Who went and made Kelly an conservative-libertarian-anarchocurious goofball?

The list of people I have listened to, read, watched in action and spoken to, who I consider my "mentors" along my political (and apolitical) journey, includes but is not limited to the list you will find if you click "more" below.

 Since my way of thinking emphasizes liberty, personal responsibility, the lethal properties of welfare, problems of democracy, lies of Communism, dangers of the State, and the non-aggression principle, I've indicated which of these topics each "mentor" has led me in.  They are not necessarily in alphabetical or influential order.  I have not included any of the friends, writers, and professors who led me to the psychosis of Marxism earlier,  before I was freed from the chains of his philosophy;  but I might tackle that in a later post.

Slaughterhouse Not 135, 000

Since I've been obsessed about World War II, oh, since about 10th grade, one of the stories that fascinated me was Dresden.  Dresden, for the uninitiated, used to be thought of as the worst incident in terms of civilian fatalities  in the European theatre; possibly the war.  I've used Dresden as an example in discussions (and arguments) to suggest that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were comparable to it, not highly exceeding it.

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Dresden in 1945 was an old city, a beautiful city with lovely architecture, home at the time to about 600,000 souls.  (350,000 was the official population at the time but there were many refugees fleeing the Red Armywhichwas coming towards them from the East).  There also were some Anglophone (US, British, Canadian) prisoners of war in the city where they'd been assigned work projects.  One of them was author Kurt Vonnegut Jr,, who later incorporated his experiences as a POW and of the firestorm in his novel, Slaughterhouse V.   Dresden had avoided bombardment, until  Allied planes approached on 2/13/1945.

The idea of "strategic bombing"---aiming for infrastructure, not just enemy targets, despite the inevitable increase in civilian casualties; and of tight formations to ensure heavy damage of specific targets, as well as better ability of all in formation to cover one another's back--played a large role in what happened in Dresden.  The goal of strategic bombing was manifold, and included demoralizing the population.  Killing loads of them, of course, is a good way to demoralize.  It's definitely a tragic story,  and whatever thenumber of  casualties, serves as a sickening reminder of who suffers the most during war.

The  figure has been rounded down to 22,000 to 25,000.  They believe the wrong number was promoted, and perhaps even created, by the Nazis and later the Communist Party of the Democratic German Republic (East Germany, where Dresden had the misfortune to land after the war), both of whom got considerable secondary gains from doing so....the Nazis in drumming up sympathy among citizens of Allied Countries; the Reds in pointing out, "The Russians never did anything like that.  The Americans and British did that.  So you never want to go back to their way of life...right?"After Mauerfall (literally, "wall fall", the name Germans give to the time the East Germans en masse began to destroiy the Berlin Wall), those hanging onto the inflated numbers for political gain lost their jobs and either melted in the background of the newly reunified Germany, or figured out the way the wind was blowing soon enough to develop an atrocious allergy to Communism.

The "new" figures (actually, the podcast indicates the lower ones have been accepted by most since the late 1990s) put Dresden more in league with London and Hamburg in numbers of fatalities and, if deaths due to radiation sickness in the weeks following August of 1945, quite a bit under those of Hiroshima (69,000) and about equal to Nagasaki (25,000).

Maybe that's a good thing.  Dresden suffered immensely, but many other cities suffered just as greatly during the war.  I believe the European war in WWII was a just war; quite unsure about the war between the US and Japan.  Going over the plight of these cities before they were rebuilt is sobering and helps me remember that we need to have a high threshold of what we call "evil" and a call-out for a war because the inevitable civilian suffering in every city affected will call out to us across the centuries for what we do.   .

What Free Trade Is, and Isn't. Why apples are sometimes better than tacos, why I miss Bad Quaker, and why software CEOs earn more than the average union member

Bad Quaker, who unfortunately has had, due to health reasons, to end his own informative libertarian podcast,  used to give the absolute best analogy of what Capitalism is.

The next time someone complains that we need more stuff written inSpanish around here....

I'm a social worker, not necessarily because I ever aspired to be one; that's just the way things worked out and the piece of paper the State makes me carry around in order to get paid for the work I do.  But it is the cause of much consternation on my part.  Lately, that consternation comes in two flavors:  my frustration with  social workers who understand economics and natural rights so poorly that they think spending other people's money on third parties solves the third parties' problems; and the stupidity inherent in certain politically correct myths propogated by social workers.

Such as the desire for people to have Michigan carpeted with copies of everything written in English, in Spanish, to help the invisible horde of Mexican and Guatemalen immigrants deplaning at Metro and coming over the Detroit-Windsor bridge and tunnel.

Why I'm Avoiding Writing About the Americans

I really did want to catch up with this season and review each episode of "The Americans."  I also would like to write that parallel show I would call "The Russians" and maybe a reunion show for 5 years from now called, "The Americans and Russians...in Hawaii!"

But there's a growing allergy I have to the show, which became evident last year when it became clear that Jared killed his family, and the Jennings' handlers wanted their daughter Paige to be the next Jared.

And as the time period in which the show takes place reflects more and more of my own Cold War memories, I'm disappointed by the moral relativism embodied by the show.

The Americans: At Last!

Sorry for my delay in reviewing the latest "The Americans" season


First, a review of the major premises of the series:

Former Mickey Mouse Club-ette and "Felicity" star Keri Russell, and Welsh actor Matthew Rhys, play 2 KGB agents from the Soviet Union pretending to be a plain ol' American mom and dad with nary a Russian (or Welsh) accent between them---named Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings.  They have 2 children who never have been outside the US, Paige and Henry.  Paige and Henry are clueless about their parents' origin, which Elizabeth and Phillips hide pretty well despite giving their children horrible names


Elizabeth and Phillip have a neighbor....depending on whether the neighbor got the house after his divorce; I haven't been able to determine that yet.  He is a (wait for it......) FBI agent.  Stan.  And no, neither Stan nor the Jennings' children have figured it out yet that Elizabeth and Phillip are from the Cheka.  On Stan's part that isn't too surprising.

  Phillip and Stan...

Fun with E-mail

Politician computer errors, masquerading as stupid politician tricks, are in the news again as Hillary Clinton tells the State Department, (to paraphrase) "Oh snap! I forgot to use an official government e-mail account and now, well, I'll just have to print 'em out for ya.  After my staff reviews them, of course."

Christopher, Cross

No one's going to get that pun unless they're around my age.

Sorry.

So Chris Cuomo was on TV the other night arguing with the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.  The conversation purportedly was about gay marriage, about which I'm against both of them (I don't care who gets married to whom, but I don't think making laws about marriage is a good idea, and would personally ignore all existing ones, were I to ever get married).

But the "honorable" justice, who doesn't get the "stay out of the bedroom thing" made a statement:  "Our rights come from God!"

Mr. Cuomo protested.  "That's not the constitution!  That's just your faith! It might be your faith AND my faith, but it still didn't give us our rights. Our rights come from MAN."

If Cuomo is using the word "man" as "humanity; the human family; mankind"....ehhhhh, I might continue to drink a beer with him in the bar where we started that conversation.  But I'd worry about his understanding of law, the history of law, and philosophy.

Now first, here are some caveats before we continue.

I've read the constitution, and I've never been a fan.  The US Declaration of Independence rocks, and reading the ideas of Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton and even those who influenced them (John Locke, Cato, etc) is interesting to say the least.  But the US constitution is imperfect.  It's an instrument that, under its designed judicial system, allowed the Fugitive Slave Act to continue;  it refers to African Americans as "3/5 of a white person" in terms of voting (some say to give them some access to the polls; others say that these people surely voted the same way their master's did, out of fear of repercussion; so any ability of this minority to adress grievances was cut off, at least as far as the writers knew); and the "checks and balances" it alludes to haven't work since George Washington gave his first executive order.  The amendments serve to correct some of these problems....sometimes.

And the Bill of Rights...well, I guess I have a love/hate relationship.

As a document that shows the founders ACKNOWLEDGED our natural rights, it's great. They were definitely talking about natural rights, using some natural-rights-ese, if you would.  The lingo of Locke, Rousseau (no not the part about letting kids live wild and free in the streets),  Paine, and others;  things like "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", "natural rights (of course)",

But the Bill of Rights isn't there to GIVE us ANY rights.

Among philosophers, and politicians, you can argue the morality or even the existence of "natural rights."  But whatever your view of them, if you believe they are something that other human beings can "give" to us...or even "allow us to have"....you've missed the whole point.  

Moi, je suis Charlie

Watching clips from the news in Paris regarding the CharlieHebdo terrorist attack.  It's sad in a way how such heinous attacks bring out the best in people.  John Kerry, the tea drinker extraordinaire (and with his pinky out!) just said something on Fox (maybe all the channels) about how terrorism can never kill humour and free speech.

All the same, after years of defending France to people who thought they were all wimps, I love seeing Francois Hollande on TV calling terrorism terrorism (and a spade a spade)

I'd go into a diatribe about how retarded wahabists are pretty warped to believe that someone satirizing them or their religion belongs to them and that they have to control their thoughts. But I'm too nauseated right now.  Wonder what Davi Barker is thinking .

1914 & All That

Happy holidays, and let me apologize here for my absence (in case anyone is actually reading....is that crickets I hear?).  I've been spending 2014 learning a lot about 1914, military history buff that I am.  I've been watching things on the History Channel, listening to podcasts, looking at maps....sort of how I followed the 150th anniversary of the US Civil War for a minute, until it became exceedingly dull.  Now the sesquicentennial of Lincoln's death is approaching and I'm all, zzzzzzz...I'm sure it'll be interesting again in April.

But the centennial of the Great War is completely fresh, as of July anyway.

The most ridiculous sign within 5 miles of me

Join me on the other side of "more" for  the discussion.

The conversation I wish I could have with certain people I work with

In Michigan,  two pieces of paperwork have to be completed before involuntary psychiatric hospitalization can be considered:  one is a petition, which any concerned person can complete if they have reason to believe the future patient has a mental illness and/or is a danger to himself or others.  The second is called a "certification", which can be completed by any physician or PhD level psychologist.

Holy Show Trial, Batman!

OK, after a few weeks hiatus, your Cold War anti communist "McCarthy was right dammit!", Soviet-kitsch-o-phile blogger is back to "The Americans."

Actually, I've seen all the episodes, but episodes 11 and 12 were kinda boring.  Except for the fact that Nina (remember her?  She's the KGB agent the FBI guy who lives next door to the KGB spies masquerading as The Donna Reed Show,  fell in love with, and whose activities and pillow talk Nina is faithfully sharing with the Residentura at the Russian embassy) is in a bit of a pickle.

Implosion of the State Through Education Only?

One of the things that has been hard for me to grasp as a recovering statist is the notion that "you can't use the state's methods to topple the state."  I agree with it wholeheartedly, because I'm not into violence, and I don't think that libertarians getting into power, then enacting their own laws, would create anything better than what we have now.

But at the same time, as a behavioral scientist, I know that when most people come accross new information, particularly if it goes against what they believe, it's unlikely they'll absorb it in any helpful way.  That is my instinct anyway, and my observations in my own half-century one rat study.

Something clicked for me yesterday as I pondered my Christian beliefs, my (limited) knowledge of history, and the history in particular of liberty.  And now I'm thinking, maybe their have been times in the past when the State was toppled, or at least challenged, by those who wanted to educate their fellows that it was simply an imaginary construct that they could shrug off whenever they were ready.

"The Americans" Update: "Martial Eagle."

More about the show that makes you wonder, "So is there a TV show in Russia about CIA spies with perfect Russian accents living in Moscow called, 'The Russians'?"

WARNING:  Spoilers-a-plenty ahead.  

LIST OF MIGRAINE CURES THAT HAVE NEVER WORKED; but which I have feltcompelled to re-test long after I figured this out:

cold stuff on my head

Aspirin

Tylenol

chocolate 

fiorinal

Child Pose

More chocolate 

Beer

Fiorinal and beer

Feverfew

Magnesium supplements

Co EQ

Chocolate and peanut butter

Lemon filled Girl Scout cookies....

Statistics

I have a theory about why the federal government invests so much time in promoting stupid solutions to problems that don't exist.  Take the cries for the banning of firearms because there are "more and more" school shootings.   This is despite the fact that, statisticaly, millions more men,, women and children die in car accidents, diving into shallow swimning pools, stay home for the hurricane party, or have a cement block dropped on their car from an overpass.  And in fact, violence against school children isn't increasing.  Although the news media is indeed paying more attention to it.

The Pastorale: Not for the Peasants, Anymore?

My immediate family, or those I live nearby, anyway, are coping with a particularly voracious stomach flu bug, and I'm not feeling all that well myself, so this Easter the cockatiels and I are staying home...avoiding the Easter goodies, doing some light spring cleaning, and participating in a ritual I've enjoyed since my senior year on high schillings:  Playing Beethoven's Symphony #6 and enjoying the spring it portends.  It's a good day for it too; sunshine streaming in, probably teasing us mercifully before the next big polar vortex with its 10 inches of snow and the thousands of Michigan parents being treated for a new illness:  snow day fatigue.

It looks very springy today, on the other hand.

From Russia With a 2 Kid, 1 Car Family, 2 of whom are Soviet Spies, a Clueless FBI AGent who Lives Next Door, and a Promise of Sympathy Distortion

Those are my words, those last two, and sympathy distortion is something the fan of FX's "The Americans" must learn to live with.  Or stop watching it.

The KGB family brings brownies for the FBI agent under whose nose they reside

If you don't watch much TV, then you, like I before a friend told me about it, may not know about this show. It's a little difficult to explain unless you are a Cold War nerd like myself, but basically, the "stars" are a couple (marriage arranged by the KGB) from the Soviet Union, their accents somehow magically erased, living in a cushy split level in 1980s Washington, DC, next door to a clueless FBI agent; amusing themselves with kidnapping, forced repatriation of the odd Russian intelligentsia, a fake marriage (the husband's), meeting cool people and killing them, and by magically keeping their kids from knowing they are KGB spies from the Soviet Union (don't these kids wonder why they never meet their grandmas?)  While all this is going on, the clueless FBI agent not only misses the KGB agents under his nose, but has fallen desperately in love with the woman he believes is his KGB informant, but who used him to get her way back into the good with her "Soviet ambassador" boss, and who may have been in love with him, but is now sleeping with another sort of free-agent agent who is extorting FBI information from the FBI agent by threatening the life of his KGB "informant"/triple agent informant/lover.  All in the context of wives, children, and innocent bystanders who are flicked away like so much acceptable collateral damage.

Are you getting all this?

The 2013 Tax Year Tax Dirge: Don’t Fine Me, Bro!

Or, All I really want to do….is claim you as a dependent.

The reason for the tax dirge:

The tax dirge is perfect music for seeking lost bits of paper, Googling tax code minutiae (and isn’t it all minutiae?)…and for holding your breath until your accountant calls and says you're getting a refund, or a bigger refund than expected....or until you enter all the numbers into Turbo Tax and the amount "overpaid" comes up positive.  On the other hand, it's good music to drown your sorrows when you see there is no way in H-E Double toothpicks you're getting a refund...in fact, you may have to sell your house to pay your bill!!

To be honest, many times the songs in the annual playlist known as the Tax Dirge aren't evocative of those feelings viz their music or lyrics; many times the title just, well, fits.

As usual, the Dirge features songs of all or most song types.  This one includes reggae, hip-hop, opera, 70s punk, folk and country.  And 2014 sees the debut of Mr. Marshall Mathers on the Dirge with not 1 but 2 selections from "The Eminem Show".

We end as usual with the Mother of All Tax Dirge Songs, "Taxman", written and performed mostly by George Harrison....the Grumpy Beatle[1].  If you're singing along to the finale this year, and wondering what to put in place of the descant, "Uh-uh, Mr. Wilson; Uh-uh, Mr. Heath", then "Uh-uh, Mr. Boehner, Uh-uh, Mr. O" works pretty good.  Unless you're Canadian, in which case you have a couple of weeks to figure out how to fit Messrs. Harper and Mulcair in the song in a rhythmic and clever way, eh.

Happy dirging, taxpayers!