"A 92-year-old man, small, very proud, dressed and clean-shaven, with his hair perfectly combed, moves into a nursing home one morning at 8:00. His 70-year-old wife has recently passed away, forcing him to leave his home. After several hours of waiting in the nursing home lobby, he smiles kindly when we tell him his room is ready.
As he walks to the elevator with his walker, I give him a description of his small room, including the drape hanging from his window as a curtain. "I like it a lot," he says with the enthusiasm of an 8-year-old boy who has just received a new puppy. "Mr. Vinto, you haven't seen the room yet, wait a minute."
"That has nothing to do with it," he says. "Happiness is something I choose in advance. Whether I like my room or not does not depend on the furniture or the decorations - it depends on how I perceive it. In my head it is already decided that I like my room. It is a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I can choose, I can spend the day in bed counting the difficulties I have with the parts of my body that do not work, or get up and thank the heavens for the ones that still work. Every day is a gift and as long as I can open my eyes, I will focus on the new day and on all the happy memories I have collected throughout my life. Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you have accumulated."
So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in your bank account of memories. Thank you for participating in filling my bank account, where I continue to deposit. Remember these simple rules to be happy:
"On his deathbed at the age of 56 from pancreatic cancer Steve Jobs said this... "I have reached the pinnacle of success in business. In the eyes of others, my life is the epitome of success. However, apart from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is just a fact of life that I am accustomed to. At this moment, lying on my sick bed and looking back on my entire life, I realize that all the praise and riches I was so proud of have faded and become insignificant in the face of impending death.
You can hire someone to drive the car for you, make money for you, but you can't have someone carry the disease for you. Lost material things can be found. But there is one thing you can never find when you lose "Life".
When a person enters the operating room, he or she will realize that there is a book that he or she has not yet finished reading: “The Book of Healthy Living.” Whatever stage of life we are in at the moment, we will eventually face the day when the curtain falls. Feel affection, love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends... Treat yourself well. Appreciate others.
As we grow older and therefore wiser, we gradually realize that wearing a $300 watch or a $30 watch both tell the same time...Whether we carry a $300 wallet or a $30 wallet, the amount of money inside is the same; Whether you drive a $150,000 car or a $30,000 car, the road and distance are the same and you arrive at the same destination. Whether you drink a $300 bottle of wine or a $10 bottle, the hangover is the same; whether the house we live in is 300 square meters or 3000 square meters, the loneliness is the same.
You will realize that your true inner happiness does not come from the material things of this world. Whether you fly first class or economy, if the plane goes down, it goes down with it…
So… I hope you realize, when you have companions, friends and old friends, brothers and sisters, with whom you chat, laugh, talk, sing, talk about north-south-east-west or about heaven and earth. Enjoy life and don't obsess over material things." He was silent for several minutes, then uttered his final words, "Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow..."
Exposing the Financial Crisis Millions Are Living Right Now"
"Modern depression risks are showing up in places most people don’t expect - paychecks that don’t stretch, “normal” bills that feel impossible, and a growing sense that the economy is moving without us. If you’ve felt that pressure lately, this breakdown will help you make sense of it. Here’s the thing: inflation isn’t just higher prices - it’s a slow drain on purchasing power that hits every household differently. We’ll connect the dots between wages, debt, housing, and the widening wealth gap, so you can see how today’s poverty cycle is being reinforced in real time. What most people miss is the resilience side. This video shifts the focus from panic to practical strategy: budgeting basics, building a small buffer, protecting cash flow, and simple “survival” habits that reduce stress and increase stability. We also compare key patterns from past depressions to what’s happening now, using data and real-world examples to spotlight risks - and smarter moves you can make next."
"It is often said that timing is everything, and that is certainly true when it comes to war with Iran. By October 27th, national elections will have been held in Israel to determine the 120 members of the twenty-sixth Knesset. The polls do not look good for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at all, and so he is probably going to be out of a job. Solving the “Iran problem” is the number one thing that Netanyahu wants to accomplish before he leaves, and so the clock is ticking. Even if there was some sort of a dramatic development that prevented the U.S. from attacking Iran, top Israeli officials have already warned that they would just go in anyway.
Of course it isn’t just the Israelis that are facing time pressure. Mid-term elections in the United States are scheduled for November 3rd, and history has shown us that they are often not kind to whichever party controls the White House. President Trump knows that if the Democrats end up taking control of the House and Senate his hands would really be tied at that point. He doesn’t want to leave the “Iran problem” to future administrations, and so he is highly motivated to act now.
If a war is going to be politically beneficial, it should be over by the time an election arrives. Voters like victories. Voters do not like wars that drag on indefinitely with no end in sight. So ideally Netanyahu and Trump would like to see this crisis with Iran wrapped up by the middle of the year. But if Netanyahu and Trump wait too long, the window of opportunity that they currently have may close completely.
This is likely one of the reasons why the Iranians have been working so hard to delay matters. If negotiations can be stretched out long enough, Netanyahu will be voted out of office and President Trump will be saddled with a highly hostile Congress which would not be eager to fight Iran. So the Iranians keep talking about how much they are eager to talk, but meanwhile they are refusing to agree to any of President Trump’s demands. Unfortunately for the Iranians, it appears that time is running out on their little game.
On Tuesday, Marco Rubio was scheduled to deliver a very important briefing to the “gang of eight”… Marco Rubio will deliver a rare briefing to top US lawmakers on Iran at the White House on Tuesday as Washington deploys its largest force of aircraft and warships to the Middle East since the 2003 buildup to the Iraq war.
The audience for the secretary of state’s briefing is reported to include the so-called “gang of eight”, which includes the senior lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate, as well as the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. The select group is briefed by the White House on classified intelligence matters, which can include preparations for significant military action. Rubio last publicly briefed the group on 5 January, the day after the US launched its successful operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
Normally, this sort of a briefing doesn’t happen unless something really big has just occurred or something really big is about to occur. Many are suggesting that this is a sign that military action against Iran is imminent. Others believe that we won’t see anything happen until the weekend at the earliest. On Monday, President Trump suggested that a war with Iran is something that could be “easily won”…
Since the Iranians are not inclined to give him what he wants, Trump is reportedly envisioning a series of limited strikes that will force Iran to make major concessions. But if the limited strikes do not accomplish that goal, Trump would be ready to initiate a broader campaign…
"President Donald Trump warned his aides that if diplomacy or targeted strikes do not convince Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program, he will consider larger actions, according to a report. While negotiators from the U.S. and Iran will meet Thursday in Geneva to try and find a solution that would avoid military conflict, Trump has been considering other options should the talks fail, according to The New York Times. Both sides have ramped up military preparations in the region in recent days as Trump has been leaning toward carrying out a strike to show Iran that it must give up its ability to make nuclear weapons, Trump advisors told the Times."
This is a huge gamble, because once the missiles start flying a conflict with Iran could spiral out of control very rapidly. On Monday, the Iranians warned that they will respond “ferociously” even to a series of limited strikes…Iran vowed on Monday to retaliate “ferociously” against any attack by the United States and reiterated warnings of a regional conflagration in response to President Donald Trump’s threat of limited strikes. The bellicose rhetoric from Tehran and Washington came as both sides were set to hold indirect talks in Geneva on a potential deal regarding Iran’s contentious nuclear program, with a US official confirming discussions would resume on Thursday without offering further details.
As Iran faces US pressure backed by a build-up of military force in the Middle East, university students have started the new semester with anti-government protests, reviving slogans from nationwide demonstrations that peaked in January and were met with a deadly crackdown.
And the head of Iran’s military is telling us that his forces will “inflict heavy casualties” on us if we attack… "Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces Abdolrahim Mousavi warned the United States against any military action against Iran, saying it would suffer heavy losses in the event of aggression. “We have not initiated any war, and in the past our approach was to prevent the expansion of conflict and reduce casualties. However, the actions of the United States have caused us to change our approach, and this time, if they make a mistake, we will inflict heavy casualties on the enemy,” Mousavi said. “Our nation and armed forces are determined to stand to the end against the hegemonic system.”
The Iranians keep hinting that they have some big surprises up their sleeves. Do the Iranians possess weapons that we do not know about? If the Iranians actually decided to use unconventional weapons against Israel, the Israelis would respond with overwhelming force. And then the entire world would descend into a state of chaos.
Speaking of unconventional weapons, the Russians are alleging that the UK and France actually intended to equip Ukraine with nuclear weapons…Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) alleged London and Paris were engaged in a clandestine operation to arm Kyiv with more muscle against Moscow by supplying it with a ‘wonder weapon’. ‘Britain and France realize that the developments in Ukraine leave no chance of achieving their much-desired victory over Russia at the hands of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,’ said a statement today from the spy agency.
However, the British and French elites are not prepared to accept defeat. It is believed that Ukraine needs to be equipped with “wunderwaffe”. ‘Kyiv would be able to claim more favourable terms for ending the hostilities if it possessed a nuclear bomb, or at least a so-called “dirty bomb”."
Let us hope that this report is not accurate. Let us hope that the Russians simply got a hold of some bad information. Because giving nukes to Ukraine would be absolutely insane. Unfortunately, we live at a time when the entire world seems to be going nuts. The kinetic phase of World War III is nearly upon us, and we are going to witness so much death and destruction in the months ahead. So enjoy the last remaining moments of relative peace and quiet while you still can, because everything is about to change."
Paris, France - "Poor Jeff Epstein. The kindest word you will hear about him in the press is that he is dead. Apart from that he is a ‘monster’...an ‘evil’ man...a ‘criminal’. Anyone who had anything to do with him, too, is now denying it. The New Republic: "Howard Lutnick Exposed for Even More Lies About His Epstein Ties." The commerce secretary said he cut off contact in 2005. Emails in the Epstein files show otherwise.
We are disappointed. Even more reprehensible than Epstein himself is the way his former friends have dumped him. To a man, they ‘cut off ties’...and claimed they ‘never met the man.’ And now, everyone who ever sent him a birthday card is expected to apologize...and get a defense attorney. It almost makes us feel sorry for him. No one recalls Epstein’s warm smile...or his generosity. “What kind of a girl do you want,” he would offer his guests.
We wonder what was said about him at his funeral. ‘He was kind to pets,’ one orator might have offered. ‘He recycled his trash,’ another might have added. ‘He was a good friend,’ was bound to come out. But why then was no one a good friend to him? One of the victims, for example, told the FBI that Epstein had helped Lutnick make millions of dollars on New York real estate. And yet, Lutnick treated the dead man like a pariah.
If Jeff Epstein were quoted on the Dow, he would probably be an extreme bargain. Everyone who could has already dropped him. His stock probably would be selling at a deep discount. The press carries only negative stories on him. And everything he ever touched is viewed with suspicion if not outright disgust. And since no one else will stand up for him...we won’t either. But we will at least admit that Epstein’s stock is probably oversold.
As far as we know, Epstein may have taken advantage of his victims. But at least he didn’t kill them. Or even rob them. Neither George Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, or Donald Trump can say that; all of them ordered killings...murders...and bombings. Donald Trump now worries that he might not make it into Heaven. We don’t know, but we’d suggest he renounce his sins and seek redemption as soon as possible.
As for Epstein, he must have been a pretty good spy. His friend list included the richest, most powerful people on the planet. Some went along for the fun. Others had darker motives. Les Wexner, for example, claims Epstein was just a very clever ‘con man.’ Associated Press: "The billionaire behind the retail empire that once blanketed shopping malls with names such as Victoria’s Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch told members of Congress on Wednesday that he was “duped by a world-class con man” — close financial adviser Jeffrey Epstein. Les Wexner also denied knowing about the late sex offender’s crimes or participating in Epstein’s abuse of girls and young women.
“I was naive, foolish, and gullible to put any trust in Jeffrey Epstein. He was a con man. And while I was conned, I have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide,” the 88-year-old retired founder of L Brands said in a statement to the House Oversight and Reform Committee released before his interview."
Epstein, had he not been strangled before he could spill the beans, could probably sue for defamation. Wexner must have some of the highest paid lawyers, accountants, and financial advisors in New York. Did they allow themselves to be ‘duped’ by a two-bit crook from Brooklyn? Didn’t they spot the con? Or were they not supposed to?
Wexner claims to be an innocent businessman. But not everyone thinks so. From Drop Site: "In 1991, the Columbus Police Department was investigating the mob-style assassination of Arthur Shapiro, an attorney whose firm worked for The Limited. In March 1985, Shapiro was due to testify before a grand jury in a major tax evasion case — but the day before his testimony, he was shot twice in the head, at point-blank range, in his car outside a Columbus cemetery.
In June 6, 1991, a Columbus police analyst submitted an internal memo that suggested Wexner’s business was connected to organized crime. The memo identified several Wexner corporate entities formed by the slain lawyer’s office, some of which appeared to be linked to Wexner’s New Albany property development. Epstein’s name later appeared as an officer of some of these same companies when they were dissolved a few years later."
We have our own remote recollections on the subject. Many years ago, we were interested in what really went on at Mena airport in Arkansas. Rumors claimed that it was a drop site for cocaine smuggling...and had been given a pass by the Clintons. The ‘liberal’ press didn’t want to follow the story, so we followed it ourselves. We hired an investigative reporter, Chris Ruddy (now at the head of NewsMax), to go down and see what he could find out. The results were not conclusive. But later, we learned that the suspicious air traffic, by Southern Air Transport, had been re-routed to Columbus, Ohio. Another of those strange coincidences?
The story of the Iran-Contra caper is long, sordid and complicated. But in its cast featured many of the appalling characters who now play a role in the Epstein saga. There is the CIA, for example...the mafia...lowlifes...high lifes — there is even Ghislaine Maxwell’s father laundering money for Israel (which was shipping weapons to Iran)...and Barry Seal....who flew his gun-running missions out of the very same airport that Epstein turned into Southern Air Transport’s headquarters — in Columbus, Ohio.
We don’t pretend to understand it in any detail. Nor will we go into the ‘weeds’ of how, out of 20,000 airports in the US, the drug smugglers/CIA airline would choose the one used by Les Wexner’s import empire. Epstein, Wexner’s very close associate for 20 years, apparently helped to broker the deal.
Another long-time friend who gave Epstein the heave-ho was Donald Trump. Epstein became persona non grata at Mar al Lago; Trump explained why: “He stole people that worked for me. I said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ He did it again, and I threw him out of the place...”
And then there was another monumentally disloyal friend, Leon Black. He says he was blackmailed by Epstein. Black paid Epstein $158 million. What for? It appears Black really was being blackmailed. If so, it is one for the record books. The details are murky. The Russian girl involved demanded $100 million. How much Epstein got, we don’t know. But Black and Epstein were apparently still friends, as Epstein was giving him advice on how to deal with the ex-mistress. He might threaten to have the Russian secret service bump her off, Epstein suggested.
What a world! What a show! Sex. Violence. Money. Rich people. Powerful people. Jerks and jackasses....all of them. So, let’s give poor Epstein some credit. We have him to thank for hours of fun for journalists, conspiracy theorists, spooks, prosecutors...the cover-up folks at the Department of Justice...and many more."
"Iran is reportedly acquiring China’s Mach 3.3 supersonic CM-302 missiles, capable of striking U.S. aircraft carriers with devastating precision. These advanced anti-ship weapons move 3.3 times the speed of sound, maneuver at low altitude, and are designed to bypass even the most sophisticated Aegis defenses. With two carrier strike groups now in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. faces its greatest naval threat in decades. Analysts warn that these missiles could change the balance of power in the region, challenging America’s ability to defend its ships and projecting force."
Guarantee a Slam-Dunk Success if the US Attacks Iran"
by Larry C. Johnson
"Why has Donald Trump deployed almost 30% of the US Air Force inventory of F-35A jets to Jordan and Saudi Arabia when these aircraft are unable to penetrate deep into Iran without air refueling near the Iranian border. They are essentially useless for inflicting damage on high priority targets in Iran if Iran’s air defense systems are intact. Let me explain.
I will try to make this as simple as possible… The majority of the combat aircraft the US has deployed to the Middle East are based in Jordan’s Shaheed Muwaffaq al-Salti Air Base, which is is roughly about 1,400–1,500 km (around 870–930 miles) from Tehran in a straight line, and Prince Sultan Air Base, which is 680–750 miles from Tehran.
The distance from Iran’s western border to Tehran varies depending on the exact point along the border, but here’s the real-world breakdown: Straight-line (as-the-crow-flies) from the closest western border point - say, near Mehran or Qasr-e Shirin on the Iraq border - to Tehran: About 400–450 kilometers (248–280 miles).
From a mid-western spot like Kermanshah (a major city right on the border): Roughly 430 km (267 miles) to Tehran.
If you’re measuring from the far-western edge (e.g., near the Turkey-Iraq-Iran tripoint): Closer to 500–550 km (310–342 miles).
Averaging it out for military planning: ~425 km (264 miles) is the practical ballpark - about a 30–40 minute flight for an F-35 at subsonic cruise.
According to Lockheed Martin and US Air Force data sheets, the effective combat radius of an F-35A when flying in a stealth configuration (i.e., using only internal fuel and internal weapons bays to preserve low-observable characteristics) is >590 nautical miles (approximately 1,093 kilometers or 679 statute miles).
How is your addition and subtraction math skills? Let’s use Kermanshah as the point of reference for the flight plan of a squadron of F-35As that are trying to attack Iran. If those planes take off from Jordan, they will need to refuel when they are 200 nautical miles from the Iranian border. They would then have barely enough fuel to reach Tehran, drop their bombs and return to the border with Saudi Arabia.
But the F-35As most likely will be carrying a AGM-158B JASSM-ER (Extended Range, the current primary operational variant) with a 1,000 pound warhead. The maximum range of the AGM-158B is 575 miles (approximately 925–1,000 km). To have the best chance of an effective strike without entering Iranian air space, the F-35A should launch about 250 miles west of Iran’s border.
So what’s the problem? It is the YLC-8B Chinese radar that has been supplied to Iran. The YLC-8B is a three-dimensional, long-range anti-stealth surveillance radar developed by China’s Nanjing Research Institute of Electronics Technology. It’s a UHF-band radar, which is particularly effective against stealth aircraft because longer radio wavelengths are harder for aircraft to evade through traditional radar-absorbent materials. Here are its key capabilities:
Detection range: Up to 700 kilometers (about 430 miles) for ballistic missiles, and around 270to 330 kilometers (170 to 205 miles) for conventional aircraft.
Stealth detection: Specifically designed to detect aircraft with small radar cross-sections, including the F-35 Lightning II and the B-2 Spirit bomber, at distances exceeding 200 kilometers.
Targets a one-square-meter radar cross-section at useful ranges.
Rapid deployment: Can be deployed or dismantled in under 30 minutes, making it mobile and hard to target.
Integration capability: Can reportedly be linked with BeiDou satellite navigation and integrated into air-defense networks. If that radar is deployed 30 miles from Iran’s western border, it will - in theory - be able to detect and target the F-35A squadrons 400 miles inside Saudi Arabian territory.
This is a genuine game-changer for Iran’s air defenses. Stealth aircraft like the F-35 rely on their low radar cross-section to approach targets undetected. The YLC-8B’s UHF-band operation partially neutralizes that advantage. Even if the radar doesn’t provide precise targeting data for SAMs, it can provide early warning and track approximate positions - which is invaluable for air defense planning and force deployment.
The maximum safe distance for airborne refueling of F-35As in Saudi territory - while avoiding detection by a YLC-8B radar deployed 30 miles (about 48 km) inside Iran’s western border with Saudi Arabia - would be approximately 380–430 miles (610–690 km) from the Iranian border, to err on the side of caution.
To summarize, the optimal launch point for an AGM-158B by an F-35A puts it well within the Chinese radar’s range for detection. Then there is the question of intercepting the AGM missile. The Russians reportedly have provided Iran with S-400 and S-300 air defense systems. The S-400 uses a family of missiles for layered defense, so the “maximum range” depends on which one is loaded. Consensus from reliable sources (e.g., Wikipedia aggregates, CSIS Missile Threat, GlobalSecurity.org, Army Technology, and Russian defense reports) breaks it down as follows:
40N6 / 40N6E (long-range, active radar homing): 400 km (250 miles) – This is the system’s advertised maximum for aerodynamic targets (e.g., aircraft, AWACS, cruise missiles at high altitude). It’s designed for standoff engagements, including potential over-the-horizon shots, and is the basis for claims of the S-400’s superior reach.
48N6 series (e.g., 48N6E3 / 48N6DM): 240–250 km (150 miles) – Common medium-range option, used for most intercepts including stealth aircraft, drones, and some ballistic threats.
9M96E2: 120 km (75 miles) – Shorter-range, high-maneuverability missile for tactical threats like low-flying cruise missiles or aircraft.
9M96E: 40 km (25 miles) – Point-defense variant.
So what does this all mean? As long as the F-35As stay outside the range of the 40N6/ 40N6E missiles, it is unlikely that Iran will be able to shoot down any of the US aircraft. However, the Chinese radar, working in tandem with the Russian S-300 and S-400 systems have a high probability of destroying the AGM’s before they reach their targets.
Iran is unlikely to be sitting passively waiting to be hit. While the US will be launching AGMs at Iranian targets, the Iranians will be launching drones and ballistic missiles at the air bases in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, as well as going after other US targets in the region. I think this helps explain with General Caine and CIA Director Ratclifffe reportedly told Trump that they could not guarantee the success of a surgical strike. This will mark the first time since the end of WW II that the US will engage a country with a missile/drone capability that could neutralize US air assets and inflict heavy damage of US and ally military infrastructure."
That's Not The Question. 'Sometimes You Need A Dictator'"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
"Music just makes everything better- even traveling through a busy and crowded train station. Which is precisely why French train company SNCF decided to put pianos smack dab in the middle of select train stations. The pianos- which are known as “À vous de jouer” pianos, or "It’s your turn to play"- are free for anyone to use, and lucky travelers were treated to a real show when two complete strangers improvised a beautiful piece together.
Full screen recommended.
One man had just sat down at the piano and started playing what sounds like "Una Mattina" by Ludovico Einaudi when the second man, in the white shirt, approaches and observes admiringly. At the 1:10 mark, the second man jumps in, augmenting the original music. The two men barely look at each other as their composition grows, but more and more travelers stop to watch as it becomes obvious something beautiful is unfolding. The men really hit their stride around the 2:50 mark, then shake things up again around the 4:30 mark, at which point the entire train station seems to have stopped in awe of them. After their big finale, they finish with nothing more than some shy shrugs and a high-five, proving once again that music is not only universal, but truly magical."
"Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way. M101 was also one of the original spiral nebulae observed by Lord Rosse's large 19th century telescope, the Leviathan of Parsontown. Assembled from 51 exposures recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 20th and 21st centuries, with additional data from ground based telescopes, this mosaic spans about 40,000 light-years across the central region of M101 in one of the highest definition spiral galaxy portraits ever released from Hubble.
The sharp image shows stunning features of the galaxy's face-on disk of stars and dust along with background galaxies, some visible right through M101 itself. Also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation Ursa Major, about 25 million light-years away.”
“The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured – disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui – in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off.
All the while someone is eating the bread of life and drinking the wine, some dirty fat cockroach of a priest who hides away in the cellar guzzling it, while up above in the light of the street a phantom host touches the lips and the blood is pale as water. And out of the endless torment and misery no miracle comes forth, no microscopic vestige of relief. Only ideas, pale, attenuated ideas which have to be fattened by slaughter; ideas which come forth like bile, like the guts of a pig when the carcass is ripped open.
Somehow the realization that nothing was to be hoped for had a salutary effect upon me. For weeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had been looking forward to something happening, some intrinsic event that would alter my life, and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of everything, I felt relieved, felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At dawn I parted company with the young Hindu, after touching him for a few francs, enough for a room. Walking toward Montparnasse I decided to let myself drift with the tide, to make not the least resistance to fate, no matter in what form it presented itself. Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy me; nothing had been destroyed except my illusions. I myself was intact. The world was intact. Tomorrow there might be a revolution, a plague, an earthquake; tomorrow there might not be left a single soul to whom one could turn for sympathy, for aid, for faith. It seemed to me that the great calamity had already manifested itself, that I could be no more truly alone than at this very moment. I made up my mind that I would hold on to nothing, that I would expect nothing, that henceforth I would live as an animal, a beast of prey, a rover, a plunderer. Even if war were declared, and it were my lot to go, I would grab the bayonet and plunge it, plunge it up to the hilt. And if rape were the order of the day then rape I would, and with a vengeance.
At this very moment, in the quiet dawn of a new day, was not the earth giddy with crime and distress? Had one single element of man’s nature been altered, vitally, fundamentally altered, by the incessant march of history? By what he calls the better part of his nature, man has been betrayed, that is all. At the extreme limits of his spiritual being man finds himself again naked as a savage. When he finds God, as it were, he has been picked clean: he is a skeleton. One must burrow into life again in order to put on flesh. The word must become flesh; the soul thirsts. On whatever crumb my eye fastens, I will pounce and devour. If to live is the paramount thing, then I will live, even if I must become a cannibal. Heretofore I have been trying to save my precious hide, trying to preserve the few pieces of meat that hid my bones. I am done with that. I have reached the limits of endurance. My back is to the wall; I can retreat no further. As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.”
"To the Israeli Soldier Who Murdered Aysenur Ezgi Eygi"
by Chris Hedges
"I know you. I met you in the dense canopies in the war in El Salvador. It was there that I first heard the single, high-pitched crack of the sniper bullet. Distinct. Ominous. A sound that spreads terror. Army units I traveled with, enraged by the lethal accuracy of rebel snipers, set up heavy .50 caliber machine guns and sprayed the foliage overhead until your body, a bloodied and mangled pulp, dropped to the ground.
I saw you at work in Basra in Iraq and of course Gaza, where on a fall afternoon at the Netzarim Junction, you shot dead a young man a few feet away from me. We carried his limp body up the road.
I lived with you in Sarajevo during the war. You were only a few hundred yards away, perched in high rises that looked down on the city. I witnessed your daily carnage. At dusk, I saw you fire a round in the gloom at an old man and his wife bent over their tiny vegetable plot. You missed. She ran, haltingly, for cover. He did not. You fired again. I concede the light was fading. It was hard to see. Then, the third time, you killed him. This is one of those memories of war I see in my head over and over and over and never talk about. I watched it from the back of the Holiday Inn, but by now I have seen it, or the shadows of it, hundreds of times.
You targeted me, too. You struck down colleagues and friends. I was in your sights traveling from northern Albania into Kosovo with 600 fighters from the Kosovo Liberation Army, each insurgent carrying an extra AK-47 to hand off to a comrade. Three shots. That crisp crack, too familiar. You must have been far away. Or maybe you were a bad shot, although you came close. I scrambled for cover behind a rock. My two bodyguards bent over me, panting, the green pouches strapped to their chests packed full of grenades.
I know how you talk. The black humor. “Pint sized terrorists” you say of the children you kill. You are proud of your skills. It gives you cachet. You cradle your weapon as if it is an extension of your body. You admire its despicable beauty. This is who you are. A killer.
In your society of killers, you are respected, rewarded, promoted. You are numb to the suffering you inflict. Maybe you enjoy it. Maybe you think you are protecting yourself, your identity, your comrades, your nation. Maybe you believe the killing is a necessary evil, a way to make sure Palestinians die before they can strike. Maybe you have surrendered your morality to the blind obedience of the military, subsumed yourself into the industrial machinery of death. Maybe you are scared to die. Maybe you want to prove to yourself and others that you are tough, you can kill. Maybe your mind is so warped that you believe killing is righteous.
You are intoxicated by the god-like power to revoke another person’s charter to live on this earth. You revel in the intimacy of it. You see in fine detail through the telescopic sight, the nose and mouth of your victim. The triangle of death. You hold your breath. You pull slowly, gently on the trigger. And then the pink puff. Severed spinal cord. Death. It is over.
You were the last person to see Aysenur alive. You were the first person to see her dead.
This is you now. And now no one can reach you. You are death’s angel. You are numb and cold. But, I suspect, this will not last. I covered war for a long time. I know, even if you do not, the next chapter of your life. I know what happens when you leave the embrace of the military, when you are no longer a cog in these factories of death. I know the hell you are about to enter.
It starts like this. All the skills you acquired as a killer on the outside are useless. Maybe you go back. Maybe you become a gun for hire. But this will only delay the inevitable. You can run, for a while, but you cannot run forever. There will be reckoning. And it is the reckoning I will tell you about.
You will face a choice. Live the rest of your life, stunted, numb, cut off from yourself, cut off from those around you. Descend into a psychopathic fog, trapped in the absurd, interdependent lies that justify mass murder. There are killers, years later, who say they are proud of their work, who claim not a moment’s regret. But I have not been inside their nightmares. If this is you then you will never again truly live.
Of course, you do not talk about what you did to those around you, certainly not to your family. They think you are a good person. You know this is a lie. The numbness, usually, wears off. You look in the mirror, and if you have any shred of conscience left, your reflection disturbs you. But you repress the bitterness. You escape down the rabbit hole of opioids and alcohol. Your intimate relationships, because you cannot feel, because you bury your self-loathing, disintegrate. This escape works. For a while. But then you go into such darkness that the stimulants you use to blunt your pain begin to destroy you. And maybe that is how you die. I have known many who died like that. And I have known those who ended it quickly. A gun to the head.
Between 1973 and 2024, 1,227 Israeli soldiers committed suicide according to official statistics, but the actual number is believed to be far higher. In the U.S. an average of 22 veterans commit suicide every day.
I have trauma from war. But the worst trauma I do not have. The worst trauma from war is not what you saw. It is not what you experienced. The worst trauma is what you did. They have names for it. Moral injury. Perpetrator Induced Traumatic Stress. But that seems tepid given the hot, burning coals of rage, the night terrors, the despair. Those around you know something is terribly, terribly wrong. They fear your darkness. But you do not let them into your labyrinth of pain.
And then, one day, you reach out for love. Love is the opposite of war. War is about smut. It is about pornography. It is about turning other human beings into objects, maybe sexual objects, but I also mean this literally, for war turns people into corpses. Corpses are the end product of war, what comes off its assembly line. So, you will want love, but the angel of death has made a Faustian bargain. It is this. It is the hell of not being able to love. You will carry this death inside you for the rest of your life. It corrodes your soul. Yes. We have souls. You sold yours. And the cost is very, very high. It means that what you want, what you most desperately need in life, you cannot attain.
Then one day, maybe you are a father or a mother or an uncle or an aunt, and a young woman you love, or want to love as a daughter, comes into your life. You see in her, it will come in a flash, Aysenur’s face. The young woman you murdered. Come back to life. Israeli now. Speaking Hebrew. Innocent. Good. Full of hope. The full force of what you did, who you were, who you are, will hit you like an avalanche.
You will spend days wanting to cry and not knowing why. You will be consumed by guilt. You will believe that because of what you did the life of this other young woman is in danger. Divine retribution. You will tell yourself this is absurd, but you will believe it anyway. Your life will start to include little offerings of goodness to others as if these offerings will appease a vengeful god, as if these offerings will save her from harm, from death. But nothing can wipe away the stain of murder.
Yes. You killed Aysenur. You killed others. Palestinians who you dehumanized and taught yourself to hate. Human animals. Terrorists. Barbarians. But it is harder to dehumanize her. You know, you saw it through your scope, she was no threat. She did not throw rocks, the paltry justification the Israeli army uses to shoot live rounds at Palestinians, including children.
You will be overwhelmed with sorrow. Regret. Shame. Grief. Despair. Alienation. You will have an existential crisis. You will know that all the values you were taught to honor in school, at worship, in your home, are not the values you upheld. You will hate yourself. You will not say this out loud. You may, one way or another, extinguish yourself.
There is a part of me that says you deserve this torment. There is a part of me that wants you to suffer for the loss you inflicted on Aysenur’s family and friends, to pay for taking the life of this courageous and gifted woman.
Shooting unarmed people is not bravery. It is not courage. It is not even war. It is a crime. It is murder. You are a murderer. I am sure you were not ordered to kill Aysenur. You shot Aysenur in the head because you could, because you felt like it. Israel runs an open-air shooting gallery in Gaza and the West Bank. Total impunity. Murder as sport.
You will, one day, not be the killer you are now. You will exhaust yourself trying to ward off demons. You will desperately want to be human. You will want to love and be loved. Maybe you will make it. Being human again. But that will mean a life of contrition. It will mean making your crime public. It will mean begging, on your knees, for forgiveness. It will mean forgiving yourself. This is very hard. It will mean orientating every aspect of your life to nurturing life rather than extinguishing it. This will be your only hope for salvation. If you do not take it, you are damned."
"When my atheist engineer grandfather died, my atheist engineer grandmother leaned over the body in the hospice bed that had contained half a century of shared life and love, cradled the cranium in which his stubborn and sensitive mind had dwelt, and whispered into the halogen-lit ether: “Where did you go, my darling?”
Whatever our beliefs, these sensemaking playthings of the mind, when the moment of material undoing comes, we - creatures of moment and matter - simply cannot fathom how something as exquisite as the universe of thought and feeling inside us can vanish into nothingness.
Even if we understand that dying is the token of our existential luckiness, even if we understand that we are borrowed stardust, bound to be returned to the universe that made it - a universe itself slouching toward nothingness as its stars are slowly burning out their energy to leave a cold austere darkness of pure spacetime - this understanding blurs into an anxious disembodied abstraction as the body slouches toward dissolution. Animated by electrical impulses and temporal interactions of matter, our finite minds simply cannot grasp a timeless and infinite inanimacy - a void beyond being.
Pillars of Creation, Eagle Nebula, Messier 16
Even Walt Whitman, who could hold such multitudes of contradiction, could not grasp the void. “I will make poems of my body and of mortality,” he vowed as a young man as he reverenced our shared materiality in his timeless declamation that “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” It was easy, from the shimmering platform of his prime, to look forward to becoming “the uncut hair of graves” upon returning his own atoms to the grassy ground one day.
But then, when that day loomed near as he grew old and infirm, “the poet of the body and the poet of the soul” suddenly could not fathom the total disbanding of his atomic selfhood, suddenly came to “laugh at what you call dissolution.” And then he did dissolve, leaving us his immortal verses, verses penned when his particles sang with the electric cohesion of youth and of health, verses that traced with their fleshy finger the faint contour of an elemental truth:“What invigorates life invigorates death.”
I wish I could have given my grandmother, and given the dying Whitman, the infinitely invigorating "Mr g: A Novel About the Creation" (public library) by the poetic physicist Alan Lightman - a magical-realist serenade to science, coursing with symphonic truth about our search for meaning, our hunger for beauty, and what makes our tender, transient lives worth living.
Toward the end of the novel, Mr g watches, with heartache unknown in the Void predating the existence of universes and of life, an old woman on her deathbed, the film of her long and painful and beautiful life unspooling from the reel of memory, leaving her grief-stricken by its terminus, shuddering with defiant disbelief that this is all. “How can a creature of substance and mass fathom a thing without substance or mass?” wonders Mr g as he sorrows watching her succumb to the very laws he created. “How can a creature who will certainly die have an understanding of things that will exist forever?”
And then, as a faint smile washes across her face, she does die. Lightman writes: "At that moment, there were 3,147,740,103,497,276,498,750,208,327 atoms in her body. Of her total mass, 63.7 percent was oxygen, 21.0 percent carbon, 10.1 percent hydrogen, 2.6 percent nitrogen, 1.4 percent calcium, 1.1 percent phosphorous, plus a smattering of the ninety-odd other chemical elements created in stars.
In the cremation, her water evaporated. Her carbon and nitrogen combined with oxygen to make gaseous carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, which floated skyward and mingled with the air. Most of her calcium and phosphorous baked into a reddish brown residue and scattered in soil and in wind.
But then we see that every atom belonging to her - or, rather, temporarily borrowed by her - truly does belong to everything and everyone, just as you and I are now inhaling the same oxygen atoms that once inflated Walt Whitman’s lungs with the lust for life: "Released from their temporary confinement, her atoms slowly spread out and diffused through the atmosphere. In sixty days’ time, they could be found in every handful of air on the planet. In one hundred days, some of her atoms, the vaporous water, had condensed into liquid and returned to the surface as rain, to be drunk and ingested by animals and plants. Some of her atoms were absorbed by light-utilizing organisms and transformed into tissues and tubules and leaves. Some were breathed in by oxygen creatures, incorporated into organs and bone.
In a passage evocative of the central sentiment in Ursula K. Le Guin’s spare, stunning poem “Kinship,” he adds: "Pregnant women ate animals and plants made of her atoms. A year later, babies contained some of her atoms… Several years after her death, millions of children contained some of her atoms. And their children would contain some of her atoms as well. Their minds contained part of her mind.
Will these millions of children, for generations upon future generations, know that some of their atoms cycled through this woman? It is not likely. Will they feel what she felt in her life, will their memories have flickering strokes of her memories, will they recall that moment long ago when she stood by the window, guilt ridden and confused, and watched as the tadr bird circled the cistern? No, it is not possible. Will they have some faint sense of her glimpse of the Void? No, it is not possible. It is not possible. But I will let them have their own brief glimpse of the Void, just at the moment they pass from living to dead, from animate to inanimate, from consciousness to that which has no consciousness. For a moment, they will understand infinity.
And the individual atoms, cycled through her body and then cycled through wind and water and soil, cycled through generations and generations of living creatures and minds, will repeat and connect and make a whole out of parts. Although without memory, they make a memory. Although impermanent, they make a permanence. Although scattered, they make a totality."
Here we are, you and me, Walt and Alan, my grandmother who is and my grandfather who is no more - each of us a trembling totality, made of particles both absolutely vulnerable and absolutely indestructible, hungering for absolutes in a universe of relatives, hungering for permanence in a universe of ceaseless change, famished for meaning, for beauty, for emblems of existence. Out of these hungers, out of these contradictions, we make everything that invigorates life with aliveness: our art and our music, our poems and our mathematics, our novels and our loves."
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