QOTD: IS THIS AN ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF THE WORLD?

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The Coronavirus Encounters of an Average American Nobody

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Last week, I read an online article in my local paper telling of a 68-year-old gentleman who died from COVID-19. In the article, it described how the man had retired in the last year because of cancer. Then, two days later, my wife asked me if I had read the article.  When I said that I had, she responded:  “Scary, huh? He was healthy.”

I replied:  “What do you mean? He had underlying issues“.

And when we logged-on to read the article again, it was tagged as “updated 7 hours ago” and many of the words I’d read two nights before were…. gone. In the paragraph where it said he retired, it mentioned nothing of his cancer and instead described how the man was “active and enjoyed riding his bike”.

Of course, even a tin-foil-hat-wearing blogger like me would have a hard time believing that any conspiratorial pressure could be applied to my local paper.  Perhaps the family requested the change or the original article was in error. It’s hard to say.

Continue reading “The Coronavirus Encounters of an Average American Nobody”

On Channel Surfing, Circus Acts, and Time Passages

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

It’s been another strange week as the circus continues. On Sunday February 17, 2019 former acting FBI Director, Andrew McCabe, told interviewer Scott Pelly on “60 Minutes” that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in early 2017, broached the idea of using the 25th Amendment as a means to remove newly elected President Donald J. Trump.  Furthermore, McCabe said in that interview Rosenstein was actually “counting votes” in Trump’s cabinet to pull off what Republican Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina has termed an “administrative coup”.

All very interesting; especially, given the fact Rosenstein has publically denied McCabe’s claims.

When Pelley asked McCabe why the counterintelligence investigation on Trump was “specifically” launched, McCabe responded as follows:

It’s many of those same concerns that cause us to be concerned about a national security threat. And the idea is, if the president committed obstruction of justice, fired the director of the of the FBI to negatively impact or to shut down our investigation of Russia’s malign activity and possibly in support of his campaign, as a counterintelligence investigator you have to ask yourself, “Why would a president of the United States do that?” So all those same sorts of facts cause us to wonder is there an inappropriate relationship, a connection between this president and our most fearsome enemy, the government of Russia?

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As the Games Begin: The One about the Jews, the Baby, & the Bathwater

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

 

Certainly any one who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

– Voltaire. (1765). “Questions sur les Miracles”.

 

This blogger has posted over 120 original essays since the fall of 2016. With topics ranging from politics to philosophy, I’ve strived to be true for the most part; and, at the very least, accurate.  In so doing, I would attempt to find three separate ways to vet source material – and, in my mind at least, I’ve built some trust with the readers and believe my essays, so far, have stood the test of time.  But if I ever wrote anything blatantly false, everything written henceforth by me, as well as my past articles, should be viewed with greater suspicion by the readers; and for good reason.

Accordingly, we are very fortunate to have the internet; at the very least, for its processing capabilities.  It is in the digital rooms of the interwebic blogosphere where intelligent people face-off in a virtual mixed-martial-arts cage fight where free thought and speech, link attributions, and interactive media, are traded like jabs, uppercuts, body-blows, and roundhouse kicks.  Using the ethernet to test ideas could also be compared to running software at the speed of light, with multiple programming variations, and zero real life consequences; until, that is, we choose to apply the computations. And this is when it becomes risky business.

Continue reading “As the Games Begin: The One about the Jews, the Baby, & the Bathwater”

A Clockwork Orange: Waiting for the Sun

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

 

 Society should not do the wrong thing for the right reason, even though it frequently does the right thing for the wrong reason.

 

 History has shown us what happens when you try to make society too civilized, or do too good a job of eliminating undesirable elements. It also shows the tragic fallacy in the belief that the destruction of democratic institutions will cause better ones to arise in their place.

Stanley Kubrick on “A Clockwork Orange”, an interview with film critic Michel Ciment

 

An obscure Texas political consultant named Bill Miller once said “politics is show business for ugly people”.  It’s true for the most part, aside from the consequences.  This is because the theatrics of politicians result in policies that affect the lives of others; often against the will of the governed. In books and movies, however, the characters are much ado about nothing. Until, that is, life imitates art.

So it is with the futuristic dystopian story of “A Clockwork Orange”.  Both the book, by the author Anthony Burgess, and the film by director Stanley Kubrick, serve as moral dilemmas and cautionary tales plumbing such considerations as free will, the duality of mankind, societal anarchy, and the ascendancy of an all-powerful state.

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FAITH: A Light in a Dark Fun-House of Mirrors

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Last week I experienced a loss which represented a part of my existence for the last fifteen years. The loss doesn’t matter now as much as the sadness and grief currently experienced. A door has been closed. Others will open someday, but that can’t be adequately processed right now.  Sadness and grief are inherent to the human endeavor. This too, shall pass.

In my own experience, transitions are valleys and mountain-tops; hallways and doors. I don’t understand – and yet I realize every experience I ever had, and every choice I ever made, put me right here in this place.  What does one do when they don’t know what to do?  Sit and stew? React? Find peace?  Some words come to mind that are a minor variation from a poem I once wrote during a transition of long ago:

 

…Do you see and hear, then use your reason?

For everything, a time and a season

Do you fight with your might and exercise your will?

Or stay quiet and peaceful and just be still?

All of these contain blessings and each one’s a curse

And if time were money they’ll empty your purse…..

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Happy New Year: Don’t Be Fooled By the Orthodoxies of the Messengers

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

– Edward Bernays, “Propaganda”

 

Edward Bernays (1891 – 1995) was a famous pioneer in the field of public relations and is, today, often referred to as the Father of Propaganda. Perhaps Bernays became thus known because he authored the above quoted 1928 book titled with that very term. He was actually the nephew of the famed psychopathologist Sigmund Freud and was very proud of his uncle’s work. More than that, however, Bernays accepted the basic premises of Freud towards the use of emotional manipulation of the masses through advertising. It was, in fact, Bernays, who changed the term propaganda into “public relations”.

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7 Creepy Conspiracy Theories About The Denver Airport

Avalon stumbled across this video. I thought the Denver airport was fine. Everything ran efficiently. I didn’t see any Illuminati. Does anyone know what an Illuminati looks like? It’s an amusing video.