Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 11/22/25
"The Banks Get Bailed Out, You Get Fed To The Wolves;
2026 Everything Implodes, Nothing Can Stop It"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Saturday, November 22, 2025
Dan, I Allegedly, "The Economy Is At A Critical Tipping Point - Viva Las Vegas!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 11/22/25
"The Economy Is At A Critical
Tipping Point - Viva Las Vegas!"
"The housing market is making waves, and buyers are finally taking over! In today’s video, I break down how the real estate landscape has shifted into a complete buyers' market for the first time since 2008. With more sellers than buyers and incredible deals popping up in places like Texas and Florida, there’s never been a better time to take advantage of this trend. Whether you’re an all-cash buyer or hunting for the perfect deal, I’ve got insights you need to know about the state of the market, recession signs, and more."
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Colorful NGC 1579 resembles the better known Trifid Nebula, but lies much farther north in planet Earth's sky, in the heroic constellation Perseus. About 2,100 light-years away and 3 light-years across, NGC 1579 is, like the Trifid, a study in contrasting blue and red colors, with dark dust lanes prominent in the nebula's central regions.
In both, dust reflects starlight to produce beautiful blue reflection nebulae. But unlike the Trifid, in NGC 1579 the reddish glow is not emission from clouds of glowing hydrogen gas excited by ultraviolet light from a nearby hot star. Instead, the dust in NGC 1579 drastically diminishes, reddens, and scatters the light from an embedded, extremely young, massive star, itself a strong emitter of the characteristic red hydrogen alpha light."
"A Great Madness Sweeps The Land"
"A Great Madness Sweeps The Land"
by Charles Hugh Smith
‘In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups,
parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.’
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"A great madness sweeps the land. There are no limits on extremes in greed, credulity, convictions, inequality, bombast, recklessness, fraud, corruption, arrogance, hubris, pride, over-reach, self-righteousness and confidence in the rightness of one's opinions. Extremes only become more extreme even as the folly of previous extremes wearies rationality.
Imaginary sins are conjured out of thin air to convict the innocent while those guilty of the most egregious fraud and corruption are lauded as saviors.
The national mood is aggrieved and bitter. The luxuries of self-righteousness, indignation, entitlement and resentment have impoverished the national spirit. Bankrupted by these excesses, what little treasure remains is squandered on plots of petty revenge.
Blindness to the late hour is cheered as optimism, confidence in the false gods of technology is sanctified while doubters of the technocratic theocracy are crucified as irredeemable infidels.
Witch-hunts and show trials are the order of the day as those who cannot stomach the party line are obsessively purged, as healthy skepticism is condemned as a mortal sin by brittle true believers who secretly fear the failure of their cult.
Mired in a putrid sewer of suspected subversion and disloyalty to The One True Cause, heretics are everywhere to those caught up in the mass hysteria. In this choking atmosphere of toxic hubris, self-righteousness, indignation, entitlement and resentment, humility is for losers, prudence is for losers, caution is for losers, skeptical inquiry is for losers.
Completely untethered from cause and effect, those confident in the inevitability of a glorious future of unlimited expansion cling to past glory as proof of future glory, even as their hubris leads only to a treacherous path of decay and decline. As they stumble into the abyss, their final cries are of surprise that confidence alone is not enough.
Those who see the madness for what it is have only one escape: go to ground, fade from public view, become self-reliant and weather the coming storm in the nooks and crannies where cause and effect, skeptical inquiry, humility, prudence and thrift can still be nurtured."
o
"Before Awakening... Comes the Pain That Almost No One Can Bear"
Full screen recommended.
The Psyche, 11/21/25
"Before Awakening...
Comes the Pain That Almost No One Can Bear"
"Before awakening, there is always pain - a type of suffering so deep that most people spend their entire lives running from it. But what if this pain isn’t a curse, but the beginning of your transformation? Inspired by the profound teachings of Carl Gustav Jung, this video explores the inner collapse that precedes true consciousness, the “dark night of the soul,” and why awakening always begins in darkness. In this journey, you will discover:
• Why every major transformation starts with emotional or spiritual breakdown.
• The real meaning behind Jung’s idea that “there is no coming to consciousness without pain.”
• How suffering acts as an initiation into deeper awareness.
• Why the ego resists change and how the unconscious forces us to confront our shadow.
• The inner “death” that prepares you for rebirth.
• What truly happens when the false self dissolves.
• The moment your pain becomes purpose.
This video is not just a reflection - it is an invitation. An invitation to look within, to understand your suffering, and to recognize that the collapse you feared might actually be the beginning of your awakening. If you are going through a difficult moment, feel lost, or feel like your world is falling apart, this message is for you."
Comments here:
"The War Against Will"
"The War Against Will"
by Paul Rosenberg
"The modern world will allow you to join any of a thousand collectives, but it will punish you for standing on your own, as a self-willed entity. People who commit this crime understand that they are outlaws in the present world. And if at first they don’t understand that, the world makes sure they know.
The world as it is, then, is the enemy of will. This is nothing new, of course, governments have been at war against will since they began: How else can you get people to blindly obey you, to hand over half their income, and to thank you for it? People who possess a full and active will must be convinced to do things, and governments couldn’t function if they had to do that.
The present world is built around the restraint of will, and not just on the government level. Advertising, for example, is more or less devoted to implanting subconscious desires and subverting the will with them. In dysfunctional families, manipulating one another – whether by guilt, ridicule, being left out of Papa’s will or whatever – is the currency of the realm. And so obedience, consumption and acquiescence have become cardinal virtues, and the avoidance of immediate pain the prime directive.
The Willful, For Whom Heaven And Earth Were Created: All human creativity functions on individual will. Everyone interested in creativity knows this, and here are just a couple of passages to make the point:
"Everything that is really great and inspiring is
created by the individual who can labor in freedom."
- Albert Einstein
"This I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the
individual human is the most valuable thing in the world."
- John Steinbeck
It is the active will of individuals that has created everything good in this world. Really, life comes down to a choice between creativity and entropy:The world (the realm of officialdom, acquiescence and so on) is an incarnation of entropy, winding down and collapsing once the fuel left to it by creative men and women of the past burns out.
The creatives, who are willing to take blows in defense of their willfulness, and who bless the world in myriad ways. The willful, then, are creativity incarnate; the universe is and ought to be dedicated to beings of their type. It should also be populated by beings of their type, and I think someday shall be.
This is not to say that entropic people can’t make their way out of entropy and join the creatives; in fact they can, and do, on a daily basis. Still, it is a gulf that must be crossed, and the only way across is to act on one’s own will, alone, and for purely self-generated reasons. That is the price.
We Are Inherently Creative: Humans are inherently creative beings. We cannot create matter out of nothing, but we can mold it to an infinite number and variety of uses. We are the fountains of new and beneficial action in the universe. And we ought to function that way.
I’ll leave you with a few words from Albert Schweitzer: "Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind independent of the one prevalent among the crowd and in opposition to it… It is only an ethical movement which can rescue us from the slough of barbarism, and the ethical comes into existence only in individuals." This is what we need… and we need it now."
"Holy Books"
"Holy Books"
"Holy Books is the largest collection of high-quality sacred texts, holy books, spiritual texts as PDF ebooks you will find on the Internet. Download Spiritual Texts as free PDF e-books. Download PDF’s: holy books, sacred texts, and spiritual PDF e-books in full length for free. Download the Bible, The Holy Quran, The Mahabharata, and thousands of free pdf ebooks on Buddhism, meditation, etc. Read the reviews and download the free PDF e-books.
Use the search function to find our free PDF ebooks or use the category list to browse books. All books on HolyBooks.com are Public Domain texts and free to download as pdf-files. This online library project is still under development and we are adding new e-books often. Suggestions are welcome. We are also maintaining Moral Paradigm – a similar site about moral and ethical questions."
“Luminarium”
“Luminarium”
by Anniina Jokinen
“This site combines several sites first created in 1996 to provide a starting point for students and enthusiasts of English Literature. Nothing replaces a quality library, but hopefully this site will help fill the needs of those who have not access to one. Many works from Medieval, Renaissance, Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries can be found here.
The site started in early 1996. I remember looking for essays to spark an idea for a survey class I was taking at the time. It seemed that finding study materials online was prohibitively difficult and time-consuming—there was no all-encompassing site which could have assisted me in my search. I started the site as a public service, because I myself had to waste so much time as a student, trying to find anything useful or interesting. There were only a handful of sites back then (read: Internet Dark Ages) and I could spend hours on search engines, looking for just a few things. I realized I must not be the only one in the predicament and started a simple one-page site of links to Middle English Literature. That page was soon followed by a Renaissance site.
Gradually it became obvious that the number of resources was ungainly for such a simple design. It was then that the multi-page “Medlit” and “Renlit” pages were created, around July 1996. That structure is still the same today. In September 1996, I started creating the “Sevenlit” site, launched in November. I realized the need to somehow unite all three sites, and that led to the creation of Luminarium. I chose the name, which is Latin for “lantern,” because I wanted the site to be a beacon of light in the darkness. It was also befitting for a site containing authors considered “luminaries” of English literature.
I wanted the site to be a multimedia experience in the periods. I find it easier to visualize what I am reading when there is a small illustration or a tidbit about the background of the author or his work. The music and art of the period serve to complement one’s rational experience of the site with the emotional. There are people who write to me who seem to think that if something has a beautiful wrapping, it cannot possibly have scholarly insides. But I do not see why something scholarly cannot at the same time be attractive. It is that marriage of form and function, so celebrated during the Renaissance, for which my site strives.”
•
This is a unique source of endless wonder, a treasure for those who
love the English language. You’ll spend many enjoyable hours here…
- CP
“The Web Gallery of Art”
“The Web Gallery of Art”
“The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 52,800 reproductions. It was started in 1996 as a topical site of the Renaissance art, originated in the Italian city-states of the 14th century and spread to other countries in the 15th and 16th centuries. Intending to present Renaissance art as comprehensively as possible, the scope of the collection was later extended to show its Medieval roots as well as its evolution to Baroque and Rococo via Mannerism. More recently the periods of Neoclassicism and Romanticism were also included.
The collection has some of the characteristics of a virtual museum. The experience of the visitors is enhanced by guided tours helping to understand the artistic and historical relationship between different works and artists, by period music of choice in the background and a free postcard service. At the same time the collection serves the visitors’ need for a site where various information on art, artists and history can be found together with corresponding pictorial illustrations. Although not a conventional one, the collection is a searchable database supplemented by a glossary containing articles on art terms, relevant historical events, personages, cities, museums and churches.
The Web Gallery of Art is intended to be a free resource of art history primarily for students and teachers. It is a private initiative not related to any museums or art institutions, and not supported financially by any state or corporate sponsors. However, we do our utmost, using authentic literature and advice from professionals, to ensure the quality and authenticity of the content.
We are convinced that such a collection of digital reproductions, containing a balanced mixture of interlinked visual and textual information, can serve multiple purposes. On one hand it can simply be a source of artistic enjoyment; a convenient alternative to visiting a distant museum, or an incentive to do just that. On the other hand, it can serve as a tool for public education both in schools and at home.”
Free Download: Gregory David Roberts, “Shantaram”
“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope.
Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.
In the end that’s all we have – to hold on tight until dawn.”
- Gregory David Roberts, “Shantaram”
“Shantaram”
by Gregory David Roberts
“Crime and punishment, passion and loyalty, betrayal and redemption are only a few of the ingredients in “Shantaram,” a massive, over-the-top, mostly autobiographical novel. Shantaram is the name given Mr. Lindsay, or Linbaba, the larger-than-life hero. It means “man of God’s peace,” which is what the Indian people know of Lin. What they do not know is that prior to his arrival in Bombay he escaped from an Australian prison where he had begun serving a 19-year sentence. He served two years and leaped over the wall. He was imprisoned for a string of armed robberies peformed to support his heroin addiction, which started when his marriage fell apart and he lost custody of his daughter. All of that is enough for several lifetimes, but for Greg Roberts, that’s only the beginning.
He arrives in Bombay with little money, an assumed name, false papers, an untellable past, and no plans for the future. Fortunately, he meets Prabaker right away, a sweet, smiling man who is a street guide. He takes to Lin immediately, eventually introducing him to his home village, where they end up living for six months. When they return to Bombay, they take up residence in a sprawling illegal slum of 25,000 people and Linbaba becomes the resident “doctor.” With a prison knowledge of first aid and whatever medicines he can cadge from doing trades with the local Mafia, he sets up a practice and is regarded as heaven-sent by these poor people who have nothing but illness, rat bites, dysentery, and anemia. He also meets Karla, an enigmatic Swiss-American woman, with whom he falls in love. Theirs is a complicated relationship, and Karla’s connections are murky from the outset.
Roberts is not reluctant to wax poetic; in fact, some of his prose is downright embarrassing. Throughout the novel, however, all 944 pages of it, every single sentence rings true. He is a tough guy with a tender heart, one capable of what is judged criminal behavior, but a basically decent, intelligent man who would never intentionally hurt anyone, especially anyone he knew. He is a magnet for trouble, a soldier of fortune, a picaresque hero: the rascal who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. His story is irresistible. Stay tuned for the prequel and the sequel.”
– Valerie Ryan
Freely download “Shantaram”, by Gregory David Roberts, here:
"The Test..."
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"What to Say When You Meet the Angel of Death at a Party"
"What to Say When You Meet
the Angel of Death at a Party"
by Kate Bowler
"Every 90 days I lie in a whirling CT machine, dye coursing through my veins, and the doctors look to see whether the tumors in my liver are growing. If they are not, the doctors smile and schedule another scan. The rhythm has been the same since my doctors told me I had stage IV colon cancer two and a half years ago. I live for three months, take a deep breath and hope to start over again. I will probably do this for the rest of my life. Whatever that means.
When my scan is over, I need to make clear to my friends and my family that though I pray to be declared cured, I must be grateful. I have three more months of life. Hallelujah. So I try to put the news in a little Facebook post, that mix of sun and cloud. I am trying to clear the linguistic hurdles that show up on my chart. Noncurative. Stage IV. I want to communicate that I am hoping for a continued durable remission in the face of no perfect cure, but the comments section is a blurry mess of, "You kicked cancer's butt! " and "God bless you in your preparations. "
It feels impossible to transmit the kernel of truth. I am not dying. I am not terminal. I am keeping vigil in the place of almost death. I stand in the in-between where everyone must pass, but so few can remain.
I was recently at a party in a head-to-toe Tonya Harding costume, my blond wig in a perfect French braid, and a woman I know spotted me from across the dance floor. "I guess you're not dying! " she yelled over the music, and everyone stopped to stare at me. I'm working on it! " I yelled back, after briefly reconsidering my commitment to pacifism.
We all harbor the knowledge, however covertly, that we're going to die, but when it comes to small talk, I am the angel of death. I have seen people try to swallow their own tongue after uttering the simple words, "How are you?" I watch loved ones devolve into stammering good wishes and then devastating looks of pity. I can see how easily a well-meaning but ill-placed suggestion makes them want to throw themselves into oncoming traffic.
A friend came back from Australia with a year's worth of adventures to tell and ended with a breathless, "You have to go there sometime! " He lapsed into silence, seeming to remember at that very moment that I was in the hospital. And I didn't know how to say that the future was like a language I didn't speak anymore.
Most people I talk with succumb immediately to a swift death by free association. I remind them of something horrible and suddenly they are using words like pustules at my child's fourth-birthday party. They might be reminded of an aunt, a neighbor or a cousin's friend. No matter how distant the connection, all the excruciating particularities of this person's misfortune will be excavated.
This is not comforting. But I remind myself to pay attention because some people give you their heartbreak like a gift. It was a month or so into my grueling chemotherapy regimen when my favorite nurse sat down next to me at the cancer clinic and said softly: "I've been meaning to tell you. I lost a baby." The way she said "baby," with the lightest touch, made me understand. She had nurtured a spark of life in her body and held that child in her arms, and somewhere along the way she had been forced to bury that piece of herself in the ground. I might have known by the way she smoothed all my frayed emotions and never pried for details about my illness. She knew what it was like to keep marching long after the world had ended.
What does the suffering person really want? How can you navigate the waters left churning in the wake of tragedy? I find that the people least likely to know the answer to these questions can be lumped into three categories: minimizers, teachers and solvers.
The minimizers are those who think I shouldn/t be so upset because the significance of my illness is relative. These people are very easy to spot because most of their sentences begin with, "Well, at least.." Minimizers often want to make sure that suffering people are truly deserving before doling out compassion.
My sister was on a plane from Toronto to visit me in the hospital and told her seatmate why she was traveling. Then, as she wondered when she had signed up to be a contestant in the calamity Olympics, the stranger explained that my cancer was vastly preferable to life during the Iranian revolution.
Some people minimize spiritually by reminding me that cosmically, death isn't the ultimate end. It doesn't matter, in the end, whether we are here or there. It's all the same, said a woman in the prime of her youth. She emailed this message to me with a lot of praying-hand emoticons. I am a professor at a Christian seminary, so a lot of Christians like to remind me that heaven is my true home, which makes me want to ask them if they would like to go home before me. Maybe now?
Atheists can be equally bossy by demanding that I immediately give up any search for meaning. One told me that my faith was holding me hostage to an inscrutable God, that I should let go of this theological guesswork and realize that we are living in a neutral universe. But the message is the same: Stop complaining and accept the world as it is.
The second exhausting type of response comes from the teachers, who focus on how this experience is supposed to be an education in mind, body and spirit. "I hope you have a Job experience", one man said bluntly. I can't think of anything worse to wish on someone. God allowed Satan to rob Job of everything, including his children's lives. Do I need to lose something more to learn God's character? Sometimes I want every know-it-all to send me a note when they face the grisly specter of death, and I'll send them a poster of a koala that says, "Hang in there! "
The hardest lessons come from the solutions people, who are already a little disappointed that I am not saving myself. There is always a nutritional supplement, Bible verse or mental process I have not adequately tried. "Keep smiling! Your attitude determines your destiny! " said a stranger named Jane in an email, having heard my news somewhere, and I was immediately worn out by the tyranny of prescriptive joy.
There is a trite cruelty in the logic of the perfectly certain. Those people are not simply trying to give me something. They are tallying up the sum of my life - looking for clues, sometimes for answers - for the purpose of pronouncing a verdict. But I am not on trial. To so many people, I am no longer just myself. I am a reminder of a thought that is difficult for the rational brain to accept: that the elements that constitute our bodies might fail at any moment. When I originally got my diagnosis at age 35, all I could think to say was, "But I have a son." It was the best argument I had. I can't end. This world can't end. It had just begun.
A tragedy is like a fault line. A life is split into a before and an after, and most of the time, the before was better. Few people will let you admit that out loud. Sometimes those who love you best will skip that first horrible step of saying: "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry this is happening to you. " Hope may prevent them from acknowledging how much has already been lost. But acknowledgment is also a mercy. It can be a smile or a simple, "Oh, hon, what a year you've had. " It does not ask anything from me but makes a little space for me to stand there in that moment. Without it, I often feel like I am starring in a reality program about a woman who gets cancer and is very cheerful about it.
After acknowledgment must come love. This part is tricky because when friends and acquaintances begin pouring out praise, it can sound a little too much like a eulogy. I've had more than one kindly letter written about me in the past tense, when I need to be told who I might yet become.
But the impulse to offer encouragement is a perfect one. There is tremendous power in touch, in gifts and in affirmations when everything you knew about yourself might not be true anymore. I am a professor, but will I ever teach again? I'm a mom, but for how long? A friend knits me socks and another drops off cookies, and still another writes a funny email or takes me to a concert. These seemingly small efforts are anchors that hold me to the present, that keep me from floating away on thoughts of an unknown future. They say to me, like my sister Maria did on one very bad day: "Yes, the world is changed, dear heart, but do not be afraid. You are loved, you are loved. You will not disappear. I am here. "
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"Someday stars will wind down or blow up. Someday death will cover us all like the water of a lake and perhaps nothing will ever come to the surface to show that we were ever there. But we WERE there, and during the time we lived, we were alive. That's the truth - what is, what was, what will be - not what could be, what should have been, what never can be."
- Orson Scott Card
"The Great and the Good"
"The Great and the Good"
Examining a crucial historical pivot in American history...
by Bill Bonner
"Sagest in the council was he, kindest in the hall.
Sure we never won a battle – ‘twas Owen won them all.
Had he lived – had he lived – our dear country had been free;
But he’s dead, but he’s dead, and ‘tis slaves we’ll ever be…"
"Lament for the Death of Owen Roe O’Neill", By Thomas Davis
Youghal, Ireland - On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was shot. He died soon after. Much of the world went into mourning. Never before or since has Washington seen such a gathering of dignitaries…nor so many common folk…all who came to pay their respects.
Jack Kennedy had made many friends. His New Frontier was widely applauded. At home, he lowered the top marginal tax rate from 91% to 65%. Abroad, he sought peace. He explained in a speech at American University that his kind of peace was “not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave."
And yet, after his death, American weapons were soon at work, creating a world, not at peace, but almost constantly at war. Before his assassination, JFK had sent out an order, bringing US troops back from Vietnam. That order was quickly forgotten. The new president, LBJ, had another program, much more to the liking of the ‘military industrial complex.’ Over the next 11 years, 2.7 million American soldiers would go to fight a war that Johnson had promised would be a war for the Vietnamese to fight. By the time the last US helicopter escaped from the US embassy roof in 1975, 58,000 Americans had died and a trillion dollars had been spent. More importantly, the good had given way to the great.
An Historical Pivot: We are reviewing a ‘pivot’ in recent American history. It was the moment when the military/industrial/spook/Congressional complex – the most powerful industry in the world – took control of US politics...and the empire took on a life of its own.
Specifically, we are recalling the history of the 1960s – aided by the recollections and research of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – and our own personal history. Bob Dylan, the Doors, Aretha Franklin…marijuana…the Rolling stones…bell bottoms – and the hope of a better world – it is all coming back into focus. We were not born cynical, dear reader; it took many fads, rascals, bear markets and political campaigns to make us what we are today.
One clear memory…It was a summer evening in 1967. We had gone with a friend to the banks of the Chesapeake. Percy Sledge’s great hit – ‘When a man loves a woman’ – was on the radio. We were back from college, regaling each other with our adventures. But Tommy had dropped out. He set his sights on a different life – simpler, more local. He had read Faulkner and Hemingway. His goal was success at home…not abroad. It was success as a person he wanted, not as captain of industry nor of infantry. “Aren’t you worried about getting drafted?” “No…I’m going to sign up. Get it over with.” “Aren’t you worried about getting killed? And what’s the point, anyway? The war seems like a waste.” “Yeah…but otherwise, I’ll have to listen to my mother complaining about me dropping out of college.” That was the last time we saw Tommy. Life is full of casualties. Some are more tragic and pointless than others. Tommy was one of them.
America the Great? What the Kennedys seemed to be aiming for was a government that practiced restraint and reduced the casualties. A good nation does not tax too heavily, does not spend too much, treats people with respect (even those with whom it doesn’t agree) and only fights when it has to. But after Kennedy was assassinated, the US took a different course. Lyndon Johnson promised action…activism…empire. Bombs and bamboozles. Attila was great. Alexander was great. Caesar was great. Napoleon was great. Why not Lyndon? Why not Ronald…Donald…or Joe?
“The People” took the cue. The masses always come to think what they must think when they must think it. Americans were no different. Flattered by the best military money could buy, they came to believe that they were an exceptional race. Madeleine Albright, then Secretary of State, must have reached some apotheosis of conceit when she proclaimed that “if we use force, it is because we are America. We stand tall….we see further into the future.”
We have argued that there are patterns to markets (the Primary Trend)…and patterns to history. A normal man is held in check by his friends, his wife, and his children. When he makes a jackass of himself, they are quick to let him know. So too is a humble nation held in check by its neighbors, its resources and its own people. It may be good or bad. But sometimes – with the wind at its back – the lust for greatness takes over. A nation seeks not just to get along, but to dominate…and control; it becomes an empire. But the Kennedys stood in the way.
Concrete Boots: First, Robert Kennedy took on the mobsters. Appointed Attorney General by his brother, RFK had a ‘Manichean approach’ to law enforcement. There were good guys and bad guys. He wanted to put the bad ones in jail.
At the time, the mafia was gaining power…and corrupting the US justice system (suborning witnesses, bribing judges). He aimed to put them out of business. In Senate hearings, he brought in Anthony “Tony Ducks” Corallo; Joe “Little Caesar” DiVarco; Carlos “The Little Man” Marcello…and dozens of other colorful mobsters. In his first three years as Attorney General, RFK filed 673 indictments against organized crime figures.
The mafiosos didn’t forget. And didn’t forgive. What’s more, they felt betrayed. They believed that the Kennedys would protect them, not prosecute them. There are several competing stories to explain it. One tells us that Joe Kennedy had made a deal with the mob; if they helped deliver the votes in Chicago he would tell his sons to lay off them. Another story is that the Kennedy boys were connected to the mob on their own. Their sister, Pat, was married to Peter Lawford, one the famous “Rat Pack,” along with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Sinatra installed a heliport at his residence in Palm Springs so the president could come to visit. Jack Kennedy may even have shared a mistress – Judith Campbell Exner – with Sinatra’s mafia pal, Sam Giancana.
Whatever the origins of the story, the mob felt betrayed when Bobby Kennedy went after them with a vigor they had never seen before. “Livarsi na petra di la scarpa,” said Carlos Marcello in 1962. The old Sicilian curse has an English variant, said to have been invoked by Henry II: “Will no one rid me of that turbulent priest?” In another documented exchange, mobster Santo Trafficante assured Cuban exile leader Jose Aleman that he needn’t worry about President Kennedy: “No, Jose, he is going to be hit.”
An Empire Unchallenged: Another group that didn’t like the Kennedys was the aforementioned War Industry. Their business, too, was being severely hampered by the Kennedys’ desire to give peace a chance…and their general distrust of both the military and the spies. By this time, the CIA and the mobsters were working together. Their target was supposed to be Fidel Castro. The mafia had its connections in Cuba. The CIA’s mission was to assassinate Fidel, at which, it failed.
The assassination of JFK, however…like the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1170, was a shocking success. Who did it? Did the CIA aim for Castro and hit Kennedy? Did the mafia settle its score with the Kennedy family? Or was it a ‘lone gunman,’ as the Warren Commission concluded? We don’t know. But since then, no president has ever seriously challenged the empire’s agenda. "
"What Americans Fear Most In The JFK Assassination"
"What Americans Fear Most In The JFK Assassination"
by Jacob Hornberger
"One of the fascinating phenomena in the JFK assassination is the fear of some Americans to consider the possibility that the assassination was actually a regime-change operation carried out by the U.S. national-security establishment rather than simply a murder carried out by a supposed lone-nut assassin. The mountain of evidence that has surfaced, especially since the 1990s, when the JFK Records Act mandated the release of top-secret assassination-related records within the national-security establishment, has been in the nature of circumstantial evidence, as compared to direct evidence. Thus, I can understand that someone who places little faith in the power of circumstantial evidence might study and review that evidence and decide to embrace the “lone-nut theory” of the case."
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Part 1:
Part 2:
"Coup d'État"
What Americans fear most? The Truth...
Friday, November 21, 2025
Edward Curtin, "A Gift of Words"
"A Gift of Words"
by Edward Curtin
"The most incomprehensible talk comes from people who have
no other use for language than to make themselves understood.”
- Karl Kraus, "Half-Truths & One-and-a-Half Truths"
"Things, possessions, life on the installment plan or credit card. This is the season to buy, to accumulate more folderols, to give things to one’s children and each other, which, we like to believe, will bring joy. It’s make-believe, of course, an adult lie conjured up out of guilt and fear that our lives, the stories we live, the stories we dream, and those that dream us, are insufficiently meaningful to bring our children and ourselves the joy we say we seek.
Driven by a pure sense of guilt devoid of any sense of redemption in a capitalist materialist culture, we buy and buy, accumulate and accumulate, in the vain hope that such tangible “gifts” will bring a magic that we can possess. Our exchange of gifts is a consumer culture’s parody of the true meaning of a gift: that gifts are given to be given away, to be passed around, like the peace pipe of native American Indian tribes.
As Lewis Hyde writes in his extraordinary book, "The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property: "…a gift that cannot be given away ceases to be a gift. The spirit of a gift is its constant donation.” What we are given, in the inner and outer world, must be shared, allowed to circulate. But we like to own, to stop the flow. As a result, we have become stuck, selfie people who can’t understand that to possess is to be possessed. Stop, pose, click. Got it!
Describing art as a way of life, or walking life’s way as an art, the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke put it thus: "Not any self-control or self-limitation for the sake of specific ends, but rather a carefree letting go of oneself; not caution, but rather a wise blindness; not working to acquire silent, slowly increasing possessions, but rather a continuous squandering of all perishable values. This way of being has something naïve and instinctive about it, and resembles that period of the unconscious best characterized by a joyous consciousness, namely the period of childhood."
The truth is that we are sustained by stories – oral, written, existential – not by things, as a commercial civilization would have us believe. From infancy to old age, we crave stories that will allow us to make sense of our lives, to give them shape and spiritual significance.
And the greatest gifts we can give each other are stories that draw on the mystery and sacredness of existence, stories that express, in ravishing language and a musical spirit, clarification for our lives. Stories that help us resist the nihilistic ethos of our times, the violence and deceit that defines them.
For example, long ago a Jewish boy was born in a stable because his parents couldn’t get a room anywhere. The parents then had to flee with the boy because the government was murdering children and was out to get him. Later in life, this child Jesus, became a radical opponent of church and state, preached peace, love, non-violence, and living by faith, not money; he embraced the outcasts, condemned the hypocrites, and was finally executed as a radical criminal by the state. But his spirit was undefeated; he conquered death; and his name has become synonymous with love and kindness to such a degree that we celebrate his birth as the light of the world as the darkest days of the year turn brighter.
It’s a beautiful story from beginning to end, and if heeded, would bring massive resistance to the way things are throughout the world. No wonder it has touched the hearts of so many for so long. Sadly, however, Wordsworth put it perfectly when he said that, “getting and spending we lay waste our powers.” And the consumer-gift-stories we indirectly tell our children by participating in the madness of holiday shopping are tales unfit for young ears. To live to buy is to tell them lies.
Our children (and all of us) wish not things but stories that will help them face life with enthusiasm and courage. When I was a young boy, my father would ease me to sleep with “Jiminy Cricket Stories,” imaginary improvisations on Pinocchio and his conscience. They were in no way trendy like the most recent Pinocchio film adaptation, but fundamentally sound as in the song "As Time Goes By "– it’s still the same old story.
I can’t remember any of his stories today, but what stays with me is their underlying theme, their spirit: to become a real boy, a genuine person, one must determine to tell the truth. One must be brave, truthful, and unselfish. Yet even more, when I think of them, I feel my father’s unconditional love and the timbre of his lilting voice.
These stories about truth and bravery contained hard but vital lessons for a father to pass on to a son, but he did it in such an entertaining way that I took the lessons to heart. Ever since, in gratitude and wonder, I have been trying to make my story adhere to that spirit of truth. Trying; for as we all know, truth is a hard taskmaster. We never hold it, only seek it, and can only approach it if we are possessed by language and allow its musical spirit to carry us on into the unknown.
When I became a father myself, I tried to pass on to my children a love for stories and the words we use to express our lives. Without words, and the ability to use them meaningfully, we are lost in the world of things, a place where consuming replaces creating. So from infancy onward, my wife and I would read to them, and eventually I began to tell them imaginary stories of my own, “Willy Daly Stories,” inspired by a boyhood pal. They would hang onto each word, and swing into depths of reverie as I strung them together into tall tales.
“At the bottom of each word/I’m a spectator at my birth,” wrote the French poet Alain Bosquet. Entering into this creative spirit, Susanne and Daniel would ask me. “Is that really true?” And I could not lie and say no. So they would laugh, I would grin, and we would go on.
Like all children, they loved these stories, the ones I told and the ones we read. They entered into them, and they, into them; their inner worlds germinated. When they were very young, each started to read, not haltingly but fluently and with amazing comprehension. “Out of the blue” something clicked (and neither was “taught” to read, but was read and talked to by my wife and me as though they comprehended everything, even the most abstruse words), and from that day on the words that they previously heard became theirs. They received the gift, even when they didn’t understand the meaning, they grasped the music.
Now it has passed to my grandchildren, Sophie and Henry, who are children of the word, lovers of the epiphanies stories can disclose. “The bright book of life,” as D.H.Lawrence called the novel, opened to them. Novel: New. New life forever arising out of the old. Miraculously (is there any other word for it?), they were in possession of the gift of words that they could pass on; they had the power to hear and tell their own stories, to understand their lives, not as the pursuit of things, but as the pursuit of meaning. They felt proud and I felt blessed.
“Art tells the truth,” wrote Chekhov. Indeed. And the wheel of life turns with the seasons. The gift of stories is passed on. Christmas turns to New Year’s. People pass on, but so do stories. The things are forgotten.
The wordsmith Leonard Cohen sang in his song, “Famous Blue Raincoat,” that “I hope you are keeping some sort of record.” The words stick on the page, but the beautiful melody carries them into our present and into the future and we imagine stories carrying us on as the music and the words don’t stop and we keep humming the tune and imagining as we move along to that which cannot be said and about which it is impossible to be silent, to paraphrase Victor Hugo.
My daughter: Susanne. Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne: “There are children in the morning/they are leaning out for love/and they will lean that way forever/while Suzanne holds the mirror.”
My son: Daniel. Like brave Pinocchio being swallowed by Monstro, and Daniel in the Lion’s den, the stories of courage and derring-do, told indirectly.
Daniel Berrigan, S. J., a friend and mentor, the puckish fierce poet of beauty and peace, whose fierceness belied his tenderness.
The Biblical Susanna, the falsely accused, and Daniel her liberator.
Names contain multitudes, tales never told, stories traveling on. The gifts must be given away, like playing or listening to live music. Here and gone; one time only. Like life.
I recently saw a book for sale at my local library – "From my Father, Singing" by David Bosworth – a beautiful book, a true work of art. I read it once at the suggestion of my storyteller father, and have just reread it. I am grateful to Bosworth for his gift and to my father for passing on the word. It is a tale in the form of a letter from a father to a son, a father in search of the meaning of his own father’s life, that elusive gift that can only be found in a story, in the telling.
The letter writer, our author, is in flight from a life lived “according to script,” a wife in love with money, shopping, and things, his dead-end job – “the place where I pretended to earn our living” – a life of pretense and lies, a living death in which all efforts were made to deny its meaninglessness: “to have fun, to keep busy, to buy something, to face the bleak descent of Sunday evening by preparing already for the following weekend.”
In order to explain himself to his son, a young infant, he explores his own childhood, the life he lived caught between his parents’ conflicting worlds. In the end, by fashioning this letter, by putting word behind word behind word, he comes to understand and appreciate his father and consequently himself; he composes a letter to his son (who cannot yet read but whom we know will) “intended as a gift, a living legacy in words.”
Yes, art tells the truth. Pass on the word, the true gift.
Here is Billy Joel’s gift to his daughter:
Jeremiah Babe, "Consumers Can't Wait To Go Broke This Christmas"
Jeremiah Babe, 11/21/2
"Consumers Can't Wait To Go Broke This Christmas;
Cutting Rates To Save The Market"
Comments here:
"War Finally Ends? Food And Energy Prices Set To Fall?"
Snyder Reports, 11/21/25
"War Finally Ends?
Food And Energy Prices Set To Fall?"
Comments here:
Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Wrap 21-NOV"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 11/21/25
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern -
Weekly Wrap 21-NOV"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Lady Labyrinth" & "Nightbook"; "Divenire"
Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, "Lady Labyrinth" & "Nightbook"
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Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, "Divenire"
Magnificent...
"A Look to the Heavens"
“What strange world is this? Earth. In the foreground of the featured image are the Pinnacles, unusual rock spires in Nambung National Park in Western Australia. Made of ancient sea shells (limestone), how these human-sized picturesque spires formed remains unknown. In the background, just past the end of the central Pinnacle, is a bright crescent Moon. The eerie glow around the Moon is mostly zodiacal light, sunlight reflected by dust grains orbiting between the planets in the Solar System.
Click image for larger size.
Arching across the top is the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. Many famous stars and nebulas are also visible in the background night sky. The featured 29-panel panorama was taken and composed in 2015 September after detailed planning that involved the Moon, the rock spires, and their corresponding shadows. Even so, the strong zodiacal light was a pleasant surprise.”
"Where Your Gaze Lingers..."
“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that has nothing to do with you, this storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up the sky like pulverized bones.
You have to look! That’s another one of the rules. Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what going on. In fact, things will be even worse the next time you open your eyes. That’s the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still.”
- Haruki Murakami
“Closing your eyes won’t make the awfulness go away. It may be that nothing will. But dwelling on it, dreading the evil, playing out the misery in your head – doesn’t this feed the monster? You can’t close your eyes to life, but you can choose where your gaze lingers.”
- Richelle E. Goodrich
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