HONORING AN ICON....12/28/23

Every Sunday night during the fall and winter of ’67 and ’68 I went down to the basement of Hansen Hall, the college dormitory where I lived on the campus of South Dakota State University to watch my favorite program on TV, the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

As one of the writers on the show, Tom Smothers constantly battled censors because of his cutting edge political content, eventually leading to the show’s cancellation in 1970.

The most notable confrontation occurred when Pete Seeger, who had been blacklisted for years during the McCarthy era, finally emerged in public again to play his song, “Waist Deep In the Big Muddy”, but the network wouldn’t air the segment because of the song’s reference to Lyndon Johnson’s disastrous Vietnam policies.

Because of growing opposition to the war and Seeger’s incredible popularity, the public demanded that he be allowed back to perform his song.

CBS caved and Seeger returned later that season to play the song on the air.

Sadly Tommy Smothers died last night at his home in Santa Rosa.

He was 86.

INCOMPREHENSIBLE....12/27/23

Many politicians on the right hate ESGs and are now going to war with investment firms like Vanguard and Arjuna Capital that offer these products.

It’s one of the most abhorrent assaults on freedom I’ve ever seen.

ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Business Governance and is a tool the industry uses to measure various companies’ policies regarding its treatment of people and the environment.

The program takes into account things like pollution mitigation, climate change, diversity, energy efficiency, adherence to regulations, health and human safety practices, and overall sustainability.

Corporations are then scored for their compliance in meeting these criteria.

This gives those of us who want to be socially and environmentally responsible something to look at when choosing how to invest.

WTF is wrong with that?

THE REAL SANTA....12/26/23

The original story of Santa Claus dates back to the ancestral traditions of the Kamchadal and the Koryak tribes of Siberia. During the night of the winter solstice, the shamans would go out into the forest and gather up bags of hallucinogenic mushrooms called Amanita muscaria. These fungi were bright red with white spots and are often included in fairy tale books and old Disney movies.

The shamans considered this outing a spiritual journey, and during their trip, they would intentionally identify the “Tree of Life” that they found by following the North Star, which held the key to solving the village’s problems of the past year. Since the mushrooms tended to grow under pine trees, this is typically where they would find them.

In honor of the mushroom’s colors, the shamans wore red outfits trimmed with white dots, while their reindeer skin boots would become blackened over time from exposure. The mushrooms the elders hunted are deadly poison but less so when dried so they would hang them on the lower branches of the trees to air out for a few days before taking them back to the village.

Oftentimes when they returned, the snow would have covered the door of the ceremonial yurt where the solstice celebration was to be held, so the only way in was through the opening at the top. This hole lets the smoke out from the fire burning inside. The lead shaman would then shimmy down one of the poles holding up the yurt with his sack full of goodies.

To dry the mushrooms out even further, the shaman would often put the mushrooms in stockings and hang them by the fire while the elders waited in anticipation.

Once the shrooms were dry, the risk of being poisoned from ingestion had subsided but was still there, and sometimes a few of the less fortunate would perish while tripping in another realm.

At some point, the tribesmen made a significant discovery. If they fed the mushrooms to their reindeer first, their livers would filter out the toxins and then the animals would pee out the chemical that created the psychedelic experience. The reindeer loved the fungi and readily gobbled up as much as was fed to them.

Consequently, there was plenty of yellow snow to scoop up and eat so this snow became the safest way for the tribe’s leaders to take their magical trips. It turned out the reindeer also loved the yellow snow made by the humans after the humans had eaten the yellow snow made by the reindeer, which completed the circle of bliss.

Whether the animals ate just the mushrooms or the human pee or both, they and the folks who ingested the mind-bending substance became quite frisky and as legend has it, seemed to “fly” when high. Off they would go then to the North Star to retrieve the gifts of knowledge they would then distribute to the community.