Tag: defensible times
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Should have stuck with SW
Still on info input and output…. Censorship is all about info inputs, and the criterion is caste, not content. Correct Persons are allowed to insert their info into the closed-circuit web. Incorrect Persons are not allowed to input. We’ve been conditioned to assume that Twitter and Google and Apple are the ONLY channels. Simply and…
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When TV was local
Lately I’ve been reading the Enid Buzz facebook page regularly. Enid is still my home, the only place where I felt like a citizen. I’ve never felt like a citizen here in Spokane. After 30 years, still an outsider. The Enid Buzz page has frequent history features, and I recognize most of them instantly, at…
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Statusotopic mapping?
If we start from my unconventional thought that secrecy is the default, what happens? If we treat this as the baseline assumption, what about “innovation” and “robust debate”? First some clarification. I’m talking about secrecy and language within a family or tribe or guild, not secrecy between all individuals. Language forms the circle and keeps…
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Tenzor
Continuing a vaguely defined theme of obscure and peculiarly clumsy secret equipment. = = = = = = = = = = Soviet spies were working in Oklahoma and Kansas in the ’50s, as evident in the correct local pronunciations on their maps. Every city and province has its secret shibboleths, its own tests for…
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Pithy point, pithy counterpoint
Kirn’s latest pithy point: If history is any guide, the books that the ideological arsonists disappear first are likely to be the very books needed to spark a renaissance later. Most of the commenters are thinking of fairly modern dystopias, but that’s clearly not where Kirn is going. 1984 wouldn’t spark a renaissance. Purpose-based thinkers…
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Best of the bunch
Two of the best interviews from the Connors UFO audio are from the mid-60s after most of the hoopla had died down. Despite the lack of hoopla, a lot of ‘undismissable’ incidents were happening in ’65 across large parts of the world. = = = = = (1) Ray Fowler of the Boston-area NICAP was…
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Putting UFOs onto the timeline
Two very different men with the same initials. = = = = = Alphia Hart mentioned the UFO craze often, and not only because it was a kindred unorthodox spirit. Hart’s specific mission was debunking the Hubbard cult, which is based on a wild story about alien contacts. Now that I know some of the…
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Phlogiston wasn’t stupid at all
I hope Google doesn’t start censoring its Books department. All VALID ideas and CORRECT facts were written before the 20th century. Pretty much everything written since 1906 is either trivial or intentionally murderously false. Censoring new ideas is usually a net gain of real knowledge, whether the new ideas are ‘establishment’ or ‘independent’. Before Googlebooks,…
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WPA 1/5, background
Time for another review/renew series. Five parts from top to bottom. Part 1, Background (this item). Part 2, Oklahoma. Part 3, Teacherages. Part 4, Post offices. Part 5, Summary. = = = = = The New Deal set up dozens of overlapping agencies at first, then gradually simplified the arrangement. In other words, FDR didn’t…
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WPA 2/5, Oklahoma
The WPA was engaged in a huge variety of tasks, all focused on the SKILLS of workers. People need to be useful, and men need to make things. Training develops the soul and brain most effectively and permanently when you’re MAKING THINGS that are visible and useful and a source of pride to your parents…
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Return to Truman 2
Still watching all the “independents” falling into line like passive iron filings near a powerful magnet. Still branching from that Feb ’50 Mutual news broadcast. It includes a brief emotional snip of the HUAC committee grilling Henry Wallace. The simple FACT is that all politicians were neutral and non-combatant from 1920 to 1940. We actually…
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Some things don’t change
From an otherwise uninteresting 1948 WBZ station brochure: Caption: Talent arrives with costumes for video rehearsal. Video was brand new in ’48, and talent was still operating in Vaudeville mode. Traveling between theaters, carrying their own costumes and props. The car in front is a base-model Hudson business coupe, probably belonging to one of the…
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Everybody’s gettin into da act.
Since I disconnected from TV and radio, I’m no longer getting constant IV floods of media toxin. But I can still recognize the floods by an occasional oversplash. Most of the “independent” “journalists” have suddenly turned neocon again. Non-intervention is fine when China or Saudi or Israel is invading other countries. Non-intervention goes out the…
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More rambling
Still thinking about Okla…. The Okla Historical Assn made a series of podcasts a few years ago. This one, from 2018, is a long interview with former governor George Nigh. He was governor in the 80s, and started his term in the last year that I lived in Enid. According to Wikipedia he’s still alive…
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The magic lantern lasted longer…
Last year I delved into the intersection of science and entertainment in the 1850s, focusing on the Magic Lantern. = = = = = START PARTIAL REPRINT: I had thought the magic lantern was just a slide projector with light furnished by flame instead of electricity. The machine was partly similar, but the ACTUAL USE…
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