Rural Tompkins Blogs – Page 92 – Rural Tompkins County

Tell them to “Get off the high ground.”

Today’s Doctrine holders always take a high ground that assumes their beliefs are the only truth and measure. Questioning that assurance will only result in anger, dogma, or the questioning of your question.

One simple way to find an answer is to compare their beliefs with those of people whose actions and convictions we respect:

“Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color” — Frederick Douglass

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” — Mother Teresa

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. ” — Dalai Lama

“I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.” — Malcolm X

These beliefs cannot be reinterpreted; because their statement is unequivocal:

“Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.” — Abraham Lincoln

But Doctrine holders twist these principles backwards upon themselves; declaring that only by a policy of conditional worth, can equality be achieved; only by submitting to discriminatory policies, can society be saved; and that evil must be sown, so that good will grow out of it.

And they claim all this is being done in the names of those who would be appalled, saddened, and outraged at being used to give legitimacy to these actions; so contrary to what they stood, fought, and died for — a world where there is room for all; but never room for bigotry and discrimination.

The choice is a simple one, but it’s not easy:

Doctrine holders will seek to turn you with their endlessly insisting claims and assumption of a higher good; delivered with all the irrational rationalizing of extracting gold from seawater, and with the sly temptations of a doctrine that guarantees individual profit without individual responsibility.

And if you can’t be turned; there is force:

The force of iniquitous laws.

The force of ridicule.

The force of isolation for your views.

And Hate.

HATE-HATE-HATE-HATE-HATE

A bone-crushing, concentration camp filling Hate.

But take comfort in knowing that it is YOU who are following in the footsteps of compassion; it is YOU who are carrying on the fight for equality and human worth; and know that all the abuse and injury suffered by you is no different from that suffered by those before you; from much the same people, and in the same cause.

For your enemies are like wolves in shepherd’s clothing — and woe to the foolish sheep who follow them.

What’s causing it?

My John Deere tractor mower has been stored until next year. After blowing all the trapped grass from the deck mechanism, I made sure the tank was topped up with stabilized gas. This brought to mind a problem I had several years ago.

While I was mowing, the engine would start running rough and then stop. Diagnosing this as due to water in the gas tank [helped in part by the slopping ground and bouncing around] I bought and added a gas treatment; and it worked . . . for a while. Every so many minutes, the engine would conk out and adding more treatment would get it going again for a while. Why?

The answer was simple: the gas cap vent had gotten clogged; and depleting the gas created enough of a vacuum in the tank to hinder the flow of gas to the engine.

Every time I put in the gas treatment, I removed the cap, and it destroyed the vacuum. . . For a while.

If only I had thought of connecting removing the cap with the engine restarting, I would have known.

It was a lesson I never forgot: Even a valid explanation may not be the correct explanation — and a solution that seems to promise success may not have any effect on the problem at all. And that it is easier not to bother to think things through, but just to buy a packaged solution that “experts” have already thought out.

The pollution that is impairing our lake is overwhelmingly from only one source; an unregulated source; Agriculture — and neither our politicians, nor our colleges, nor our environmental agencies and conservation committees want to regulate it, or even mention it.

The Governor’s Task Force has publicly stated that they are only working to keep “some of the uses” of the lake; and have adopted that answer to a polluter’s prayer: the TDML paradigm.

“TDML” stands for the Total Daily Maximum Load of pollution that the lake can handle without complete impairment. Or in the vernacular: You’re not drowning in shit if you can still keep you head above it.

The correct TDML levels will be set by Cornell; one of the bigger polluters, and a whole-hearted partisan supporter of all Industrial Agriculture methods [even those banned in other state due to environmental risks.] Cornell has a very close working relationship with the NYSDEC; so you can be sure their TDML study will max out the max, with more quibbles and offsets than there are Zebra Mussels.

Once the TDML plan is adopted; our lake will never get clean.

What do you think about that “expert” solution?

We could be in deeper shit — the lake bed could collapse from the salt mining. Now how deep is that?

Maybe this isn’t a Blog

Due to the work involved in resurrecting my Idea Enhancement and my Art websites; I haven’t finished any new blogs — but there is a considerable amount in the pipeline for coming months and for 2021.

An umbrella theme of “All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” will shelter a variety of projects and blogged comments on local issues:

“May the Source be with you” uses the Lake Source Cooling as an example of how corporations can acquire fast-track approval and bypass regulatory barriers. It proves there is more to corporate planning than just a “Fox guarding the hen house” strategy; and shows how a judicious admixture of in-house studies and policy formulation can create a barrier to unwanted interference; and insure the “deniability of liability” factor that is so important down the road.
“The Greater Good” examines what would happen if our County’s policies were actually enacted for the greater good. Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Elite always justify their actions with claims of “The Greater Good” — isn’t it time we explored what the greater good might actually be; and how disastrous it would be to these same policy deciders. In a county where everyone agrees there is no meaningful public participation: this blog may give readers a little vicarious “payback” – and maybe start something . . .
“Stories of Cornithaca County” will showcase tales of activities and incidents as only rural residents can remember and relate — by exchanging the “4-year memory” of our college town, with the four-generation memory of our county’s rural community. Rural residents are unconsidered and unnoticed: they are like servants in the halls of the “great”; they know the family secrets, and where they are buried. These stories are a refreshing departure from the endless flow of self-serving handouts that constitute the usual information offerings.
“The ‘Lossy’ System” In information technology, lossy data encoding methods use inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. This technology strips out data regarded as either unnecessary or redundant to reduce data size for storing, handling, and transmitting content. The process is irreversible. This blog will discuss how our county’s elite decision makers make use of lossy methods in creating policies and perceptions
“Get Off the High Ground” makes a direct and straightforward comparison between the beliefs and actions of our most revered advocates of compassion and human worth, and those of modern doctrine-holders. The results are clear-cut; and will cut deep.
“New Normal Politics” with the take-your-breath-away-dismissiveness of their “Somebody has to take the hit” user philosophy; New Normal politicians sense who is weak and injured, separate them from the herd, and attack. It’s no wonder that with the massive disruption and death of our country’s elderly; these users are swooping in to tear off big chunks of the Medicare funding our seniors have paid into for decades. In the words of “Bigotry: The Musical”:

Each law I make helps me to take
What others sweat to build
They’ve got a nerve, cause I deserve
My every wish fulfilled

Cornithaca County’s Elitist Policy Making continues unabashed and unabated; like the stream of effluent from a TDML pipe.

Maybe this is a blog after all.

Cornithaca County Is Here . . . Now

“You’re Not Welcome Here.” This slogan of Ithaca’s hate gangs in the October 18 attack perfectly summarizes the County’s policy towards the rural community: You’re not welcome here.

The Cornell planner’s opinion: that Lansing’s rural residents “did not deserve” to live there, and the deliberate exclusion of rural residents from any participation by Town and County authorities, is only one of the many incidents of bias and intolerance that define the County’s agenda.

I spent a long time researching and writing “Cornithaca County” to “out” their policy of privilege and hate; only to find they’ve outed themselves.

The County’s attempts to minimize the story of this outrageous behavior towards peaceful demonstrators is proof of their approval and tacit complicity.

In this intellectually dishonest University Town; media bias and cover-up is a part of the academic routine. See the video of the attack for a true story.

The Attackers: What sort of people are they? They felt good about themselves afterwards.

I used to joke that the New Nazis would come claiming to hate Nazis — and then it happened.

Are you welcome here?

The County won’t want to answer that; but the hate gangs will let you know.

Be careful going to the polls.

The Roads from Cornithaca County — The Idea Enhancement Project

The last page in Cornithaca County is a preface for a new chapter in the Idea Enhancement Project; and the reappearance of an old dilemma:

“There are none so deaf as those who will not hear.”

How do you gain belief for novel ideas in a comfort-zone world of encyclopedic compartments and the scientific ordering of minutiae?

In practical terms; find those who can think for themselves and decide for themselves.

The Project’s greatest need is to contact and collaborate; and receive the feedback needed to move forward as an accessible and practical means “for increasing innovative and creative thinking.”

For those who have not read it; I will reproduce that page as an introduction to the Project and its goals.

The Idea Enhancement Project

The Idea Enhancement Project is a unique undertaking that explores the use of art as a practical tool for increasing innovative and creative thinking. This project is visionary, but not theoretical: the results must be practical; because the process itself is unknowable to the conscious mind.

The unconscious mind is often portrayed as a wild beast; an uncontrollable and destructive atavism

Artists and creative people know that this is untrue, and many have personal and individual techniques for exploring this richest part of the human mind; allowing them to achieve what they could not with the conscious mind alone. The Idea Enhancement Project’s mission is to find ways that have the greatest chance of success; and are the most universally practical.

This process has too many “true” ways of looking at it to have an “explanation” that fits all viewpoints. And it is far too complex to be reduced to quantitative analysis. It cannot be “reverse engineered” because there are no measurable and discrete steps. One way I like to look at it is that art and ideas share the same level in your mind and can communicate and interact directly with each other.

One must leap into the unconscious and grab ahold of some connection to that area where ideas are born — but this is just what art does. With an increase in the frequency of connection; comes the ease of making that connection — until it happens “unconsciously.”

Problems can be left to “simmer” and various solutions will appear for inspection.

Visualizing the results of “quantitative” thinking as a nodule or accretion of pieces is a useful analogy because it describes a way in which the results of qualitative thinking is presented to the thinker. There is no conscious effort involved; but practical results can be achieved.

Like a daydream; it produces a world of its own, and its own feeling; a texture that the mind can sense.

It is practical, and it is useful: it generated much of the material in this book.

The results of this ongoing investigation are immediately available for “real world” use by everyone. All that is needed is a sustained contemplation of the images.

All artwork is original and free to download for any use at IdeaEnhancement.org

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

The conclusion seems inescapable: regardless of the “ism”; “Cornithaca County” is marching steadily towards an all-encompassing dictatorship. A secular theocracy.

In putting together the material for this book; I followed two threads that fully support this conclusion: one was to try to build a strong circumstantial case by showing that many facts that all point in one direction; the other was to use the beliefs expressed by our most revered humanitarian figures as a touchstone for the policies and politics of Cornithaca County.

This book eschews the Emperor’s New Clothes fear of “unworthiness,” and removes the thrones and pedestals from the stage; leaving people and policies in a human scale, and visible for what they are; not what they pretend to be.

Among the tangle of deals and dictates; here are a few of the points that stood out particularly to me:

The gifts of privileged policies and money to corporations and private interests because they are “so important” – since when did the importance of private interests outweigh the rights of the people?

That legal loopholes were used to minimize, or even eliminate, any meaningful citizen participation in government and government policy making. All policy was generated and approved by government authorities – there was no public debate, or right of questioning, and no approval of policy by citizens.

Residents have already adopted an oppressed behavior: conforming and keeping quiet out of fear. [A number of rural residents firmly believe I was sprayed with Roundup to teach me a lesson.]

The elitist powerbase is assured by a large student population that is “represented”; but not involved. Their “four-year-memory” and ignorance of the county’s residents make them the perfect stooges for the University’s corporate agenda. The “County’s” most recent redistricting, looks like a diagram from Gerrymandering 101; and a new redistricting is planned.

There is no ethical foundation for environmental policy making. It’s routine for corporate polluters to do the environmental impact studies and be given the oversight of their own polluting activities. Agricultural interests control the various committees that absolve them from any accountability or penalty for toxic spills and polluted wells. The “fox guarding the henhouse” is the quid pro quo of Cornithaca County. [The NYSDEC is as sympathetic to the plight of these large corporations and agricultural interests; as they were uncaring about mine.]

Form Based Codes that give unprecedented power to government authorities for deciding how and where everybody should live; and in a county where there is no oversight or meaningful citizen participation . . .

“Take your breath away” bigotry: it’s still hard to believe that the lead writer of a government policy would express the opinion that rural residents did not deserve to live on the land they had lived on for over 200 years; and create a policy that excluded them from any participation or benefit. And maybe harder to believe that County government would approve and promote this plan and this viewpoint. In the County’s most recent Comprehensive Plan “vision of the future”; today’s rural community no longer exists. There is no door open to for rural residents except the door that leads out of the county. Ithaca’s power elite covet their land, and want the rural people gone; and they’re making it happen.

This book is not a “call to action” for Cornithaca County. It’s too late for that. It’s a cautionary tale for other “counties” in other places. What’s happening where you live?

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“The conclusion seems inescapable: regardless of the “ism”; “Cornithaca County” is marching steadily towards an all-encompassing dictatorship. A secular theocracy.”

Four years of hate and manipulation are cresting in a toxic tsunami: whether through voting or violence — soon we’ll all be living in “Cornithaca County”:

A government where an intransigent and dismissive; “greater good,” is the only response to protests of overtly repressive policies. A government whose marching banner of “justice” invariably covers up oppression, bigotry, and corruption. A government that can just refuse to enforce laws whenever they choose. A government of Doctrine.

“A word to the wise is sufficient.”

But wisdom is “old school” — and Doctrine is everything.

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – “I Get the Message”

Don’t you get tired of the messages of hate? On a day that commemorates a hate crime; we should look back a century and a half to Abraham Lincoln’s words: “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”

When people deal with people; they get wisdom: when people deal with governments; they get Doctrine.

Isn’t time we made the wiser choice?

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – Doctrine Flowchart Poster

Make your own Doctrine Flowcharts of community policies. While the actual government policies are predetermined, and the approval process ticks along unchecked; many meaningless branches are extended into the public arena: the questionnaires, the media enabled promotional articles, and of course, those public hearings where policy-maker-supplied “experts” reinforce the need for these changes and “a vision for the future” that’s as likely to happen as winning the Lottery.

Cornell-supplied experts and County bureaucrats placed a “Berlin Wall” across the rural Town of Lansing: producing a document that claimed the Agricultural Sector would keep taxes low by preventing the “high cost of services” of residential development — and that the development of a “bedroom community” Residential Sector in the south would also lower taxes. The existing 200-year old rural community; had no place in this document. The plan was immediately approved without public oversight or participation.

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – New Word: “Copyrighteous”

There are so many new words being created; I wanted to make a few for my book. Doctrine Holders like to hide their actions in the shadow of large words with commonly accepted meanings: like “equality,” but I prefer to coin words that show both the root and the fruit.