Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, October 31, 2024
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Why does this galaxy have such a long tail? In this stunning vista, based on image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive, distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The cosmic tadpole is a mere 420 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation of the Dragon (Draco). Its eye-catching tail is about 280 thousand light-years long and features massive, bright blue star clusters.
One story goes that a more compact intruder galaxy crossed in front of Arp 188 - from right to left in this view - and was slung around behind the Tadpole by their gravitational attraction. During the close encounter, tidal forces drew out the spiral galaxy's stars, gas, and dust forming the spectacular tail. The intruder galaxy itself, estimated to lie about 300 thousand light-years behind the Tadpole, can be seen through foreground spiral arms at the upper right. Following its terrestrial namesake, the Tadpole Galaxy will likely lose its tail as it grows older, the tail's star clusters forming smaller satellites of the large spiral galaxy."
Chet Raymo, "The Meaning Of Life"
"The Meaning Of Life"
by Chet Raymo
"There is only one meaning of life, the act of living itself."
– Erich Fromm
"I had heard from a high-school student in the midwest who had read my book 'Skeptics and True Believers,' in which, as you may know, I take to task all forms of faith that lack an empirical basis, including astrology and supernaturalist religion. He writes: "Are we just meaningless beasts roaming a meaningless Earth with the sole purpose of popping out babies so we can raise them to live longer, more meaningless lives?"
A good question, the best question. What we have learned about our place on Earth does indeed suggest that we are beasts, related even in our DNA and molecular chemistry to other animals. And, yes, the driving purpose of all animal life would seem to be "popping out babies." But our uniquely complex human brains allow us to be more than beasts, more than baby-poppers. As far as we know, humans are the most complex thing in the universe, and in our desire to gain reliable knowledge of the universe the universe becomes conscious of itself.
As for myself, I don't need stars or gods to give my life meaning. I work at meaning every day, in the love of family and friends, in caring for my own little pieces of the Earth, in art, in science, and in making myself conscious of the mystery and beauty - and terror - of the cosmos.
"Or is there a possibility that there may be more?" asks my midwestern correspondent. Yes, there is almost certainly more to existence than what we have yet learned. Just think how much more we know than did our pre-scientific ancestors. But that still greater knowledge will have to wait for minds other than my own. My children and grandchildren will know far more than I, and in that growing human storehouse of reliable knowledge I hope they will find some greater measure of meaning.
In the meantime, I attend to the fox that sometimes walks across my windowsill, the morning glory seedlings that reach achingly for the sun, and the moon that hangs like a great milky eye in the sky. Francis Bacon said that what a man would like to be true, he preferentially believes. That's a mistake I try to avoid. I choose instead to believe what my senses tell me to be palpably true."
A good question, the best question. What we have learned about our place on Earth does indeed suggest that we are beasts, related even in our DNA and molecular chemistry to other animals. And, yes, the driving purpose of all animal life would seem to be "popping out babies." But our uniquely complex human brains allow us to be more than beasts, more than baby-poppers. As far as we know, humans are the most complex thing in the universe, and in our desire to gain reliable knowledge of the universe the universe becomes conscious of itself.
As for myself, I don't need stars or gods to give my life meaning. I work at meaning every day, in the love of family and friends, in caring for my own little pieces of the Earth, in art, in science, and in making myself conscious of the mystery and beauty - and terror - of the cosmos.
"Or is there a possibility that there may be more?" asks my midwestern correspondent. Yes, there is almost certainly more to existence than what we have yet learned. Just think how much more we know than did our pre-scientific ancestors. But that still greater knowledge will have to wait for minds other than my own. My children and grandchildren will know far more than I, and in that growing human storehouse of reliable knowledge I hope they will find some greater measure of meaning.
In the meantime, I attend to the fox that sometimes walks across my windowsill, the morning glory seedlings that reach achingly for the sun, and the moon that hangs like a great milky eye in the sky. Francis Bacon said that what a man would like to be true, he preferentially believes. That's a mistake I try to avoid. I choose instead to believe what my senses tell me to be palpably true."
- http://www.sciencemusings.com/
" I Used to Be Disgusted, Now I'm Just Tired"
" I Used to Be Disgusted, Now I'm Just Tired"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"The Presidential election, the “most important elections of our lifetimes,” will soon be over. Whoever wins, it isn’t really going to change much. Today’s system is simply too deeply entrenched. While the much-touted differences between America's political parties get obsessive, hysterical attention, the sameness of Imperial corruption, waste and squalor regardless of who's in power gets little notice.
Scrape away the differences - mostly in domestic and cultural issues - and we see the dead hand of Imperial Corruption is on the tiller. The core of Imperial Corruption is the disconnect between the nation's ideals of representational democracy and open markets and the sordid reality: elites serve their interests by corrupting both democracy and open markets.
Elites Against Democracy: Unfettered democracy and markets cannot be controlled by a tiny, self-serving elite. Stripped of corruption, democracy and markets are free-for-alls that are constantly evolving. This open-ended dynamism is the beating heart of both democracy and open markets. But the dynamic adaptive churn of unfettered representative democracy and open markets are anathema to insiders, vested interests and elites. Each has gained asymmetric power by subverting democracy and markets to serve their private interests. They’ve destroyed the system’s natural dynamism.
When "competition" has been reduced to two telecoms, two healthcare insurers, two pork processors, etc., the system has been stripped of adaptability and resilience. Democracy has been replaced by an auction of political power to the highest bidder.
Everything’s Up for Grabs: It rewards cronies and devotes all its resources not to solving the nation's problems but to whipping up conflagrations of divisiveness and partisan hysteria that wash away the middle ground where problems can actually be addressed. This crippling of the nation's ability to actually solve difficult problems serves the interests of self-serving elites whose sole interest is accumulating personal wealth and power.
Their proclaimed interest in solving the nations' real-world problems are fraudulent tissues designed to hide the putrid reality that all their so-called "solutions" distill down to sluicing huge sums of state money to cronies and campaign contributors under the guise of "solving problems."
The only "problem" America's elites know how to solve is the "problem" of how to get personally richer while tightening their control of the nation-state's vast flood of (taxed/ borrowed) money. Cronies and contributors get tax breaks hidden in 1,000-page legislation and overflowing rivers of money (here's looking at you, Big Pharma, Big Defense, Higher Education, Sickcare, et al.).
Masters at Misdirection and Distraction: America's elites are masters at misdirection and distraction: it's always the other side's fault that the nation is sliding down the chute. The elites don't really care which side is in power, as they control them both to serve their own interests. Any advance that increases efficiency and productivity and furthers the public good is squelched, suppressed or co-opted by vested interests. They fear, rightly, that their share of the spoils might be diminished by advances that render obsolete their particular cartel, monopoly or other embedded skim, scam, fraud, embezzlement or simply unproductive dead weight.
But something funny happens on the way to gaining control of complex emerging systems: that control destroys the system's self-correcting mechanisms and adaptability. Rigging the system to serve one's own interests destroys the system's ability to adapt to changing circumstances and selective pressures.
Adapt or Die: Once a system has been crippled to serve the interest of an elite, when forced to adapt or die, it can only die as its mechanisms of adaptation were destroyed by the power-grab of elites. An economy dominated by a handful of cartels and quasi-monopolies is an economy that is doomed to slide into the dustbin of history, as cartels and monopolies "win" by crushing competition, as competition threatens their profits and control of markets and governance, a.k.a. "democracy."
Any system that serves the interests of the few by choking off adaptability and the dynamisms of a free-for-all churn lacks the tools needed to avoid systemic collapse. By enabling elites to organize the nation to serve their personal interests, America has been stripped of the dynamics needed to adapt. Without these dynamics, collapse is the only possible outcome.
Don’t Forget the Deep State! But no mention of today’s “democracy” can ignore the Deep State - the unelected and unaccountable Administrative State. The Administrative State has existed in some form in every nation-state/empire, but the U.S. Deep State only gained its vast global powers in World War II and the Cold War. That was when the Deep State learned the lesson that the public can’t always be counted on to do “the right thing.” They may choose unwisely (for example, choosing appeasement over preparation). And so the really important decisions needed to preserve the nation cannot be left to the public or parochial politicos in elected office. Those decisions must be in the hands of those who know what has to be done.
Democracy is simply the rubber stamp for doing what's necessary. Beyond that, it's a potentially fatal hindrance. That's the mindset of the Deep State, and if you and I were in upper-echelon positions in the Administrative State, we'd agree with this mindset when things get serious.
Trump: Why do you think they were so opposed to Donald Trump? Whatever you think of Trump personally, or what I think of him personally, is completely beside the point. This isn’t about politics. The fact is, the Deep State perceives him as a grave threat to its interests and is doing everything it can to stop him.
This mindset is a self-reinforcing group-think feedback loop. Those who believe the public should set policy are weeded out, either by self-selection or via being sent to bureaucratic Siberia. We're protecting you. That's all you need to know.
This opens the door to functionaries who came to do good but stayed to do well, i.e. those with the right credentials and connections to enter the Power Circle to "serve the public" but soon become insiders maximizing their own private gains. That's the problem with the Administrative State: it's ultimately unaccountable, not just to the public or elected officials but to itself.
Enjoy the Circus: But in the meantime, enjoy the political theatrics we’ve been treated to down on the sand-strewn floor of the Coliseum. While Imperial Corruption undermines what's left of the nation's ability to adapt fast enough and successfully enough to survive what lies ahead, we can cheer the "winners" of the political bloodsport. We can simply ignore the winds of disorder sweeping the land.
It seems like it can just go on forever. But everything is forever until systemic weaknesses reveal themselves, typically at the most inopportune junctures. We could well be at one of them. It's easy to be disgusted. But I’ve found that being disabused of the fantasy that the system is self-correcting is the healthier perspective. I used to be infuriated by it all. Now I'm just tired of it all."
Jeremiah Babe, "Demonic Forces Attacking The President; Mass Looting In Los Angeles; Evictions Soar"
Jeremiah Babe, 10/31/24
"Demonic Forces Attacking The President;
Mass Looting In Los Angeles; Evictions Soar"
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Stores Are Closing Everywhere, Very Sad News"
Adventures With Danno, PM 10/31/24
"Stores Are Closing Everywhere, Very Sad News"
Comments here:
"The Monstrous Thing..."
"The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured - disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui - in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off."
- Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer”
Freely download “Tropic of Cancer”, by Henry Miller, here:
Gerald Celente, "Idiot's Delight: A Geopolitical And Socioeconomic Freak Show"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 10/31/24
"Idiot's Delight:
A Geopolitical And Socioeconomic Freak Show"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing
global current events forming future trends."
Comments here:
"Bamboozled..."
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. "
- Carl Sagan
"Why Can’t We Thrive Like 1905?"
"Why Can’t We Thrive Like 1905?"
by Paul Rosenberg
"When writing historical things, I try to include perspective from people who actually lived through the events. And for money issues in the US, I’m able to do that back to about 1905. So, do you think life was nasty, brutish, and short in 1905? That there were poor and starving people falling dead on every street corner? Hardly.
The Wright brothers were flying for 30 minutes at a crack; Einstein was upgrading the laws of physics; telephones and electric lights were being installed all across America; Henry Ford was getting the final pieces in place for his moving assembly line and Model T; radio was being developed; art was flourishing; and the world was more or less at peace.
Sure, we have far more tech and better medicine now, but mostly because the people of earlier times (like the 1905 era) gifted it to us. People in 1905 lived in heated homes, refrigerated their food, had access to professional physicians, traveled the world (mostly on trains and ships), read daily newspapers (there were many more of them in those days), watched early movies, and ate just about the same foods we eat.
So, was it really that bad a time? No, it wasn’t. In fact, it was better in important ways, and one in particular: It was moving rapidly forward.
Money In The USA: Facts: Consider this: The working person of 1905 kept his or her money. They ended up saving somewhere between a quarter and a half of everything they made – after living expenses. It’s hard to be completely precise when reconstructing the budgets of average people in 1905 (records are hard to find), but we do have enough for a good, close guess. Here’s how finance worked for a working family man of 1905:
Annual income: $700.00
Annual expenses: ($350.00)
Annual savings: $350.00
If you’re thinking that I’m taking liberties with these numbers, let me assure you that I’m not – I’m being conservative. For example:The income figure should probably be higher. I’ve found figures of well over $800 for construction workers. As for expenses, I rounded up from a New York Times article, dated 29 September, 1907. It specified $325 per year. Added to that is the fact that many people grew their own food during that time, which would skew the figures further.
As noted initially, I compared these numbers with stories I heard from relatives who lived through the time. My uncle Dave, for example, used to tell me how he got a job paying $390 per year sweeping floors, as an unskilled immigrant who spoke almost no English, in 1903.
The next time you drive through an old part of town and see the grand old houses, remember that people were able to build and buy them because their paychecks weren’t stripped bare. There were no income taxes in 1905, no sales taxes, no state taxes, and not much in the way of property taxes. There was also no such thing as a military-industrial complex in those days, and – miracle of miracles – the rest of the world survived!
And Now… As you know, today’s situation is much different. The average working family pays about half their income in combined taxes: income taxes (to the state and the Feds), payroll taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, utility bill taxes, sales tax, local taxes, and on and on. So, figuring an average income of just over $50,000 (that’s a 2011 figure). And combined taxes of about $25,000, the average American family is left to pay bills like these:
Mortgage $11,000
Car payments $6,000
Gas, repairs, etc. $2,500
Property taxes $2,500
Food $3,000
Total $25,000
That leaves people zeroed-out. And again, I’m being conservative: I haven’t included a number of smaller expenses, and that huge numbers of people are deeply in debt.
If Great Grandpa Could Do It… Our great grandfathers faced very few of the taxes that we face. (The government survived on tariffs.) There was no social security either, and – believe it or not – the streets were never full of starving old people. Families were able to take care of their own – it’s not that hard when you’re saving half of your income! We have forgotten that it was once possible for an average person to accumulate money. The truth is that productive people should be comfortable. Well-off, as they used to say. So, why can’t we thrive like it’s 1905? You might want to hold that question in mind."
Bill Bonner, "Trick or Treat?"
The character 'Leatherface’ from the movie
‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’.
"Trick or Treat?"
All governments are really ways for the elite few to lord over off the non-elite many.
They tax. They spend. They hand out money to their clients and cronies. They inflate.
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - "Elections are sordid and preposterous affairs. But they are funny too. They seem to concentrate absurdity, mendacity, and stupidity, like the rays of the sun focused through a magnifying glass. The amusing thing is that everyone is in on it. It’s like the World Series in which everyone’s home team is in the playoffs. The fans show their colors — red or blue. They wave their flags and flaunt their slogans. They put signs in their front yards, to show the neighbors which side they are on.
So let us do our part by asking a simple question: does it matter? Former Ambassador Chas. Freeman: "It doesn’t seem to matter which political party controls the House or Senate. Congress still can’t pass a budget or otherwise set national priorities. When it’s not shut down, our government runs on credit rollovers. Our debt is out of control. So far this century, we’ve committed almost $6 trillion to wars we don’t know how to end. "
Still, the outcome of the 2024 elections may have an effect - especially on our money. We need to be alert. So, here’s the Executive Summary: Ms. Harris offers ‘more of the same.’ With her, we will continue our odyssey of war, inflation, bankruptcy and jackassery. Mr. Trump offers something different. On foreign policy, his ‘Big Man,’ tough guy approach may make things better... or worse. And on domestic matters he is likely to lead us into the same financial debacle as Ms. Harris... but perhaps sooner. More tomorrow... in the meantime...
‘Dere’s dem dat’s smart... and dem dat’s good,’ said Uncle Remus. But in this contest, both candidates are neither good nor smart. And so what? Adolf Hitler didn’t have to be good or smart; he just had to refrain from invading other countries and killing people. And, today, we have a monument to Abraham Lincoln in Washington because he had more firepower than Jeff Davis, not because he was gooder or smarter.
All governments are really ways for the elite few to lord over off the non-elite many. They tax. They spend. They hand out money to their clients and cronies. They inflate. They bungle. They boondoggle. They bribe. They bully. And they kill. Almost everything a government does is evil, stupid, or inefficient. The best leaders are those who do the least of it. But neither of today’s candidates is proposing to cut back.
Getting control of the US government means getting your hands on $6+ trillion of annual slush. A big prize. To get it, the leading parties typically ‘run to the center,’ courting the moderate, middle-of-the-road voters... ending up with policies that are more or less tolerable to most people.
But the center is the ‘more of the same’ that Donald Trump is running against. Like Milei in Argentina, he’s the ‘chainsaw candidate.’ Milei, though, has a well-developed set of free-market principles to guide him. Trump does not. He has the chainsaw, but doesn’t know what to do with it.
Mr. Trump rose to prominence largely by spending his father’s money... and developing an anti-elite patois that made him attractive to the masses. He put his name everywhere he could - on casinos, hotels, airlines, universities – most of which went broke. He ran full-page ads in the New York Times. And he prepared himself for today’s role by hiring a ruthless mentor - Roy Cohn.
Cohn, as a young man, was toughened up by visiting his uncle in Sing Sing... and perhaps just by being a homosexual at an inconvenient time. He eventually died of AIDS, but not before showing Donald Trump his signature tactic. Cohn ignored the issues, the principles and the law... he simply attacked anyone who got in his way. This approach was later immortalized in Trump’s ghosted 1987 handbook, "The Art of the Deal." If someone hits you, he advised, you hit back ‘ten times as hard.’
This Big Man mantra, unrestrained by grace, experience or truth, is the essence of the Trump personality. It relies neither on historical perspective, ideology, nor traditional values. Instead, it relies on the ‘will to power’ of the great man himself, with his instincts... his cronies... and his personal genius.
John Flynn says ‘he’s the most flawed human being’ he has ever known. Mitch McConnell says he is ‘despicable.’ He ‘tries to divide us,’ said James Mattis. ‘... he’s unfit for office,’ said Mark Esper. ‘...a laughing fool,’ added John Bolton. Tom Bossert: ‘...an utter disgrace.’ ‘A domestic terrorist’ - Anthony Scaramucci.
But if he balanced the budget and stopped the wars, would we care if he were a jerk? And Ms. Harris? Is she likable? Is she a paragon of virtue... a pillar of wisdom and rectitude... or a slimy California hustler? Was it her fault she was Willie Brown’s girlfriend and that he decided to launch her into politics? And it was just remarkable luck that she was available when East coast white guy, Joe Biden, needed a West coast DEI vice president. And it wasn’t she who made her boss shuffle and slur just months before the election... leaving her as the only viable replacement. And now, there she is, an empty boat…ready to go in whatever direction the elites steer her.
So, enjoy the show. Wave the flag. Blow a horn. Send a contribution. Available on the internet is a tee-shirt you can purchase for someone’s birthday, with a quotation from Kamala Harris’s pensee: “The important thing to remember about this birthday was that on this day there was a birth, and that someone was born on this day.”
Or maybe you’d prefer a Trump tee-shirt with this quote: "They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the pets of the people who live there."
Mr. Trump is supposed to be the ignorant oaf - a description that is hard to argue with. But Ms. Harris is supposed to be educated and intelligent. Kamala tried to pry that gap wider on Monday, starting out with this: “There’s a big difference between he and I,” Harris told reporters... Huh? Where did she go to school? ‘Between’ is a preposition. It should be followed by the ‘objective’ pronouns... him and me... not he and I. A small thing, for sure. Makes no difference to the fate of the nation. But it highlights our conclusion for today: Both candidates are ignorant scalawags. More to come on the financial consequences of the 2024 election tomorrow."
The Poet: Charles Bukowski, "Darkness Falls"
"Darkness Falls"
"Darkness falls upon Humanity
and faces become terrible things
that wanted more than there was.
All our days are marked with
unexpected affronts -
some disastrous, others less so,
but the process is
wearing and continuous.
Attrition rules.
Most give way,
leaving empty spaces
where people should be.
And now,
as we ready to self-destruct,
there is very little left to kill,
which makes the tragedy
less and more,
much, much more. "
- Charles Bukowski
"The Middle East: War"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 10/31/24
"AMB. Chas Freeman: Will Israel Self-Destruct?"
Comments here:
o
Dialogue Works, 10/31/24
"Prof. Ted Postol: Israel’s Situation is
Getting Worse by the Day - Israel vs Iran/Hezbollah"
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "Buyers are Taking a Pause"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 10/31/24
"Buyers are Taking a Pause"
"I dive into the unfolding real estate crisis! Buyers are hitting pause on spending as high interest rates and skyrocketing property taxes create roadblocks. DR Horton, the world's largest home builder, faces setbacks with canceled contracts and a stock drop. We also explore the impact of insurance woes, local tax hikes, and how these factors are shaking up the market. Plus, Wing Stop, McDonald's, and even Subway are feeling the pinch as economic challenges ripple across all industries. "
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Adventures With Danno, "Scary Good Deals At Kroger"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 10/31/24
"Scary Good Deals At Kroger"
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Wednesday, October 30, 2024
"Ray Dalio Warns Of Social Unrest Post Election; Americans Are Working 3 Jobs And Have No Money"
Jeremiah Babe, 10/30/24
"Ray Dalio Warns Of Social Unrest Post Election;
Americans Are Working 3 Jobs And Have No Money"
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Adventures With Danno, "I Don't Really Know How To Explain This, This Is Overwhelming"
Adventures With Danno, PM 10/30/24
"I Don't Really Know How To Explain This,
This Is Overwhelming"
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"Scott Ritter & Ray McGovern: Iran & Hezbollah Crushing IDF, Israel Losing on All Fronts"
Danny Haiphong, 10/30/24
"Scott Ritter & Ray McGovern:
Iran & Hezbollah Crushing IDF, Israel Losing on All Fronts"
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"A Look to the Heavens"
"No, hamburgers are not this big. What is pictured is a sharp telescopic view of a magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628, a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep galactic portrait puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, The Hamburger Galaxy.
The tantalizing island universe is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo. NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local Universe with two other large spirals M65 and M66 in a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for the extended flare and warp of this spiral's disk.”
The Poet: David Wagoner, "Getting There"
"Getting There"
"You take a final step and, look, suddenly
You're there. You've arrived.
At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for:
This common ground
Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone.
What did you want to be?
You'll remember soon.
You feel like tinder under a burning glass,
A luminous point of change.
The sky is pulsing against the cracked horizon,
Holding it firm till the arrival of stars
In time with your heartbeats.
Like wind etching rock, you've made a lasting impression
On the self you were,
By having come all this way through all this welter
Under your own power,
Though your traces on a map would make an unpromising
Meandering lifeline.
What have you learned so far? You'll find out later,
Telling it haltingly like a dream,
That lost traveler's dream under the last hill
Where through the night you'll take your time out of mind
To unburden yourself
Of elements along elementary paths
By the break of morning.
You've earned this worn-down, hard, incredible sight
Called Here and Now.
Now, what you make of it means everything,
Means starting over:
The life in your hands is neither here nor there
But getting there,
So you're standing again and breathing, beginning another
Journey without regret
Forever, being your own unpeaceable kingdom,
The end of endings."
~ David Wagoner
Chet Raymo, “Learning And Yearning”
“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."
Travelling with Russell, "I Went to a Brand New Russian Shopping Mall in 2024"
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 10/30/24
"I Went to a Brand New Russian Shopping Mall in 2024"
"Odipark Shopping Centre is the newest shopping mall to open in Moscow, Russia. What does a brand-new Shopping mall in Russia look like in 2024 after 981 days of sanctions?"
Comments here:
"At Last..."
“At last, the answer why. The lesson that had been so hard to find, so difficult to learn, came quick and clear and simple. The reason for problems is to overcome them. Why, that’s the very nature of man, I thought, to press past limits, to prove his freedom. It isn’t the challenge that faces us, that determines who we are and what we are becoming, but the way we meet the challenge, whether we toss a match at the wreck or work our way through it, step by step, to freedom.”
- Richard Bach, “Nothing by Chance”
"Ray McGovern: Israel's Unstoppable Downfall? Total Collapse Looming on All Fronts!"
Dialogue Works, 10/30/24
"Ray McGovern: Israel's Unstoppable Downfall?
Total Collapse Looming on All Fronts!"
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Chris Hedges, "Genocidal Scorecard"
"Genocidal Scorecard"
The latest U.N. report chronicles Israel’s advances in its genocidal
assault in Gaza. Israel is intent, the report warns, on expelling
the Palestinians, recolonizing Gaza and turning on the West Bank.
by Chris Hedges
"A United Nations report, published on Monday, lays out in chilling detail the advances made by Israel in Gaza as it seeks to eradicate “the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine.” This genocidal project, the report ominously warns, “is now metastasizing to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
The Nakba or “catastrophe,” which in 1948 saw Zionist militias drive 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, carry out more than 70 massacres and seize 78 percent of historic Palestine, has returned on steroids. It is the next and, perhaps, final chapter in “a long-term intentional, systematic, State-organized forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians.”
Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, who issued the report, titled “Genocide as colonial erasure,” makes an urgent appeal to the international community to impose a full arms embargo and sanctions on Israel until the genocide of Palestinians is halted. She calls on Israel to accept a permanent ceasefire. She demands that Israel, as required by international law and U.N. resolutions, withdraw its military and colonists from Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
At the very least, Israel, unchecked, should be formally recognized as an apartheid state and persistent violator of international law, Albanese states. The U.N. should reactivate the Special Committee Against Apartheid to address the situation in Palestine, and Israel’s membership in the U.N. should be suspended. Short of these interventions, Israel’s goal, Albanese warns, will likely come into fruition. You can see my interview with Albanese here.
“This ongoing genocide is doubtlessly the consequence of the exceptional status and protracted impunity that has been afforded to Israel.” she writes. “Israel has systematically and flagrantly violated international law, including Security Council resolutions and [International Criminal Court] ICJ orders. This has emboldened the hubris of Israel and its defiance of international law. As the ICC Prosecutor has warned, ‘if we do not demonstrate our willingness to apply the law equally, if it is seen as applied selectively, we will be creating the conditions of its complete collapse. This is the true risk we face at this perilous moment.’”
The U.N. report comes amid an Israeli blockade of northern Gaza where over 400,000 Palestinians are enduring a starvation siege and constant airstrikes in an attempt to depopulate the north. Israeli forces have killed 1,250 Palestinians in the assault, launched on October 5, a medical source told Al Jazeera. Reports from northern Gaza are difficult to obtain as internet and phone services have been cut and the few journalists on the ground continue to be killed. Israel’s ground and aerial assaults are centered on Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun. Civil defense units say they have been barred by Israeli forces from reaching the sites of recent strikes and their crews have been attacked.
Israel has ordered Palestinians to flee to designated “safe zones,” but once in these “safe zones” they have been attacked and ordered to move to new “safe zones.” “Displaced people have been systematically chased down and targeted in shelters, including in United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) schools, 70 percent of which Israel has repeatedly attacked.”
In May, Israel’s Rafah invasion caused the displacement of nearly one million Palestinians, driven into southern Gaza because of Israeli evacuation orders, into “uninhabitable wastelands of rubble, sewage and decomposing bodies,” Albanese notes. By August, 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians were displaced “under dire conditions,” according to the U.N.
The months of “relentless shunting of weakened humans from one unsafe area to another - fleeing bombs and bullets, with minimal chances of escape, amid loss, fear and grief, and with little access to shelter, clean water, food and healthcare - have inflicted incalculable harm, especially on children,” the report reads. “The movement of displaced Palestinians resembles the death marches of past genocides, and the Nakba. Forced displacement severs connection with the land, undermining food sovereignty and cultural belonging, and triggering further displacement. Communal bonds are broken, the social fabric shredded and reserves of resilience depleted. Systematic forced displacement contributes to ‘the destruction of the spirit, of the will to live, and of life itself.’”
The constant displacement - many Palestinians have been displaced nine or 10 times - from one part of Gaza to another is accompanied by calls from Israeli officials to “renew settlements in Gaza” and encourage the “voluntary transfer of all Gazan citizens” to other countries.
Israel has killed at least 43,163 people in Gaza and wounded 101,510 in Israeli attacks since October 7, 2023. An estimated 1,139 people were killed – some by Israeli forces – in Israel during the incursion by armed Palestinian fighters into Israel and more than 200 were taken captive. In Lebanon, at least 2,787 people have been killed and 12,772 wounded since the Israeli assault on Gaza began, with 77 killed in strikes across the country on Tuesday alone.
The report found evidence that Israel has carried out “more than 93 massacres.” U.N. investigators concede the numbers of dead in Gaza are probably a vast undercount given that at least 10,000 people, including 4,000 children, are missing, probably buried under the rubble, where “the voices of those trapped and dying are often audible.” Other Palestinians, an “uncertain number,” have been seized by Israel forces and “disappeared.”
Israel has repeatedly attacked aid distribution sites, tent encampments, hospitals, schools and markets “through the indiscriminate use of aerial and sniper fire.” The report notes that “at least 13,000 children, including more than 700 babies, have been killed, many shot in the head and chest” while approximately “22,500 Palestinians have sustained life-changing injuries.”
“The disturbing frequency and callousness of the killing of people known to be civilians are ‘emblematic of the systematic nature’ of a destructive intent,” the report reads. “Six-year-old Hind Rajab, killed with 355 bullets after pleading for help for hours; the fatal mauling by dogs of Muhammed Bhar, who had Down’s Syndrome; the execution of Atta Ibrahim Al-Muqaid, an older deaf man, in his home, later bragged about by his killer and other soldiers on social media; the premature babies deliberately left to die a slow death and decompose in the intensive care unit at Al-Nasr Hospital; the elderly man, Bashir Hajji, killed en route to southern Gaza after appearing in a propaganda photograph of a ‘safe corridor;’ Abu al-Ola, the handcuffed hostage shot by a sniper after being sent into Nasser Hospital with evacuation orders. When the dust settles on Gaza, the true extent of the horror experienced by Palestinians will become known.”
The genocide has turned the landscape into a toxic wasteland. “Nearly 40 million tons of debris, including unexploded ordnance and human remains, contaminate the ecosystem,” the report goes on. “More than 140 temporary waste sites and 340,000 tons of waste, untreated wastewater and sewage overflow contribute to the spread of diseases such as hepatitis A, respiratory infections, diarrhea and skin diseases. As Israeli leaders promised, Gaza has been made unfit for human life.”
In a further blow, the Israeli parliament on Monday approved a bill to ban UNRWA, a lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza, from operating on Israeli territory and areas under Israel’s control. The ban almost certainly ensures the collapse of aid distribution, already crippled, in Gaza. As of Oct. 20, 233 UNRWA workers have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, making it the deadliest conflict for U.N. workers.
Israel has expanded its “buffer zone” along the Gaza perimeter to 16 percent of the territory, in the process leveling homes, apartment blocks and farms. It has pushed over 84 percent of the 2.3 million people in Gaza into “a shrinking, unsafe ‘humanitarian zone’ covering 12.6 percent of a territory now reconfigured in preparation for annexation.” Satellite imagery indicates that the Israeli military has built roads and military bases in over 26 percent of Gaza, “suggesting the aim of a permanent presence.”
The blockade of food is accompanied by the destruction of water treatment plants, sewage systems, reservoirs, aid convoys, healthcare facilities and food distribution points - crowds of desperate people waiting for food “have been massacred” by Israeli soldiers.
Israel has all but obliterated medical facilities and services in Gaza. It has damaged 32 of 36 hospitals, with 20 hospitals and 70 of 119 primary healthcare centers incapacitated. By this August it had attacked healthcare facilities 492 times. Israel besieged Al-Shifa Hospital for the second time in March and April, killing more than 400 people and detaining 300, including doctors, patients, displaced persons and civil servants. It carried out a forced evacuation of all but 100 of 650 patients in Al-Aqsa hospital.
“In August,” the report reads, “entry permits for humanitarian organizations nearly halved. Access to water has been restricted to a quarter of pre-7 October levels. Approximately 93 per cent of the agricultural, forestry and fishing economies has been destroyed; 95 per cent of Palestinians face high levels of acute food insecurity, and deprivation for decades to come.”
“In recent months, 83 percent of food aid was prevented from entering Gaza, and the civilian police in Rafah were repeatedly targeted, impairing distribution,” the report notes. “At least 34 deaths from malnutrition were recorded by 14 September 2024.” These measures “indicate an intent to destroy its population through starvation.”
Palestinians detained by Israeli forces “have been systematically abused in a network of Israeli torture camps. Thousands have disappeared, many after being detained in appalling conditions, often bound to beds, blindfolded and in diapers, deprived of medical treatment, subjected to unsanitary conditions, starvation, torturous cuffing, severe beatings, electrocution and sexual assault by both humans and animals. At least 48 detainees have died in custody.”
The report cites the role of the Israeli media in “inciting” the genocide “by helping to foster an unchecked genocidal climate.” The report criticizes the Israeli media for platforming “proponents of genocide” and withholding “facts from the Israeli public.” At the same time, the Israeli military has killed over 130 Palestinian journalists. Palestinians are equated with the Amalek, the Biblical enemies of the Israelites, as well as Nazis, to justify their extermination.
Albanese’s report, in a section titled “Risk of genocide in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” notes that Israel has accelerated its lethal attacks, detentions and land seizures in the West Bank. “Genocidal conduct in Gaza set an ominous precedent for the West Bank,” it notes.
In May 2024, the governance of the West Bank was “officially transferred from military to civilian authorities - further de jure annexation - and placed under [Bezalel] Smotrich, a committed Eretz Yisrael politician,” the report reads. “The largest single land appropriation in 30 years was then approved.”
Smotrich, the Minister of Finance, claims there are “two million Nazis” in the West Bank. He has threatened to turn parts of the West Bank into “ruined cities like in the Gaza strip” and stated that starving the entire Gaza population was “justified and moral,” even if two million people died. Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz has also called for the West Bank to receive the same treatment as Gaza.
Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank towns of Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, Tubas and Tulkarem live for days under curfew, making it difficult to access food and water. As in Gaza, the Israeli army, during its Operation Summer Camps, has “targeted ambulances, blocked entrances to hospitals and laid siege to Jenin Hospital. Bulldozers destroyed streets and electricity and public health infrastructure.”
Drones and war planes carry out airstrikes. Israeli roadblocks, checkpoints and blockades make travel difficult or impossible. Israel has suspended financial transfers to the Palestinian Authority, which nominally governs the West Bank in collaboration with Israel. It has revoked 148,000 work permits for those who had jobs in Israel.
“The gross domestic product (GDP) of the West Bank contracted by 22.7 percent, nearly 30 percent of businesses have closed, and 292,000 jobs have been lost,” the report reads. Over 692 Palestinians - “10 times the previous 14 years’ annual average of 69 fatalities,” have been killed and more than 5,000 have been injured. Of the 169 Palestinian children who have been killed, “nearly 80 percent were shot in the head or the torso.”
Since August, in the Jenin refugee camp “approximately 180 homes were levelled and 3,800 structures damaged, destroying or damaging power supplies, public services and amenities, displacing thousands of families and causing widespread disruption. More than 181,000 Palestinians have been affected, many multiple times.”
The report dismisses the claim that Israel is carrying out the assault in Gaza and the West Bank to “defend itself,” “eradicate Hamas” or “bring the hostages home,” charging that these claims are “camouflage,” a way of “invisibilizing the crime.” Genocidal intent, as Judge Dalveer Bhandari from the ICJ points out, “may exist simultaneously with other, ulterior motives.” Rather, the incursion into Israel by Hamas and other resistance fighters on Oct. 7 “provided the impetus to advance towards the goal of a ‘Greater Israel.’”
“In the context of Israel ignoring the ICJ directive to end the unlawful occupation, the aim to eradicate resistance contradicts the rights to self-determination and to resist an oppressive regime, protected by Customary International Law,” the report reads. “It also portrays the entire population as engaged in resistance and therefore eliminable. By continuing to suppress the right to self-determination, Israel is replicating historical instances in which self-defence, counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism were used to justify destruction of the group, leading to genocide.”
It notes that Israel, rather than abiding by the 1993 Oslo Accords, which were supposed to lead to a two-state solution, increased its colonies in the West Bank from 128 to 358 and the numbers of Jewish settlers “have grown from 256,400 to 714,600.” Israel passed the 2018 Nation State Law that asserts exclusive Jewish sovereignty over “Eretz Yisrael” and names “Jewish settlement” on occupied Palestinian land a “national priority.” It cultivates “a political doctrine that frames Palestinian assertions of self-determination as a security threat to Israel” and uses it “to legitimize permanent occupation.”
“The current intent to destroy the people as such could not be more evident from Israeli conduct when viewed in its totality,” the report states. A leaked Israeli Ministry of Intelligence “concept paper” from October 2023 outlines the plan to expel the entire Gaza population to Egypt and recolonize Gaza. It is a plan Israel appears to be following.
Albanese writes that Israel is replicating the patterns of past genocides. It creates through its rhetoric a “vengeful atmosphere” that conditions soldiers to be “willing executioners.” It claims it is acting in self-defense while targeting a civilian population. It is obliterating the infrastructure that sustains life, a process of “genocide by attrition.” It uses starvation as a weapon. It is attempting to hide its crimes by killing Palestinian journalists and U.N. workers and blocking international agencies and the international media from Gaza.
We have seen genocide before. We have also seen the complicity or silence of nations that have the power to intervene. History doesn’t repeat itself, but too often it rhymes."
