So, we rise from the rubble...
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Monday, July 20, 2026
"Screwing in a Mirror While the World Smokes"
"Screwing in a Mirror While the World Smokes"
by Edward Curtin
"We were screwing in a mirror when we realized our mistake. Since the handyman was unavailable, we had to do it ourselves. Certainly it was very pleasurable to know that we could, but we screwed-up.
Lurid sexual news is common these days; it grabs people’s attention. It titillates the public’s imagination like nothing else, even murders and celebrity scandals. Forget wars and genocide and a world teetering on the edge of nuclear annihilation when there is sexual news to keep you focused. The bombs smoke the air with the smell of death rising everywhere. It’s the air we breathe.
But back to the screwing. Maybe I have reeled you in and you want more details. Okay, let me tell you. As we were screwing in the mirror, we realized we had placed the drywall anchor too low, so it was behind the mirror and not slightly above. A simple measuring mistake. So relax. Perhaps you were getting too excited.
Let’s get to the smoke. No, we had not been smoking an intoxicant, we were just a bit incompetent. Smoke comes from many directions; it’s usually meant to shroud our ability to see the truth of our situation, as in the phrase “smoke and mirrors” – the magician’s trick. Who are the magicians running our show? Sometimes it’s innocent smoke that turns day to night, such as the smoke that’s drifted down from Canada that has just forced me to turn lights on at midday.
Sexual titillation is not innocent smoke. That it is everywhere is obvious; it has been so for decades now. The German-American sociologist Herbert Marcuse posited this in 1964 in his book, "One-Dimensional Man," in which he argued that a new totalitarianism was developing in the USA and Western Europe that “manifests itself precisely in a harmonizing pluralism, where the most contradictory works and truths peacefully coexist in indifference.” This was happening both culturally and politically. This unification of seeming opposites – “democratic unfreedom” that prevents qualitative change – was facilitated by what he called “repressive modes of desublimation.”
One important aspect of this method of social control was the offer of increased satisfaction of the sexual variety that would draw off instinctual energy from significant social change in societies where technological rationality was the underlying fact. Localized sexuality and the sexualization and titillation of everyday life would reduce genuine erotic living.
This faux-sexuality would seem to many people like liberation from the then fading traditional religiously-based forms of sublimation, which were also repressive. But rather than freedom, Marcuse argued, it was the commodification of sex as another commercial product to keep people gratified and happy with their condition in a society of growing inequality and technical control.
This “Happy Consciousness” has prevailed, and today we find ourselves incapable of imagining significant political change as the latest American president, Donald Trump, “of grab them by the pussy” fame, presides over multiple wars and growing internal repression.
Once many people smoked one or more packs of cigarettes a day. Doctors recommended them as good for your health. One of my sisters used to smoke in the shower and our family doctor smoked as he examined us kids. He was the team doctor for a major university’s basketball team. In times past, many a man went out for Lucky Strikes or Camels and never came back. Do they still go out? For what? Do they ever come back?
In my little town of Great Barrington in western Massachusetts there are ten or so pot shops, which is approximately one shop for every 700 people. I wonder if they have read Baudelaire’s “Be Drunk”?
“You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it—it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk. But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.” Simon and Garfunkel once asked:
"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you,
wo wo wo.
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson
‘Joltin Joe’ has left and gone away,
hey hey hey."
Joe, the mythical man, is long dead. Yet dreams of mythical men perdure and they will be dredged up with the next elections. Sexual scandals will follow. What’s new pussycat?
We think we have come to our senses, that the smoke does not get in our eyes. But that’s an extreme form of mental myopia. The neo-fascist vulgar Trump is our present nightmare, but his presence has a past and a future, which Chris Hedges correctly notes in “Requiem for America on the Fourth of July” [emphasis added]:
"Neoliberals peddle their own form of magical thinking. Neoliberalism is as absurd and infantile as the Christian Rapture and Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. Trump lies like he breathes, but so did previous presidents including Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Trump embraces fantasies, but so did they. Trump, like his Democratic predecessors, enriches himself and his family, although with far more ostentation and greed. He, like them, facilitates the ongoing pillage by the billionaire class. Trump is the fascist iteration of the neoliberal con."
This is Marcuse’s point about the unification of ostensible opposites. But most people still don’t get it, for one-dimensional thinking is the norm. And in a digital world the tyranny of the moment dominates peoples’ attention, even as the moment itself is immediately superseded by the next.
As the Red Queen said to Alice in "Through the Looking-Glass," “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” So we rush on, getting nowhere fast, forgetting that we areall getting screwed in a looking-glass world."
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Simon and Garfunkel, "Mrs. Robinson"
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Freely download "Through The Looking Glass,
And What Alice Found There", by Lewis Carroll, here:
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Edward Curtin: Sociologist, researcher, poet, essayist, journalist, novelist….writer – beyond a cage of categories. His new book is "AT THE LOST AND FOUND: Personal & Political Dispatches of Resistance and Hope" (Clarity Press)
"Something Is Seriously Wrong… And It's About To Hit America This Fall"
Full screen recommended.
Across The States, 7/20/26
"Something Is Seriously Wrong…
And It's About To Hit America This Fall"
"Why does the economy feel so unstable right now? Rising prices, expensive housing, stubborn inflation, and growing financial uncertainty have left millions asking the same question. In this video, we connect the biggest economic trends shaping 2026 and explain how they could affect your money, savings, investments, and daily life. Here’s the thing… these challenges aren't happening one by one. From higher import costs and pressure on regional banks to AI's influence on the stock market and the housing slowdown, every piece fits into a much bigger picture. We break down the facts in simple language so you can understand what may lie ahead. What most people don't realize is that timing matters. When several economic pressures arrive together, families, businesses, and financial markets all feel the impact differently. The reality is that staying informed can help you make smarter financial decisions instead of reacting to headlines. Watch until the end and share your thoughts - which economic issue do you think will affect everyday people the most?"
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"No One Can Afford This - You're Not Alone"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 7/20/26
"No One Can Afford This - You're Not Alone"
"Millions of Americans are quietly struggling with rising costs, student loan debt, higher insurance premiums, expensive groceries, soaring gas prices, and a cost of living that keeps climbing. In today's video, I explain why so many hardworking families feel like they can no longer keep up, why the affordability crisis is getting worse, and why you're far from alone. We also discuss trade jobs, college costs, bankruptcies, inflation, consumer debt, and the economic warning signs that too many people are ignoring. We'll also cover rising oil prices, the impact on gasoline and everyday expenses, insurance increases, retail store closures, data breaches, Taco Bell's food contamination lawsuits, Fidelity's settlement, and why more Americans are rethinking college and student loans. If you follow business news, personal finance, real estate, banking, inflation, recession trends, or the economy, this episode breaks down the financial pressures affecting households across America."
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"People Have Stopped Paying Their Bills... And Here’s What Comes Next"
Full screen recommended.
The Unfolded States, 7/20/26
"People Have Stopped Paying Their Bills...
And Here’s What Comes Next"
"Americans can’t pay their bills, and the consequences are beginning to move from overdue notices into courtrooms. As credit card balances remain near historic highs, vulnerable households are being forced to decide which essential payment can wait. This video examines how rising living costs, limited emergency savings, and expensive borrowing are placing greater pressure on American households. It explains why credit card debt is growing fastest among people already struggling to get by, how the minimum payment trap can keep balances alive for years, and why a household can appear financially stable even after its safety margin has disappeared. We also follow the process from a missed payment to delinquency, charge-off, debt collection lawsuits, default judgments, and personal bankruptcy filings.
Using data from the Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the United States Courts, the analysis separates verified warning signs from exaggerated claims. It also considers what may happen next if real income improves, financial pressure persists, or a weaker labor market pushes more borrowers beyond their ability to remain current. Subscribe for evidence-based analysis of the American economy, household finances, and changing consumer behavior. In the comments, tell us which bill you would protect first if your budget forced you to delay a payment."
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Bill Bonner, "A Blaze of Glorious Inflation"
"A Blaze of Glorious Inflation"
by Bill Bonner
Normandy, France - "On Thursday of last week, POTUS had an important message for us. He rambled even more than usual, but suggested that the election process could be compromised. NPR: In a 25-minute primetime address from the White House’s East Room that included many baseless claims, Trump said he was declassifying Intelligence documents that he said reveal “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure.” Those include allegations of Chinese efforts to influence American elections, concerns over voting machine security, and that noncitizens are found on certain states’ voter rolls.
Those who studied the documents say they do not support the president’s arguments. But the real purpose of the address was probably just to see how people would react. What would they do if he really did use ‘emergency measures’ to protect the integrity of US elections...and/or to get the results he wants?
Here’s the situation. POTUS seems to be losing popular support. CNN: "While the latest Quinnipiac University poll showed 27% strongly approved of Trump (in that case, of registered voters), other polls have pegged that number significantly lower. In those other polls, it’s been at 21% (NPR-PBS-Marist), 20% (Fox News), 19% (AP-NORC), 16% (Marquette Law School), 15% (Post-Ipsos) and 14% (Reuters-Ipsos)."
In most of the recent high-quality polls, the percentage of Americans who strongly approve of Trump is between 1 in 7 and 1 in 5. Very few Americans see what Trump is doing and strongly support it. Is he losing his grip...on his party...or his own frayed rigging? Is it permanent? Or temporary? A real peace with Iran might turn things around. So might a gush of easy money. The gist of today’s message: Trump may or may not tamper with election outcomes. He will have less reluctance to meddle with the economy. Meddling with the votes is regarded as treachery. Meddling with the money brings applause.
While Donald Trump is still front page, headline news, the markets have their own ancient journals. They have their highs and lows...their bubble peaks and dark bottoms. As we mentioned last week, trying for a base hit...a nickel here, a dime there...will probably not make an investor rich. He’ll strike out from time to time too. What he needs is a home run, something he can get into fairly early, nod off, and wake up years later much wealthier. He needs a Primary Trend.
That is what he got from the flower of American industrial capitalism - from the moment Paul Volcker put inflation to flight in 1980...to the moment yields finally found their bottom in July 2020. That trend would have multiplied your wealth - either in stocks or bonds - for four decades. All you had to do was to sit tight. What are the odds of a repeat performance?
They are probably very low. It is mathematically and physically impossible for asset values to become too far removed from the underlying economy for too long. Instead, they cycle up and down, anchored to the real economy by a long, bungee-like cord. So, if you’re aiming for a long cycle of rising prices, your best bet is to grab ahold of the cord when it is stretched about as far as it can go to the downside, after a long cycle of falling prices.
The Dow was under 1,000 in 1980. But today, it’s over 50,000...higher than ever before. The most likely thing - though hardly guaranteed - is that stock prices will snap back down from here, in real terms, if not in nominal ones...and for a very long time.
Our favorite measuring stick is the Dow/Gold ratio. It measures the Dow stocks in terms of gold. We expect Dow highs worth over 15 ounces of gold...and lows below 5. Now around 13...and still holding gold...we look for more stretch to the downside before we close our eyes and make the big trade - out of gold and into stocks. That could happen either by gold going to $10,000...or the Dow stocks falling below 25,000. Most likely, they’ll shake hands somewhere in the middle.
Just where they meet, though, depends to some extent on POTUS and the Fed. Trying to overthrow the election results might outrage the vox populi. But while most people might disapprove of efforts to manage or deny election results, they would cheer to the rafters any temporary measures that offered them lower mortgage payments.
Most people, endowed by Nature with the earnest faith of a friendly dog, believe an economy is adjustable...manageable...and improvable by Ph.D.-bearing technicians in expensive suits. That touching naïveté is what dug our present hole. Few protested in 1971 when Richard Nixon declared a series of new measures - including wage price controls and taking the US off the gold standard. They thought the economic bigheads knew what they were doing. And the New York Times - then as now, cheerleader for the feds - said the moves would only be necessary “until exchange rates realign.”
They’ve been realigning ever since - almost all countries have raced to devalue their currencies to keep up with the US. If a nation allowed its currency to go up against the dollar, it would make its own goods and services more expensive to foreign buyers and find its high-priced goods shunned on the shelves.
But inflation (the loss of purchasing power) encouraged bad habits - spending money we didn’t have. It was also the real cause of the huge bull markets in stocks, bonds, and gold - 1980-2020. And now the bottom of the yield cycle has been passed and interest rates are going up. And debt has reached such levels - over $300 trillion worldwide - that even a modest twist on the interest rate screw sends the public howling for relief.
The authorities are cornered. Either they throttle back their spending. Or they ‘print’ faster and let the whole system go up in a blaze of glorious inflation later on. It is either ‘inflate...or die.’ Either allow more credit at lower rates to help cover the interest bill...or the bubble economy shrivels. Most likely, as bubble death draws near, the feds will inflate...and inflate some more. And they will be heroes...for a while."
"We Are Being Warned That Global Oil Inventories Are “Close To Nothing” As We Plunge Into The Most Severe Oil Crisis In History"
by Michael Snyder
"The only way that we were going to avoid a historic oil crisis was if a diplomatic solution could be found to end the war in the Middle East. Obviously that did not happen. The “Memorandum of Understanding” has completely failed and the U.S. and Iran are hitting one another really hard. The Strait of Hormuz is going to be closed for the foreseeable future, and now it appears that the Bab el-Mandeb Strait will soon be closed as well. Global oil inventories have been falling for months, and now we have reached a stage where we are going to experience some really severe pain.
Iran has attacked at least 9 commercial vessels over the past couple of weeks, and as a result “nobody is willing to move” through the Strait of Hormuz right now… The security situation in the Strait of Hormuz has returned to a “worse-case scenario” for oil tankers as Iran has repeatedly attacked ships over the past week, the CEO of a maritime risk services firm said. “We see the reduction of the volume of transits through the Strait of Hormuz and right now crews of vessels are even more concerned than they were before,” said Dimitris Maniatis, CEO of Athens-headquartered Marisks, at a Lloyd’s List Intelligence briefing this week. “Nobody is willing to move,” Maniatis said.
This is really bad. We are truly going to see how dependent the world really is on oil from the Middle East. Up to this point, we have been okay because there were large commercial oil stockpiles that we could deplete. But now we are being told that we have “burned through all of the buffers we had”…
Financial Times spoke with energy traders at the end of the week who warned that slowing tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz could trigger a more severe supply crunch than the first round of the US-Iran war because emergency reserves and stockpiles around the world that cushioned the earlier disruption have been mostly depleted. “We’ve burned through all of the buffers we had. Everything,” said one trader. “All of that’s now gone.
Perhaps some numbers will help people understand the situation that we are facing. Before the war, we had approximately 400 million barrels of oil in commercial inventories. At this point, “we have close to nothing”…Amrita Sen, founder of Energy Aspects, pointed out that heading into the US-Iran war, the global oil market had around 400 million barrels of excess inventories, not including strategic reserves controlled by governments. “Now we have close to nothing … and market complacency around Hormuz flows is being severely tested,” Sen warned.
In other words, we are right around the corner from shortages and rationing in some parts of the globe. Asia will probably be first, and then Europe will follow. And the outlook for the U.S. is becoming quite dire as well. In fact, crude oil inventories at Cushing have been hovering around “tank bottoms” recently… Crude oil inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub have fallen below 20 million barrels in recent weeks, prompting the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) to explain how “tank bottoms” can affect storage operations and market pricing.
According to EIA, storage tanks require a minimum volume of crude oil to remain operational. Known as tank bottoms, this inventory allows pumps and related infrastructure to function properly. Once inventories approach these minimum operating levels, not all stored crude is readily accessible, even though tanks are not technically empty.
The good news is that we still have some oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but it is falling fast. According to the Wall Street Journal, it is currently at the lowest level that we have seen since 1983… Oil shocks from the war with Iran and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have left the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve at its lowest level since 1983. The world has been running an “oil deficit” for months.
Now the Strait of Hormuz is closed again, and the Houthis could soon shut the Bab al-Mandab Strait…Iran has reportedly instructed Yemen’s Houthi terrorists to prepare to close a critical Red Sea gateway if the United States attacks Iranian power infrastructure, Reuters reported, a threat experts warn could sharply disrupt global shipping even if the group cannot completely seal the waterway.
“This threat should be taken seriously,” Nadwa Al-Dawsari of the Middle East Institute told Fox News Digital. “With recent escalation and U.S. strikes on Iran, Tehran has already signaled that the Bab al-Mandab could become part of its response.”
Three sources told Reuters on Thursday that Iran’s leadership had discussed using the Houthis to shut the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and recently conveyed the request to the group. A source close to the Houthis said missiles and drones had been deployed near the waterway and that the group was awaiting an order to begin attacking shipping. The Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab Strait have never been shut at the same time. If that actually happens, energy prices will go absolutely nuts.
Meanwhile, relentless strikes on Russian refineries have caused an insane gasoline shortage in Russia. Many drivers are waiting multiple hours in line for gasoline, and security forces have been deployed to keep order at gas stations… Authorities in 13 Russian regions have deployed security forces, including police officers and Rosgvardia personnel, to patrol gas stations as the country faces an escalating domestic fuel crisis following Ukrainian long-range strikes.
The crisis has caused a 35% drop in daily gasoline production to 75,000–80,000 metric tons, far below the typical summer demand of 115,000–120,000 metric tons, leaving half of Russia’s oil refining capacity idle, as reported by The Moscow Times on July 17. In response to the shortage, local administrations have set strict fuel sales limits ranging from 20 to 40 liters of gasoline per vehicle, leading to long lines where drivers face wait times of at least 2.5 hours.
The Ukrainians are going to continue sending drones to strike Russia’s refineries, and the Russian people are extremely frustrated. Some of the lines stretch for miles, and in two cases elderly people actually dropped dead while they were waiting…For months, the queues at petrol stations across Russia have grown longer. Some people have slept in cars. Others have pitched tents. A few have ended up brawling over pumps.
Now, two people have died. An 80-year-old man suffered heart failure while waiting to fill his tank at a petrol station in the town of Lysva in Perm Krai, while a 75-year-old man died while waiting to refuel in Petrozavodsk.
The Russians are normally one of the largest oil exporters in the world. But now they have been forced to beg India for gasoline… Moscow has approached Indian refineries for more gasoline imports amid an acute fuel shortage, according to industry sources cited by Reuters.
Russia, the world’s third-largest oil producer, has reportedly requested gasoline imports from India and Kazakhstan in June amid a sprawling fuel crisis spurred by Ukrainian strikes, with nationwide fuel rationing reported. Reuters, in its Thursday report, said Russian oil giants Rosneft, Gazprom Neft and Lukoil have approached their Indian counterparts to raise imports, with the outlet’s source adding that deliveries are likely to be routed through traders. This is another reason why this oil crisis is going to be so severe. The worst gasoline shortages in the world at this moment are in one of the largest oil producers in the world.
Meanwhile, the war in the Middle East just continues to escalate. We had a very large cushion to work with at the beginning of the war, but now it has been almost entirely depleted. This is where things get very “interesting”, and the vast majority of the population has no idea what is coming."
"Economic Market Snapshot 7/20/26"
"Economic Market Snapshot 7/20/26"
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
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Market Data Center, Live Updates:
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
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Sunday, July 19, 2026
"Alert! Oil Tankers Burning! Moscow Literally On Fire! Desalination Plants Struck! Dead U.S. Troops!"
Canadian Prepper, 7/19/26
"Alert! Oil Tankers Burning! Moscow Literally On Fire!
Desalination Plants Struck!
Dead U.S. Troops!"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "I Giorni"
Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, "I Giorni"
"‘I Giorni’ became one of Steinway Artist Ludovico Einaudi's most-played piano pieces because, in the composer–performer's words, "I was among the first of a new generation to create and to write music that was, let’s say, playable and contemporary. At a certain point, it was difficult to find contemporary repertoire that you could enjoy playing at home. I think the music that I started to create was, in a way, filling the space left open and abandoned by composers." Ludovico Einaudi trained as a classical composer and pianist before continuing his studies with Luciano Berio, a leading composer of the twentieth-century avant-garde. He ultimately turned away from what seemed a glittering classical career to forge his own musical path, giving him the freedom to reconcile his wide-ranging influences."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“To some, the outline of the open cluster of stars M6 resembles a butterfly. M6, also known as NGC 6405, spans about 20 light-years and lies about 2,000 light years distant. M6 can best be seen in a dark sky with binoculars towards the constellation of Scorpius, covering about as much of the sky as the full moon.
Like other open clusters, M6 is composed predominantly of young blue stars, although the brightest star is nearly orange. M6 is estimated to be about 100 million years old. Determining the distance to clusters like M6 helps astronomers calibrate the distance scale of the universe.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/
Chet Raymo, “Into The Night”
“Into The Night”
by Chet Raymo
“I first became intimate with the night sky on the sleeping porch of my grandmother’s house on Ninth Street in Chattanooga, Tennessee, during the early 1940s. A screened sleeping porch might be found attached to any southern home of a certain vintage and substance, usually on the second story at the back. On sultry summer nights you could move a cot or daybed onto the porch and take advantage of whatever breezes stirred the air. I slept there when I visited because it was the only place to find a spare bed. I was usually alone in that big spooky space, with only a thin wire mesh separating me from the many mysteries of the night.
Far off in the house I could hear the muffled voice of the big Stromberg-Carlson radio in the parlor, where grown-ups listened to news of the war or the boogie-woogie tunes of the Hit Parade. Outside was another kind of music, nearer, louder, pressing against the screen, which seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, a million scratchy fiddles, out-of-key woodwinds, discordant timpani. These were the cicadas, crickets and tree frogs of the southern summer night, but to me at that time they were the sounds of the night itself, as if darkness had an audible element.
Some nights the distant horizon would be lit with a silent, winking illumination called “heat lightnin’.” And closer, against the dark grass of the badminton court, the scintillations of fireflies- “lightnin’ bugs”- splashed into brightness.
The constellations of fireflies were answered in the sky by stars, which on those evenings when the city’s lights were blacked out for air-raid drills, multiplied alarmingly. I would lie in my cot, eyes glued to the spangled darkness, waiting to hear the drone of enemy aircraft or see the flash of ack-ack. No aircraft appeared, no ack-ack tracers pierced the night, but soon the stars took on their own fierce reality, like vast squadrons of alien rocket ships moving against the inky dark of Flash Gordon space.
In time I came to recognize patterns, although I did not yet know their names: the Scorpion creeping westward, dragging its stinger along the horizon; the teapot of Sagittarius afloat in the white river of the Milky Way; Vega at the zenith; the kite of Cygnus. As the hours passed, the Big Dipper clocked around the Pole. And sometimes, in late summer, I would wake in the predawn hour to find Orion sneaking into the eastern sky, pursuing the teacup of the Pleiades.
One memorable Christmas of my childhood, my father received a star book as a gift: “A Primer for Star-Gazers” by Henry Neely. As he used the book to learn the stars and constellations, he included me in his activities. The book was Santa’s gift to him. The night sky was his gift to me.
That book, now long out of print, is still in my possession. A glance takes me back half a century to evenings on the badminton court in the back yard of our own new home in the Chattanooga suburbs, gazing upwards with my father to a drapery of brilliant stars flung across the gap between tall dark pines. He told me stories of the constellations as he learned them. Of Orion and the Scorpion. Of the lovers Andromeda and Perseus, and the monster Cetus. Of the wood nymph Callisto and her son Arcas, placed by Zeus in the heavens as the Big and Little Bears. No child ever had a better storybook than the ever-changing page of night above our badminton court. My father also taught me the names of stars: Sirius, Arcturus, Polaris, Betelgeuse, and other, stranger names, Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali, the claws of the Scorpion. The words on his tongue were like incantations that opened the enchanted cave of night.
He was a man of insatiable curiosity. His stories of the stars were more than “connect the dots.” He wove into his lessons what he knew of history, science, poetry and myth. And, of course, religion. For my father, the stars were infused with unfathomable mystery, their contemplation a sort of prayer.
That Christmas book of long ago was a satisfactory guide to star lore, but as I look at it today I see that it conveyed little of the intimacy I felt as I stood with my father under the bright canopy of stars. Nor do any of the other more recent star guides that I have seen quite capture the feeling I had as a child of standing at the door of an enchanted universe, speaking incantations. What made the childhood experience so memorable was a total immersion in the mystery of the night- the singing of cicadas, the whisper of the wind in the pines, and, of course, my father’s storehouse of knowledge with which he embellished the stars. He taught me what to see; he also taught me what to imagine.”
"Still Keeping the Light On"
Full screen recommended.
Song Bloom,
"Still Keeping the Light On"
"There comes a point in life when you begin to notice the people who keep things going, not with noise, but with care. This film was made for them. "Still Keeping the Light On" is a gentle surreal AI music film about the quiet work that holds a town together. In this unusual little world, older hands still light the lamps, set the chairs, carry the parcels, wait for the last bus, and take care of the small things that help a place feel warm, human, and alive. These are not grand gestures. They are simple acts of presence. And sometimes, that is what matters most. I made this video for those who understand that dignity does not disappear with age. It deepens. It softens. It becomes the quiet strength that keeps a light on for everyone else. This is not a town chasing speed. It is a town built on care, memory, community, and the beauty of everyday effort."
"How to Know When It's Time to Walk Away From Everything"
Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"How to Know When It's Time
to Walk Away From Everything"
"I Ain’t Rich, But I Sleep Good'
Full screen recommended.
Delta King's Blues,
"I Ain’t Rich, But I Sleep Good'
"Money buys a lot… but peace still ain’t on the shelf. “I Ain’t Rich, But I Sleep Good” is a warm, grounded Delta King’s Blues tune about simple living, clear conscience, and the kind of wealth that doesn’t fit in a wallet. A steady, easy-rolling acoustic guitar moves like a quiet walk home after a long honest day. The harmonica breathes soft and content, carrying the sound of a man with nothing to hide. The groove stays slow and restful, built for front porches, tired boots, and clean pillows. This is blues about the riches that matter. For folks who may not have much - but rest easy every night. I ain’t rich… but peace pays better than money ever did."
"Pick and Choose Your Own Truth"
"Pick and Choose Your Own Truth"
by Todd Hayen
"Here I go again. Getting perplexed by the sheep-types in my life. I seem to be in a constant state of cognitive dissonance. I’ve whacked my forehead so many times with the heel of my hand that I am surprised I have not seriously damaged my brain. Well, maybe I have!
It’s really crazy to me, how something can come forth that makes a point we have all made in the past into an incontrovertible truth, and these sheepsters will still not see it. I just got around to watching Mikki Willis’ "Follow the Silenced," and after getting 20 minutes into it, I said, “What could be better evidence of the truth that these vaccines were bad news?” I shared this with someone close, who is, believe it or not, a sheep, and they said, “That just isn’t true.”
What? They were quite casual about it, too. Like there wasn’t anything to argue about. It would be the same as if I showed them a movie of a human walking around with a rat’s head. They wouldn’t be freaked out wondering if it might be true; they would just know it wasn’t. No question. No second thoughts. “That just isn’t true.” Of course, this is different than a rat-headed human (although with AI these days it would be an easy “untruth” to pull off). I am talking about things that are facts, no question, clear and simple. Facts.
Sure, Willis’ film probably isn’t 100% factual. Or at least, what IS factual doesn’t necessarily prove it is widespread. But much of what is presented is factual. And the argument that what Willis is presenting is all play-acting just doesn’t cut it. Sure, that happens too, but there are times when that sort of manipulation is plausible. Willis’ film is not one of them.
And since when does something presented have to be 100% factual for it to be considered? We used to live in a time where we determined what was worth paying attention to by assessing its relevance, the percentage of accurate information compared to the whole, and the context of what was presented. Now, any idea at all must meet the “100%” test. This reminds me of the fact check that stated Paul Revere’s ride, where he is shouting “The British are coming, the British are coming!” was not a fact, because not ALL of the British Empire was invading the country, only a small military faction. So, the whole statement then is deemed incorrect. This is standard “fact-checking” on social media, and it is insane.
Still, there are many other examples of this demonstration of picking what you choose to believe. And there is something psychologically weird about how people respond to this stuff. So, what else is new? We truly have entered into a time where people are truly whacked. And I’m a psychotherapist! You can’t find this stuff in a textbook.
Take the whole climate change debacle, for instance. I’m not here to debate whether the planet’s getting hotter or if it’s all a cosmic prank - though I’ve got my suspicions about the latter. But watch how the sheep latch onto “their truth” like it’s the last lifeboat on the Titanic. On one side, you’ve got folks who swallow every alarmist headline hook, line, and sinker: polar bears drowning, cities underwater by next Tuesday, all because we dared to drive SUVs and eat steak.
Show them data suggesting natural cycles, solar flares, or even historical warm periods like the Medieval Warm Period (when Vikings were farming Greenland, for crying out loud), and they glaze over. “That’s denialism,” they say, as if the word itself is a magical shield against inconvenient facts. Why? Because it fits the narrative they’ve been fed - the one that makes them feel virtuous for recycling their plastic straws while ignoring the private jets of the elites preaching the gospel.
Flip the coin, and you’ve got the other crowd, convinced it’s all a hoax cooked up by globalists to slap carbon taxes on the little guy. Present them with satellite images of melting ice caps or rising sea levels, and they wave it away as manipulated data or “weather, not climate.” Both sides dig in their heels, not because the evidence is lacking, but because admitting the other side might have a sliver of validity would shatter their worldview. It’s tribalism on steroids, where “my truth” isn’t about seeking reality - it’s about belonging to the right club. Psychologically, this stems from confirmation bias, that sneaky brain trick where we cherry-pick info that strokes our ego and ignore the rest. Add in a dash of fear - fear of change, fear of being wrong, fear of the unknown - and voilà , you’ve got a recipe for intellectual stagnation.
Another prime example hits closer to home for me as a therapist: the mental health industry’s love affair with pharmaceuticals. I’ve seen clients come in, desperate for relief from anxiety or depression, and the first thing their doctor does is scribble a script for SSRIs like they’re handing out candy. Never mind the black box warnings, the withdrawal horror stories, or studies showing placebos work just as well in many cases. Show a sheep-type patient footage of people recounting their nightmare experiences - zombie-like side effects, suicidal thoughts, the works - and they’ll shrug it off.
“My doctor says it’s safe,” they insist, as if the white coat confers infallibility. Why do they cling to this? It’s easier. Popping a pill absolves them of the hard work: therapy, lifestyle changes, digging into root causes like trauma or diet. It’s the illusion of control in a chaotic world, wrapped in the comfort of authority. Question that authority, and suddenly you’re the crazy one, labelled an “anti-vaxxer” equivalent for mental health. But facts are facts: the overprescription epidemic is real, backed by whistleblowers and buried FDA reports. Yet, “their truth” prevails because facing the alternative means admitting the system might be broken - and who wants that headache?
Or consider the origins of COVID itself. Lab leak theory was once “conspiracy nonsense,” ridiculed by fact-checkers and banned on social media. Now? Even the FBI and DOE lean toward it, with emails showing scientists privately admitting it while publicly denying. But try telling that to the die-hards who still parrot “wet market” like it’s gospel. Why? Emotional investment. If it were a lab leak, funded by our own tax dollars no less, it would implicate heroes like Fauci and shake our faith in science. Easier to dismiss whistleblowers as cranks than confront the betrayal. This isn’t new; history’s littered with it - think Tuskegee experiments or MKUltra. People pick “their truth” to preserve sanity, avoiding the abyss of realizing power structures lie.
At its core, this “pick and choose” phenomenon signals a deeper malaise: the death of objective reality. We’ve traded shared facts for personalized bubbles, curated by algorithms and echo chambers. Why? Technology plays a part, sure - endless scrolling reinforces biases. But psychologically, it’s about vulnerability. In an uncertain world, clinging to “my truth” offers certainty, even if illusory. It’s a defence mechanism against overwhelm, a way to simplify complexity. As a therapist, I see it daily: clients rewriting personal histories to avoid pain, ignoring red flags in relationships because “love conquers all.” Scale that up societally, and you get mass delusion.
Yet, here’s the rub - and maybe a sliver of hope. If everyone’s got “their truth,” then mine’s as valid as any. So why not question everything? Peel back the layers, demand evidence, and risk being the odd one out. It’s exhausting, sure, but it beats forehead-smacking frustration. In the end, truth isn’t a buffet; it’s a hunt. And if we all stopped grazing like sheep and started tracking like shrews, we might just uncover something real. Wouldn’t that be a plot twist worth waking up for?"
Todd Hayen PhD is a registered psychotherapist practicing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He holds a PhD in depth psychotherapy and an MA in Consciousness Studies. He specializes in Jungian, archetypal, psychology. Todd also writes for his own substack, which you can read here.
"Everything We Assume Is Permanent Is Actually Fragile"
"Everything We Assume Is Permanent Is Actually Fragile"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"The great irony of the past 75 years of expanding consumption is the belief that all these decades of success prove the system is rock-solid and future success is thus guaranteed. The irony lies in the systemic fragility that's built into the large-scale industrial production that generates endless surpluses of energy, food, fresh water, etc. and the global financial system that delivers endless surpluses of capital and credit to be distributed by public authorities and private owners of capital.
The key driver of increasing efficiencies has been scaling up production by concentrating ownership and capacity into a few quasi-monopolies/cartels. In industry after industry, where there were once dozens of companies, there are now only a handful of behemoths with outsized market and political power which they wield to retain their dominance.
For example, where there were dozens of large regional banks in the U.S. not that long ago, relentless consolidation has led to a handful of supergiant too big to fail banks which can take extraordinary risks (and undertake criminal skims) knowing that the federal government will always bail them out and leave the banks' corporate criminals untouched.
Two of these too big to fail banks recently paid fines in the billions of dollars, yet no one went to prison or even faced criminal charges. This highlights the systemic problem with concentrating capital and power in the hands of the few: too big to fail means corporate wrongdoers have a permanent get out of jail free card while the small-fry white-collar criminal will get a fiver (five-year prison sentence) for skimming a tiny fraction of the billions routinely pillaged by the too big to fail banks.
The net result is a two-tier judicial/law enforcement system: the too big to fail "essential" companies get a free hand and the citizenry get whatever "justice" they can afford, i.e. very little.
This concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few corporations is of course state-cartel socialism in which the public good has become subservient to the profits of corporate owners and insiders, and the skims paid to the state's insiders. The state enables and enforces this concentration of private wealth and power in a number of ways: regulatory capture, the polite bribery of lobbying, the revolving door between government and private industry, and so on.
The public good would best be served by competition and transparent markets and regulations, but these are precisely what's been eliminated by relentless consolidation and the paring down of the economic ecosystem to a handful of too big to fail nodes which work tirelessly to eliminate competition, transparency and meaningful public oversight.
This ruthless pursuit of efficiencies and profits has stripped the economy of redundancies and buffers. Production supply chains have been engineered to function in a narrow envelope of quality, quantity and time. Any disruption quickly leads to shortages, something that became visible when meatpacking plants were closed in the pandemic.
Supply chains are long and fragile, but this fragility is not visible as long as everything stays within the narrow envelope that's been optimized. Once the envelope is broken, the supply chain breaks down. Since redundancies and buffers have been stripped away, there are no alternatives available. Shortages mount and the entire system starts breaking down.
Quality has been stripped out as well. When markets become captive to cartels and monopolies, customers have to take what's available: if it's poor quality goods and services, tough luck, pal, there are no alternatives. There are only one or two service providers, healthcare insurers, etc., and they all provide the same minimal level of quality and service.
The moral rot in our social, political and economic orders is another source of hidden fragility. I'm constantly told by readers that corruption has been around forever, so therefore nothing has changed, but these readers are indulging in magical nostalgia: things have changed profoundly, and for the worse, as the moral rot has seeped into every nook and cranny of American life, from the top down.
There is no "public good," there is only a rapacious, obsessive self-interest that claims the mantle of "public good" as a key mechanism of the con.
As I discussed in "Everything is Staged", everyone and everything in America is now nothing more than a means to a self-interested end, and so the the entirety of American life is nothing but 100% marketing of various cons designed to enrich the few at the expense of the many. That America was a better place without endless marketing of Big Pharma meds and "vaccines", and colleges hyping their insanely costly "product" (a worthless diploma) has been largely forgotten by those indulging in magical nostalgia.
What few seem to realize is all the supposedly rock-solid permanent foundations of life are nothing more than fragile social constructs based on trust and legitimacy. Once trust and legitimacy have been lost, these constructs melt into the sands of time.
A great many things we take for granted are fragile constructs that could unravel with surprising speed: law enforcement, the courts, elections, the value of our currency -- these are all social constructs. Once legitimacy is lost, people abandon these constructs and they melt away.
It's clear to anyone who isn't indulging in magical nostalgia that trust in institutions is in a steep decline as the legitimacy of these institutions, public and private, have been eroded by incompetence, corruption, dysfunction and the rapacious self-interest of insiders.
What we've gotten very good at is masking the rot and fragility. Masking the rot and fragility is not the same thing as strength or permanence. The nation is about to discover the difference in the years ahead."
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