As It Stands, It's About Time

[UPDATE Below] [UPDATE II]

Finally, something worth your time to read that doesn't insult your intelligence!

Good job Dave.

It is my personal belief that when someone such as newspaper Editors, and other people given space such as Dave Stancliff, and apparently the new opinionator The Reverend Eric Duff are obligated to use that space for words of truth, honesty and value. In other words, write about subject matter that's important and substantive to the local reader. I had almost given up on Dave Stancliff when I noticed the face and name of The Reverend Eric Duff's From Time To Time writings appearing more and more on a regular basis. His latest is, “Fracking's effects to be felt globally.”

I don't know if Reverend Duff's articles had a positive influence on Dave or not, but I finally got my worthwhile article last Sunday, July 29, 2012, titled: Rhetoric and reality follow movie massacre. What he writes about is pertinent and substantive. I honestly believe there just might be some hope for that man yet. One of the biggest problems people have, and my interactions with Dave revealed this issue, is that what people do and what they say, never the twain do meet.

To explain, when I decided to compliment Dave on his progress I began by looking for a current picture that would define the article and came across this picture above at the following link posted June 28, 2012, under: (Hope he doesn't mind reprinting it here.)

AS IT STANDS: An attempt to explain a column that doesn’t really have a category 

Good Day Humboldt County! 

I was talking newspapers with a guy, while waiting in a long line the other day, when I mentioned that I wrote a column for The Times-Standard. He asked what kind of column did I write? 

After hesitating a moment I said, “An opinion column.” But my answer seems incomplete in retrospect, because I didn’t always opine about things. Sometimes I tell stories about people and animals. I’ve also been known to examine physical and mental conditions, along with humorous and satirical takes on life. 

As It Stands is a combination of a poor man’s YOU INSERT YOUR FAVORITE SYNDICATED NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST HERE, and now retired, Gary Larson’s, Far Side comic strip. I like to write about odd and weird things whenever possible. 

I do enjoy getting up on my bully pulpit to protest corruption wherever I see it. I only take stands on subjects that I strongly believe in. Probably the best thing about my column is I write about anything I want to! With a wide variety of subjects explored, I’m bound to pick up some regular readers, whose comments, by the way, keep me writing. 

Longtime readers know that I’m a retired newspaper editor & publisher, and a Vietnam veteran with PTSD that doesn’t get out of the house too often. If it wasn’t for the World Wide Web, I would have lost contact with the outside world a long time ago. This blog, and my column, give me two more reasons to get up in the morning. 

As It Stands, there’s so many new things to write about every day, it really helps chase boredom away! (Emphasis added)

While his take on subject matter is dependent upon his definitions of value and substance, my question is does what he write “pass HIS smell test”? In other words does his writings produce the product he says he's making? This is what Dave says to everyone that come to his blog: “WELCOME TO AS IT STANDS. WE ALL HAVE OPPORTUNTIES (sic) IN LIFE TO TAKE NEW PATHS, AND TO EXPLORE NEW IDEAS. THIS BLOG OFFERS THE READER A CHANCE TO WALK DOWN NEW ROADS. I LIVE IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY. JOIN ME EACH DAY TO GO ON A NEW PATH WITH STORIES AND 0PINIONS THAT WILL STIMULATE YOUR MIND.” (Emphasis added)

As someone that Dave contested with for a period of time over the issue of mind stimulation, let see how he does next Sunday. Lets all hope he keeps up the good work and continues with relevant and pertinent thought provoking subject matter.

So, in Dave's words, “NOW, IT'S TIME FOR ME TO WALK ON DOWN THE ROAD...”

---

[UPDATE :: Friday, August 17, 2012]

Well, I'll be a ring-tailed cat! Our man Dave did it again, TWICE. His first article was about “Democracy in America: Going, going, gone!” and his latest is about, “AB 1536: Texters rejoice, rest fear for theirlives” both commendable.

When I read his comments on “American Democracy” I was reminded how his article was more of an indictment of the propagandized, indolent American Voter. He says the country needs “real leadership, but doesn't see it coming from either side of the aisle.” That's because, while he is right about the need, the problem isn't Democrat or Republican elected politicians, it is the people that do NOT want real leaders. A good example of that is what we've got right here in Eureka with the so-called “Interim” Chief of Police, Murl Harpham. We find out today that the people of Eureka made sure they kept and protected that 78 year old reprobate in office, putting aside the hiring of a new Chief of Police like they made everyone think they were doing, to make him a full fledged Chief so he can finish and establish his legacy in grand style. (See, "Eureka drops police chief hiring process; 'interim' to be dropped from Chief Harpham's title as city looks to fill post next year." Yeah! With a fine Murl Harpham protege. A sad day on Humboldt Bay.  

People get the Democracy they want, even when their voting for two Monarchies and their representative Kings they dutifully call President.

[UPDATE :: Monday, August 20, 2012]

Short-Lived

I guess the past three weeks must of over-taxed our resplendent Opinionator's little gray cells. Sunday, August 19, 2012, waste-of-space “Contemporary art – it's not for everyone” pushes the limit when there are serious local issues that need to be aired out like Friday's headline reporting the latest coup by the Eureka One Percenters: “Eureka drops police chief hiring process – 'Interim' to be dropped from Chief Harpham's title as city looks to fill post nest year.” The push for a Harpham protégé rolls on.

But, alas! Such serious, pertinent and relevantly LOCAL issues are NOT a topic for discussion in the As It Stands world. Dave candidly talks about the need for leaders and leadership. Well Dave, here's your golden opportunity. Why don't you make the most of it?

--Joe

Communist Censorship and McCarthyism

[UPDATE Below] [UPDATE II :: Natural consequence:  "Why don't American oligarchs fear the consequences of their corruption, and how can that be changed?"]

Totalitarians thrive in the dark. They operate in the dark realms of the voodoo believers. Force people to operate on superstitions, mythological traditions, or secular religious cults in one form or another, call them political parties or organizations and you easily control the general population. That is, as long as the "common man and woman" believes they have some relevant say in matters.

So the priority is to keep people in ignorance if they can't keep information silenced. In the computer and Internet age where there is widespread travel, movies and television this has become rather difficult. In America, specially after World War Two, college and university education came to the low-class masses in America – predominantly the men. It then became their goal to see their children go to college and upgrade their status in society. Problem was, the education their children were getting, to a large extent, contradicted their propagandistic brainwashed beliefs the war had forced upon them, so what to do. Information of any kind doesn't benefit anyone if they can't think. That required changing their priority from thinking motivated people to believing motivated people. All they had to do was make their children believe they were worthless individuals unable to think for themselves. Make them believe that whatever they thought or believed, whatever ideas they came up with equal to any adult was worthless nonsense. Fortunately, this sickness that pervades America and the World didn't afflict everyone. You can always tell who these sick McCarthyites are.

The first thing the totalitarian type does is attack dissenters, disbelievers or thinking people personally. Their attacks start out with the usual lying accusations of an emotional issue denigrating the legitimacy of your right or ability to any kind of worthwhile or valid idea, statement, or belief, i.e., “you're angry,” “you're sick,” or in extreme cases, “you're crazy.” In Russia they promptly shipped such people off to Siberia by the millions for “indoctrination” of their sickness  –  not agreeing. In America, they put you in the nether world of rejected silence, a place of nonexistence – the Siberian equivalent.

America is blessed with an interesting phenomenon, some might even say paradox, in that those championing and defending all American's inherent right to their personal freedoms of expression and religion against such tyrannical Communistic or Socialist censorship are the strongest defenders of it. Senator Joe McCarthy was a good example of this.

“Today the term (McCarthyism) is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character and/or patriotism of political opponents.”

Which we see utilized and enforced on a regular basis in these Internet blogs. What's paradoxical about such McCarthyite defenders of freedom are the very people you'd least expect. President Barck Obama is a good example. Glenn Greenwald speaks to this issue in his article, “Most likely to attack Iran.”

“ *** Obama — by leading progressives and Democrats to support his embrace of Bush/Cheney Terrorism and civil liberties policies — was doing more to entrench those once-controversial policies as bipartisan consensus than Bush and Cheney themselves could ever have dreamt of doing.”

Of recent date, another one of these people has begun or at least tried to incite a similar Joe McCarthy mentality, some might say spirit, into my participation on blogs where he writes and makes comments. It's probably the very last person in Humboldt County you would expect, too. Here's an example of the latest: 

An Interesting Moment in the Senate by Eric Kirk


Eric Kirk said 23 hours ago:  Again Joe posts his default response to any news about the body politic. Again Joe, we know you think it’s all bullshit, and there are some posters who agree with you. But don’t you get tired of typing the same stuff over and over again?

Seems innocent or innocuous enough of a comment to say that all anyone posts is repetitious bullshit not fit to read. But then, look who is doing to talking. It is in this arrogant, self-righteous attitude that the roots of bigotry, bias, prejudice, and hatred live and feed.

This article is an update to the Good Ol' Boy Club below.

--Joe

---

[UPDATE :: Tuesday, July 31. 2012]

Mind-numbing “body politic.” Local political junky and rhetorical propaganda enabler shows the way to what Glenn Greenwald explains in his latest article: Extremism normalized. If you want to know the root cause of what Greenwald is exposing, go no further than Eric Kirk's blog, SoHum Parlance II and his posts on the Humboldt Herald blog. Tune into the Comment Section and prepare to become inundated with boredom. It's comparable to those old science classes where everyone was forced to dissect for the umpteenth time those rotten smelling bullfrogs.

[UPDATE II :: Wednesday, August 1, 2012]

No fear. When I communicate with the likes of an Eric Kirk, a practicing lawyer in Humboldt County, the one constant that impressed me was his cavalier approach to the horrendous consequences descending upon the people of this country, including right here where we all live. Glenn Greewald puts it this way in his article: Chris Hayes on elite failure.

I see no evidence that “rich people are very, very afraid” — at least not by their actions. And that, to me, is the problem. That fear — a lot more of it — is necessary. Their ability to rope themselves off from the society they are degrading, combined with the para-militarization of domestic police forces (aggressively displayed in response to the Occupy movement and related protests), and the rapidly increasing domestic powers of surveillance and detention (designed to intimidate the citizenry and thus deter and guard against mass protests), have convinced them, I think, that they need not fear any protest movements or social unrest, that America can and will become more and more of a police state to suppress it. An elite class that is free to operate without limits — whether limits imposed by the rule of law or fear of the responses from those harmed by their behavior — is an elite class that will plunder, degrade, and cheat at will, and act endlessly to fortify its own power.

The problem for these Fearless Fosdicks is that "nothing is ever as it seems" and they're in for a big surprise.

Good Ol' Boy's Club

What's going on with the Times-Standard's Opinion Page? It's bad enough that most of the news is canned Spam, and that the local news is mostly regurgitated press releases. To know what the featured national opinionators have to say, all that is required is to read one of their opinion pieces. Then the next time you see their name or names, you just pass them by since you already know what they are going to say. No originality, no imagination, no substance, nothing more than the same old self-justifying "talking points." The same is true of the ONLY local opinion writer, Dave Stancliff and his pablum filled As It Stands articles that dominates a half page of every Sunday Edition. That is until another face kept showing up on a regular basis taking up the My Word portions of the paper with his wordy nothingness. This is the Reverend Eric Duff, an "Episcopal priest and licensed clinical social worker." Just what we need, another "priest" telling everyone what to believe – indoctrinating every reader in the Editor's theological social rote.

My Word opinions are considered “Guest Editorials” by the paper. The newspaper say that: “My Words of 500-700 word are reserved for regional issues and related items of high local interest.” It doesn't take long to tell when reading some of these My Word commentaries that meeting this standard: “regional issues and related items of high local interest” resides ONLY in the “eye of the beholder.” In other words, as a “guest editorial” whatever you write must meet the same criteria as the newspaper's Editor or whoever it is that is responsible for the paper's editorial.

So, good luck getting something published if what you have say is both of a “regional issue” and or a related item of “high local interest.” All the newspaper cares about is filling their pages with gobbledy gook. You know what “gobbledy gook” is, don't you? Here's a good example I pulled at random out of my stack of old papers: “What exactly happened to everybody's sense of humor?” Seems like a substantive and criteria-meeting “item of high local interest,” right? Read the article and you see he has made his point, no one can talk to anyone today without committing some form of crime – let alone “make a joke.” Got a problem with your neighbor? You can get arrest for simply approaching him or her and asking them what their problem is? They just MIGHT FEEL threatened – a serious crime anymore. Never you mind that your neighbor ACTUALLY threatens to physically harm you, your family or property; a crime in any country. So, what was his solution? I guess he is following the newspaper editor's solution and directs everyone to the “other” always “entertaining” comedian, Dave Stancliff. (See the As It Stands: “Who would you like to have lunchor dinner with?”)

Since getting some of my priorities reorganized, I haven't spent much time reading As It Stands opinion. I do check him out and most always scan (speed read) through his commentaries. I really don't have much time to spend on someone as proven able and astute as Dave Stancliff when he spends or wastes his gift (a weekly, Sunday column) and talent writing about nonsense, always patting himself on the back and calling it and himself “entertaining.” Sadly, it seems, the same thing is happening to The Rev. Eric Duff's From Time To Time columns as well. His latest, “Humboldt happiness: It's in the air” really stretches the imagination to see how what he says is “an item of high local interest.” More like juvenile pablum served up by a hollow, empty, small-minded “newspaper” editor.

The problem is, these people, Dave Kuta, Kimberly Wear or Marc Valles DO NOT publish letters or My Word editorials that are relevant and substantive, in place of filling their pages status quo or standard “entertainment.” But then, no one would know anything about that, would you. They just quietly file such commentaries in the trash. What we need is someone with the guts and cojones that is adult enough to stand up to the substantive issues facing our community – what it actually takes to start talking to and about one another's juvenile conduct.

My problem with all of this Good Ol' Boy Club stuff is that we all know how it works in the “real” world of politics and business controlled by the 1%. In times past everyone believed that newspapers at least tried to stay above that corruption. Well, some of them did anyway. Here, with the Times-Standard you've got the one and only “retired editor” and a club of would-be “editors” vying for your attention. Check out some of the local blogs and you'll find the same Good Ol' Boy's Club practicing and engaging in the same kind of ingratiating, self-serving stroking. So read on for whatever it is worth.

---

stroke  (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/stroking)

tr.v. stroked, strok·ing, strokes

1. To rub lightly, with or as if with the hand or something held in the hand; caress.

2. Informal To behave attentively or flatteringly toward, especially in order to restore to confidence or win over.

---

--Joe

Supervisor's Set Priorities – for the Vote that Counts

Was that the vote at the ballot box the 1,450 caregivers made when they voted for the current crop of County Supervisors? Or was it the vote some of the more wealthy property owners made with their dollar election support?

What strikes you when reading the front page of the Wednesday, July 11, 2012, Times-Standard newspaper? Aside from the fact that Shell's WindEnergy program isn't bringing any future business or jobs to Humboldt County or any tax dollars either are the two other headlines. First one is, Humboldt insists no wage increase forhome care workers and Supervisors approve adding moreWilliamson Act properties.

This is what the paper says about Home-Care workers:

“Negotiators for the county's In-Home Supportive Services workers -- who help aged, blind and disabled individuals remain in their own homes -- have been petitioning the county for increased wages. Care workers currently make minimum wage -- set at $8 an hour -- and don't receive any benefits.”

And this is what it says about the benefits for private landowners:

“The board voted 5-0 to accept new applications this year, allowing the county to enter into contracts with private landowners as a way to restrict land use to agricultural or preservation purposes. Participating landowners receive lower property tax assessments.”

County Supervisor priority speaks loud and clear. The picture caption of the Bulldog on the same page probably says it all about what your vote gets you – Whatta dog!

--Joe

Good for the Police - Good for Everyone

Today's Times-Standard front page headline says: A question of self-defense - Fickle Hill shooting highlights complexity of state law. Then goes on to detail the following circumstance highlighting the so-call "shooting."
According to the Sheriff's Office a "highly intoxicated" man "wandered into the wrong home, thinking it was his." Quoting the newspaper:

The homeowners -- a 24-year-old male and an 18-year-old female -- were awakened by their dogs barking and quickly realized they weren't alone. The male homeowner then confronted the intruder in the living room, telling him to leave. The man refused, telling the couple to leave his house, according to the sheriff's office.  

The couple then left their home, taking refuge at a nearby neighbor's house, before the male homeowner and his 42-year-old neighbor decided to go back and confront the intruder. According to the sheriff's office, the neighbor grabbed his shotgun for protection.

Important to note what also happened here as detailed by the Sheriff's Office Lt. Steve Knight:

"...the wife at the neighbor's house, reporting the intrusion and stating that her husband the neighbor were returning to the residence." 

Here, the couple clearly did what every sane, responsible person would do in the face of a "highly intoxicated" person who honestly believed he was in his own home and defending and protecting his right to be there, safe and secure. The police were called, the people were in a safe place. Going back with a shotgun forced a fatal or potentially fatal confrontation that, under the circumstance would easily been handled a deputy or two. To claim "self-defense" under such circumstance, regardless of the home-owners rights is TOTAL NONSENSE!

The homeowner and his adult neighbor created or initiated the confrontation, similar to George Zimmerman's shooting of the unarmed teenage boy, Trayvon Martin. Once the couple left their home they ceded any right they may believe they had, specially once they called the police, to deliberately confront what they knew to be a belligerent intruder to reclaim their home. That is why they took the shotgun.

The problem we all have with the continued discussion in the paper by a couple of "law professors" regarding the individual's "right to self-defense" with the use of lethal force against an unarmed man, in particular enforcing what he justifiably believes is his right to self-defense, is the escalating use of lethal force demonstrated by the police and the unilateral dismissal by the District Attorney to justify such police action as essentially justified "self-defense" - they "felt" their lives were threatened when they initiate the unjustified confrontation. Locally the most current situation that comes to my mind was the shooting to death of Jacob Robert Newmaker by Fortuna police officers Maxwell Soeth and Sgt. Charles Ellebrecht discussed on this blog here.

The problem here, is that the District Attorney Paul Gallegos is hung by his own petard when he allows the unjustified use of lethal force by police officers resulting in the deaths of innocent people simple, in most cases, reacting to the police assault by defending themselves in the same way any human being would act.

Clearly, these two individuals, the homeowner and his neighbor, should be in jail charged with, if the man is still alive and remains that way, attempted murder. However, as a life-long believer in the citizen's inherent right to self-defense I find this application really troubling. Reason why? Because of what was also in today's Times-Standard Opinion Page under "From Time To Time" by The Rev. Eric Duff: Visit to fair triggers thoughts on guns. He concludes his social judgment of the Constitutional rights under Law by saying:

No one should be allowed to use or have access to a gun without training. Guns are not toys; they are weapons. There will always be honest people who choose to own guns for legitimate (hunting) purposes. The rest, the hand guns and the repeaters and so on should be limited to security professionals, who have been trained, and who know the consequences for an accidental, or intentional, shooting.  ***

If you own a gun, are legally qualified to use it, and have safety measures in place, by all means have it. What needs to end is the mindless and needless effort to make guns available to anyone who wants one. This doesn't do any good for anyone.

I DO NOT own any gun for "legitimate (hunting) purposes. I do own a legally registered gun for "legitimate (self-defense) purposes. This is the kind of mindless judgments people have come to expect from an elitist religious preacher. Unless you are "trained" so as to "know the consequences" you are unfit, too stupid and incompetent to own let alone use a weapon to defend yourself. It is this kind of mindless thinking that produced the Mubaraks, the Saddam Husseins and the Bashar Assads of the world that cause the current situation in the Middle East and currently in Syria and Mexico. This is what the Reverend Eric Duff's of this country would bring to America. To understand this, you have to go no further than see how the police across America treated the Occupy Movement people.
[Source]

--Joe

Obamacare's Flim Flam Rolls On

The continued looting of the American people as long orchestrated, but now presided over by President Barack Obama was justified today by the majority of justices in the U. S. Supreme Court splitting hairs. In other words, they finessed their definition to accommodate their purpose, rather than apply Constitutional Law. Here is how the Atlantic reports it:

The Health Care Decision, Explained in 1 Paragraph on SCOTUSblog

In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn't comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding. [Emphasis added]

MacLeod's cartoon, as usual, nails it:

Chief Justice Roberts split hairs in his effort to try to save whatever credibility the Supreme Court has with his decision. Based upon the Court's five-four rulings it whole reason for existence is to protect the looting. To do that, this decision gives it some sort of equanimity; an appearance of deciding issues only on the law. However, if you would like to read how Fox News spins constitutionality, read: Chief Justice Roberts does the right thing on ObamaCare. 

By the way, the so-called Affordable Care Act - Health care costs to date, cost Americans 2.3 trillion dollars annually. Most of that money goes to the 1%.

[Source]

 --Joe

Our Worthless Constitution

The Constitution of the United States of America is only words on paper. Those words cannot make anyone do anything. They don't pack clubs and guns to beat people into submission; forcing them to yield all power. As the Supreme Court continues to debate and decide the constitutionality of law it cooperates and empowers the Legislative and Executive branches of Government to discredit, demean and void that very Constitution. The American people's elected representatives and their appointed cohorts that are sworn and tasked with defending and enforcing Constitutional Law use it to justify their criminal acts repudiating it's very legitimacy - it's right to exist.

So, what value is the U.S. Constitution? What protection does it provide for the people? If the U.S. Constitution amounts to nothing more than an inanimate, but revered document, what obligates anyone to it?

Before the United States could become legally united, the majority of the people had to create and accept a legal document to legitimize their right to exist, first as an independent people and second, as a sovereign nation. Replacing that legal document with the defacto rule by men delegitimizes the American people's legitimate existence. Rule of Men is defined when they justify their deliberate refusal and failure to obey and enforce the Law: "The punishment does not fit the crime, therefore the crime is disallowed." The "ends" now legally, by precedent "justify the means." To prove that, we have to go no further than the current President Barack Obama's conduct. Here's just one example: Collapsing U. S. Credibility. The historical record for the past twenty years in particular since 2000 clearly demonstrates America's slide into the black hole of anarchy and lawlessness - like cancer, evidence of their illegitimacy. Every American that stands outside of law is responsible for this. Every time you choose to run a stop sign you vote for corruption, you vote for lawless anarchy and chaos. You vote for this:

Nothing Justifies This - from Amnesty International. Read the article and view the clip, it needs to be experienced to realize this happens right here on American soil. It's time for you to make a choice.

--Joe