"California Just Got Another Major Warning That “The Big One” Is Coming"

"California Just Got Another Major 

Warning That “The Big One” Is Coming"

by Michael Snyder

"The magnitude 5.6 earthquake that just shook portions of three different states should be a huge wake up call for everyone that lives in California. The San Andreas Fault system is locked and loaded, and it is just a matter of time before an absolutely cataclysmic earthquake permanently alters the geography of the state. A day is coming when large portions of Southern California will no longer be above water. I have written about this over and over again, and I have warned about this more times than I can possibly count. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the people that live in the region do not believe that such a disaster will ever happen.

Just hours ago, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake violently rattled the Bay Area…"A magnitude 5.6 earthquake rattled northern California the morning of Wednesday, June 24, triggering alerts across the Bay Area, according to the United States Geological Survey. The quake was recorded just over 6 miles from Redwood Valley at 8:10 a.m. PT and felt by people across the region, the USGS said."

This was no ordinary earthquake. In fact, it was so powerful that it was felt in parts of Oregon, parts of Nevada and all over Northern California…"While the strongest shaking was reported right at the quake’s epicenter near Redwood Valley, the tremors traveled more than 600 miles up and down the West Coast, reaching Coos Bay, Oregon in the north and Salinas, California in the south. That range includes the entire San Francisco Bay Area, home to more than seven million people, and affecting multiple cities including San Jose, Sacramento, Concord, Oakland, Stockton and Modesto."

A lot of people were really freaked out by how strong this quake was. One woman that lives in Mendocino County is claiming that it was “the biggest earthquake I have felt in my life”…"Moneca Vargas at Saint Mary’s Catholic School in Ukiah told KTVU: ‘That was the biggest earthquake I have felt in my life, and I’ve lived in Ukiah for most of my 54 years. My whole house shook.’

Other residents close to the source in Northern California compared the shockwaves to a ‘freight train’ rolling through their homes, causing items to fall from shelves and officials to sound the official earthquake alert system for quakes stronger than magnitude 4.5."

The epicenter of this event was located very close to the Maacama Fault zone. And it turns out that the Maacama Fault zone “is part of the larger San Andreas Fault system”…"The epicenter of Wednesday’s earthquake was recorded within seven miles of the Maacama Fault zone. The Maacama is an major active strike-slip fault capable of causing strong shaking and damage in areas like Mendocino and Sonoma counties, where it runs through rural communities and wine country."

Making the fault even more of a concern to locals is the fact that it is part of the larger San Andreas Fault system, the infamous 800-mile-long fault running through much of California. Shaking along one portion of the San Andreas Fault system can affect other portions of the San Andreas Fault system. A number of years ago, this was vividly portrayed in a film entitled “San Andreas” that received a lot of attention at the time.

Unfortunately, the San Andreas Fault system is perfectly primed for a major event. Last Friday, I shared an article with my core supporters that warned that the San Andreas and San Jacinto fault systems “have reached the highest stress levels seen in the past 1,000 years”. Scientists have told us that someday the San Andreas Fault system could potentially rip wide open all at once. In my most recent book, I described what that could look like…

"If the San Andreas fault does rupture all at once, scientists have warned us that it could produce an earthquake that would be powerful enough to cause the ground on the western side of the San Andreas fault to suddenly drop several feet. Since most of southern California is just barely above sea level, that would allow water from the Pacific Ocean to come pouring in."

Can you imagine the kind of death and destruction that such a disaster would cause? It would look like much of the southern California coast had just gone into the Pacific Ocean, but actually the Pacific Ocean would suddenly be covering vast stretches of the coast that have now dropped several feet lower than they were previously. Researchers tell us that similar catastrophes have actually happened along the west coast in the past, and it is just a matter of time before it happens again.

If you live in southern California, it critical for you to understand that it is just a matter of time before “the Big One” strikes. I have been attempting to sound the alarm about what is going to happen for years, but of course most of those living in the region are not interested in such warnings.

Of course I am not the only one that has been issuing such ominous warnings. Scientists have repeatedly told us that the San Andreas fault appears to be “locked and loaded” and that it could potentially “unzip all at once”. Cal State Fullerton professor Matt Kirby was the lead author on a study that discovered that land on the western side of the San Andreas fault can instantly sink by up to 3 feet when a major earthquake strikes. He says that it has happened before and that it will happen again.

According to Kirby, a seismic event of this nature is something “that would happen relatively instantaneously”, and he has said that if such a disaster occurred today “you would see seawater rushing in”. Coastal areas such as Santa Monica are barely above sea level. A large enough seismic event could leave those areas completely covered by water. But most people that live in Southern California will not take the warnings seriously until disaster finally strikes.

Meanwhile, there has been more unusual activity at the Yellowstone Supervolcano. Earlier this month, an unexpected hydrothermal explosion suddenly created a new pool of super-heated water…"Another hydrothermal explosion has occurred at Yellowstone National Park, highlighting the unstable nature of the reserve’s extensive volcanic network, the U.S. Geological Survey says.

On June 13, a small hydrothermal explosion occurred at Yellowstone’s Biscuit Basin — a popular thermal area located less than 2 miles northwest of Old Faithful, according to the USGS. The explosion occurred at 5:09 a.m. local time and did not cause any injuries, according to the USGS. A new pool formed as a result of activity."

We have been witnessing so much unusual activity all over the globe in recent months. But I am convinced that what we have experienced so far is nothing compared to what is coming. The giant space rock that we all exist on as we hurtle through space is exhibiting increasing signs of instability. One of these days time will run out for those that are living along the San Andreas Fault, and for many of them there will be no escape."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

o

“Heavy Casualties” After Massive Twin 7.1 Magnitude

 Quakes Rock Venezuela, Topple Buildings"

"Trump Says US "Ready To Help" After Twin Quakes Level Apartment

 Towers In Venezuela, USGS Warns Death Toll Could Hit 100K"

Adventures With Danno, "Massive Sales At Kroger"

Full screen Recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 6/25/26

"Massive Sales At Kroger"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"We All Run Out of Time..."

Full screen recommended.

oltsev art,

 "We All Run Out of Time..."

"We always thought we had more. More summers. More mornings. More time to say the things we meant to say. This one is for everyone who has ever wished the clock would just slow down. And for everyone who finally made peace with the fact that it won't."

"Beautiful Relaxing Music - Calming Piano & Guitar Music"

Full screen recommended.

"Beautiful Relaxing Music - 

Calming Piano & Guitar Music"

"Beautiful relaxing music by Soothing Relaxation. Enjoy calming piano and

 guitar music composed by Peder B. Helland, set to stunning nature videos."

- https://soothingrelaxation.lnk.to/listenYL

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region.

Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in the sharp Hubble view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130113.html

Chet Raymo, “Strange”

“Strange”

by Chet Raymo

“In a review in the “New York Times” Book Review, Daniel Handler writes: “And strange? Well, let’s get this straight: All great books are strange. Every lasting work of literature since the very weird “Beowulf” has been strange, not only because it grapples with the strangeness around us, but also because the effect of originality is startling, making even the oldest books feel like brand new stories.”

Strange: Out-of-the-ordinary, unusual, curious. “The strangeness around us,” says Handler. There is a paradox here. What could be less strange than the world around us? It is the same world that was here yesterday, and the day before that. More to the point: It is a world ruled by law. Inviolable causal bonds. That’s what makes science possible.

And yet, and yet. I walk wary. Strangeness lurks on ever side. Strangeness leaps out of every pebble in the path, every wildflower, every spider web flung between weedy stalks. In the midst of the utterly ordinary the extraordinary abounds. Nothing is so commonplace as to be common. The strangeness of the world, as in literature, has its source in the head, in the convoluted interaction of mind with world. Strange, that we should be here, strangers in a strange land, pilgrims on our own yellow brick roads where nothing is ordinary because everything is perceived through the filter of a unique consciousness.

And strange? Well, let’s get this straight. I hope never to lose the capacity to see the strangeness in the familiar, the curious in the everyday, the exception in the unexceptional. 

“I do not expect a miracle, 

or an accident, 

to set the sight on fire...” 

wrote Silvia Plath. Just being here is enough. Just being here is surpassing strange.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"In This World..."

"In this world, the thing people fear the most, and what pains people the most - is giving more than they receive. God forbid I cut off more of my fingernail for you than you cut from your fingernail, for me! Heaven forbid I hold my breath in longer while thinking about you, than the amount of time your breath is held in for me! Not a second longer! It is a sad fact of human nature that there you stand as an Infinite Soul and yet your greatest fear is not receiving from another person in proportion to what you give. Your viewpoint is low, your vision is clouded. You have become, in your eyes, a funny little drawing on the paper pad of the universe. Indeed, this race is yet to evolve. And yet, I am surrounded by such fear, to such a great extent that I begin to fear the same!"

- C. JoyBell C.

"Do What You Can..."

 

"Hanging by a Thread"

"Hanging by a Thread"

by Todd Hayen

"It is quite amazing how close people are to serious mental illness. What is serious mental illness? Suicidal depression, psychosis, anxiety that requires hospitalization, and frankly anything that keeps a person from living a functional life, a life with its share of sadness, trauma and suffering, but also with moments of happiness, fulfillment, love and laughter.

That’s serious mental illness. What about “not so serious” mental illness? Well, we’ve got a lot more of that than one could even imagine. And then twice that many hanging by the thread, just about ready to drop into depression, anxiety, personality disorders of a dizzying variety, sadness, emotional dysfunction, relational wackiness, on and on. It is a pandemic, and yes, a real one that isn’t a hoax.

In my opinion, nearly every human alive suffers from some sort of emotional/mental anomaly. Maybe not everyone but a lot (and if you find one who doesn’t - maybe some young couple dressed in loincloths riding horses on the beach of some idyllic island somewhere in the South Pacific - let me know about them, I would love to meet them).

I see a lot of people in my practice, and I can unequivocally say that they all have issues. Well, that stands to reason, of course. That’s like a dentist saying everyone who comes into his or her office has some issue with his or her teeth. But I also hear about my client’s friends and family, I also interface with people in the grocery store, on the streets, and in my own friend circle, and all of these people have emotional issues, or are hanging by a thread - me included, of course (although my thread broke long ago and I have been swimming in psychological muck for most, if not all, of my life).

Isn’t this the normal “human condition?” Well, I used to think so, but not anymore. There is, of course, a “normal” human condition concerning mental and emotional regulation. Everyone gets depressed and sad once in a while, everyone gets anxious and has emotional flare-ups. We can describe a “normal” mental state which includes a lot of ups and downs. What I am describing is more than that, it is what comes across as abnormal, intense, devoid of much reason, out of regulation, and bordering on crazy. We are all, for the most part, whacked.

Ok, ok, not all of us are whacked. I know I am; you might not be. You may fall into this narrow band of a “normally wiggy” person psychologically, and if you do, congratulations. I am not convinced, however, that there are very many of you who can completely escape the screwed-up environment we all live in (yes, some may be more adept at processing this shite show than others). I would venture to say that you more than likely have been bitten, in some way, by the agenda if you live on this particular planet. Even if only through being around people who are truly crazy - that’s enough to make you fit into this category.

But I am not really commenting on fringe stuff here. I am commenting on those of us who are very close to being certifiably “off” - close to an actual diagnosis. Whether it be run-of-the-mill depression or anxiety, or more exotic personality disorders such as Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic, or even any one of the array of psychotic maladies such as Schizophrenia, Bipolar with Psychosis, or Paranoia.

Let’s look at some numbers. Almost 3 million people have been diagnosed with depression in 2020 in the USA, 66 million with anxiety over the past year. In the same year almost 5 million were diagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder, about 5 million with Narcissist Personality Disorder, and almost 2 million with Schizophrenia.

About 10 million will suffer from some form of psychosis in their lifetime, almost 10 million have been diagnosed with BiPolar disorder over the past year, 15 million adults suffer from ADHD, and nearly 35 million children were diagnosed with this particular malady over the same year.

And these statistics only apply to people who have complained enough about their mental condition to their doctor, psychiatrist, or certified psychologist, to be actually diagnosed and put on the docket as having these mental disorders. No telling how many are suffering from mental illness and have not shared their condition with someone who is qualified to render an official diagnosis (psychotherapists, in Canada, are not allowed to diagnose).

Yep, it’s a big problem. And then there is the medication. It is estimated that approximately 76 million people in the US, of all ages, have been prescribed, and are consuming, some form of psychiatric drug (I would venture to say it is more than this). That’s a lot of folks, folks.

Do I put a lot of weight on official diagnoses and labelling? Not really. But regardless of what you think of diagnosis standards and criteria, people are suffering from something - even if you refrain from putting a name to it. This is easy to see without doing much digging. People seem to have lost a lot of their mental capacity to think, to think critically, and to function within the expected “norms” of society (whatever that is). People, in general, seem to have a very difficult time making any sort of rational decisions about everyday challenges in everyday life.

That’s a big statement, I know. And maybe this has always been true, but my gut tells me this is all due to the social pathology the agenda has brought upon us. And no, it isn’t all due to an intentional agenda to pulverize us into flesh-eating zombies, but by golly most of it is.

If you think about how far away humans are from living a natural life, it isn’t much of a stretch to believe we are all suffering from some sort of mental and emotional dysfunction. Although this has been slowly going on since humans stopped living in caves, we have been relatively skilled at staving off the pandemic of mental illness we now seem to be suffering.

Sure, humans have always been a bit kooky. But wouldn’t you say today it appears to be much worse than it was 100 years ago? 200 hundred years ago? The disintegration of moral values, character development, a misunderstanding of “right and wrong,” the dissolution of family, community, spirituality, gender, and even the sanctity of the human body has all had its toll on healthy emotional and mental processing. When we no longer can process properly, we lose psychic homeostasis, and disease sets in."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

o

"Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't.

In the face of what we can lose in a day, in an instant,

wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together."

- "Grey's Anatomy"

o

"The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrow to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much too long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself."

- Louis-Ferdinand Celineo

o

"Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether

 it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it." 

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

"The Meaning of Life is Not Happiness"

"The Meaning of Life is Not Happiness"

by Todd Hayen

"I can’t tell you the number of times every day I hear from clients in my practice, “All I want is to be happy.” And they don’t know why they are not happy, they claim to be healthy, to have a good family, a good job that pays them lots of money, and a good marriage. Other than the usual ins and outs of life they really have nothing to complain about - but they are not happy. I then ask them if they think there is meaning in their life or purpose, invariably they say “No.” Sometimes they ask, “What is that? Isn’t the meaning and purpose in life to be happy?” No, it is not.

Happiness is only one of the many states of being we encounter in a whole and complete life, and if we become unhappy simply because we think we are not happy as often as we believe we should be, we have missed the point.

We have been on this “happiness” kick for quite some time, and once again I have to say I think it is part of the agenda - maybe originally an unconscious part of a movement in society to focus on acquiring “things.” But that has always been a central part of the formula in the agenda’s effort to control.

Again, maybe it was an organic result of our natural tendency to focus on the flesh—the physical attributes of living through the senses, and an innate desire to “instantly gratify” those senses at any opportunity offered. Check out Huxley’s "Brave New World" for a view of a dystopian culture in the future that focuses entirely on the satisfaction of primal urges through the senses. Huxley had it figured out almost 100 years ago.

There have been scads of books written on happiness. Most of them conclude that the pursuit of happiness through the acquisition of physical objects (consumerism) is a dead-end pursuit, and, like a shot of heroin, will send you on a high for a moment that quickly wears off. Most people have some idea of this and understand that obsessive consumerism is typically a road to oblivion.

But again, a lot of people have not figured this out yet (need I say “young people?”), considering our entire society is based on consumerism. Try getting away from it for even 10 minutes. If you don’t go out into the woods or barren desert with no cell phone, you won’t be able to. That is about the only way to detach yourself from the world that is trying to entice you to consume.

So, even if we could remove the curse of consumerism and instant gratification from our lives, wouldn’t our central pursuit still be the state of happiness? - continual happiness? Yes, typically it would be. Even deep spiritual interventions have the goal of happiness - if you are one with God, or Jesus, or Mohammed, you will be happy. Shouldn’t the word “happy” be replaced with “content” or even “peace?” It certainly should be, because that is what I believe most of the religious traditions mean by the word “happiness.” “Contentment” and “peace” have very different meanings to “happy.”

If we are fully enlightened, are we even allowed to be happy? Of course, we are. Being happy is one of the most precious gifts of being a living creature. Should we expect to be happy all of the time? No, of course not. That would be a curse. Should we expect to be content or at peace all of the time? Yes, I believe that is indeed possible and should be a goal we all strive to attain.

I spent a large part of my life studying the works of Ernest Holmes and "The Science of Mind". I studied Phineas Quimby, Emma Curtis Hopkins, Joel Goldsmith and others as well. The surface level of what I gleaned from this study was to “think positively” - to avoid focusing on darkness in the world and see only God’s love and beauty as reality.

What is found in the depth of these philosophies is quite a different matter. I will not go into this in this article as it would take a book to even begin to explain what I mean. Suffice it to say that the true message behind all of this is that the material world is a manifestation of our thought and consciousness - and is not the only reality.

However, my view is that as long as we are in the material form, living in a material creation, we have to encounter the manifestation of evil, darkness, and suffering - not ignore it. Part of our purpose and meaning in this world is to deal with everything we encounter, not turn away from any of it. Therefore, for a large portion of our lives, we may not be happy.

Dealing with darkness is not typically a happy endeavour, however, it doesn’t mean we cannot be at peace and be content when we are dealing with it. Darkness, suffering, and pain are but an “appearance” - an illusion - in the material realm. Through this illusion, we may even find meaning, and purpose, as we deal with the darker sides of life and existence.

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor offered a profound critique of the view that happiness is the ultimate meaning of life. In his seminal work, "Man’s Search for Meaning," Frankl argued that life’s true meaning is found not in the pursuit of happiness but in the pursuit of meaning. Having survived the horrors of concentration camps, Frankl observed that those who endured suffering and still found a reason to live, did so by finding a sense of purpose, not by chasing happiness. He developed the concept of “logotherapy,” a therapeutic approach that emphasizes the human desire to find meaning in life, even in the most challenging circumstances.

Frankl believed that humans are not driven primarily by the search for pleasure or happiness, but by the need to find meaning in their experiences. He argued that people can endure tremendous suffering if they have a sense of purpose to guide them.

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how,” Frankl wrote, quoting Nietzsche. According to Frankl, meaning can be found in work, love, suffering, and even in facing death. Happiness, in his view, is not something to be pursued directly; rather, it ensues when individuals live in alignment with their values and pursue meaning.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian writer and dissident who chronicled the horrors of the Soviet Gulag, similarly questioned the notion that happiness is life’s primary objective. In his works, such as "The Gulag Archipelago" and "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," Solzhenitsyn explored themes of suffering, totalitarian oppression, and the human capacity for endurance. Like Frankl, Solzhenitsyn saw meaning in suffering and responsibility rather than in the pursuit of happiness.

Solzhenitsyn argued that life is about more than personal joy or comfort. In his famous Harvard Commencement Address in 1978, he critiqued the West’s focus on materialism and individual happiness, warning that such pursuits could lead to moral and spiritual decay.

Solzhenitsyn believed that humanity’s purpose lay in the moral and spiritual development of the soul, not in the pursuit of happiness or worldly success. According to him, suffering could serve as a catalyst for this growth, offering individuals the opportunity to transcend their immediate desires and connect with deeper values such as truth, justice, and personal responsibility.

Solzhenitsyn’s view is particularly striking in his emphasis on responsibility. He believed that in the face of evil and injustice, individuals must take responsibility for their actions and decisions. A life well-lived, in his view, involves moral courage and a willingness to confront suffering and injustice rather than seeking comfort or happiness at all costs.

Wonder where I am going with this? I don’t think you have to wonder very long. I have heard again and again from those whom I love that I spend too much time “looking for bad things” that I am too interested in the wars, in suffering, in the deaths from the vaccines, in starving children. They claim that I need to give up on all of this and just enjoy what I have, the good life, the sunshine, the company of those whom I love - to be happy.

First of all, I cannot imagine turning my back on the world like that. Secondly, I am happy. In a strange way, my work which does focus on a lot of “bad” things brings me peace and contentment. My belief in God and in the beauty of physical existence - nature, art, music and love, to name a few of the things that God brings to this world through our consciousness, are always forefront of my mind.

The evil and ugliness are illusions nestled in those other realities. Yes, they limit our expressive creation, so they must be faced and dealt with. Every choice we make to see love in the world despite the hate we first face, is an act of Christ Consciousness - turning the hate that we see into the love we know sits behind it, is a truly meaningful pursuit. What could make a person happier?"

- https://off-guardian.org/

"The Donkey and the Meaning of Eternity"

"The Donkey and the Meaning of Eternity: Nobel-Winning

 Spanish Poet Juan Ramón Jiménez’s Love Letter to Life"

by Maria Popova

Excerpt: "Beneath our anxious quickenings, beneath our fanged fears, beneath the rusted armors of conviction, tenderness is what we long for - tenderness to salve our bruising contact with reality, to warm us awake from the frozen stupor of near-living. Tenderness is what permeates Platero and I (public library) by the Nobel-winning Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez (December 23, 1881–May 29, 1958) - part love letter to his beloved donkey, part journal of ecstatic delight in nature and humanity, part fairy tale for the lonely.

Living in his birthplace of Moguer - a small town in rural Andalusia - Jiménez began composing this uncommon posy of prose poems in 1907. Although it spans less than a year in his life with Platero, it took him a decade to publish it. At its heart is a simple truth: What and whom we love is a lens to focus our love of life itself.

The tenderness with which Jiménez regards Platero - whom he addresses by name over and over, like an incantation of love - is the tenderness of living with wonder and fragility. He celebrates Platero’s “big gleaming eyes, of a gentle firmness, in which the sun shines”; he reverences him as “friend to the old man and the child, to the stream and the butterfly, to the sun and the dog, to the flower and the moon, patient and pensive, melancholy and lovable, the Marcus Aurelius of the meadows.” He beckons him: “Come with me. I’ll teach you the flowers and the stars.”

And so he does: "Look, Platero, so many roses are falling everywhere: blue, pink, white, colorless roses… You’d think the sky was crumbling into roses… You’d think that from the seven galleries of Paradise roses were being thrown onto the earth… Platero, it seems, while the Angelus is ringing, that this life of ours is losing its everyday strength, and that a different strength from within, loftier, more constant, and purer, is causing everything, as if in fountain jets of grace… Your eyes, which you can’t see, Platero, and which you are mildly raising skyward, are two beautiful roses."

Together, poet and donkey traverse the Andalusian countryside in a state of rapturous harmony with each other and the living world: "Through the low-lying roads of summer, draped with tender honeysuckle, how sweetly we go! I read, or sing, or recite poetry to the sky. Platero nibbles the sparse grass of the shady banks, the dusty blossoms of the mallows, the yellow sorrel. He halts more than he walks. I let him.

[…]

Every so often Platero stops eating and looks at me. Every so often I stop reading and look at Platero."

There are echoes of Whitman in Jiménez’s exultations: "Before us are the fields, already green. Facing the immense, clear sky, of a blazing indigo, my eyes - so far from my ears! - open nobly, welcoming in its calm that indescribable placidity, that harmonious, divine serenity which dwells in the limitlessness of the horizon."

This longing for the infinite accompanies the young man and the old donkey as they cross the hills and valleys on their daily pilgrimages: "The evening extends beyond its normal limits, and the hour, infected with eternity, is infinite, peaceful, unfathomable."

Again and again, Platero’s presence magnifies the poet’s relishing of beauty, deepens his contact with the eternal: "I remain in ecstasy before the twilight. Platero, his black eyes scarlet with sunset, walks gently to a puddle of crimson, pink, and violet waters; he softly immerses his lips into the mirrors, which seem to liquefy as he touches them."

Punctuating these ecstasies are the inevitable spells of melancholy stemming from the fact that the price of being awake to life is being also awake to mortality. Aware that this enchanted life with his beloved Platero is only for the time being, Jiménez reaches into the sorrow of the future to consecrate it with joy: "Platero. I shall bury you at the foot of the large, round pine in the orchard at La Piña, which you like so much. You will remain alongside cheerful, serene life. The little boys will play and the little girls will sew beside you on their little low chairs. You will get to hear the verses that the solitude will inspire in me. You’ll hear the older girls singing when they wash clothes in the orange grove, and the sound of the waterwheel will be a joy and a solace to your eternal peace. And all year long the goldfinches, greenfinches, and vireos, in the perennial freshness of the treetop, will create for you a small musical ceiling between your tranquil slumber and Moguer’s infinite, ever-blue sky."

Full, wonderful article is here:

- https://mailchi.mp/themarginalian/

The Daily "Near You?"

Pretoria, South Africa. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Remaining Time: 60 Years of Love in 5 Minutes"

Full screen recommended.

Wonder Spirits,

"The Remaining Time: 60 Years of Love in 5 Minutes,

They Chose Each Other Every Single Day"

"What happens when the hourglass of life begins to run thin, 

but every grain of sand is made of gold? Hope this 

song reminds you to hold your loved ones a little closer today."

Delta King's Blues, "Soft Ain’t Weak"

Full screen recommended.

Delta King's Blues, "Soft Ain’t Weak"

“Don't mistake my kindness for weakness.

 I am kind to everyone, but when someone is unkind to me, 

weak is not what you are going to remember about me.”

- Al Capone

Native Elder, "5 Things You Must Do Before Your Time Runs Out"

Full screen recommended.

Native Elder,

"5 Things You Must Do Before Your Time Runs Out"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

"If only"... you don't stop because you can't stop.

If you do it's all over. It's all over anyway, you're just buying time...

Tell me I'm wrong...

"People's Lives Are Falling Apart In A Single Day - And It's Unreal"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 6/24/26

"People's Lives Are Falling Apart

 In A Single Day - And It's Unreal"

"You woke up today thinking it would be ordinary. So did every person in this video. Then something snapped - and the whole day went down with it. This is a compilation of real people telling the story of the day everything fell apart. A mother who walked nearly a mile with her three kids and her last hundred dollars, only for the ATM to swallow it whole. A girl whose entire world unraveled the night before she moved into her dorm. A first date that turned into something no one saw coming. A voice on a phone call that sounded exactly like a parent - except the parent never called. A server who clocked out of a brutal shift with almost nothing to show for it.

These are the small catastrophes hiding inside a normal day. The storm with no warning. The person you trusted who turned. The machine that ate your money. The job that took everything and gave nothing back. Each story begins the same way - a regular morning, a first date, a birthday, a shift - and only later reveals what it truly cost. Some are absurd. Some are genuinely dark. A few you'll laugh at, only because the person lived to tell it. But every single one shares one thing: the moment an ordinary day decided to end the person living it. Because the worst day is never loud at the start. It arrives disguised as just another morning. And you are never the only one standing on the ground when it gives out. If any of these stories hit close to home, you're not alone - leave a comment, share your own worst day, and subscribe for more."

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"Human Years"

"Human Years"

by Joel Bowman

"I have made this letter longer than usual

 because I have not had time to make it shorter."

~ Blaise Pascal, from "The Provincial Letters" (1656)

Buenos Aires, Argentina - "The War with Iran... the world’s first trillionaire... SpaceX stock “to the moon” (and back?)... and always, the rise and rise of the AI machines... We’re not even half way through the year, Dear Reader, and already the memories of six... nine... twelve months ago feel like relics from a quaint and distant past.

Remember the Epstein Files... saber-rattling over Greenland... the abduction of Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro? Recall the Gulf of America brouhaha... shots fired at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner... and “penisgate” at the Winter Olympics? (Readers unfamiliar with that last item are invited not to Google it... or at least not in a public space.)

Like all the news that’s unfit to print, these stories – and plenty more besides – are now yesterday’s fish ‘n’ chip paper. In this, the Age of Information Abundance, where attenuated attention spans reign supreme and history is that thing each generation ignores so as to repeat the mistakes of the past, we’re already onto “the next thing”... whatever that is. One has to wonder, with a ceaseless cascade of events pouring over our digital, hand-held horizons, is time really speeding up? Or are we humble observers merely slowing down? (Perhaps it’s a bit of both?)

Man as the Measure: Not so long ago, our literate ancestors used to gaze in wonder at the distant future, visions of the impossible dancing in their heads. We recall a television show from our own childhood, "Beyond 2000," which featured flying cars, sidewalk travelators and other seemingly improbable predictions.

What next? Will our vocation-free children treat us to vacations on Mars, where we’ll enjoy an “earth-downer” cocktail while watching our home planet dip behind the brave new red horizon?

Will the human race have minted its first quadrillionaire, with a near 80-year old Elon Musk having slipped back into the pack of mere trillionaires, the way Harold Hamm (oil), John Malone (cable television), Lex Werner (shopping malls), and other forgotten titans of “old industry” now populate the lower rungs of the world’s richest lists?

What documents will our meddlesome political overlords deem sufficiently benign to declassify by then, once all the crooks and rogues are expired, and will anyone bother to read them, anyway? Or will reading, that antiquated pastime, have gone the way of the dodo?

Perhaps the State itself will have been domesticated by then, relegated to an historical curiosity, one our progeny will study in virtual museums, like they do the pyramids and the pharaohs, wondering how their ancestors ever tolerated such abject abuses of power? Will the US empire still stand... will its currency hold sway... will the ideas of the west, so hard won, survive to fight another day? Or will the tides have turned?

A New Suggestion of Time: Outside our window, here in the capital city of an empire that never was, we hear the steady hum of traffic and the honking of horns below. Neighbors and strangers pass one another by; some offer greetings, others are lost in their own thoughts. Strolling these broad streets earlier today, alone amongst the crowd, we began to reckon on the concept of time itself... that sleepless, eternal trickster.

Perhaps one novel way to think about it, given the apparent acceleration of world events around us, is to measure our experience by human years lived. Think of it as adding together every human life being lived in a given moment. We might call this “civilizational time,” for instance, or “aggregate human years.”

For example...At the turn of the first millennium, New Year’s Eve of the year 1,000 AD, there were roughly ~300 million human beings living on our pale blue dot. Put another way, we might say that, during that calendar year, our species experienced ~300 million “aggregate human years,” or that ~300 million years passed in “civilizational time.”

That’s how much we lived, collectively, as a species, during the year 1,000 AD. All the births and deaths... the breakthroughs and bruised egos... the grandest campaign to the humblest action... from first kisses to last rights... the sum total of all fears, dreams, desires, of the entire human race: ~300 million human years.

Now, fast-forward to the present. This year, 2026, roughly ~8.2 billion human beings will make the same journey around the sun, and will experience the passage of time, both in their own way and as part of a greater whole. In that way, this calendar year will yield ~8.2 billion aggregate human years, or about 27x more than did a single calendar year just one millennium ago. And this is all happening every day... every hour... every single minute.

Here’s the basic math. Assuming a global population of roughly ~8.2 billion people, humanity is generating approximately: 8.2 billion human-years per calendar year, about 22.5 million human-days every day, roughly 940,000 human-hours every hour.

Consider one last figure for just a moment: Every second that passes on Earth, humanity collectively experiences about 260 years of conscious lifetime. With such a flood of accumulating human experience... this vast multitude of lives unfolding in real time... is it any wonder that civilizational time feels like it’s accelerating at an exponential rate?

Since time immemorial, man has measured time in calendar years because astronomy was the best game in town… or indeed, the universe. Throughout the ages, we have developed other ideas too. Physics has space time… geology has deep time… evolution has genetic time… etc.

But civilization doesn't run on astronomy any more than a tuna keeps time by the opening hours at the local sushi joint. Rather, it runs on human minds. And if that's true, perhaps the relevant measure of time is not so much the orbit of planets overhead or the age of rocks beneath our feet, but the accumulation of human experience itself. That means more brain surgeons… and more congressmen. More poets… and more prison guards. More genius inventors… and more airhead influencers. As to where all this leads, to paradise… or purgatory? We’ll look at that next time. Stay tuned for more Note From the End of the World…"

- https://joelbowman.substack.com/

"Only Puppets..."

“Politicians and corporate leaders who appeared to rule over their fellow humans were actually only puppets for the Masters, who used them to implement all their agendas to ensure a continuation of separation and control. In this way, when the populace became irate at a politician or corporate leader, the Masters would force them to resign from their position and have another puppet take their place. The populace would believe the problem had been taken care of and real change had occurred, that the root of the problem had been fixed, so they would rejoice and become complacent. When in actuality, the same old revolving-door record would play over and over again, with the real root of power, the Masters, staying at the helm of the ship.” 

-  Jasun Ether

Bill Bonner, "A Case Study in Self Sabotage"

"A Case Study in Self Sabotage"

by Bill Bonner

London, England - "Every natural thing runs its course, in a pattern that no committee of planners has ever yet learned to repeal. England was a dump after WWII. After 40 years of prosperity, it looks like she is becoming a dump once more. Friends who grew up in the London of the 1950s tell us they were ten years old before they tasted their first orange, and that you had to wait half a year to have a telephone strung to the wall. The ‘kinetic’ war stopped in 1945, but the rationing soldiered grimly on until 1954 - and then, came the strikes.

Our own first pilgrimages, in the 1960s, were to a city plainly down at the heels yet still with a residual charm - a threadbare gentility. London was still inhabited by Englishmen. And the guest of modest means, your correspondent among them, still fed pound coins into the radiator to coax out a little heat, and trooped ‘down the hall’ to a bathroom held in common with strangers.

Then came the reckoning. In the bitter “Winter of Our Discontent” of 1978, the strikes rose up and the government came down. The Callaghan Labour ministry simply shattered. The voters, their stomachs turned, threw the rascals out and reached for Mrs. Thatcher - who soon enough faced a trial of her own, when Arthur Scargill marched his miners out again in 1984.

She was a tiny woman - we lunched with her after her retirement - but Ms. Thatcher had no more fear of a brawl than a terrier has of a rat. It was said that she was the only person in the whole government with any stones. She meant to unbind an arthritic economy, and the unions meant to see her broken first. But she did not bend. “The lady’s not for turning,” she said, and the phrase rang. And out of that collision a new pattern was struck: where there had stood a shabby nation run by half-baked central planners, there now rose a smart and prosperous one run, more or less, by free-market types.

But Success, when she calls, never unpacks her bags for a long stay. She is a flighty visitor - promiscuous, even. Britain enjoyed her favors from about 1980 to, say, 2020. Now she seems to have moved on. The Wall Street of London - “The City,” they call it - drew capital from the four corners of the earth. The rich of Russia, of the Levant, of Africa and the Orient looked to it to shelter and multiply their hoards. A copy of The Economist lay in every corporate anteroom. The financial industry hauled the whole economy up behind it, and the pound climbed into the clouds.

Few perceived it then - your correspondent no quicker than the rest - but it was not the cunning of fresh graduates from the London School of Economics that made this fortune. It was Alan Greenspan, who died on Monday. His counterfeit-money pumps inundated the planet with dollars.

The British met their sudden affluence in the most predictable and most unproductive manner. They fattened the welfare rolls and laid on layer after layer of regulations. The one squeezed the economy; the other drained it dry. Benefits were apparently too easy to get; they appear to have hatched a whole underclass of idlers. Sixty percent of the young between sixteen and twenty-four have never held a job - a new record. Many claim hard-to-verify mental health issues. There are, apparently, websites that show you how to get disability payments even if there is nothing wrong with you. .

There are also said to be some three hundred thousand households in which no living member has ever been employed. And the bill for maintaining those who will not work now devours a full quarter of what the government spends. And as the bucket sprang ever more leaks, the refilling of it grew ever harder. FoxBusiness: "High taxes, over-regulation and risk aversion are strangling the UK economy, experts say. When it built a high-speed train to Manchester, for example, it needed to make special provisions for a colony of bats along the way. It took 8,000 permits to do so, and an expense of more than 200 million pounds. The resulting train line was the most expensive in the world."

Our own civic pride stirs at all this talk of forlorn cities. We would back Baltimore against any ruin in the United Kingdom. But we will spare the reader the point-by-point match. It is widely advertised, in any case, that Britain has now slipped below Mississippi - The Atlantic calls it a “case study of self-sabotage:”

The country’s output per person is now only just above that of Mississippi, America’s poorest state - and that slight lead is only achieved thanks to London. Outside the capital, in places where tourists do not visit, living standards fall well below Mississippi’s. Brits visiting the United States find that their currency has depreciated to the point where the pound today buys only about $1.35. British wages have lagged well behind those in the U.S., and also those in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark; once you account for inflation, they’ve barely grown at all. Within the next decade, the typical Pole will have a standard of living equal to the typical Brit, if current trends continue.

In July of 2020 the forty-year cycle of interest rates, for the pound as well as the dollar found its bottom. Since then, yields have crept upward - punishing borrowers the world over. Even so, the real return upon government paper in both pounds and dollars sits at a historic low; from here, most yields are likely to rise until they stand again at a historic high. If so, look for Britain and America to shuffle along together down the same road - stumbling, bumbling, and grumbling toward Yazoo City, on the edge of the Mississippi Delta, where half the inhabitants live in poverty."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

"SNAP Cuts Coming for Millions of Americans as Inflation Surges"

Full screen recommended.

Michael Bordenaro, 6/24/26

"SNAP Cuts Coming for Millions 

of Americans as Inflation Surges"

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Adventures With Danno, "Shocking Prices At Sam's Club"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 6/24/26

"Shocking Prices At Sam's Club"

Comments here"

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o

Full screen recommended.

The Unfolded States, 6/24/26

"People Are Noticing Something at Grocery Stores…

And It Confirms Everything"

"AI grocery carts are showing up in stores across America, and for many shoppers, they feel like the future of retail. Faster checkout, real-time coupons, and no waiting in line all sound convenient. But behind that convenience, a much bigger question is starting to emerge. What exactly are these systems tracking, and why are retailers investing so heavily in them? In this video, we break down the rise of AI grocery carts, the business incentives behind retail automation, and the growing concern around surveillance pricing. We look at how stores use behavioral data, why checkout is becoming part of the shopping experience itself, and how AI could reshape the way consumers interact with prices, promotions, and even everyday grocery decisions. The biggest story may not be about replacing cashiers at all. It may be about something far more valuable: your data. As grocery stores become smarter, the real question is whether this technology is improving convenience or quietly turning shopping into a system of constant observation. Would you trade privacy for better discounts and faster checkout? Let us know in the comments."

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Judge Napolitano, "Prof. Mohammad Marandi: Iran Stands Firm at Negotiations"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/24/26

"Prof. Mohammad Marandi:

 Iran Stands Firm at Negotiations"

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"Pepe Escobar: Failed Assassination Plot Against the Iranian Delegation - Israel Targets Pakistan"

"Pepe Escobar: Failed Assassination Plot Against

the Iranian Delegation - Israel Targets Pakistan"

"In the second half of the discussion, geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar focuses on explosive claims involving Pakistan, Israel, Iran, and the future of regional security in the Middle East. Escobar argues that growing tensions behind the scenes could reshape the geopolitical landscape at a time when concerns about a wider U.S.-Iran conflict remain high. A major topic is the allegation that Israeli intelligence sought to disrupt ongoing diplomatic efforts involving Pakistan and Iran. According to Escobar, Pakistani officials received intelligence warnings about potential threats targeting members of their delegation during sensitive negotiations. He claims these reports triggered strong reactions from Pakistan and raised fears that diplomatic channels could collapse if regional tensions continue escalating. 

The conversation also explores the broader implications for Iran, the United States, and President Donald Trump. Escobar suggests that Washington and Tehran remain locked in a fragile standoff despite ongoing diplomatic efforts. Any breakdown in negotiations could increase the risk of military confrontation, with serious consequences for regional stability. Another key focus is the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important energy chokepoints. Escobar explains that any escalation involving Iran, the United States, or Israel could threaten shipping routes, global oil supplies, and international markets. 

The discussion highlights how the Hormuz Strait remains central to Middle East security calculations and global economic stability. Throughout the interview, Escobar argues that the struggle over diplomacy, security alliances, and regional influence is entering a new phase. As tensions between Iran, Israel, and the United States continue to evolve, the stakes for the Middle East and the global economy remain extremely high. This analysis examines the latest developments surrounding Iran, Trump, regional security, and the growing uncertainty facing the Gulf region."

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"Douglas Macgregor: Netanyahu Is Facing a Test Nobody Saw Coming...End of Israel!"

OPTM, 6/24/26

"Douglas Macgregor: Netanyahu Is Facing 

a Test Nobody Saw Coming...End of Israel!"

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