"Albert Camus on How to Live Whole in a Broken World"

"Albert Camus on How to Live Whole in a Broken World"

by Maria Popova

"Born into a World War to live through another, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) died in a car crash with an unused train ticket to the same destination in his pocket. Just three years earlier, he had become the second-youngest laureate of the Nobel Prize, awarded him for literature that “with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience” — problems like art as resistance, happiness as our moral obligation, and the measure of strength through difficult times.

During WWII, Camus stood passionately on the side of justice; during the Cold War, he sliced through the Iron Curtain with all the humanistic force of simple kindness. But as he watched the world burn its own future in the fiery pit of politics, he understood that time, which has no right side and no wring side, is only ever won or lost on the smallest and most personal scale: absolute presence with one’s own life, rooted in the belief that “real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.”

Camus addresses this with poetic poignancy in an essay titled “The Wrong Side and the Right Side,” found in his altogether superb posthumous collection "Lyrical and Critical Essays" (public library). In a prescient admonition against our modern cult of productivity, which plunders our capacity for presence, Camus writes:

"Life is short, and it is sinful to waste one’s time. They say I’m active. But being active is still wasting one’s time, if in doing one loses oneself. Today is a resting time, and my heart goes off in search of itself. If an anguish still clutches me, it’s when I feel this impalpable moment slip through my fingers like quicksilver… At the moment, my whole kingdom is of this world. This sun and these shadows, this warmth and this cold rising from the depths of the air: why wonder if something is dying or if men suffer, since everything is written on this window where the sun sheds its plenty as a greeting to my pity?"

Echoing the young Dostoyevsky’s exultant reckoning with the meaning of life shortly after his death sentence was repealed (“To be a human being among people and to remain one forever, no matter in what circumstances, not to grow despondent and not to lose heart,” Dostoyevsky wrote to his brother, “that’s what life is all about, that’s its task.”), Camus adds:

"What counts is to be human and simple. No, what counts is to be true, and then everything fits in, humanity and simplicity. When am I truer than when I am the world? What I wish for now is no longer happiness but simply awareness. I hold onto the world with every gesture, to men with all my gratitude and pity. I do not want to choose between the right and wrong sides of the world, and I do not like a choice. The great courage is still to gaze as squarely at the light as at death. Besides, how can I define the link that leads from this all-consuming love of life to this secret despair? In spite of much searching, this is all I know."

These reflections led Camus to conclude that “there is no love of life without despair of life”; out of them he drew his three antidotes to the absurdity of life and the crucial question at its center. Couple with George Saunders - who may be the closest we have to Camus in our time - on how to love the world more, then revisit Wendell Berry’s poetic antidote to despair."

- https://mailchi.mp/themarginalian/

"And Yet, Sometimes..."

So, you look around in horrified astonishment at how totally insane it all really is, how the never ending bad news is everywhere you look, how truly hopeless it really is, and know there's nothing at all you can do about it, can't save anyone, can't even save yourself. So you remember what they said and how you need to be, and carry on...

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, 

but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”

- Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"

“That millions of people share the same forms of 

mental pathology does not make these people sane.”

- Erich Fromm, "The Sane Society"

“Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing

 yourself when things are bad. That and vodka.”

- Jim Butcher, "Changes"

And yet, sometimes, at the end of another long day, 

your defenses are just worn out and you lose control and feel like this... 

Full screen recommended.

The Trashmen, "Surfin' Bird - Bird is the Word," 1963

Until tomorrow, when you do it all over again...

And so it is, lol...

Dan, I Allegedly, "Fourth of July Travel Crisis: What’s Really Going On"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 6/30/24

"Fourth of July Travel Crisis: 

What’s Really Going On"

"Well, the news media tells us at 70 million people will travel over 50 miles this Fourth of July. The numbers really don’t look good. Four and 10 say that they will not travel this summer at all."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

Fred Reed, "Constructing the Terminator: A Top-Down Approach"

"Constructing the Terminator:

A Top-Down Approach"

by Fred Reed

"(These are deranged ramblings, perhaps of psychiatric interest. If pressed, Fred will deny authorship and possibly bring an action for defamation. Beware.)

These days, not unreasonably I think, people wonder whether artificial intelligence will produce an electronic being superior to, well, us. Others of darker imaginings ask whether we don’t face the arrival of a real-life Terminator. Science fiction? These days, it has a short shelf life. Actually, the superior being has probably already happened, if so far in bits and pieces. Let us consider what these bits are, and their assembly into a Terminator, whom we will affectionately call Arnold. First, Arnold’s mental capacities. Then, is robotic physicality.

Breadth of knowledge is usually thought a sign of intelligence. Arnold, with a Wifi link in his head, would know everything on the internet, books, history, quantum physics, the weather in Chengdu, geography, and just about everything else. Yes, I know, we are all used to this and it looks like mere lookup and not intelligence. Wait a minute. With his Wifi link, Arnold could translate fifty or sixty languages into each other, in seconds. If I could do that, you would think me quite a bright fellow. We are used to it, and people are never impressed by what they are used to.

Computers have beaten the world’s best players at chess and Go and defeated the national Jeopardy champion. If the victorious machines are not online, they easily could be. These capacities are usually regarded as requiring intelligence.

Since all of these things happened at least three days ago, they are ho-hum and not too interesting. But then we have to consider – drum roll, squalling of trumpets – Chatgpt and suchlike. Chat is the omnipotent humanizer, combining all the foregoing into a great Being. Chat can hold conversations, write essays and poetry often indistinguishable from those produced by humans and, weirdly, containing literary insight and psychological perceptiveness. So why is something – Arnold’s head in this case – that knows everything, writes business proposals and collegiate term papers, speaks fifty languages, does graduate-level mathematics, and plays championship chess, not superior to the common run of humanity? Note that as lagniappe that Arnold’s head as herein described can generate images from text, talk in different voices, write songs, and perhaps sing them.

Now let us consider Arnold’s more-corporeal being. Here we will ponder Boston Dynamics, the robotics-design firm. The company has produced Atlas, a robot remarkably similar to the Terminator when its pseudo-flesh was stripped away. The video is worth watching. Atlas, doubtless the Terminator under an assumed name, is an actual, really and truly, functioning humanoid robot. He walks, does gymnastic flips, finds stuff where it is and carries it to somewhere else. It is, so far as I know, the first potentially scary robot. If it can find a box, carry it upstairs and put it on a table, it could find an intruder in the warehouse, carry him downstairs to the basement, and stuff him into a wood chipper.

Full screen recommended.

(Boston Dynamics does not offer Atlas for this purpose.) Yet. In fact it just retired him as obsolescent and presumably is working on something more alarming.

Just now, Atlas seems an engineering exercise. He certainly cost a megabundle to figure out. But should he prove profitable for some purpose, such as guard duty or actual work, in mass production his cost would drop sharply. His metal parts are unlikely to cost horrendously. Software, once written, is almost free. Here I speculate, but the code for housekeeping –making him walk, see things, and so on, may be aboard, but if he were equipped with Wifi and Chatgpt, all of that would come wirelessly. If, say, a hundred thousand were built for industrial use, which is what Elon Musk has in mind for his Optimus robots, they would be controlled by the local buyer’s Wifi, unless bad guys hacked them and ordered them to do bad things, or simply planted code so that at a later date they could be ordered to go on a rampage or do something nefarious.

Skynet.

OK, that’s silly. I think. But Apple updates the software of millions of iPhones now with little effort. Why not hundreds of thousands of humanoid robots? Could evil hackers tell them to stuff bosses into the wood chipper? This could be a major selling point.

But if these things become practical, as Elon Musk promises, what does a warehouse manager make of mechanical workers that quote Hamlet to him? Or human workers make of Arnolds who work twenty-four seven without rest, except to recharge, who remember where everything is infallibly, and do complex calculations in milliseconds?

Or, a robot could be a cute little panda, becoming best friend to your daughter of four years. Chatgpt is well beyond just answering recorded questions. Kind of creepy, a child becoming emotionally attached to a being not really a being. I assume that a little girl cuddling a doll knows it isn’t a real baby. Hmmmm.

As a minor but related note, Audible.com now sells audiobooks read by a computer. I have listened to a couple of them, and could not tell the voices from human.

It is worth bearing in mind that robotics advances rapidly, and artificial intelligence is in its infancy. Image recognition is now routine, understanding of speech by computers well developed. I encounter estimates that humanoid robots suitable for factory work will cost twenty thousand dollars in mass production. These things are some way from being useful as, say, soldiers, but “some way” may mean fifteen years. If you consider the cost of human soldiers – recruiting, training, feeding, and explaining to their mothers why they are dead –buying robotic soldiers and storing them in warehouses looks a good thing if practical.

Methinks the world doth change overmuch. Many today in their fossil years remember Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist radio, which we knew to be impossible because vacuum tubes could never be made small enough."

- https://fredoneverything.org/

o

"Sky News Australia Interviews 

'Free-Thinking' Artificial Intelligence"

"Sky News Investigations Reporter Jonathan Lea sits down to talk with a “free-thinking” and “opinionated” artificial intelligence, Ameca Desktop. “Ameca is driven by the same artificial intelligence behind Chat-GPT,” Mr Lea said."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Digital Engine, 6/23

"This Intense AI Anger Is Exactly What 

Experts Warned Of, w/ Elon Musk"

- https://www.youtube.com/

"So We Never Live..."

"We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more, and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and if it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future, and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for a time which we have no certainty of reaching. Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so."

- Blaise Pascal

○

The Marmalade, "Reflections Of My Life"

"NY Times Editorial Board Urges Biden To Quit Race - Did Trump Administer Premature Kill Shot?"

"NY Times Editorial Board Urges Biden To Quit Race - 

Did Trump Administer Premature Kill Shot?"

by Tyler Durden

"Thursday night's presidential debate mortally wounded President Biden's political career, and now the New York Times has hammered a significant nail in the coffin -- publishing an editorial bluntly declaring that "the greatest public service Mr. Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election."

With this development, Biden's departure from November ballots is taking on an air of inevitability. At the same time, Team Trump is reckoning with what may have been a strategic error -- enabling a premature kill shot that could leave Trump facing a worse matchup.

"I can't believe that just happened." pic.twitter.com/qbbQDnjkDP

- Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) June 28, 2024

Repeatedly emphasizing President Trump's supposed "enormous...danger" to the country, the Times editorial board wrote that Biden is "engaged in a reckless gamble" with America's future, saying "it’s too big a bet to simply hope Americans will overlook or discount Mr. Biden’s age and infirmity that they see with their own eyes."

You don't have to respect the Times to appreciate the enormity of a cornerstone liberal media institution declaring an incumbent Democratic president mentally incapable of running for re-election. This move by a "newspaper of record" will embolden other leftist entities and elected officials to do the same, and the momentum is likely to only grow stronger as the snowball effect gathers force.

After the panic on cable news last night, the DNC brought out presidents Obama and Clinton to re-endorse Biden. Now MSNBC is falling back in line with the “one bad night” narrative. But it was too late to stop the NYT. The horses are out of the barn and can’t all be put back in. pic.twitter.com/4t2HnauCQD— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) June 28, 2024

Here are some more pointed highlights:

"Voters cannot be expected to ignore what was instead plain to see: Mr. Biden is not the man he was four years ago."

"The president’s performance cannot be written off as a bad night or blamed on a supposed cold, because it affirmed concerns that have been mounting for months or even years."

"Biden insisted on a date months earlier than any previous general election debate. He understood that he needed to address longstanding public concerns about his mental acuity and that he needed to do so as soon as possible. The truth Mr. Biden needs to confront now is that he failed his own test."

"Democrats who have deferred to Mr. Biden must now find the courage to speak plain truths to the party’s leader....The clearest path for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to deal truthfully with the American public: acknowledge that Mr. Biden can’t continue his race."

Whistling past his boss's political graveyard, Biden-Harris co-chair Cedric Richmond told CNN, "The last time Joe Biden lost the New York Times editorial board’s endorsement, it turned out pretty well for him” -- a reference to the Times backing Senators Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 Democratic primary.

At this point, the post-debate glee at Trump campaign headquarters is likely infused with some angst. Presidential races are all about the matchups, and Trump couldn't have asked for a more favorable opponent than Biden. That's now in jeopardy.

In our debate preview, we warned that frontrunner Trump may have made a major strategic error in agreeing to an extraordinarily early date for the first debate: "Trump may come to regret agreeing to a debate that's far earlier in the presidential election calendar than normal - indeed, before either party has even had its nominating convention. If tonight's debate puts Biden's mental decline under the national spotlight, the Democratic Party...may scramble to persuade Biden to leave the race with dignity and replace him with someone else."

Now, as that exact scenario is playing out, the Trump campaign is feebly trying to steer Democrats away from benching Biden and subbing in the likes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Responding to the Times editorial, the Trump campaign told NBC News that Biden is the "incumbent president, he is the Democrat nominee, he has also said he won’t drop out, it’s too late to change that.” Don't bet on it."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

o

"Joe Biden is 81 years old. That’s just three years older than Donald Trump. But Biden looked 20 years older than Trump at last week’s presidential debate. And between his blank stares and rambling responses, it’s no contest. Between the two, Trump looks far better fit to serve. Even New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted, “Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election… it’s time for Joe to keep the dignity he deserves and leave the stage at the end of this term.”

Frankly, whatever your politics… whatever you think about Biden personally… If his handlers continue to prop him up, it’ll be nothing short of elder abuse. It’s become that obvious. And it’s a disgrace to a man who has served in office for so long.

But the Democrats have a plan. And letting Biden lose his dignity on stage was just one step of that plan. You can find out why I believe this by checking out this shocking election forecast. It reveals what the Democrats are planning for Biden…How they plan to “steal” the 2024 election from Trump in one fell swoop… And how this plan is extremely dangerous to our way of life. Don’t wait. Go here right now to see why Biden won’t be on the ballot in November, and what it means for America. So it goes..."

- https://www.linkedin.com/

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Bidens Out! Bombers Over Lebanon; Iran Nukes; Mass Evacuation; UK Fighter Jets Engage Russia"

Canadian Prepper, 6/29/24

"Alert! Bidens Out! Bombers Over Lebanon; 

Iran Nukes; Mass Evacuation; UK Fighter Jets Engage Russia"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "America's Economy Is Being Gutted; Your Drinking Water Is Under Attack"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/29/24

"America's Economy Is Being Gutted; 

Your Drinking Water Is Under Attack"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Inner Light"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Inner Light"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“About 70 million light-years distant, gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 289 is larger than our own Milky Way. Seen nearly face-on, its bright core and colorful central disk give way to remarkably faint, bluish spiral arms. The extensive arms sweep well over 100 thousand light-years from the galaxy's center.

At the lower right in this sharp, telescopic galaxy portrait the main spiral arm seems to encounter a small, fuzzy elliptical companion galaxy interacting with enormous NGC 289. Of course spiky stars are in the foreground of the scene. They lie within the Milky Way toward the southern constellation Sculptor.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Chet Raymo, “Take My Arm”

“Take My Arm”

by Chet Raymo

“I’m sure I have referenced here before the poems of Grace Schulman, she who inhabits that sweet melancholy place between “the necessity and impossibility of belief.” Between, too, the necessity and impossibility of love.

Belief and love. They have so much in common, yet are as distinct as self and other. How strange that two people can hitch their lives together, on a whim, say, or wild intuition, knowing little if nothing about the other’s hiddenness, about things that even the other does not fully understand and couldn’t articulate even if he did. Blind, deaf, dumb, they leap into the future, hoping to fly, and, for a moment, soaring, like Icarus, sunward. The necessity of wax. The impossibility of wax. We “fall” in love, they say. Schulman: “We slog. We tramp the road of possibility. Give me your arm.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "Book of Hours II, 16"

"Book of Hours II, 16"

"How surely gravity's law,

strong as an ocean current,

takes hold of even the strongest thing

and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing-

each stone, blossom, child-

is held in place.

Only we, in our arrogance,

push out beyond what we belong to

for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered

to earth's intelligence

we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves

in knots of our own making

and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again

to learn from the things,

because they are in God's heart;

they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us:

to fall,

patiently to trust our heaviness.

Even a bird has to do that

before he can fly."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

"How Could You? A Dog's Story"

"How Could You? A Dog's Story"

by Jim Willis

"When I was a puppy I entertained you with my antics and made you laugh. You called me your child and despite a number of chewed shoes and a couple of murdered throw pillows, I became your best friend. Whenever I was "bad," you'd shake your finger at me and ask "How could you?" - but then you'd relent and roll me over for a bellyrub.

My housetraining took a little longer than expected, because you were terribly busy, but we worked on that together. I remember those nights of nuzzling you in bed, listening to your confidences and secret dreams, and I believed that life could not be any more perfect. We went for long walks and runs in the park, car rides, stops for ice cream (I only got the cone because "ice cream is bad for dogs," you said), and I took long naps in the sun waiting for you to come home at the end of the day.

Gradually, you began spending more time at work and on your career, and more time searching for a human mate. I waited for you patiently, comforted you through heartbreaks and disappointments, never chided you about bad decisions, and romped with glee at your homecomings, and when you fell in love.

She, now your wife, is not a "dog person" - still I welcomed her into our home, tried to show her affection, and obeyed her. I was happy because you were happy. Then the human babies came along and I shared your excitement. I was fascinated by their pinkness, how they smelled, and I wanted to mother them, too. Only she and you worried that I might hurt them, and I spent most of my time banished to another room, or to a dog crate. Oh, how I wanted to love them, but I became a "prisoner of love."

As they began to grow, I became their friend. They clung to my fur and pulled themselves up on wobbly legs, poked fingers in my eyes, investigated my ears and gave me kisses on my nose. I loved everything about them, especially their touch - because your touch was now so infrequent - and I would have defended them with my life if need be. I would sneak into their beds and listen to their worries and secret dreams. Together we waited for the sound of your car in the driveway. There had been a time, when others asked you if you had a dog, that you produced a photo of me from your wallet and told them stories about me. These past few years, you just answered "yes" and changed the subject. I had gone from being your dog to "just a dog," and you resented every expenditure on my behalf.

Now you have a new career opportunity in another city and you and they will be moving to an apartment that does not allow pets. You've made the right decision for your "family," but there was a time when I was your only family.

I was excited about the car ride until we arrived at the animal shelter. It smelled of dogs and cats, of fear, of hopelessness. You filled out the paperwork and said "I know you will find a good home for her." They shrugged and gave you a pained look. They understand the realities facing a middle-aged dog or cat, even one with "papers."

You had to pry your son's fingers loose from my collar as he screamed "No, Daddy! Please don't let them take my dog!" And I worried for him and what lessons you had just taught him about friendship and loyalty, about love and responsibility, and about respect for all life. You gave me a goodbye pat on the head, avoided my eyes, and politely refused to take my collar and leash with you. You had a deadline to meet and now I have one, too.

After you left, the two nice ladies said you probably knew about your upcoming move months ago and made no attempt to find me another good home. They shook their heads and asked "How could you?"

They are as attentive to us here in the shelter as their busy schedules allow. They feed us, of course, but I lost my appetite days ago. At first, whenever anyone passed my pen, I rushed to the front, hoping it was you - that you had changed your mind - that this was all a bad dream... or I hoped it would at least be someone who cared, anyone who might save me. When I realized I could not compete with the frolicking for attention of happy puppies, oblivious to their own fate, I retreated to a far corner and waited.

I heard her footsteps as she came for me at the end of the day and I padded along the aisle after her to a separate room. A blissfully quiet room. She placed me on the table, rubbed my ears and told me not to worry. My heart pounded in anticipation of what was to come, but there was also a sense of relief. The prisoner of love had run out of days. As is my nature, I was more concerned about her. The burden which she bears weighs heavily on her and I know that, the same way I knew your every mood.

She gently placed a tourniquet around my foreleg as a tear ran down her cheek. I licked her hand in the same way I used to comfort you so many years ago. She expertly slid the hypodermic needle into my vein. As I felt the sting and the cool liquid coursing through my body, I lay down sleepily, looked into her kind eyes and murmured "How could you?"

Perhaps because she understood my dogspeak, she said "I'm so sorry." She hugged me and hurriedly explained it was her job to make sure I went to a better place, where I wouldn't be ignored or abused or abandoned, or have to fend for myself - a place of love and light so very different from this earthly place. With my last bit of energy, I tried to convey to her with a thump of my tail that my "How could you?" was not meant for her. It was you, My Beloved Master, I was thinking of. I will think of you and wait for you forever. May everyone in your life continue to show you so much loyalty."

- http://www.crean.com/jimwillis/

○

"If there are no dogs in Heaven,

then when I die I want to go where they went."

- Will Rogers

The Daily "Near You?"

Auburndale, Florida, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Never, Ever Forget..."

"Never, ever forget that nothing in this life is free. Life demands payment in some form for your "right" to express yourself, to condemn and abuse the evil surrounding us. Expect to pay... it will come for you, they will come for you, regardless. Knowing that, give them Hell itself every chance you can. Expect no mercy, and give none. That's how life works. Be ready to pay for what you do, or be a coward, pretend you don't see, don't know, and cry bitter tears over how terrible things are, over how you let them become."

- Ernest Hemingway, "For Whom the Bell Tolls "

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 6/28/24"

"Biden Debate Disaster, War Exploding, Economy Tanking"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"I could not see that Joe Biden scored a single blow on President Trump in the CNN debate on Thursday night. Biden held his own in the debate that preceded the 2020 Election, but in this debate, he showed how much he has declined. He mumbled many of his answers and could not mount a single defense to President Trump telling him “We are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been.” Trump beat Biden over the head on the problems the open Southern border has caused America: crime, debt, drugs, inflation or all of the above. Trump said everyone in the military who had a hand in the Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021 “should have been fired, and you did not fire a single person.” Trump also said we have been “living in Hell for the past three and a half years,” and “If Biden is elected again, we won’t have a country left.” Biden had no comeback for this or any other of Trump’s debate points. 

So, Trump won hands down. Call it a blowout. It was like a football team beating an opponent 100 to 3. Now, everybody knows (including the Democrats) Biden cannot be President. In a way, I feel sorry for Biden, but I feel way sorrier for the “Hell” we are living in here in America under the Biden policies. Remember that Martin Armstrong predicted the Dem party wanted Biden to do terrible in the debate with Trump so they could justify replacing him on the 2024 ticket. They got their wish.

War is exploding and intensifying everywhere. Cluster bombs dropped on Russian in Crimea, and the Hezbollah conflict in Northern Israel will make the Gaza conflict look like a party. Hezbollah has thousands of rockets that can hit any target in Israel. So, will Israel wipe them out first? Iran is now mobilizing for war against Israel. Will you see regular Iranian troops going up against Israel? As far as Russian reprisals for the cluster bomb attack, it looks like Putin is not taking the bait to widen the war and go nuclear just yet. Putin still wants a Ukrainian ceasefire. If Trump was in office, this would have never happened. Trump said this in the CNN debate, and that was yet another point Biden had no comeback for.

The Fed did a so-called “stress test” on 31 of the biggest banks in America. Some reported they passed with flying colors, and others said this stress test showed the big banks are “weaker” than in the past. It sure feels like somebody is lying because the FDIC just said at the beginning of June that 63 banks are on a so-called “watch list” because they have more than a half trillion dollars in sour debt. The FDIC list of problem banks is secret, which does not inspire confidence, and the transparency is like looking through mud. Also, Michael Snyder has just put up a list of 11 signs that the economy is tanking. Third on his list is “When Banks get into trouble, they start closing branches. So far this year, US banks have closed more than 400 branches all over the country.” As I said, somebody is lying about the health of the banks and the health of the US economy. There is more in the 41-minute newscast."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these

 stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 6/28/24:

- https://rumble.com/

"This Is Actually Painful To Watch"

"This Is Actually Painful To Watch"

by SpaceCommando

"Painful? Embarrassing? Pitiful? Look at Jill Biden’s expression where she’s on stage with Biden. Unbelievable. People in the US that have been supporting “Biden” (and keeping him in “office”), especially over the last year or so, have a lot of explaining to do. First off, who is in charge of the executive branch of the US government? And that’s just the start for them...

Shocking ending to the Trump vs Biden debate, what most people didn’t see.

This says it all. pic.twitter.com/ryE6qEIdpt

- Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) June 28, 2024

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

o

"21 Facts That Joe Biden Doesn’t Want You To Know"

"How It Really Is"

 

Dan, I Allegedly, "Landlords Are On The Edge - Is This The End?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 6/29/24

"Landlords Are On The Edge - Is This The End?"

"What used to be a great business is now horrible. Landlords are fed up and want to quit. Landlords are feeling the pressure with rising costs and dwindling profits, especially in states like California, Florida, and Texas. It's getting harder to manage properties with skyrocketing insurance rates and the increasing risks of renting out units."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Judge Napolitano, "Douglas Macgregor: United States Finally At War With Russia"

Full screen recommended.

Judge Napolitano, 6/28/24

"Douglas Macgregor: 

United States Finally At War With Russia"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Shipping Prices Will Go Through The Roof As Supply Chains Face Worst Threats Since 2020"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 6/28/24

"Shipping Prices Will Go Through The Roof 

As Supply Chains Face Worst Threats Since 2020"

"Supply chain disruptions. Congested ports. Delivery delays. Soaring shipping prices. All of this seemed like a distant memory from the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it's happening again, and conditions are far scarier this time around. The head of ocean freight of the Americas at Rhenus Logistics, Stephanie Loomis, who spends her days negotiating with international carriers on behalf of clients moving products and parts around the globe, revealed during an interview with the outlet that she's seeing cargo prices skyrocket due to a series of disturbances at world's busiest shipping routes.

Since the end of 2023, Houthi rebels have been firing on ships entering the Red Sea and heading to the Suez Canal, an essential artery for vessels travelling between Asia, Europe, and the East Coast of the United States. The offensive has escalated in recent months, forcing shipping companies to rethink their routes. They are now opting to take the longer routes around Africa, but that means their journeys are being extended by up to two days.

Additionally, a severe drought in Central America is reducing water levels in the Panama Canal, prompting authorities to restrict the number of ships passing through this key channel for global trade.

On top of all that strain, U.S. dockworkers on the East and Gulf coasts are threatening to go on a strike, while longshore workers at German ports have stopped shifts to demand better pay. Meanwhile, rail workers in Canada are poised to walk off their jobs, jeopardizing cargo movement across North America and risking backups at major ports like Vancouver, British Columbia.

The increasing turmoil in shipping is causing carriers to sharply raise rates, and it is increasing the possibility of a waterborne gridlock, which could once again leave big retail chains facing widespread shortages during the peak of the shopping season. This disruption could also worsen inflation, a major economic concern influencing the US presidential election."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

Full screen recommended. 

Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

Be kind to yourself, take a break from the never-ending

 horror show reality has become... Relax, savor this beautiful music... 

o

"I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colors and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, not any interest

Unborrowed from the eye.

That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

Abundant recompense.

For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue."

- William Wordsworth,

"Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"

o

“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that

only loneliness can help you find them again.

Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them.

Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”

- Gregory David Roberts, "Shantaram"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart. Known as the "Mice" because they have such long tails, each spiral galaxy has likely already passed through the other. The long tails are created by the relative difference between gravitational pulls on the near and far parts of each galaxy. Because the distances are so large, the cosmic interaction takes place in slow motion - over hundreds of millions of years.

NGC 4676 lies about 300 million light-years away toward the constellation of Bernice's Hair (Coma Berenices) and are likely members of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies. The featured picture was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2002. These galactic mice will probably collide again and again over the next billion years so that, instead of continuing to pull each other apart, they coalesce to form a single galaxy."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211004.html

Ever wonder why there's always these astronomy posts? At the end of the day, 

the end of the journey, as darkness falls, it's good to see the lights of Home...Soon.

The Poet: Rod McKuen, “A Cat Named Sloopy”

 

Full screen recommended.

“A Cat Named Sloopy”

“For awhile

the only earth that Sloopy knew

was in her sandbox.

Two rooms were her domain.

Every night she’d sit in the window

among the avocado plants

waiting for me to come home,

my arms full of canned liver and love.

We’d talk into the night then,

contented,

but missing something.

She the earth she never knew,

me the hills I ran

while growing bent.

Sloopy should have been a cowboy’s cat,

with prairies to run,

not linoleum,

and real-live catnip mice,

no one to depend on but herself.

I never told her,

but in my mind

I was a midnight cowboy even then.

Riding my imaginary horse

down Forty-second street,

going off with strangers

to live an hour-long cowboy’s life.

But always coming home to Sloopy,

who loved me best.

For a dozen summers

we lived against the world.

An island on an island.

She’d comfort me with purring,

I’d fatten her with smiles.

We grew rich on trust,

needing not the beach or butterflies.

I had a friend named Ben

Who painted buildings like Roualt men.

He went away.

My laughter tired Lillian

after a time,

she found a man who only smiled.

But Sloopy stayed and stayed.

Winter,

Nineteen fifty-nine,

Old men walk their dogs.

Some are walked so often

that their feet leave

little pink tracks

in the soft snow.

Women, fur on fur,

elegant and easy,

only slightly pure,

hailing cabs to take them

round the block and back.

Who is not a love seeker

when December comes?

Even children pray to Santa Claus.

I had my own love safe at home,

and yet I stayed out all one night,

the next day too.

They must have thought me crazy

screaming SLOOPY!

SLOOPY!

as the snow came falling

down around me.

I was a madman

to have stayed away

one minute more

than the appointed hour.

I’d like to think a golden cowboy

snatched her from the window sill,

and safely saddlebagged

she rode to Arizona.

She’s stalking lizards

in the cactus now perhaps,

bitter, but free.

I’m bitter too,

and not a free man anymore.

But once upon a time,

In New York’s jungle in a tree,

before I went into the world

in search of other kinds of love,

nobody owned me but a cat named Sloopy.

Looking back,

perhaps she’s been

the only human thing

that ever gave back love to me.”

- Rod McKuen 

"What Is Hope?"

"What Is Hope?"

"What is hope? It is the pre-sentiment that imagination is more real and reality is less real than it looks. It is the hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress us is not the last word. It is the suspicion that reality is more complex than the realists want us to believe.

That the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual; and in a miraculous and unexplained way, life is opening creative events which will light the way to freedom and resurrection. But the two - suffering and hope - must live from each other. Suffering without hope produces resentment and despair. But hope without suffering creates illusions, naïveté and drunkenness.

So let us plant dates even though we who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see. That is the secret discipline. It is the refusal to let our creative act be dissolved away by our need for immediate sense experience, and it is a struggled commitment to the future of our grandchildren. Such disciplined hope is what has given prophets, revolutionaries and saints the courage to die for the future they envisage. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope."

- Rubin Alves

"25 Life Lessons from the Anglo-Saxons"

Full screen recommended.

RedFrost Motivation,

"25 Life Lessons from the Anglo-Saxons"

Narrated by Nicky Rebelo

o

"The Exeter Book": This is the largest (and perhaps oldest) known collection of Old English poetry/literature still in existence. Freely download "The Exeter Book" here:

- https://ia800703.us.archive.org/

o

“The Durham Proverbs”: “The proverbs are considered to have been used to document everyday business of the people of Anglo-Saxon England.”

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Durham_Proverbs

"I'm Rightly Tired Of The Pain..."

“I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin' no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin' from or goin' to or why. I'm tired of people bein' ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein' in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't.”

- Stephen King, "The Green Mile"

“Gods dream of empires, but devils build them.”

- Jessica Cluess, "House of Dragons"

The Daily "Near You?"

Pretoria, South Africa. Thanks for stopping by!