perform at the Garlic Festival with my wife and daughters. Here's a little snippet from an AI bot about what the Garlic Festival was -
"The historic Arlington Garlic Festival was a popular annual event held by the Love Israel Family on their ranch near Arlington, Washington, lasting for over a dozen years until roughly 2002. It was famous for its counterculture vibe, live music (including a 1994 appearance by Eddie Vedder), food, and vendors."
The Love Israel commune was a utopian community in a beautiful valley about 20 miles North of where I live. They built all sorts of shelters for themselves in that valley free from the zoning restrictions imposed in cities. Even a few Hobbit houses built into the sides of hills. It was a special place. It was kind of amazing for me to see Country Joe with my kids 30 years or more after Woodstock. Great day. The Love Israel community like most utopian communities disbanded but it was cool while it lasted (as an observer from afar). My wife had one of the Love Israel children in her preschool. Very polite, very kind little boy.
“In Marquez’s experience, truth has been controlled to the point at which it has ceased to be possible to find out what it is. The only truth is that you are being lied to all the time.”
Salman Rushdie LRB 9/16/1982 “Angel Gabriel” article about Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez
The John Birch Society has been bringing Wack job ideas to America since 1958.
When I was a kid, the Birchers would pay for billboards that said things like "Get the U.S. out of the United Nations" They were too radical for mainstream Republicans particularly when the John Birch Society's leader Robert Welsh began attacking President Dwight Eisenhower, claiming Ike was a communist agent. The Birchers also believed Fred Rogers and MLK were communists.
The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) attracted anti-fascist fighters from around the world. These international fighters joined pro-Republican International Brigades to fight Spanish Nationalist forces who had the support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Spoiler alert - Franco and the Nationalists won. Franco ruled Spain until his death in 1975.
It is clear that the current U.S. Republican party, does not support the political theory of Republicanism where citizens hold power and govern themselves, rejecting monarchy and hereditary rule, by electing representatives to act for the common good, emphasizing civic virtue, participation, and the rule of law to protect liberty from corruption.
______________________
L. Brent Bozell Jr. who ghost-wrote Republican Barry Goldwater's "Conscience of a Conservative", was a key Goldwater adviser, and an admirer of Franco who moved his family to Spain in 1965 as a sign of solidarity with Franco's authoritarian regime, in stark contrast to American democratic ideals. This Bozell was a consistent supporter of Joseph McCarthy. One of Bozell's grandsons was convicted of various crimes. during the January 6th, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capital by supporters of Donald Trump. and in May of 2024 sentenced to 4 years in prison
Fascist anti-democratic movements in the U.S. are at least as old as the anti-New Deal American Firsters of Charles Lindberg and Henry Ford's time. I copied the following from Google Gemini AI -
"Anti-New Deal "America Firsters" were a diverse group in the 1930s-40s, including conservatives, isolationists, and some far-left figures, united by opposition to FDR's expansive federal programs, viewing them as tyrannical, "un-American," or leading towards "good fascism" or European-style militarism, with prominent voices like Charles Lindbergh, Father Coughlin, William Randolph Hearst, and the American Liberty League, often blending critiques of government overreach with anti-Semitic or pro-Nazi sentiments."
People from every country in the world may have a chance in the 21st century to defend representative democracy against the Trump corporate version of crony capitalistic totalitarianism, possibly in Greenland, Canada or the U.S.
The fact that other countries have a free press and that there is a thriving independent press in the U.S. give me hope.
Particularly at 11:05 where Tim provides his constitutional analysis of the employer employee relationship under American-style crony corporate capitalism.
Tim gives this originalist™ reading of the constitution -
"Let me just say for the record that I believe this to be a witness, a character witness, that is not to be believed or trusted because I would put him in charge as my employee and I have the right to do whatever I want with him. I have the constitutional right to strike him if he just disobeys me and right now, he's still under my supervision he still technically works for me."
Note - an originalist™ reads and interprets the constitution in a way that agrees with whatever ideology he or she is possessed by. Originalism is used as a fig leaf by "conservative" Supreme Court Justices to decide in favor of corporations and right-wing reactionary policies.
