Tuesday, December 25, 2012
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Calhouns Can(n)ons
About the Can(n)ons
Calhoun's Can(n)ons was originally published in 1990 in the (now defunct) Morro Bay, CA, Sun Bulletin, and since 1992 has continued in the various resurrections of the Los Osos, CA. Bay News, Bay Breeze, Bay News, Bay News-Tolosa Press. A few years ago, the Can(n)on was added to the Central Coast NewsMission blogsite. Ann Calhoun lives in Los Osos. You can email her at Churadogs at gmail dot com
To be persuasive, we must be believable. To be believable, we must be credible. To be credible, we must be truthful.
Edward R. Murrow
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; the essential is invisible to the eye.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Little Prince
No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the misfortune is to do it solemnly.
Montaigne
Edward R. Murrow
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; the essential is invisible to the eye.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Little Prince
No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the misfortune is to do it solemnly.
Montaigne
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18 comments:
Happy holidays to you too Ann, thanks for the lovely photo!
Yule tidings! or more correctly æftera ġéola.
Is that a home built wreath ? leaves look healthy but can't place them and stem too thick for a grape vine. Nice to see the signature corvids. Can't help but think "Da Boyds, Da Boyds!"
Some things ya gotta keep. This is from an old long ago song, Scottish Gaelic version.
An còir seann luchd-eòlais dhol à beachd,
'S gun chuimhn' orra bhith ann?
An còir seann luchd-eòlis dhol à beachd,
'S na làithean a bha ann?
Nobody cares Alon.
Anon 4:47, we get that you are nobody and that you don't care already, OK? :-)
(But go ahead, be boring if you must, apparently it makes you happy and we are fairly tolerant folk here.)
Alon. Grape vine wreach. I didn't make it but did stick berries vines and fake flowers and "da boids" on it.
Alon. I couldn't make it either but I did stick berries vines and fake flowers and "da boids" on it in almost the same place Ann did and it wasn't nearly as bad I always feared. Have you tried it?
Are those real birds? (Just kidding)
Who is this scrooge Anonymous? On twitter we call 'em trolls. A great 2012 anyway to everyone. Be Happy!
Ah, yes. Trolls. I have a few totally obsessed trolls, bless their little hearts.
I don't know who the "trolls" are, but you're quite the obsessive one yourself. Unlike the "trolls," I can explain my contempt.
You've been obsessed with the sewer for years and years, telling people how to think, how to feel, what lawsuits people should get behind and who people should avoid. You used your bully pulpit to tell people how they should invest their hard-earned money and when that investment happens to be bunk, you say absolutely nothing. You spent nearly seven years selling your case, and when the case didn't pan out the way you wanted, you closed the door, refused to comment on it and now you post poetry. Great.
You're like a used car salesman who's now pretending to be a pious, snobbish Harvard grad. The only relevance you have in Los Osos is given to you by a very small group of individuals with a laundry list of mental health problems and addictions to a Toys 'R Us warehouse worth of legal and illegal substances. That's your demographic. That's your shame. At least you have the gall to own them like your indentured servants.
Anonymous 10:37 sez: " . . . telling people how to think, how to feel, . . ."
I've written an OPINION column for years, clearly labeled OPINION, on the OPINION PAGE, now an OPINION blog. OPINION columnists tell people their OPINION. People are then free to agree or not agree. From what you've written here, you seem to think that apparently I have hypnotized people into doing what I command. Nonsense.
You clearly haven't been reading my column, Lo, these many years, or this blog. If you had, you'd have seen many, many, many who logged on and posted lengthy opinions of their own, and posted often furious disagreements, or links to other points of view, etc. There has been spirited and often heated arguments on this blog, mostly on the sewer because that's been the issue on so many minds for so many years. That's not "obsession," that's simply a "hot topic" that's clearly still hot. (Why else would you show up on this blog to read what's posted by myself and others and then add your own OPINION denouncing me and others as Harvard snobs and mentally ill drug addicts? And then (oddly) conclude that this blog is only read by a handful of cranks, which seems totally at odds with your previous OPINION that I somehow was the Great and Powerful OZ who mesmerized an entire town?
You're not making any sense.
As for not knowing who the trolls are, please look at "Anonymous 4:47, Dec. 26" (above) That's a troll.
That's a load of baloney, Ann. You're the one not making sense.
You used your opinion to project a sense of where the community is headed. You were never the "Great and Powerful Oz," but you acted like it. You acted like the Oracle of Los Osos. Now you're absolving yourself from the "heated discussions" that took place, which is ludicrous because you facilitated that discussion and fostered that division with your lackadaisical laissez-faire attitude. To this day, you refuse to take responsibility.
People actually donated money to futile causes because of your advocacy efforts both on and off the blogs. I spoke to people who lost around $10,000 in total contributions over investing in sewer-related causes that you personally advocated for. Do you know how difficult it is to earn $10,000 in this economy? Do you? Apparently not.
People used to read your blog and cite it as a source and motivation, but now it's dwindled down to a small base of narcissistic delinquents and delirious anonymous blowhards who are unquestionably "trolls." The latter part we can agree on.
Now the sewer is underway and people have bills to pay. I've let people know who to thank.
If there was one person who should have inhaled carbon monoxide in their car at Montana De Oro, it should have been you, not Gewynn.
Anon 10:25. In this community, people have advocated for a variety of choices as the sewer wars were underway. People donated (and lost) money on ALL sides of the sewer issue. That was their choice, their decision. The polarization and advocacy on all sides of this issue began long before I moved here. In my columns and on this blog, I expressed my opinions, the most repetitive of which was to urge the community to pay attention and speak up and make their choices known when it came time to vote. Anyone reading what I had written was free to agree or not agree. And those who disagreed were free to comment and express their opinions. Again, that decision was theirs to make. What you are doing now is wishing death to one of the messengers you disagree with, which you're free to do. That choice is yours to make. And anyone reading your comment is also free to agree or disagree with your assessment as well.
As for the blog "dwindling," out of all thousands of the columns I've written over the years, only a small percentage were on the sewer issue and now that issue is settled, there's no need to write about that topic until or unless it hits the news. If you've followed this blog recently (and clearly you have) you'll see that various people will log on and start raging about the sewer on a posting that has absolutely nothing to do with the sewer. And if I post something sewerish, the comment count goes through the roof. So the battle of the sewer goes on even when I've posted nothing or written nothing. It's a topic that now has a life of its own.
You have the most backwards philosophy than anyone I've ever known in Los Osos. The manic escape from personal responsibility would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.
You didn't just post opinions. You posted press releases. People made their decisions based on the grassroots efforts of those who you aligned yourself with. People should take responsibility for their own decisions, yet you cannot completely absolve yourself from being at least partly responsible for this mess.
It is not a question of whether people can agree or disagree. If you want to speak on that technicality, you've deleted comments from people disagreeing with you. You've taken some of their comments out of context, deleted the context to make the commenters appear bewildered and feral. You play these games, you fix the pieces and the board and modify the rules at will, but when someone calls you out, you say people are entitled to their opinions and you leave yourself out of the equation entirely.
If Gewynn did commit suicide as a result of depression over the sewer, then it's a fair assessment to say that you're partly responsible for her death. She trusted your advice. You let her down. You get George and Sherri down. You let Chris Allebe, Al Kellogg and Bo Cooper down. They deserved so much better than this.
I guess Ann that you were wise enough not to respond but chose to do so anyway. I too am responding through choice, and against my better judgment. The sewer craziness as expressed here on the blog is not representative of the cross section of sewer craziness of Los Osos which is mostly dissipated by now.
It is representative of a specific craziness that came here historically because it had then a responsive audience. It was manipulative and obsessive and ugly and it flourished then because it had a noisy environment and something to push against. And because tempers were high and ideas were hot and responses were rude, it appeared then to have a validity in relationship to the sewer. Now that the sewer is gone, It’s presence shows it naked in its self obsessive insanity, it is an antisocial wind, needing to create a false controversy to exist. There is one individual fully damaged driving this and two close associates who over the years have been responsible for maintaining this wretch in this pathetic state, unable to grow into an existence as an adult human being.
It is here because it was specifically told to go away. It comes back obsessively because here is where it had it’s minor triumphs. It is and was wholly about itself and now more than ever, exposes itself as being all about itself, not about the sewer, not about the individuals whose false victimization it carries on its back like an earned cross.
The following is a section about “Projection in activists” reposted by by Rob Brezsni, you may find a dollop of what you know reexpressed. It is not “Advice” since those who need it won’t heed it.
In short Don’t feed the trolls, at least not on a regular basis. Let’s resolve to leave other peoples strange baggage at the station. Bon Voyage!
Full version http://www.zaporacle.com/projection-the-enemy-of-peace-and-justice-part-i/print/
And I will post as anon because everyone who has read this far knows who I am.
“ "Environmental destruction, racism, violence, injustice, and war derive from a single source—–the human psyche. An activist who is not interested in psychological underpinnings is analogous to a botanist who is not interested in biology.
"Environmental destruction and every form of conflict and violence are secondary effects of human psychology. Virtually all violence by humans to other humans, to the planet and other species is done in a state of projection.
"If I am a corporate polluter then I act out in a state of projection that views the natural world as consisting of livestock and real estate there to be exploited. If I am a racist, a pursuer of genocide, an abuser of women, etc. I commit my crimes under the spell of what Jung called 'shadow projection”,' where I see another person or group as embodying inferior elements I deny in myself.
"Unfortunately, projection is much easier to recognize in others than in oneself. As the Biblical saying puts it, 'You can see the speck in your brother’s eye, but can’t see the plank in your own.' Projection can be the grossest and most obvious of psychological phenomena, but also the subtlest, most elusive, slipperiest and inscrutable. To some extent all perception is to 'look through a glass darkly' and often to see a distorted reflection of your own psychic structure when you think you are objectively seeing something external.
Continued...
"The central message of the I Ching, and many other great spiritual teachings, is essentially to first get your relationship to yourself right. If you get your relationship to your self right (so easy to say, such a never-ending, gigantic task to take on) then your relationships to others, to politics, to sex, time, power, food, body, emotions, and money, will all be as good as outer circumstances can possibly allow. Omit, neglect, or distort any aspect of your relationship with yourself, however, and your relationships to all those other things are distorted and diminished accordingly.
"An activist is someone trying to be a healer in some way, to heal the environment and/or the human collective. To do so, they need to first adopt something like the Hippocratic Oath which says, 'First, do no harm.'
"A reasonable corollary of this would be 'First, do not project.' Since an activist is largely working to undo the harmful effects of projection, she should first scrutinize herself for any signs of projections which would only contribute to the madness of the world. Where we are mostly likely to project is where we are emotionally engaged, and an activist is almost always a person who is passionate about their cause, and therefore, vulnerable to projection.
"Stripping away the details, an activist is a human psyche who objects to the perceived actions of other human psyches. Notice that this is one of the maximal cases possible of subjectivity and projection.
"One time Jung was teaching a seminar in Germany during the Weimar Republic, and there were Nazis literally goose-stepping outside on the street below the room in which they were conducting the seminar. Someone asked words to the effect of, 'What can we do about the terrible evils of the world?' Jung replied, 'Begin by reclaiming your own shadow from the world.'
"In other words call back your own shadow projections before you initiate extroverted actions while under the trance of shadow projection yourself. As Goethe put it, 'If you want to clean up the whole world, begin with your own doorstep.'
"We could all probably agree on cases of projection amongst fundamentalists and the extreme right wing, but our own projections are a much more necessary object of inquiry and much more likely to be over-looked . . . "
Anon 9:31 sez:"If you want to speak on that technicality, you've deleted comments from people disagreeing with you."
No, as you can see, your various comments in this space totally disagreeing with me are still there, aren't they? So there goes that argument. But I do delete comments when they start getting really stupid and potty mouthed, and childish and neener-neenerish.
Anon 12:49 sez:"The sewer craziness as expressed here on the blog is not representative of the cross section of sewer craziness of Los Osos which is mostly dissipated by now."
True enough, Anon 12:49. There is a reason why I referred to all of this as The Hideous Sewer Wars. As in a war, you've got several (or more, in this case)"sides." And Fog of War and Fury of War and FUBAR of War. Then, in this case, the democratic process played itself out, albeit it imperfectly, the people voted, (several times) and then it was finished, over, except for the grumbling and Monday morning quarterbacking. And sifting through the issue, trying to make some sort of historical and chronological sense out of what the hell happened here, including revisions, additions, and disagreements anew.(Huge swaths of the comment sections on my various blog postings consist of a handful of people arguing over the whole issue, which at this point is totally moot.)
Then 99.9% of whoever was actively involved in the issue listened to the old Kenny Rogers song and "knew when to fold 'em" and moved on to the next Screwed Up Hot Topic Mess.
Except for a few folks who can't let go because, I suspect, they're unable to understand that sometimes shit happens, things don't go your way, you lose, somebody else wins, life isn't fair, government too often doesn't play fair, people get unfairly hammered (I'm thinking of the Los Osos 45 here, no justice for them) and when that happens Somebody must be blamed (and in the Sewer Wars, the list of Somebodies is a long one and includes members from ALL sides of the battle righteously dragging their List of Grievances behind them in a glorious fury.)
So, yes, Anon 12:49, I would agree. The community has taken its lumps, licked its wounds and moved on. While a few (you seem to indicate it's a single entity,i.e. Anonymouse 9:31) haven't been able to do that for whatever reason.
Ann, you continue to avoid and avoid and avoid as if you're either in perpetual denial or stuck in some autistic reality where you're an omniscient fly on the wall devoid of any iota of responsibility.
You can move on from the sewer, but you can't move on from paying the bills. This is what you're not getting. People invested in a product that they now are indebted to pay. They assessed to have a lien on their property. That's not something you "move on" from. This is not a debate about the sewer, it's about accountability.
It's very disingenuous to shrug your shoulders and walk away from those who sought your guidance. Frankly, it's disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Anon 5:07. After a years long battle with various choices and opinions and discussions and arguments and conclusions and reams information on many sides, everyone in the community made a decision based on all that input and then they voted to assess themselves for a sewer. They voted.
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