Seven for a secret

The bird feeder had not been placed specifically for any one species. There was an abundance of bird life in the forest, thus a lot of competition. There came the usual array of small songbirds, dominated mostly by sparrows and finches. These would be pushed off at times by some larger redbirds, a mating pair who would regularly grace us with their presence to stake out their share of the sunflower seeds. Aside from the minor skirmishes, this happy family lived in harmony for many weeks on end.

The feeder was placed on May Day, which in the ancient times of our people was marked as the first day of Summer. We had not quite got the whole calendar thing sorted just yet. On this year the date came as a grey, wet and somber day, more akin to a day in March than Summer. It was easy to bury the prongs of the tall shepherd's hook deeply into the muddy earth. After a bit of tamping and the addition of a round of gravel at it's base, the hook was secure, and the pre-loaded feeder was suspended.

Throughout the month of May, the scarlet heralds sang sharply and bright across the frosted dawn. This cold Spring, cruel in her wait, her air clear and crisp as earth stiffens then relaxes. Stretching legs and arching backs, as an old man awakens from a long Winter nap. Though the season refused to yield her grip, our family of birds was out every day, cheerleading for Summer to come. After a time, we came to hear more cries of crows and jays from elsewhere in the forest. Thankfully there were none that came to light upon the feeder.

In June, finally, long, warm sunny days arrived. Clouds abated and a verdant life suspended in a damp chill burst into bloom. Amid this flowering realm came the magpie. One morning, right at dawn, he floated down from the dark canopy above and perched at the very top of the hook. All was completely still at this hour, when mists still arose from the forest floor. In this air sounds will carry sharply and far. It seemed that this magpie was fully aware of this; that indeed, he had chosen this hour with purpose. He tucked his wings into his long, sleek profile, puffed out his breast and chittered away loudly in a stuttered series of cherk-cherk-chirrip. It seemed that as the echoes of his calls sounded back, his call grew louder and quickened like he was competing with the echo. He was making it abundantly clear that he meant for all around to know that he had arrived.

As I witnessed this event, I realized that this was the cousin of those very crows and jays that I had hoped might stay off this perch. It would not do for him to piss upon that feeder to claim it as his own. Thus, I was obliged to confront him, to perform the ceremonial shooing off. It had been a while, but, like riding a bike...

I stood at the doorway first, the door still opened behind, and cried from the porch, "Piss off, you!" I felt this was a solid opening statement, making it abundantly clear that he was not welcome. "Piss off, you" is pretty unambiguous when there is no one else around. And this fella was having none of it. He turned ninety degrees on his perch to face me directly and then squawked louder.

Rule number two in shooing off: always have a non-lethal response at the ready. I was prepared with a coil of garden hose, already connected and loaded with a pistol sprayer. I needed only to take the few steps down from the porch, make two turns on the spigot and have at this brigand with a pelting, ice-cold jet of water. Sensing the imminent impact of this stream, the magpie squawked angrily and leapt from his perch, narrowly escaping my first salvo. He'd not got off into the clear yet and undaunted, I had another crack at him before he was out of range. I managed only to gain a minor clipping of his tailfeathers before he dashed off into the deeper wood and the darkness beyond.

The rest of the day went on as they do, with plans made and thwarted as may be, by either weather or other desires. Our extended family of songbirds were left unmolested by the magpie or any other menace. There was even a lone mourning dove to join their numbers briefly. The air was warm, the skies sunny and the day was long. As evening shadows began to clutch the forest, the birds were retired to their roosts in preparation for the night. It was not wholly dark yet, just at sunset. Lightning bugs had only begun to glimmer in the thicket, while crickets performed their tuning for the nightly symphony.

It was with these last rays of the day's light that the magpie returned, descending just as he had that morning to a perch atop the shepherd's hook. This time he spread his wings wide and squawked loudly, the maw opened wide toward the porch in a clear challenge. I watched from the porch, in some mild amazement. I made no movement toward the hose, instead remaining still in the shadows, hoping to observe undetected. As the moments passed, I grew certain that the magpie knew I was there. Then, quite suddenly, he folded his wings and turned to display his tail, dropping a trail of piss onto the feeder below. 

As shocking as this was, it was only the opening. With his tail raised like an orchestra conductor's baton, there silently descended a circle of six more magpies. They formed a circle around their leader in the trees above. None of them made a sound, but they all seemed to have their black, beady eyes fixed upon the porch. The leader rotated about upon his perch, as though reviewing the troops, then likewise returned his gaze to the porch. 

This was unnerving. Surely it meant something. At that point I decided that the only thing for it was to light the fire ring. I couldn't say for sure that they posed any actual threat, but something about it seemed malevolent. Almost like something supernatural. I knew I hadn't eaten any mushrooms, so this was not a hallucination. The fire ring was mostly prepared already, only requiring the initial application of an open flame. They did not move, nor did any make a sound, but all seven sets of black eyes followed my movements. In mere minutes the first licks of flame were dancing skyward from the fire ring, casting a dancing, orange glow upon the trees all around. As the flames grew higher the leader abruptly retired from his perch and flew off into the night. The other magpies rose in silent unison to follow.

There were some weeks that followed and none of the magpies had returned, or at least if they had, they had done so in stealth. I had been left to puzzle greatly, this bizarre incident. I had some vague recollection from somewhere in memory, that magpies were associated with certain superstitions in various cultures. Thus tickled I sought to refresh that memory and discovered the aged English nursery rhyme:

One for sorrow,

Two for joy,

Three for a girl,

Four for a boy,

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret never to be told

Just a nursery rhyme. Doesn't mean anything. But there were seven. Not just seven at random, rather seven with some unified purpose, whether benign or malign, who could say? Seven for a secret never to be told. Was the secret never to speak of this? 

For days upon days this incident haunted even my waking hours. While going about the mundane daily tasks a sudden shiver would travel up my spine. I could be seized by that momentary sense of dread, looking skyward for the impending swarm of doom. At times I was certain I had heard his insistent clucking, yet upon searching would find no magpie about anywhere. My nights grew restless and even in those darkest hours I would pause at the window, peering out at the feeder and fearing he'd be there.

The boss did not return, nor any of his clutch. The weeks passed on until the solstice and still there was no reappearance. The memory did not fade, but the sense of dread had passed. No longer did I fear their return. I began to wonder if perhaps I had not dreamt or imagined it all. Or perhaps I was only wishing that.

Midsummer's Day is traditionally June 24, in many cultures the Feast of St. John the Baptist. If there were any exchange of gifts involved, we might think of it as Christmas in summer. Not Christmas in July, but almost. That is not the reality of June 24, at least not today, but it is an old tradition that I am aware of. On this year in question June 23 was quite windy. All day long the roof was pelted with debris dislodged from the trees above. Late that afternoon it occurred to me that these were the winds to usher in the last half of the Summer: this was Midsummer's Eve. Only a passing thought, not one that I dwelt upon. Perhaps I should have.

Being an avid grower, June is a month that does not register as a feast time. If one were to choose any day of that month and ask me how I thought of it, the most likely response would be that it was a day of labors. That June 23 was no exception. By the time evening fell that day I was not thinking of feasts, or John the Baptist, or our feathered guests of three weeks prior. I thought only of being reclined on the porch and killing a few brain cells. As dusk approached I was doing just that. 

Just before the sun blinked it's last the air suddenly grew quite still. The earth sighed it's last breath of the day and as darkness descended, the seven magpies arrived with it. It was like they had a great veil of night clutched in their talons, drawing the final curtain down upon the stage. They all returned to the very same perch they had left those weeks before. I saw it, I knew I was seeing it, and yet the scene was so surreal I could not believe it. I was frozen there, staring back at the glow of their beady eyes in the gloom.

We all of us sat there as the full black of night enveloped; I at my perch and they at theirs, aware of each other's presence, feigning indifference. I could not say for certain how long this continued. It seemed as for hours, though I doubt it. Prior to their arrival my mind had been numbed enough to endure the time without being aware of the time. I don't know what their story was. At somewhere around the hour of what I could only guess was 11PM, nature called. At that moment an idea entered my mind like a thunderclap.

I staggered up from my seat and shakily made my way down the steps. I paused for a moment to assure myself that both feet had landed at terra firma. My inner gyroscope recalibrated, I heard my own voice in my head. "Come and piss on my feeder, will you!" This goaded me on, I took those halting and measured steps to the shepherd's hook and let loose with a six pack. Then I heard myself aloud, "What do you say to that, bitch!" The boss's onyx eyes gleamed inscrutably in the dim light. 

We faced off like this in the night, as piss dribbled down my shorts; two determined and stubborn foes who would not yield their ground. Still half drunk and suddenly beset by mosquitoes, I was just beginning to see the error of this folly. A grown man, in the middle of the night, literally in a pissing contest with a bird. What the hell is wrong with you? This visitation was still concerning and would be dealt with, just not right then. At that point I was resolved that if they were still there in the morning, I should worry about it then and not before.

I turned to stumble back through the murky half-light, to return to the porch where I intended to drink more ale. A few steps away I turned back over my shoulder, to see that they were all still there. Seven sets of eyes, glassy orbs glowing in whatever moonlight penetrated the canopy above. They were eerie, still upon their perch, so I shuffled along to the steps, until climbing back aboard the porch and returning to my slouch chair. I dropped into the seat and reached another bottle of ale from the iced cooler. I had gotten no further than raising the bottle to my lips, when the seven magpies descended as one onto the porch railing, not ten feet before me.

They had glided without a sound in the darkness and lighted upon the rail without even stirring a flutter of air. The boss took his place directly across from my seat, the others in a row to the left, spaced about two feet apart. In any circumstance this would be a development of, at the least, some mild concern. Some might easily find it alarming. I was figuring that this was some freakish manifestation of a turf war. Then something happened that changed my mind very quickly.

I began to hear a voice. It was sometimes a voice of one, sometimes the voices of many. The singular voice remained constant, while the chorus of voices faded in and out. I could not determine whether these were external sounds I was hearing, or if they were only voices within my head. The voice repeated a chant, the same each time. Seven times the voice spoke.

Once for a warning,

now for the tell

Before it is morning

you'll have broken the spell

I spilled part of that ale, cursing at the waste. Yet my thirst for ale was sated. It was time for something stronger. I staggered inside to retrieve a bottle of rum, the only available poison that seemed to fit the occasion. I was confident that my feathered guests would remain in place, and I was right. Returning to my seat I found them all unmoved, still bobbing at their perch on the rail. I took a strong pull from the bottle and hissed as it burned it's way down my pipes. I set the bottle aside and sat upright to study the boss magpie. I felt the heat rush to my ears and neck, beginning to feel combative. I felt like provoking him. Raising the bottle between us I taunted, "You fellas want some? Should I get you a dish?"

That won't be necessary.

As before the voice was "heard", clear as a bell, yet I was certain that it was only in my head. I allowed intuition to guide me and concluded that I could "think" my response.

I can answer you this way, right?

Yes. It is preferable.

Holy shit, I was right. This bird was in my head.

So, if you don't mind my asking, uh... what do you guys want? Why are you here and why are you talking to me?

Our journey began in the Orient.

Okay. So it was going to be like that. I wasn't going to get any answers. Just a tale.

Have you ever been to the Orient, Thomas?

I have not.

There are parts of the Orient that are hard to believe as a part of the same planet. It is truly another world.

You have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, what's yours?

You can call me Karl.

And your six friends?

We're all Karls.

Of course you are. Makes total sense.

I'm sorry. You were talking about the Orient?

Have you ever heard of the Bikini Atoll?

Yes. They did some atomic test there. Created Godzilla or some shit...

There were a little over one hundred native Bikini islanders. Their people had lived there peaceably for centuries, thousands of miles from anyone or anything else. They had no part in any of the world's quarrels. Then one day government men came. They wore white or khaki suits with ribbons and brass, rigid hats with stars and other adornments.

The men in suits came with younger men in green uniforms, carrying rifles. The younger men were charged to bring all of the islanders together, that one of the men in suits might inform them all of this great thing that the government was going to do for them. So the islanders were all dutifully assembled in the sand, palm trees swaying in the breeze above them. They didn't really understand what was happening, as the eternal surf lapped at the beach in the background.

An interpreter announced to the islanders that the government man with the most brass and ribbons would now address them. The government man said, "Tell them that the government wants to do something wonderful with their land, something that will benefit all of mankind". There were some other words spoken, but this one phrase was the crux of the justification. This was the reason why they were to be removed from their homes, for the benefit of a mankind they did not know and could barely imagine.

I was expecting that this narrative would continue, but for a time it ended there. The words told some kind of a story, but I was not convinced that the literal story was the real story being told. I had an uneasy sense that there was something else I needed to be taking away from this tale, yet that something else escaped me. I pondered this in silence for so long, expecting that the narrative would resume.

Is that it? That's your tell? The government man lied... that's a stunning revelation!

It was but one lie of the greater lie, the Noble Lie. Do you know about the Noble Lie, Thomas?

<sigh>, oh the fucking Greeks! I have a general understanding of it, yes, but it would seem I am missing something, Karl. If that's your real name...

You could not pronounce my real name. Karl is for you. You can use any name that you like.

No, Karl is fine. It's a good name.

The government man had his speech prepared. He even went to the trouble of locating a translator. Somehow his personal guilt was assuaged by the knowledge that he at least had the decency to lie to those people in their native tongue. He was fully aware that some of his peers had propositioned that a modern naval fleet could be destroyed with one atomic bomb. He was fully aware that the Bikini atoll had been selected as a sacrifice to prove that proposition. He could not very well come and say to these people "Okay, so here's the thing... me and the guys got together, and we decided that we're gonna light off a nuke in your front yard."

Well, to be fair, he could have said that. You know. He could have just told them to shield their eyes. He could have told them it was the return of the Sun God... the point being that anything he told them would be a lie.

Indeed! You are catching on, Thomas. Anything he told them would be a lie. So why sugar coat it? For the benefit of the natives? Something wonderful? That's pretty vague. You have to wonder how this concept is expressed in the Bikini tongue. What do they know of all of mankind? All of mankind is the hundred some of their people. You think they could possibly have formed words in their language to express that idea in the same sense that we understand it?

So that is the Noble Lie, the lie told for the greater good?

No. The little script that the government man prepared was for his own benefit. He is uncomfortable among these people. Not because he knows what he is a party to. He knows what is being done to these people. Away from them he is sneering, condescending upon them as mere savages. Then he goes to sit among them, smiling and deferential, as he utters his own witch doctor incantation to absolve himself of any guilt. They are lies to sooth his raw conscience. All these lies are the acts of the greater lie, the Noble Lie. The government man IS the Noble Lie. The Noble Lie is not noble. It is only a lie, like all the others. In my universe, Thomas, these untruths are very inconvenient mathematically. They stick in our craw, if you get my meaning.

I did get his meaning, even in the broader, astrophysical sense implied. Mentally I felt as though I had taken a full right jab from George Foreman in his prime. I was dumbfounded, stunned to utter silence. The truth of it all hung heavily in the air, like the cordite clouds wafting about in a fireworks celebration. I felt myself falling to the mat and tribal drums echoed in the distance. I did not feel it when I landed, but I felt it on the bounce. As I lay there, the concussion reverberating through my skull, I hear the magpie's parting words. Not in my head, but aloud as they took flight.

You must choose the world you want

I awakened with a start at the first peek of dawn. Wrenched violently from a rum induced coma into the cruel reality of consciousness in one cold, jarring blow. The first strains of light were clawing at the mists; the night would not depart quietly. Somewhere there was still the echo of drums. Towering above the mists there was the shepherd's hook. And the feeder. I was witness to that daybreak frenzy of redbirds, wrens and sparrows. Their chatter was sharp and clear across the still of morning. This was their domain. No crows, no jays, and alas, no magpies to haunt their roost.

This was Midsummer's Day, I recalled. For some reason. Well, I had nothing to do at that hour. I really should have gone back to sleep, but despite the alcoholic haze my mind was awake, alert. I could muster no physical ambition to raise myself from the chair I had made home for the previous eight hours. All I could do was perform a slow-motion replay of the night's visitation in my mind. With the birds' chorus as a soundtrack. I'll concede Karl's take on the Noble Lie. I wasn't so sure any spell had been broken.

Once for a warning,

now for the tell

Before it is morning

you'll have broken the spell

I was left to ponder this somewhat cryptic message in the broader context of our peculiar dialogue. As well, there was a want for the fulfillment of the original omen, seven for a secret never to be told.

Which secret and why must it never be told? To this day I can not say for sure that I have been told that secret. I think that the literal fulfillment of the omen is that there is no secret, thus it never can be told. It doesn't need to be. It's obvious.

Or maybe it's this, their parting words. You must choose the world you want. Seven words that tell a secret that must never be told. Imagine what might happen if word of this gets out? That there actually is a choice. You can believe in a world of truths, or a world of lies. But you have to choose.

The long road to redemption: Campaign 2028, edition one

 The Beginning

1    In the beginning Gov created the rulers and the ruled

2    And the ruled were without order, and void; and darkness was           upon the minds of the sheep. And the spigot of Gov opened upon         the faces of the flock

I am well aware that I may offend the sensibilities of some with this crude mocking of the book of Genesis (KJV). I do not set out to deliberately provoke the ire of any who may take offense, though still, I make no apology either. I use this merely as a vehicle for illustration. Besides that, I am quite confident that by the time we arrive at the end of this tale, I will have offended multitudes.

The two verses above might easily be the opening lines of a bible adopted by any political party. I must beg of the audience to suspend their notions of the right/left paradigm and be wholly clear on what political parties actually are. If governments are established that lesser men might prevail in an otherwise free contest of authority, then political parties are nothing more than the vehicle of lesser men. Political parties extol the virtues of the collective whilst diminishing the individual. This narrative suits the lesser man completely. Couched behind the smiley face of "the common good" are the jealous insecurities of the lesser man. And guilt. Lots and lots of guilt, which the lesser man feels yet can not express, but by projecting this guilt upon others. It's a powerful tool, as witnessed by the fact that we are thousands of years into civilization and churches are still raking it in.

In a tactical sense political parties are formed that competing ideas might have a means by which to contend with one another. In a forum that is unfiltered and unrestricted this contest is allowed to occur. This renders a degree of transparency and accountability to the parties engaged. That is, at least ideally, how political parties are supposed to work. In theory. So much for theory.

Theories, in order to be determined valid, must survive collision with reality. In most theories this is the point where things go sideways. Political theory is no exception to this. In a theater where a narrative is crafted and curated by the players on the stage, where all parties are working from the same script, the theory need not survive collision. Instead, it endures by collusion.

Nominally speaking, a great deal of the world is governed by single party rule. Whether this comes in the form of the CCP's monolithic communist state; or by a hereditary based despotism; or even the last man standing in a war lords' cage match, it boils down to the original equation of the rulers and the ruled. The flock and it's shepherd. Here in America we have (again, nominally speaking) a two party system. This two party system is the shepherd. It wears two hats. One hat tells the sheep that they are protected from wolves. The other hat tells the sheep that they shall only be sheared. Both hats mean only to slaughter the lambs, though neither ever admit this. Regardless which hat this shepherd wears, the shepherd is doing the bidding of others than the flock. The shepherd does not serve the flock. The shepherd serves his master(s) and, by extension, himself.

A term has grown more common in recent years: uniparty. It is a good term to express the reality on the ground in Washington. While we may have designations of republican or democrat, these are distinctions in little other than name. The public facing policy debates taken up between these two parties are mere theater, mostly raw, red meat for the respective constituencies they have crafted. The ruling power, irrespective of party affiliation, are those who serve at the pleasure and do the bidding of their masters. This uniparty, an unincorporated and unchartered party, is the de facto ruling party in Washington. It operates the federal government to serve their patrons, their masters who buy policy. The uniparty is the tool of lesser men, men who could not prevail upon the merit of their ideas.

I don't support the republican or the democrat party. It is my most sincere and fervent wish that they should both wither, die and begone from us forever. If there is to be a set of party factions to contend within a legitimate republic, then we should return to the original contest of federalist versus anti-federalist. That would be a good start for framing any national debate, but it soon becomes equally important for this philosophical reset to occur at state and county levels as well. Where some burden or injustice from federal authority is relieved, one should expect that corrupt tyrants at the state or local level will reflexively assume the imposition of these burdens as their own.

I don't believe in political parties. I believe that political people are poison by nature. I do not participate in the process. My existence is not dependent upon the state or any of it's processes. While every single one of these statements is true, I can also confidently say that this does not mean that I am unknowledgeable on these matters. So it is then, against all better judgement, that I will now offer some suggestions for the democrat party and their long road to redemption. I'll trust that none of them would ever heed any of these suggestions, so what harm could it do? We can still have fun considering the possibilities if they did.

The leadership in any political party serves as the face and the voice of that party, for good or ill. The prevailing narrative is that these leaders have attained their position by virtue of having prevailed within party debate, thus earning the right to guide policy. They are the compromisers, the consensus formers who bridge the divide between the desired and the possible. This is true in theory only. In reality this narrative is patently false. 

For those participating in this giant charade it is a game. In a game it is the object to win and to win one must know the object of the game. The political game is not a game of chance, nor is it a game of sport. The political game is, first and foremost, a sales game. The measure of victory in a sales game is to have the most sales. If one is selling ideas, then a vote can equal a sale. If one is selling influence, then money seems to be the preferred medium of exchange. Party leadership serves as the voice and the face of the party. Party leadership also serves as the voice and the face of those buying the influence. Policy is not made, it is purchased.

Populism is the antidote to the uniparty. Populism seeks to upset the sale of influence and return the political game to a contest of ideas, where constituency is currency, not the other way around. Those who seek to purchase policy have no party loyalties. They know that they can shop either side of the aisle, both sides more than happy to take their money. The self-financed, populist candidate is their worst nightmare. When the self-financed, populist candidate wins and becomes the face and voice of a political party? That is their worst nightmare come to life. Not for political reasons, rather it is a simple rule of economics. There remains that same level of demand, but with only half the market to shop in. Instead of the market competing for buyers, the buyers are left to compete among themselves to even secure access to the market.

In order to regain their footing in that marketplace, the democrat party must have something to sell. Right now, the brand is stale. Donald Trump became the leader of a populist movement for one very simple reason: he is the consummate pitch man. He has only replicated in politics what he has done throughout his career in the business world. Regardless of the enterprise, his role has always been to create and promote the brand with a successful pitch. Once one has succeeded in selling an idea, there are always others to do the work of making the idea manifest. This is the crux of what is called MAGA.

The one and only thing I hear in common between those who identify as either republican or democrat, is their great frustration with the leadership and hierarchy of their respective parties. As well they should be, for reasons we've already noted. In terms of your party platform, I'm afraid that I have nothing to offer. From where I see it the democrat party platform is like last year's strands of Christmas lights when first pulled out of storage. It's a confused, tangled mass, wrapped around itself so many times that one can not even guess which strand to pull on first. I'll leave that task to your brightest minds to sort out.

You folks need to create a MAGA of your own. Maybe something like DAMMA, democrats are making money again. Or, DAMAGE, democrats are making a great effort. It's branding. It has to be simple, it has to say what it is, and it has to form a snappy anagram. And then you need a solid pitch man. It's a long shot. I'm not sure they'll even agree to it, but at this point I can see no other alternative. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Forget about the mid-terms. You need more time to regroup for 2028. That is why you must, at the earliest possible date, launch the next big campaign...

McConaughey - Harrelson '28

Stay tuned

    

Lawfare

 No new tales to tell

No alibis left to sell

No more heroes to be found

Where none are sought villains abound

The tale as told is quite fantastic

Stern, they scold, their faces plastic

Utter ruin for those they accuse

Their courts and robes are just a ruse

Claims of so and so said such and such

Specious at best, they don't say much

Whispers and screams of crimes committed

get lost it seems amid the facts omitted

Immune to your own brand of berating

It makes for thin ice where you're skating

There will be no hero to save the day

when that ice, at last, finally gives way

Living in the age of meaningless trophies

  All trophies are meaningless, really. Unless fabricated from some precious metal they have no intrinsic value. Any value in a trophy is wholly subjective, a measure of some accomplishment as symbolized in the trophy. A trophy given for nothing is less then meaningless, like the proverbial beer fart in a whirlwind. It because we live in such an age that all the heroes are dead.

I first heard that declaration about thirty years ago. I heard it, related by someone else, from someone else about twenty years prior to that. This tells me it has been a process at least two generations in the making. I suspect this process, first of denuding and then later completely disassembling our heroes, began some while before that. Without any course correction it likely continues apace. I'm not making an argument on behalf of the hero. I'm not convinced, nor could I convince others that they are in any way necessary. Nonetheless, this is a phenomenon worthy of noting.

The hero, of course, is a literary archetype; inspired of myth and thus imparted with mythical powers or abilities. They populate our stories, ranging from character to caricature. Quite often the hero is in fact an amalgamation of more than one story. Even where they are singularly based, they are greatly embellished. Such is the nature of the beast. The modern hero grows morally ambivalent and exceedingly rare. For most of our storytelling history the hero has been a vehicle to extol virtue and otherwise inspire lesser beings. Today they are diminished, for they must be, lest all those undeserving trophy holders should be reminded of their shortcomings.

People that like you will, in most situations, tell you what they think you want to hear even when they may actually disagree. They do this for the same reason that there are trophies handed out for nothing. For whatever good intent these actions may hold, they are no less dishonest. People that dislike you are more likely to be honest when speaking to you; dishonest when speaking about you. So, liked or disliked, friend or enemy, the quotient for dishonesty remains constant. It is for this reason that there is room for more villains than heroes in our stories.

Armed with this knowledge one should then examine the kinds of stories that we are being fed. Where there is a scarcity of heroes, accompanied by an abundance of villains, one should think that this imbalance would be reflected in the composition of these stories. We do not find this to be the case. We are still presented with the binary narrative; black or white; left or right. Things that actually are absolutes are transformed into some multi-tangential spectrum, while the more nuanced and deliberately complicated matters of the world made of human constructs are presented to us in absolutes. Do you see a problem here? This rather defies logic, don't you think?

When you are consuming "news" keep two things in mind. First, know that there is more than one villain in every tale. Finally, if one goes traipsing about a dog park, then should find a foul odor upon stepping in something squishy, know that it is dog shit. There is no need to look to confirm this. Always trust your nose.

Scarecrow

  The clock displayed an incorrect hour that morning.  It might have been due to a momentary power interruption during the night. There had been some thunderstorms, but Scarecrow had slept through them. He was unaware. The familiar rhythms of analogue ticking had left long ago, leaving only silent, blinking counters in its place. No one really knows what time it is. The counters are just a guide.

He had protested when they insisted on hooking up the juice. He was, naturally, afraid of fire. There was little danger of that, he was assured. "You don't have a choice", they said, "everybody's on it now." So it happened. 

Scarecrow dreaded leaving the house these days. More than ever he only wished not to be seen, a cruel irony for a creature whose vocation in life demanded visibility. It didn't used to be this way. The world had so many paths by which one might pass unseen to prying eyes. By one device or another, everything that moves upon the earth is recorded and regurgitated into some digitized facsimile. He didn't have any solid proof, yet he sensed that with each observation, each recording, the subject was slowly diminished in some way. He didn't want to be a subject. He only wanted to go and do his job, then return home and be left alone with his modest amusements.

The electricity was not all bad. Turntables, amps and speakers were, truth be told, "pretty fucking awesome", as some might say. For a long time there was some really great music to enjoy. He had whiled away countless hours spinning discs and singing along into the spinning blades of a rotary fan. Yeah. Rotary fans were pretty cool too. And television. Well, it was mostly shit, but not all bad.

Scarecrow ingests nothing. He is not given to any intoxicants of any kind. No drink, no smoke, no pills. It is only by television that he was able to come to any understanding of having a vice. In the beginning there was not television everywhere. And it wasn't on twenty-four hours per day. And then it was. When there were only three or four channels to choose from one might typically find maybe half a dozen programs worth watching. It might require two to four hours of your time in a week. Then there were thousands of channels, most of those being duplications multiple times over, and yet left with really nothing to watch. Everything became a soul-less paste. And Scarecrow then understood that amusements, like other more visceral intoxicants, may become vices. There was one day when he even declared "vices may only be enjoyed in moderation, or not at all". If he were more clever, he might have said it in Latin. Or perhaps known that someone else had already said it, albeit phrased somewhat differently.

There came a time when he could no longer find his music on vinyl. Or needles for the turntable. There were tapes for a time, not completely awful, but requiring a new player. Then compact discs, requiring yet another player and at least a partial, if not complete collection conversion to the new medium.  As disheartening as these continuing changes were, at least it could be said that one had a player and some tangible medium in hand that could deliver the content. Once one had paid for these they were one's own to enjoy. Then this even changed.

They had made this thing they called the internet, he didn't really understand it, and it was somehow tied to telephone lines and personal computers. He didn't have a good understanding of those things either. The telephone, to a very limited extent, though he didn't have one of his own. Nor did he have a computer. He really had no use for either of these. In the midst of those developments there came a new medium for music, the MP3 (or similarly formatted digital audio file).

These digital audio files were the wave of the future, he was assured by many.  The repetition of the script was growing quite tiresome, yet nevertheless Scarecrow was persuaded to purchase yet another device. One might well imagine his horror to discover that, of the lifetime collection of music acquired (across numerous mediums), none of these could be converted to this new player. More than any other change of vehicle, Scarecrow grew disgusted with this version most rapidly. First of all, he didn't always care to listen with earphones. Then there was the method of acquiring these files. There had to be an internet connection somewhere in the equation. There were no more record stores. So even if a download was free, one still had the expense of an internet connection. Oh, and the connection via phoneline was not viable for files of this size. There had to be broadband, or high speed internet, whatever the fuck that was.

It didn't end there. All of those advancements were supplanted by still further wonders. Everything went wireless. And then smart phones, which then replaced MP3 players as the primary means of playing audio files. Yet another device and another service, with a monthly fee.

It used to be that radio was worthwhile. One did not have their choice as to which tunes might be played, but it was a good way to get a sampling and for the most part it was free. In an hour of broadcast time there might be twelve to fifteen minutes of commercials as a means of funding the operation. In the midst of all these other developments over the years there were disturbing things that had happened to radio. There were fewer stations owned by fewer people, employing fewer people and playing less music. There was less variety of music and even less of that. In an hour of broadcast time one now found that there was twenty minutes of what passed for music (?) accompanied by forty minutes of commercials. Loud, obnoxious commercials for shit that Scarecrow was pretty sure no one was buying.

The general concept of broadcasting found a home amid all these new mediums. The "station" was replaced by the "platform". This idea was not all bad. The platform was essentially a curated library of music from which one might make their own program. One might enjoy this, but for the fact that it comes at a price of endless and insufferable commercials. Or pay a monthly fee for the commercial "free" experience. Well, it's got some commercials. True zero commercials will cost still more.

Scarecrow was a being of little brain, yet even he could learn and reason through repetition. The same script was repeated for time immemorial, thereby he came to know certain truths. Little by little, over time there was less and less that the common man could own, to hold as his own. The analogue age had physicality. Inasmuch as he cared about these sorts of things, Scarecrow understood that abstracts like art and culture were manifest in something tangible. With the arrival of the digital age he watched these things evaporate. 

Everything was for sale. All the time, everywhere. Life was for rent. It seemed that in world with so much to offer people were left with surprisingly little to show for it. Somehow they were prevented from accumulating any real wealth for themselves, instead always having to pay others in order to enjoy even the most basic of things. Scarecrow found something familiar in this, somehow relatable to some other experience.

It was on his way to work that day that he had a great epiphany. It occurred to him that the world was much like a dead beast in the field. In the thousands of years that he'd been doing this he'd seen plenty of dead beasts in the field. It was always the same. First came the errant coyote or fox. They'd take a few cautious nibbles, sniff about the corpse and then hastily move on. Then would come the buzzards and, his nemesis, the crows. They would have a rather thorough go of it, rendering the body to mostly bone. At last would come the flies, worms and other insects. The lowest order of parasites would finish the job.

He found that the world of the digital age was the same, but for one distinct difference. This dead beast was taken by the lower parasites from day one. They infested every cell and started devouring slowly and steadily. It passed almost unnoticed until it would simply vanish. The buzzards, crows and other feral scavengers would be left to cannibalism.

The realization was sudden, yet oddly anti-climactic in it's arrival. Scarecrow began to question his very purpose. "What the hell am I defending anyway? Is this the day that the crows will finally overtake me? Will that day not come?" He was given over to the inevitability of his fate.

He came upon the final gate to his field. He paused there to lean on the fence for several minutes, scanning the rows of corn gently rustling in the morning breeze. Here was the material world, lush and green, vibrant with life. This was the real world, not some digitized replica. He thought, "surely they can not take this away?", but then ruefully admitted to himself that even if they couldn't, that would not stop them trying. In a winner take all world the parasites ultimately take all. 

After a time Scarecrow stalked off to his cross. He stood at the base of it and stared up into the morning sun. He raised his arms to match the shadow cast from the cross. Today was to be the day then. He hoisted himself up to his post and slouched against it with his arms draped over either side. Beneath him in that sea of corn he saw the shadow cross cast long across the field. Life had become rather boring for quite some time really. For this reason he had, like the hardcore SS officer with a cyanide capsule sewn into his collar, stowed away in his shirt pocket a book of matches.

He was pretty certain that he was not going to mind no longer existing. Just as Scarecrow ingests nothing, so does he likewise feel nothing. The only pain that Scarecrow was able to experience was in what little mind he had. And that pain would soon be brought to an end. Or so he hoped.

Now to return to our original concern, the correct time was 8:48 AM EDT, as calibrated by the moment when Scarecrow declared "Fuck it!" and set himself ablaze. 

Schopenhauer's Bane

 Power corrupts

Absolute power corrupts absolutely

We find this to be true. It follows then, that....

People suck

"People" persons suck absolutely

Prove me wrong

When Judges ruled the land there was famine

 Three co-equal branches of government. It seemed like a good plan on the drafting table. What could go wrong? The Executive, given wide authority within it's proscribed duties and wielding, at need, the force of arms. The Legislative, which is granted sweeping powers, yea indeed, the duties of oversight. Their purview of oversight extends across three branches; they may make laws; may authorize a declaration of war; may impeach and act as prosecutor of duly elected parties, but paramount of all these is their power of the purse. The Executive and Legislative are indeed co-equals, not only in theory but as well in fact: each wields some instrument of power by which they may exert their will.

Then we are left to consider the Judicial. They are co-equal in theory only. The only true power that they hold is that they may render judgments. They have no enforcement arm to strongarm those in offense of their judgments. They have no legal authority to write law, though they have tried. Their fingers come nowhere near the Treasury. The Judicial have no means of enforcing their will. They are the wind of mouths and the scratch of ink on parchment. It is not they themselves, collectively "The Court", that is supreme. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. The sworn duty of this court is to see that in all law and execution of law that the Constitution is upheld. That is their only sworn duty.

Instead of getting into the legal weed bed of Constitutional debate, I will enjoy the opportunity to teach by illustration. Let us say, for purpose of illustration only mind you, that the three co-equal branches of government were cast as super heroes in the latest Marvel Universe epic. The Executive would have the superpower of summoning an entire ultra high-tech air force of destructive power at the snap of his fingers. The Legislative would have not one, but TWO really awesome superpowers. The first is that they always carry a fistful of credit cards, none which have any credit limit or expiration. Their other superpower is their unlimited stable of lawyers, all of whom are readily at their disposal to keep you, the common simpleton, in court hearings from now until the next ice age. They have a potent one-two punch that is tough to counter. Now as before we come to the Judicial. Their superpower? Their superpower is to sit upon high benches, in robes scandalously short and with very questionable tastes in undergarments. Their shoes are ugly and dirty; they smell of moth balls and sour milk; a veritable symphony of flatulence and incontinence. They snort and squawk derisively like boars and roosters penned together. That's it. That is the scope of their superpowers. Now in the bigger scheme of things perhaps these powers have some great role to play, not for us to know lest we should be a spoiler.

Now if that's still too abstract for you, let's reduce it to the realm of animation. I have frequently said in recent years that it seems that only within the realm of animation may the truth still be told. I stand by that and still consider it to be largely true. If we are to reduce our three co-equals explained in animated analogy I might first call upon the considerable talents of Mr. H. Jon Benjamin. Who in North America does not know this booming baritone of the understated? Most readily recognized today for his role as the father figure in FOX network's Bob's Burgers, I call upon some of his earlier work on the FX series Archer. If you are familiar with the series then follow this.

The Executive is the Grand Dame, Mallory Archer. Next, for the Legislative, Cyril Figgis. The bean counter, voiced by the archetypal sub beta male figure, Chris Parnell. And the Judicial would best be represented in this troupe by Cheryl Tunt, the wealthy heiress and completely incompetent secretary, whose favorite hobbies are self mutilation and sniffing glue.

Hopefully we've got everybody on the same page. Like a track meet or a horse race, there are defined lanes. The contestants are expected to remain in their lanes. It is well understood by all that there will inevitably be those times when lanes may cross one another, or contestants may bump against one another in the course of a race. If any of the parties concerned should move that such instances need be remedied there is some course available through the law. This does not, however, prevent or erase those occurrences and any resulting consequence. The damage, if there is any, is done. The Judiciary may only remain in the slow lane of this race, a pace car in the great derby that is our federal government. They have no magic wands, no supernatural abilities. They may not, as remedy, lay across the lanes of traffic to halt the race. There seem to be a number of partisan appointees who are attempting to do just that.

This very set of circumstances was foreseen and debated at some length as our Constitution was being shaped. Even such an elitist prick as Hamilton was aware and expressed concerns that a court might act to usurp the supremacy of the Constitution and assume that authority as their own. This was clearly a shortcoming in their design which could easily leave their young Republic vulnerable to the whims of kritarchy. The door was left open for the tyranny of Judges.

Kritarchy, the rule of judges, is not unprecedented in recorded history. There are not a lot of examples and few of them can boast of stellar records. The best example of the ideal would be the system of Brehon Law which prevailed for roughly a thousand years in Ireland. This was a system of local, popularly selected judges who administered a sort of magistrate court system and was aligned with the parochial order of their society. From what I have found this seems to be the gold standard for a kritarchy, at least in longevity if not in function. Any other example you will find ultimately descends into a shit show, the Sanhedrin to serve as a case in point.

This, I think, is an apt segue to the Old Testament. The Book of Judges. This book chronicles the time of Israel from Joshua to the beginnings of the House of David. “In those days, Israel had no king and everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (Judg. 17:6, 18:1, 19:1, and 21:25). It was a lawful lawlessness. Sound familiar? Now to be clear I should state that the judges from this book were not quite judges in the sense that we may understand in our system. A better word to describe the role they filled would be chieftain, or perhaps Capo. Call them what you will, the tale is still illustrative to our present day "Constitutional crisis".

Our title as a central theme is based in a true fact. When Judges ruled the nation of Israel there was indeed famine. And worse. Much worse. The Book of Judges chronicles this bloody chapter of Israel's history. It is a cautionary tale of a time marked by moral corruption and bad leadership. Today, we as a nation, are emerging from an age which has suffered under those very same afflictions. Israel was finally relieved of this with the arrival of their King. While there are those who accuse this President of acting like a King, he surely is not, nor do I believe that he thinks he is a King. He is, however, quite certainly fulfilling the role. And as those familiar with the Old Testament would know, David was not an angel either.

With each passing day there are still further revelations being made by Mr. Musk and his erstwhile team of cyber geeks. When you hire a contractor who delivers the job under budget and ahead of schedule it is very ungracious to question the tools that he uses for the job. Reining in waste is always good, in any endeavor. There has been more waste and corruption than any of us could have conjured at our worst. Waste is largely remedied in it's own discovery, but corruption may only be remedied by corrective action. The bad actors must be removed and, when warranted, tried, convicted and sentenced. The President is the CEO of USA, Inc. He is also the Commander in Chief. He is also, lest anyone ever forget, the Chief Magistrate of the USA. The President is the top law enforcement authority of the nation. He is duty bound to perform his oath, accepted upon taking office. He has the authority to remove bad actors wherever they may reside.

There are only two things to be done about these activist, political hacks masquerading in robes. First, take a page from Andrew Jackson's book: simply ignore their corrupt orders and carry on. Upon Justice Marshall's decision in the Worcester vs. Georgia case in 1832, Jackson simply responded with "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it". For good or ill he was not wrong. As far as I can tell the only parties to have suffered from the whole affair are the Cherokee, but that is a can of worms for another occasion. No harm will come from having these corrupt idealogues removed from the bench. Ignore them and remove them. Further, they should be disbarred, lest their poison infect any lower or state courts.

The final words of the Book of Judges: Israel has no King (Judges 21:25). Neither have we a King, but this rule of judges must end. The famine of truth which has plagued this land shall also end.