Full screen a must!
2002, "Inner Light"
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Sunday, August 23, 2026
"A Look to the Heavens With Chet Raymo"
“Learning And Yearning”
by Chet Raymo
“This photograph of the Eagle Nebula made by a rather modest telescope - the 0.9 meter instrument at Kitt Peak, Arizona - appeared on APOD. I sat in front of the computer screen for ten minutes, breathless. One tiny corner of the Milky Way Galaxy, one of tens of billions of galaxies that we can potentially see with our telescopes! At the center are the so-called "Pillars of Creation" from a famous Hubble photograph.
I recall when the Hubble photograph appeared in the media hundreds of viewers claimed to see the face of Jesus in the billowing clouds. Which prompted these observations from "Skeptics and True Believers": "In an article on the psychological basis of belief, the psychologist James Alcock proposed that two aspects of the human brain might be called the "yearning unit" and the "learning unit." He probably didn't mean these terms to be taken literally, as referring to separate compartments of the brain, but yearning and learning are certainly central to the way we interact with the world. It is hard to imagine how we can be fully human without a little of each. Finding the proper balance between the two is a task that can keep us occupied for most of our lives.
We yearn when we dream of fulfillment, of greater happiness, of knowing more. We yearn when we love, when we laugh, when we cry, when we pray. Yearning is wondering what is around the next bend, over the rainbow, beyond the horizon. Yearning is curiosity. Yearning is the driving force of science, philosophy, and religion.
Learning is listening to parents, wise men, shamans. Learning is reading, going to school, traveling, doing experiments, being skeptical. Learning is looking behind the curtain for the Wizard of Oz, touching the stove to see if it's hot, not taking anyone's word for it. In science, learning means trying as hard to prove that something is wrong as to prove it right, even if that something is a cherished belief.
Yearning without learning is seeing Elvis in a crowd, the fossilized footprints of humans and dinosaurs together in ancient rocks, weeping statues. Yearning without learning is buying tabloid newspapers with headlines announcing "Newborn baby talks of Heaven" and the like. Yearning without learning is looking for UFOs in the sky and the meaning of life in horoscopes.
Learning without yearning is pedantry, scientism, dogmatic belief. Learning without yearning is believing that we know it all, that what we see is what we get, that nothing exists except what can be presently weighed and measured. Learning without yearning is science without a heart, without a dream, without a hope of beauty. Yearning without learning is seeing the face of Jesus in a gassy nebula. Learning without yearning is seeing only the gas."
We yearn when we dream of fulfillment, of greater happiness, of knowing more. We yearn when we love, when we laugh, when we cry, when we pray. Yearning is wondering what is around the next bend, over the rainbow, beyond the horizon. Yearning is curiosity. Yearning is the driving force of science, philosophy, and religion.
Learning is listening to parents, wise men, shamans. Learning is reading, going to school, traveling, doing experiments, being skeptical. Learning is looking behind the curtain for the Wizard of Oz, touching the stove to see if it's hot, not taking anyone's word for it. In science, learning means trying as hard to prove that something is wrong as to prove it right, even if that something is a cherished belief.
Yearning without learning is seeing Elvis in a crowd, the fossilized footprints of humans and dinosaurs together in ancient rocks, weeping statues. Yearning without learning is buying tabloid newspapers with headlines announcing "Newborn baby talks of Heaven" and the like. Yearning without learning is looking for UFOs in the sky and the meaning of life in horoscopes.
Learning without yearning is pedantry, scientism, dogmatic belief. Learning without yearning is believing that we know it all, that what we see is what we get, that nothing exists except what can be presently weighed and measured. Learning without yearning is science without a heart, without a dream, without a hope of beauty. Yearning without learning is seeing the face of Jesus in a gassy nebula. Learning without yearning is seeing only the gas."
"I'm Rightly Tired..."
“I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin' no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin' from or goin' to or why. I'm tired of people bein' ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein' in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't.”
- Stephen King, "The Green Mile"
"James Baldwin on How to Live Through Your Darkest Hour and Life as a Moral Obligation to the Universe"
"James Baldwin on How to Live Through Your Darkest Hour
and Life as a Moral Obligation to the Universe"
by Maria Popova
“Yesterday has already vanished among the shadows of the past; to-morrow has not yet emerged from the future. You have found an intermediate space,” Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote of life’s most haunting hour. But what we find in that intermediate space between past and future, between the costumed simulacrum of reality we so painstakingly construct with our waking lives and reality laid bare in the naked nocturnal mind, is not always a resting place of ease - for there dwells the self at its most elemental, which means the self most lucidly awake to its foibles and its finitude.
The disquietude this haunted hour can bring, and does bring, is what another titanic writer and rare seer into the depths of the human spirit - James Baldwin (August 2, 1924–December 1, 1987) - explored 130 years after Hawthorne in one of his least known, most insightful, and most personal essays.
In 1964, as the Harlem riots were shaking the foundation of society and selfhood, Baldwin joined talent-forces with the great photographer Richard Avedon - an old high school friend of his - to hold up an uncommonly revelatory cultural mirror with the book "Nothing Personal" (public library). Punctuating Avedon’s signature black-and-white portraits - of Nobel laureates and Hollywood celebrities, of the age - and ache-etched face of an elder born under slavery and the idealism-lit young faces of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Georgia, of the mentally ill perishing in asylums and the newlyweds at City Hall ablaze with hope - are four stirring essays by Baldwin, the first of which gave us his famous sobering observation that “it has always been much easier (because it has always seemed much safer) to give a name to the evil without than to locate the terror within.”
At no time does the terror within, Baldwin argues in the third essay, bubble to the surface of our being more ferociously than in that haunting hour between past and future, between our illusions of permanence and perfection, and the glaring fact of our finitude and our fallibility, between being and non-being. He writes:
"Four AM can be a devastating hour. The day, no matter what kind of day it was is indisputably over; almost instantaneously, a new day begins: and how will one bear it? Probably no better than one bore the day that is ending, possibly not as well. Moreover, a day is coming one will not recall, the last day of one’s life, and on that day one will oneself become as irrecoverable as all the days that have passed."
It is a fearful speculation - or, rather, a fearful knowledge - that, one day one’s eyes will no longer look out on the world. One will no longer be present at the universal morning roll call. The light will rise for others, but not for you.
Half a century before the physicist Brian Greene examined how this very awareness is the wellspring of meaning to our ephemeral lives and a century after Tchaikovsky found beauty amid the wreckage of the soul at 4AM, Baldwin adds: "Sometimes, at four AM, this knowledge is almost enough to force a reconciliation between oneself and all one’s pain and error. Since, anyway, it will end one day, why not try it - life - one more time?"
After singing some beautiful and heartbreaking Bessie Smith lyrics into his essay - lyrics from “Long Road,” a song about reconciling the knowledge that one is ultimately alone with the irrepressible impulse to reach out for love, “to grasp again, with fearful hope, the unwilling, unloving human hand” - Baldwin continues: "I think all of our voyages drive us there; for I have always felt that a human being could only be saved by another human being. I am aware that we do not save each other very often. But I am also aware that we save each other some of the time."
That alone, Baldwin insists, is reason enough to be, as Nietzsche put it, a “yea-sayer” to life - to face the uncertainty of our lives with courage, to face the fact of our mortality with courage, and to fill this blink of existence bookended by nothingness with the courage of a bellowing aliveness.
In a passage that calls to mind Galway Kinnell’s lifeline of a poem “Wait,” composed for a young friend on the brink of suicide, Baldwin writes: "For, perhaps - perhaps - between now and the last day, something wonderful will happen, a miracle, a miracle of coherence and release. And the miracle on which one’s unsteady attention is focused is always the same, however it may be stated, or however it may remain unstated. It is the miracle of love, love strong enough to guide or drive one into the great estate of maturity, or, to put it another way, into the apprehension and acceptance of one’s own identity. For some deep and ineradicable instinct - I believe - causes us to know that it is only this passionate achievement which can outlast death, which can cause life to spring from death."
And yet, so often, we lose faith in this miracle, lose the perspective we call faith - so often it slips between the fingers fanned with despair or squeezes through the fist clenched with rage. We lose perspective most often, Baldwin argues, at four AM: "At four AM, when one feels that one has probably become simply incapable of supporting this miracle, with all one’s wounds awake and throbbing, and all one’s ghastly inadequacy staring and shouting from the walls and the floor - the entire universe having shrunk to the prison of the self - death glows like the only light on a high, dark, mountain road, where one has, forever and forever! lost one’s way. And many of us perish then."
What then? A generation after Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry composed his beautiful manifesto for night as an existential clarifying force for the deepest truths of the heart, Baldwin offers: "But if one can reach back, reach down - into oneself, into one’s life - and find there some witness, however unexpected or ambivalent, to one’s reality, one will be enabled, though perhaps not very spiritedly, to face another day… What one must be enabled to recognize, at four o’clock in the morning, is that one has no right, at least not for reasons of private anguish, to take one’s life. All lives are connected to other lives and when one man goes, much more goes than the man goes with him. One has to look on oneself as the custodian of a quantity and a quality - oneself - which is absolutely unique in the world because it has never been here before and will never be here again."
Baldwin - whom U.S. Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks described as “love personified” in introducing his last public appearance before his death - wedges into this foundational structure of soul-survival the fact that in a culture of habitual separation and institutionalized otherness, such self-regard is immensely difficult. And yet, he insists with the passion of one who has proven the truth of his words with his own life, we must try - we must reach across the divides within and without, across the abysses of terror and suspicion, with a generous and largehearted trust in one another, which is at bottom trust in ourselves.
Echoing his contemporary and kindred visionary Leonard Bernstein’s insistence that “we must believe, without fear, in people,” Baldwin adds what has become, or must become, the most sonorous psychosocial refrain bridging his time and ours: "Where all human connections are distrusted, the human being is very quickly lost."
More than half a century later, "Nothing Personal" remains a masterwork of rare insight into and consolation for the most elemental aches of the human spirit. For a counterpoint to this nocturnal fragment, savor the great nature writer Henry Beston, writing a generation before Baldwin, on how the beauty of night nourishes the human spirit, then revisit Baldwin on resisting the mindless of majority, how he learned to truly see, the writer’s responsibility in a divided society, his advice on writing, his historic conversation with Margaret Mead about forgiveness and responsibility, and his only children’s book."
Freely download "Nothing Personal", by James Baldwin and Richard Avedon, here:
'Live All You Can..."
"Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter
what you do in particular, so long as you have your life.
If you haven't had that, what have you had?"
- Henry James
- Henry James
"The Minister of Truth!"
"The Minister of Truth!"
by Allan Weisbecker
"I strongly urge you to pick up "Forgotten Civilization; New Discoveries on the Solar Induced Dark Age," by Robert Schoch. Schoch: In "Forgotten Civilization" covers a lot of ground, including the very important issue of the cataclysm that ended the last ice age, approximately 12,000 B.P. (before the present). Schoch shows (to my satisfaction) that it was almost certainly a solar eruption that did in the ice age mega-fauna (and almost all of our ancestors), and not a comet. Schoch is almost certainly right. Read Schoch’s book if you’re interested in this. But be forewarned: Schoch doesn’t pull any punches about the coming cataclysm. He gives us multiple lines of evidence that mean it’s overdue."
Hueyatlaco is an archeological site in the Valsequillo Basin near the city of Puebla, Mexico. After excavations in the 1960s, the site became notorious due to geochronologists‘ analyses that indicated human habitation at Hueyatlaco was dated to ca. 250,000 years before the present (my emphasis).[1][2]
These controversial findings are orders of magnitude older than the scientific consensus for habitation of the New World (which generally traces widespread human migration to the New World to 13,000 to 16,000 ybp). The findings at Hueyatlaco are the subject of continued debate by the scientific community, and have seen only occasional discussion in the literature." [3]
References:
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Freely download "Forgotten Civilization; New Discoveries
on the Solar Induced Dark Age," by Robert Schoch, here:
o
Full screen recommended,
LifesBiggestQuestions, 4/24
"Scientists Discovered An Ancient Civilization
Frozen In Ice That Shouldn't Exist"
Comments here:
"We Do Choose..."
"All men and women are born, live suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live."
- Joseph Epstein
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"George Harrison knew something most of us didn't and still don't: there is a reality beyond the material world and what we do here and how we treat others affects us eternally. As he sings in "Rising Sun":
"But in the rising sun you can feel your life begin,
Universe at play inside your DNA.
You're a billion years old today.
Oh the rising sun and the place it's coming from
Is inside of you and now your payment's overdue."
Lyrics here:
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"Death twitches my ear. 'Live," he says, 'I am coming.'"
~Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)
“There is No Safety You Dumb Bit*h”
“There is No Safety You Dumb Bit*h”
By Joe Jarvis
"Take heed of The Hound’s warning, and let it free you. There is no guarantee of a job or safety net, there is no absolute security from evil doers, and there is only so much you can do to prevent accidents and illness. The silver lining is that recognizing this is the best way to cushion yourself from the vulnerabilities of an unpredictable world.
Brienne of Tarth, in "Game of Thrones", nobly intends to uphold an oath she swore to Lady Stark to keep her children safe. But she is also a bit naive about the nature of the world in which she lives. Brienne thinks she can bring Arya to a safe place, wherever that is. But as The Hound so eloquently reminds her: “There is no safety you dumb bit*h. And if you don’t know that by now, you’re the wrong one to watch over her.”
If Brienne thinks she can ever let her guard down, or relax, she will never be safe. There is no destination at which point she and Arya will be ultimately secure. It just does not exist. And Sandor Clegane - The Hound - is right; if Brienne of Tarth cannot understand this basic fact about the world, she is the wrong person to be watching over Arya.
The Hound’s negative view on the danger in the world actually leaves him less vulnerable. He never expects to be safe, and is therefore safer because he is alert to danger.
As rough as the Hound is, Arya was in fact safe the entire time she was with him. This was no guarantee, it’s just how it happened, mostly due to the fact that The Hound knows is being constantly vigilant against danger. And although Brienne’s goal is to make Arya even safer, she instead severely wounds the person protecting Arya. Brienne incorrectly judges The Hound to be a danger to Arya, and then fails to secure Arya, leaving her more defenseless than she had been previously.
Brienne’s actions actually prove The Hound’s point. Brienne’s belief that she could bring Arya to safety created a dangerous situation that could have been avoided if she only realized that safety is a constant effort, and not a destination.
But Should We Really Apply a Lesson From a Fake Story in a Mythical Setting? In the modern world we are much safer than humans were in the middle ages. And in the real world there are certain things we don’t have to worry about, like white-walkers and dragons. But unfortunately we do still have to contend with the likes of Cersi and the Lannisters, the Ramsy Boltons, and the treacherous Freys all playing their part in our world’s own “Game of Thrones”. In our lives, they are usually less murdery and slightly more subtle in their elitist desire for domination.
The lesson however remains: there is no guarantee of safety (you dumb bit*h). But before you think I am being gloomy and pessimistic, consider the gift of understanding this. In the pursuit of the ultimate goal of “safety” we expose ourselves and society to all sorts of dangers.
For instance, even assuming the US government had the best intentions over last two decades of drone bombing the Middle East, to supposedly make us more safe, all it really did was create more terrorists. When innocent civilians get murdered by the USA’s bombs, their friends and family become radicalized. Would there still be terrorists and crazy people without all that provocation? Yes, I’m sure. But the numbers would most likely be lower, and we could focus on actual defense.
And even if we assume, for example, that the PATRIOT Act and indefinite detainment clause in the NDAA were passed with the best intentions of targeting terrorists, they has made our own government a much greater threat with the powers they granted. The people who advocate gun control, strict Covid lockdowns, or a government safety net are like Brienne of Tarth, making us less safe because they misunderstand the inherent danger that life carries with it.
If other people take away our agency to respond decide what are the biggest threats facing us, or force us to respond to those threats in a particular way, they will inevitably put us in more danger. That is especially true if they suffer no consequences for their decisions. For example if the people who ban guns can afford to hire private security, then what difference does it make to them if you can’t protect yourself when your home is invaded?
We like to imagine a perfect society in which we are secure, safe, comfortable, and just generally all set, happily ever after. But the desire for a finish line is elusive. We can make ourselves robust against threats, or even anti-fragile so that we could gain from disorder, as Nicholas Nassim Taleb says. But even this requires maintenance and vigilance. You always have to be understanding new threats, and preparing more options which you can choose to exercise, depending on what happens next.
And this goes as much for economics as for physical safety. Don’t expect Social Security to be there for you, have a backup plan. There is no guarantee that any one currency will always stay stable, valuable, or even continue to exist. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, including streams of income, and the skills you have to earn a living.
At the end of the day, safety comes down to vigilance. Unless you are constantly on alert to those things which threaten your safety, you will be taken by surprise. It doesn’t really matter if the person making you less safe is the well meaning but naive Brienne of Tarth or the calculating power hungry Cersi Lannister.
Cersi, in a sense, is safer to be around, because you understand that she is dangerous, and can protect yourself. But how can you protect yourself from someone who thinks they have your best interests at heart, whether you like it or not?
Some people will have noble goals and try to force you into their “safe” world that they have flawlessly designed for security. Their ignorance makes you just as vulnerable as Cersi’s malevolence. Others will offer us safety, utopia, and ultimate security that we can just accept and then forget about. This will lead us down a path of vulnerability.
Whether those who lure you into the false sense of security are doing so because their goals are noble, or because their motives are nefarious hardly matters. We must each be at liberty to look after our own safety.
Arya, for example, had chosen to stick around The Hound and benefit from the safety he provided. When he was incapacitated, she could have chosen to be protected by Brienne, but instead she chose to go it alone, and protect herself. She ultimately became much more capable for it. And that is essentially the option we all need if we hope to make the world a safer place.
We should be able to choose our own government - and not just from the 200 or so very similar, subpar options currently available. And we should also be able to choose to go it alone, or create our own society, if we don’t like the options available. The ability to take our business elsewhere, without threat or force, will create a market for the best protection against various threats, which will improve the variety and quality of the services offered."
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Strong language alert.
“'Worse Than 1929' - His Urgent Warning to Americans"
Gerald Celente, 8/23/26
“'Worse Than 1929' -
His Urgent Warning to Americans"
"Gerald Celente shares his latest outlook on the U.S. economy, stock market, inflation, the dollar, retirement savings, and precious metals. He explains why he believes growing debt, geopolitical tensions, energy risks, and financial-market pressures could create a difficult period for American investors - and why gold may play an increasingly important role."
Comments here:
"Knowing..."
“Knowing can be a curse on a person’s life. I’d traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn’t know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can’t ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.”
- Sue Monk Kidd
"It's Begun, But Most Just Don't Know It Yet..."
Col. Douglas MacGregor, 8/23/26
"It's Begun, But Most Just Don't Know It Yet..."
"Douglas MacGregor examines the growing U.S. bond market crisis, rising debt, and the weakening of American power. He connects financial fragility with America’s military commitments in the Middle East, arguing that Washington faces difficult choices as its influence in the Persian Gulf declines. He also discusses Iran, Israel, BRICS, and the emerging shift away from the U.S.-led global order. Is American hegemony in the Middle East coming to an end?"
Comments here:
“When Plunder Becomes a Way of Life”
Full screen recommended.
"The Forty Trillion Dollar Leviathan"
“When Plunder Becomes a Way of Life”
by John Leake
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." - Frédéric Bastiat’s "The Law," 1850.
"Because most people who work in the media are still somewhat stuck in the “Left vs. Right” and “Republican vs. Democrat” concept of public affairs, they struggle to see that the entire US government is now a glorified racketeering syndicate. The “Pandemic Preparedness” and “Biodefense” Industries are perfect racketeering vehicles.
Even when the syndicate’s breathtaking crimes - such as creating and concealing the origin of SARS-CoV-2 - are exposed, the capos such as Fauci and Bancel get away with it, while a lower ranking bagman such as David Morens takes the rap for a mickey-mouse fraud charge. The real substance of the crime is thereby ignored.
The final proof that the US government is a racketeering syndicate is the staggering amount of money the syndicate has borrowed and disbursed to an array of special interests over the last 26 years. Total US debt in 2000 stood at $5.674 trillion. Today it crossed the $40 trillion mark. To be sure, what enables the syndicate to flourish and plunder is the public remaining ignorant, distracted, and brainwashed not to see what is going on. In order to understand how the syndicate works, it is useful to have a basic grounding in history and civics.
On a recent trip to Washington D.C. for a MAHA event, my faithful and talented filmmaker friend, Brian Olson, suggested that I take a crack at communicating why plunder has become a way of life in Washington D.C. Reviewing the final cut today, I realize that at the time I gave the talk, I failed to appreciate just how much Dr. William Thornton’s original design for the US Capitol building was altered after the British burned it in 1814. The rebuilt edifice was far more Roman imperial in style than Thornton’s original.
The British assault on Washington D.C. on August 24, 1814 was the last time our nation’s capital was occupied by foreign soldiers. The arrival of a violent thunderstorm and tornado the following day doused the fires and prompted the British soldiers to withdraw. In July 1864, a detachment of the Confederate army attacked the outskirts of the city but was repulsed.
Apart from my error in realizing how much the current Capitol is an alteration of Thornton’s original design, my impromptu talk about our government’s repudiation (or betrayal) of our Founders’ vision is accurate. If you enjoy this video, please signal your approval by liking this post and sharing it with your friends. I would like to make more content about history, philosophy, and art as a relief to reporting the abominable behavior of our trashy ruling class."
"Wisdom from the Past"
"Wisdom from the Past"
by. Joel Bowman
“I never found anything as uncertain as the word ‘future,’
but I always had plans for reaching it.”
~ László Bíró, inventor of the ballpoint pen (1899–1985)
Buenos Aires, Argentina - "This week, your future uncertain editor journeyed into the past... Mariana is 94-years young and greets her guests with the vim and vigor of someone not yet half her age, which is roughly where your editor stands. She is the founder and director of a well-regarded learning institute here in Buenos Aires. More than that, as was evidenced during the hour or so we spent with the gran dama and some of her students, she is also “el alma de la escuela” (the soul of the school).
The daughter of polymath inventor László Bíró, he of the ballpoint pen, or “biro,” fame (who also happened to be an Olympic wrestler, because some people are just better), Mariana met us at the door to her appropriately-named School of the Sun. “We have a great many important things to discuss,” she began, with a glint in her eye, “but first: coffee.”
A keen and bright-eyed interlocutor, Mariana speaks in the graceful Spanish of a bygone era. Only when a proper English noun, perfectly accented, finds its way into her cadence is one made instantly aware of her ability to converse with similar ease and facility in more than one language. She is patient, attentive to detail, and at least as interested as she is interesting, a phenomenal trait for someone who has seen nigh on a century on this planet. Oh, and she works nine hours a day… Monday through Friday… come rain, hail or shine. Again, some people are just better.
During our encounter, Mariana spoke of her passion for education, for the childlike curiosity she has spent more than six decades nurturing in her pupils, and for the inventiveness her institution cultivates in them as a matter of purpose. (Next month they will dedicate entirely to celebrating inventors both of the past and future.)
“We have children here from many countries and backgrounds,” she began, interlacing her fingers. “Some are not so fond of mathematics when they first arrive. It is our role to bring that subject alive for them, to help them see than mathematics is alive and all around them. If you want to know how far it is to the ice-cream shop, that’s mathematics. If you are meeting a friend at the train station at a certain time, mathematics. If you want to sharpen a pencil or play on a swing or look at the stars, mathematics. Our students come from all around the world, and we welcome them all. But wherever they are from, we as teachers work to give meaning to the inevitable and marvelous fact that two plus two always equals four.”
After cafés cortados and more tales than we can here recall, we found ourselves in the foyer of the building, only to realize we had forgotten our jacket. Without resource to the age-old, old age excuse, we were busily formulating an explanation for our blunt absentmindedness when we saw Mariana down the hall, making her rounds. Swept along by a wave of little arms, la directora must have received a dozen hugs from one door to the next. “¡Te queremos mucho, directora!” chorused the little voices. (“We love you very much, director!”)
At first we wondered how the nonagenarian managed to remain upright amidst the throng... then we realized that, just as this inspiring woman has spent a lifetime holding these children aloft, so too do they support their beloved director. Perhaps that is kind of human math. In the meantime, please enjoy our little series on Futures Uncertain, below…"
Dan, I Allegedly, "5 Banks Have Failed In 2026"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 8/23/26
"5 Banks Have Failed In 2026"
"Two more banks have failed in 2026, bringing the total discussed in this report to five bank failures this year. Dan breaks down what happened, why these institutions failed, what the FDIC is doing, and why consumers should be paying closer attention to their bank accounts, deposits, and overall financial security. The FDIC says insured depositors have historically been protected when banks fail, but that doesn't mean consumers shouldn't understand their coverage and have a financial backup plan. Dan also discusses the rising cost of living, persistent inflation, food insecurity, emergency preparedness, water concerns, mortgages and the broader financial pressures facing Americans. Plus, this episode highlights Hunger Action Month and Joseph Dreamhouse, an organization helping provide nutritious meals to people experiencing food insecurity, including veterans. If you're looking for a way to help people in your community, consider supporting a reputable local food organization."
Comments here:
“Nine Meals from Anarchy”
“Nine Meals from Anarchy”
by Jeff Thomas
“In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.” Since then, his observation has been echoed by people as disparate as Robert Heinlein and Leon Trotsky. The key here is that, unlike all other commodities, food is the one essential that cannot be postponed. If there were a shortage of, say, shoes, we could make do for months or even years. A shortage of gasoline would be worse, but we could survive it, through mass transport, or even walking, if necessary.
But food is different. If there were an interruption in the supply of food, fear would set in immediately. And, if the resumption of the food supply were uncertain, the fear would become pronounced. After only nine missed meals, it’s not unlikely that we’d panic and be prepared to commit a crime to acquire food. If we were to see our neighbor with a loaf of bread, and we owned a gun, we might well say, “I’m sorry, you’re a good neighbor and we’ve been friends for years, but my children haven’t eaten today – I have to have that bread – even if I have to shoot you.”
So, let’s have a closer look at the actual food distribution industry, compare it to the present direction of the economy and see whether there might be reason for concern.
The food industry typically operates on very small margins – often below 2%. Traditionally wholesalers and retailers have relied on a two-week turnaround of supply and anywhere up to a 30-day payment plan. But an increasing tightening of the economic system for the last eight years has resulted in a turnaround time of just three days for both supply and payment for many in the industry. This is a system that’s already under sever pressure, and has no further wiggle room should it take significant further hits.
If there were a month where significant inflation took place (say, 3%), all profits would be lost for the month, for both suppliers and retailers, but goods could still be replaced and sold for a higher price next month. But, if there were three or more consecutive months of inflation, the industry would be unable to bridge the gap, even if better conditions were expected to develop in future months. A failure to pay in full for several months would mean smaller orders by those who could not pay. That would mean fewer goods on the shelves. The longer the inflationary trend continued, the more quickly prices would rise to hopefully offset the inflation. And ever-fewer items on the shelves.
From Germany in 1922, to Argentina in 2000, to Venezuela in 2016, this has been the pattern, whenever inflation has become systemic, rather than sporadic. Each month, some stores close, beginning with those that are the most poorly-capitalized. In good economic times, this would mean more business for those stores that were still solvent, but, in an inflationary situation, they would be in no position to take on more unprofitable business. The result is that the volume of food on offer at retailers would decrease at a pace with the severity of the inflation.
However, the demand for food would not decrease by a single loaf of bread. Store closings would be felt most immediately in inner cities, when one closing would send customers to the next neighborhood, seeking food. The real danger would come when that store had also closed and both neighborhoods descended on a third store in yet another neighborhood. That’s when one loaf of bread for every three potential purchasers would become worth killing over. Virtually no one would long tolerate seeing his children go without food because others had “invaded” his local supermarket.
In addition to retailers, the entire industry would be impacted and, as retailers disappeared, so would suppliers, and so on, up the food chain. This would not occur in an orderly fashion, or in one specific area. The problem would be a national one. Closures would be all over the map, seemingly at random, affecting all areas. Food riots would take place, first in the inner cities, then spread to other communities. Buyers, fearful of shortages, would clean out the shelves.
Importantly, it’s the very unpredictability of food delivery that increases fear, creating panic and violence. And, again, none of the above is speculation; it’s an historical pattern – a reaction based upon human nature whenever systemic inflation occurs.
Then… unfortunately… the cavalry arrives. At that point it would be very likely that the central government would step in and issue controls to the food industry that served political needs, rather than business needs, greatly exacerbating the problem. Suppliers would be ordered to deliver to those neighborhoods where the riots were the worst, even if those retailers were unable to pay. This would increase the number of closings of suppliers. Along the way, truckers would begin to refuse to enter troubled neighborhoods and the military might well be brought in to force deliveries to take place.
So what would it take for the above to occur? Well, historically, it has always begun with excessive debt. We know that the debt level is now the highest it has ever been in world history. In addition, the stock and bond markets are in bubbles of historic proportions. They are most certainly popping.
With a crash in the markets, deflation always follows, as people try to unload assets to cover for their losses. The Federal Reserve (and other central banks) has stated that it will unquestionably print as much money as it takes to counter deflation. Unfortunately, inflation has a far greater effect on the price of commodities than assets. Therefore, the prices of commodities will rise dramatically, further squeezing the purchasing power of the consumer, thereby decreasing the likelihood that he will buy assets, even if they’re bargain-priced. Therefore, asset-holders will drop their prices repeatedly, as they become more desperate. The Fed then prints more to counter the deeper deflation and we enter a period when deflation and inflation are increasing concurrently.
Historically, when this point has been reached, no government has ever done the right thing. They have, instead, done the very opposite – keep printing. Food still exists, but retailers shut down because they cannot pay for goods. Suppliers shut down because they’re not receiving payments from retailers. Producers cut production because sales are plummeting.
In every country that has passed through such a period, the government has eventually gotten out of the way, and the free market has prevailed, re-energizing the industry and creating a return to normal. The question is not whether civilization will come to an end. (It will not.) The question is the liveability of a society that is experiencing a food crisis, as even the best of people are likely to panic and become a potential threat to anyone who is known to store a case of soup in his cellar.
Fear of starvation is fundamentally different from other fears of shortages. Even good people panic. In such times, it’s advantageous to be living in a rural setting, as far from the centre of panic as possible. It’s also advantageous to store food in advance that will last for several months, if necessary. However, even these measures are no guarantee, as, today, modern highways and efficient cars make it easy for anyone to travel quickly to where the goods are. The ideal is to be prepared to sit out the crisis in a country that will be less likely to be impacted by dramatic inflation – where the likelihood of a food crisis is low and basic safety is more assured.”
"The 20 Pioneer Foods That Will Become Your Only Lifeline When SHTF and the Shelves Bleed Empty"
"The 20 Pioneer Foods That Will Become Your Only
Lifeline When SHTF and the Shelves Bleed Empty"
by John Walter
Excerpt: "Unthinkable numbers emerged from a recent agricultural consortium report - seventy-two hours separates metropolitan abundance from absolute scarcity. Not a season. Not a month. Three days of illusion before grocery stores transform from cornucopias into stripped metal skeletons. Analysts who’ve spent careers mapping supply chain fragility now whisper about older methods, buried beneath fluorescent hum and barcode scanners. Methods that predate refrigeration, globalization, chemical preservation. Methods forged by bleeding hands on the frontier.
Those iron-willed migrants who carved settlements from wilderness didn’t merely survive -they established systems of sustenance that modern palates find alien, perhaps repulsive. Yet these foods represent the only viable bridge between starvation and survival when infrastructure evaporates. Climate cascades, economic tremors, geopolitical fault lines conspire to render current food paradigms obsolete with terrifying velocity. When rupture occurs, when trucks stop running and freezers warm into silence, we won’t return as poets or philosophers. We’ll crawl back as scavengers, desperate to remember what great-great-grandmothers knew by heart.
Wrestling nourishment from decay becomes necessity. Coaxing calories from stubborn earth returns as skill. Storing summer’s abundance against winter’s starvation reemerges as survival itself. This isn’t nostalgia. It’s archaeology of the inevitable.
Twenty Provisions That Will Outlast the Grid: Below lie staples that separated living from dead during America’s westward expansion. Each entry represents technology of survival - methods for converting time, labor, and landscape into continued existence. These aren’t comfort recipes. They’re persistence blueprints."
Full, most highly recommended article is here:
Adventures With Danno, "Massive Savings At Sam's Club"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 8/23/26
"Massive Savings At Sam's Club"
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Saturday, August 22, 2026
"This Heat Dome Just Did Something Forecasters Didn't See Coming"
Full screen recommended.
Cloud Brief, 8/22/26
"This Heat Dome Just Did Something
Forecasters Didn't See Coming"
"This heat dome just did something forecasters didn’t see coming, as an unexpected shift in the atmospheric pattern could rapidly change the temperature outlook across parts of the United States. Heat domes can trap hot air beneath persistent high pressure, but changes in upper-level winds, moisture, and pressure can cause the pattern to evolve in ways that alter both heat intensity and storm risk. In this video, we break down the immediate weather developments, what changed in the heat dome, and why forecasters are paying close attention to the latest atmospheric signals. We’ll examine temperature anomalies, high-pressure systems, changing wind patterns, and the potential impacts on communities facing extreme heat or severe weather."
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Musical Interlude: 2002, "Children In Time"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Children In Time"
“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of Infinity. Life is Eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in Eternity.”
- Paulo Coelho
"A Look to the Heavens"
“This colorful skyscape features the dusty, reddish glow of Sharpless catalog emission region Sh2-155, the Cave Nebula. About 2,400 light-years away, the scene lies along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus.
Astronomical explorations of the region reveal that it has formed at the boundary of the massive Cepheus B molecular cloud and the hot, young, blue stars of the Cepheus OB 3 association. The bright rim of ionized hydrogen gas is energized by the radiation from the hot stars, dominated by the bright blue O-type star above picture center. Radiation driven ionization fronts are likely triggering collapsing cores and new star formation within. Appropriately sized for a stellar nursery, the cosmic cave is over 10 light-years across.”
"I Hope I End Up..."
“I don’t want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don’t want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, “Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case.” I will turn and say to them, “It is you who are the basket case! For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn’t even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!” And maybe, the passersby will drop a coin into my cup.”
- Henry Rollins
Some might say I've arrived at that destination...lol
The Poet: Czeslaw Milosz, “A Song On The End Of The World”
“A Song On The End Of The World”
“On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.”
~ Czeslaw Milosz
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