Team Agonist Editor In Chief
Sean Paul Kelley
Writers
Tina, Steeleweed, nymoley
Raja, Numerian, Jack Cluth
Don Henry Ford Jr, Graham
Actor 212, Michael Collins
Brian Downing, Synoia
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By Sean Paul Kelley, on March 10th, 2014  I left San Antonio at 830 in the morning. Arrived in Joshua Tree the next day at 300 in the afternoon.
What happened in between was stunning.
Palo Duro Canyon and Caprock Canyons State Park in the Panhandle of Texas are worth seeing. As a friend said, “the floor literally drops out of the plains into the bowels of hell,” the last refuge of Quanah Parker and his Comanche warriors.
Wow.
But, had I literally not woke to the Grand Canyon they would have been seared into my memory. How does one overcome the Grand Canyon to appreciate Palo Duro and Caprock Canyons?
Alas, I get ahead of myself.
It was a long, brutal ride from Amarillo to Flagstaff. Strange, surreal night-scapes passed before me. Inexplicable images, strange lights, bizarre industrial installations in the middle of nowhere passed through the filter of countless cups of terrible roadside coffee and bleary, tired eyes. The visions of the night are like those light towers in the darkness that duplicate themselves on your retina when you blink. The night was a cross between a dark painting of straight, abstract lines and the faded colors of Vasilii Kandinsky and the swirling nightmarish background of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”
In the long night of the desert, between Amarillo and Flagstaff, the full impact of our industrial civilization becomes evident. What we hide from ourselves comes out in the dark. The depots for mines are lined with 18-wheelers waiting their fill of whatever mineral has been scratched from the earth. Trains are long snaking lines in the howling emptiness. Coal fired power plants belch out even more smoke at night, to better hide it, long tailings of cottony carbon fill the clouds, heating the planet.
Paradoxically, the temperatures plunged between Tucumcari and Gallup and by the time I hit the Grand Canyon it was 23*. I had blod shot eyes and felt inhuman, but stumbled out of the car and onto the southern rim of the great canyon in a fog. One look at the canyon, the violet pre-dawn skies and I was wide awake.
I’ve traveled a great deal in my life and from time to time I’ve assumed the pose that “I’m a traveler, not a tourist.” In fact, it’s something I wrestle with frequently while I am on the road. “I’m no different than a tourist,” I tell myself. For there is no distinction between a tourist and a so-called “traveler.” It’s really only the place that marks any difference. Or an assumed attitude of superiority.
At the Grand Canyon yesterday morning there were about a 100 of us waiting for the sunrise and at first I struck that pose. But the moment the sun peaked up over the rim of that magnificent canyon, it all melted away. I was a tourist, a fellow human traveling along the ride of this crazy, glorious creation.
Lesson: sometimes it’s good to be a part of the spectacle and not set oneself outside of it.
Check it out, here. This is the full set, so far.
By Actor 212, on March 10th, 2014
By Michael Collins, on March 10th, 2014 
This world is a veil and the face you wear is not your own. Preacher Joel Theriot, True Detective
Tent preacher Joel Theriot’s full sermon from episode three of True Detective provides a preview and explanation of detective Rust Cohle’s conversion from a laconic nihilist extraordinaire who can barely live with himself to an enlightened soul with some prospect for peace.
In episode 7, Cohle laments his long journey through violence and depravity then says I’m ready to tie it off. Many suspected that this forecast death for Cohle in the final episode. In a very real sense, that theory proved correct but it was a different type of death.
As it turns out, True Detective is the story of a seeker of truth. Rust Cohle’s moment of enlightenment in episode 8 came after years of searching and suffering.
Continue reading Rust Cohle’s Conversion – True Detective Finale
By Synoia, on March 10th, 2014 Despite claims to the contrary, the US has a state-sponsored and supported religion.
Like all religions, it has its dogma, a group of fundamental beliefs, that are accepted “on faith,” without any physical proof. And like all religions, it has its clerics/priests, an organized structure for its support, and the priests have their own body of laws inviolate from laws governing the common people.
The high priest of this religion is the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve. He makes religious pronouncements, which have enormous effect, and do little to explain the dogma – rather they make understanding the dogma more difficult. The goal is to confuse the masses, and insulate the priesthood. Clearly, only He can talk directly to God, because when he explains, the message is incomprehensible. Continue reading The US State Religion
By steeleweed, on March 8th, 2014
By adrena, on March 7th, 2014  Canadian film director, writer, and producer Karen Lam whose chosen genre is horror with a feminist twist, posed this provocative question.
Lam’s choice and musings were influenced by her father’s penchant for twisted storytelling and the real-life violence committed against women. What particularly stood out for Lam were the cruel murders of 49 women by BC pig farmer Robert Pickton who fed their bodies to his pigs and friends and the Highway of Tears murders that, according to aboriginal leaders, has claimed the lives of 43 women – these murders remain, as of yet, unsolved.
Incidentally, last Wednesday, the Guardian disclosed that a recent report revealed ‘extensive violence against women in EU’ with Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, three countries that strongly support women’s rights, exhibiting the highest numbers. Shocking, isn’t it? Continue reading Should women fight violence with violence?
By Sean Paul Kelley, on March 7th, 2014 PIMCO just hasn’t been the same since Paul McCulley left. You know, the guy who coined the term, “shadow banking system.”
SO, here’s a tweet from Bill Gross, the CEO of PIMCO (who is a very smart man, himself):
Quick question: say I own this crap, right? Who the fuck do I sell it to, if not the Fed?
You see where this is going?
By nymole, on March 7th, 2014
By Sean Paul Kelley, on March 6th, 2014 Saturday morning I leave for a long road trip. A road trip I have long wanted to take. I’m headed to Joshua Tree National Park.
If all goes well I’ll hit Palo Duro Canyon in Texas for the sunset Saturday, drive through the night, have my coffee and sunrise at the Grand Canyon Sunday morning and then be in Joshua Tree by one in the afternoon.
Expect stories and photos from the road.
Been a while since we traveled together, y’all and me, hasn’t it? Well, we’re going to have fun!
As always, suggestions welcome!
By Tina, on March 6th, 2014 Raw Story – I don’t want what he is drinking!
By Sean Paul Kelley, on March 6th, 2014 An absolutely excellent deconstruction of Donald Rumsfeld by the award winning writer, reporter, Mark Danner in the New York Review of Books, in three parts. One, two and three.
I hope he turns this into a book.
By Actor 212, on March 6th, 2014  Trampling Through the Vineyards Where the Grapes of Rights Are Stored The CIA searched computers intended to be used solely by the Senate Intelligence Committee in an apparent effort to determine how committee staff members gained access to a draft version of an internal agency review of its controversial interrogation program, U.S. officials said.
The action, some officials say, would mark the first time a U.S. intelligence agency has accessed congressional computers and would be an apparent violation of the constitutional principle of separation of powers.
So the CIA finally decided that Senators are people, too?
Continue reading Maybe They’ll Finally Do SOMEthing
By Synoia, on March 5th, 2014 In a surprise move, Secretary of State John Kerry was heard to offer Russia membership of NATO in order to defuse the Ukraine situation. In an aside to the Russian Ambassador he was heard to say:
If Russia were a member of NATO then there would be no encirclement of Russia from sea to shining sea.
24 Hours later, it appears that President Putin has seized on the idea and embraced it, in a similar manner to the defusing of the Syrian saturation where John Kerry suggested that Syrians give up their poison gas stockpile.
Putin has responded positively to the suggestion to defuse tension and remove any threat by Russia to Ukraine and Western Europe over “technical difficulties” of natural gas deliveries passing through Ukraine.
Continue reading NATO to Offer Membership to Russia
By William Boardman, on March 5th, 2014 How crazy will Americans get over Ukraine?
US Provokes Russia, Acts Surprised to Get a Nasty Reaction
Reader Supported News
If too many people get sucked in by the current, distorted media coverage of events unfolding now in Ukraine, then there’s a good chance life will get very ugly for a lot of innocent people, since one of the logical end points is the use of nuclear weapons. Everyone in power knows that’s a potential reality, but the urge to demagogue the Russians is presently overwhelming honesty and caution.
Continue reading Ukraine Folly
By Sean Paul Kelley, on March 5th, 2014 So Obama apparently knew the CIA (his agency, as he is the head of the executive branch) was spying on the Senate Committee (which is the legislative branch) that oversees the CIA?
You know, not that it is ever going to happen, but that pretty much fits my personal definition of high crimes and misdemeanors. Spying on the Senate?
No.
No.
And fuck no.
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