Hilary Stagg, "Pleasant Dreams"
Full screen highly recommended.
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Saturday, December 12, 2020
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Riding high in the constellation of Auriga, beautiful, blue vdB 31 is the 31st object in Sidney van den Bergh's 1966 catalog of reflection nebulae. It shares this well-composed celestial still life with dark, obscuring clouds recorded in Edward E. Barnard's 1919 catalog of dark markings in the sky. All are interstellar dust clouds, blocking the light from background stars in the case of Barnard's dark nebulae. For vdB 31, the dust preferentially reflects the bluish starlight from embedded, hot, variable star AB Aurigae.
Exploring the environs of AB Aurigae with the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the several million year young star is itself surrounded by flattened dusty disk with evidence for the ongoing formation of a planetary system. AB Aurigae is about 470 light-years away. At that distance this cosmic canvas would span about four light-years.”
"It's True Object..."; "Benedicto"
"The summit is believed to be the object of the climb. But its true object - the joy of living - is not in the peak itself, but in the adversities encountered on the way up. There are valleys, cliffs, streams, precipices, and slides, and as he walks these steep paths, the climber may think he cannot go any farther, or even that dying would be better than going on. But then he resumes fighting the difficulties directly in front of him, and when he is finally able to turn and look back at what he has overcome, he finds he has truly experienced the joy of living while on life's very road."
- Eiji Yoshikawa
○
"Benedicto"
“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you - beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”
- Edward Abbey
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/12/20"
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/12/20"
○
DEC 12, 2020 - 20:33: "California, NJ Report New COVID Records; Peru Halts Sinopharm Trial: Live Updates"
DEC 12, 2020 - 12:35: "US Sees Record 300K COVID Cases As Total Nears 16MM; Scramble For Vaccine Doses Begins: Live Updates"
○
Dec. 12, 2020
Dec. 12, 2020 2:05 PM ET:
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 70,427,600
people, according to official counts, including 16,067,449 Americans.
At least 1,595,300 have died.
Dec. 12, 2020 2:05 PM ET:
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count○
"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases,
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
The Poet: Carl Sandburg, "Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"
"Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"
“The past is a bucket of ashes.”
1
"The woman named Tomorrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let the dead be dead.
2
The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.
3
It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got
a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women
to warble: We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.
And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
there were rats and lizards who listened
…and the only listeners left now
…are…the rats…and the lizards.
And there are black crows
crying, “Caw, caw,”
bringing mud and sticks
building a nest
over the words carved
on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,”
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
And the only listeners now are…the rats…and the lizards.
4
The feet of the rats
scribble on the door sills;
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigrees of the rats
and babble of the blood
and gabble of the breed
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers
of the rats.
And the wind shifts
and the dust on a door sill shifts
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was."
- Carl Sandburg
Oh! Had I The Ability..."
"Oh! Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced."
“I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued.”
- Frederick Douglass
"Secession? Texas GOP Calls For New 'Union Of States That Will Abide By Constitution' In Wake Of Supreme Court Defeat"
"Secession? Texas GOP Calls For New 'Union Of States
That Will Abide By Constitution' In Wake Of Supreme Court Defeat"
by Tyler Durden
"Texas Republican Party Chairman Allen West is fuming after the Supreme Court denied the state's bid to challenge Joe Biden's wins in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Washington and Michigan - and has suggested what sounds a lot like secession.
In a Friday night statement, West - a former Congressman and Iraq war veteran - said: "The Supreme Court, in tossing the Texas lawsuit that was joined by seventeen states and 106 US congressmen, have decreed that a state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law. Resulting in damaging effects on other states that abide by the law, while the guilty state suffers no consequences. This decision establishes a precedent that says states can violate the US constitution and not be held accountable."
West then added: "This decision will have far reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic. Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution."
In a further statement, West repeated his suggestion - writing "If we are living in Texas, and we were joined with, you know, some 20-some-odd other states, the 1065 different members of Congress that say, 'we do not want to stand by and allow four states to have unconstitutional practices,' and when we see states such as ourselves following the law, but yet the Supreme Court says that's perfectly fine, then maybe we should have a union of states that believe in the Constitution and will abide by that rule of law, and let these other states go out on their own separate way and let them, not be supported by these other states such as ourselves."
More from @AllenWest tonight - this time less 'we're outta here' and more 'actually, they're the ones who should secede.' "...let these other states go out their own separate way and let them not be supported by these other states such as ourselves." - December 12, 2020
Friday's decision marked the second time Republicans were denied this week by the Supreme Court, and has largely been considered the 'end of the road' for overturning the results of the election."
○
Secession? YES
"For The First Time Ever, Millions Of Working-Poor Americans Forced To Turn To Food Banks"
Click image for larger size.
"For The First Time Ever, Millions Of Working-Poor
Americans Forced To Turn To Food Banks"
by Tyler Durden
"For the first time, millions of Americans waited in food bank lines this year, unlike anything seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. According to AP, as the pandemic rages on, with more than 20 million still claiming unemployment benefits, food banks are dishing out more meals than ever. The one place millions of Americans found themselves this year, as readers may recall, really starting in mid-March, have been food bank lines. We highlighted this phenomenon sweeping across the country as the pandemic wrecked the working poor as they grappled with food insecurity.
Among some of the most memorable sights this year, reminiscent of the Depression-era, were mile-long food bank lines. Huge traffic jams captured by civilian drones documented large lines in San Antonio, Texas to Toledo, Ohio to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Orlando, Florida, where thousands of vehicles carrying hungry people waited for care packages.
Feeding America, a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks, was overwhelmed with demand as 20% of the organization's food banks were at severe risk of running out of food earlier this year. Demand at food banks has been so high, that Feeding America handed out 4.2 billion meals from March through October, the most ever. The organization reported a 60% average increase in food bank users during the pandemic - and at least 30% are first-timers.
Data from Feeding America showed 181 food banks in its network distributed nearly 57% more food in the third quarter than the same period in 2019. Estimates from the food bank suggest 1 in 6 Americans, from 35 million in 2019 to more than 50 million by the end of this year, will have food insecurity problems. The problem is worse for children - nearly 1 in 4 will go hungry as the pandemic deeply scarred the economy.
Shockingly, Feeding America found that 1 in 5 residents in Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisiana could not put food on the table. AP interviewed Duerr, 56, who said she must "either pay bills or get food." She said food bank donations have greatly helped her as she struggles to survive.
Many of the folks attending food bank lines are the working poor who once had jobs in the service industry. Because of permanent job loss, many of their jobs will be completely wiped out. For communities of color, such as those in the inner cities, the pandemic has been disastrous. Blacks and Latinos are dealing with high rates of infections and deaths from the virus, along with high joblessness. If food demand continues to soar - Feeding America, in a separate report from October, warned that it could face a deficit of "10 billion pound shortfall between now and June of 2021 – the equivalent of 8 billion meals."
○
A Comment:
"The problem is worse for children - nearly 1 in 4 will go hungry." Yes, my fellow Americans, we are truly exceptional - we are the biggest disgrace in the history of Mankind for allowing this atrocity, while THIS is happening:
$9 TRILLION to bail out these psychopaths since September,
while children go hungry in this God-damned country?!!
Trillions for the criminal banks and corporations,
and NOTHING for the people... nothing!
Shame! Shame and disgrace on us all...
- CP
"Dreaming of a Christmas Without Stuff Nobody Wants or Needs"
Click image for larger size.
"Dreaming of a Christmas Without Stuff Nobody Wants or Needs"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"Did you see the new "gotta-have" coffee-pod flavors this Christmas? Crayfish, Spanish Moss, Pumpkin Spicy Radish and Jungle Rot. Yowza, it doesn't get any better than this... Future archeologists will marvel not just at the enormous quantity of stuff left by our late-oil-boom frenzy of consumption but by the peculiar concentrations of never-used stuff in closets, basements and strange (possibly religious in nature) immense structures comprised of endless rows of small rooms crammed to the ceiling with stuff without any apparent utility or value.
When can we finally admit that Christmas gift-giving no longer serves any purpose other than the purchase of vast quantities of stuff nobody wants or needs? Generations ago, before everyone could buy whatever they wanted on credit, Christmas was the one time when some portion of the savings that had been painfully accumulated by sacrifice would be doled out for small gifts, typically a consumable treat, modest toys for children or a necessity.
Compare that tradition with today's frantic frenzy to find something new that recipients don't need or want and retailers' equally frantic search for new markets: your gerbil doesn't have a plush new bed? Shame on you! Imagine its anguish when everyone else is surrounded by piles of shredded wrapping paper and your poor pet didn't get a single present... where's your Christmas spirit (and credit card)?.
The most appreciated gift you can give is a suggestion to end the obligation to exchange gifts. To state the honest truth - we don't want or need anything else, and don't have space for anything else, thank you - is a gift few are willing to risk saying, but everyone heaves a sigh of relief when one brave person asks to be relieved of the burden of buying another mountain of stuff nobody wants or needs.
There is a long tradition of consumable homemade gifts - Christmas cookies, fruitcake, etc. -that awaits rediscovery. Freeing ourselves of unwanted/unneeded gift-giving is not just heresy in a debt-funded consumerist economy - it is tantamount to treason. (The lines from an old Errol Flynn movie come to mind: "You speak treason!" "Fluently.") But why should an honest appraisal qualify as both heresy and treason?
The honest truth is hearts don't leap with joy at receiving another unwanted, unneeded thing; hearts sink at the task of moving the gift into some corner of the already-stuffed closet or donating it. What was the point of all this costly frenzy again? To keep a debt-dependent consumer economy from imploding? Is that what Christmas has become?
What's scarce isn't more stuff. What's scarce is time, reflection and the generosity of spirit. We're so busy loading the conveyor belt of unwanted, unneeded stuff in and out of our homes that we have no time to actually spend on what is valuable. But here, try this new coffee-pod flavor, miso-kumquat-kimchee, I got you the bulk quantity at Costco, you're gonna love it."
○
Well of course we need, 40, 50,1,000 different coffee flavors!
Peasants, meh... sniff, 'tsk 'tsk...
○
Friday, December 11, 2020
Must Watch! “Economy Crushed; Real Estate Crisis; Restaurant Industry Gone; Palm Springs Depression - Part 2”
Jeremiah Babe,
“Economy Crushed; Real Estate Crisis;
Restaurant Industry Gone; Palm Springs Depression - Part 2”
Brutal, real-world honesty. See for yourself...
Musical Interlude: Moby, "Why Does My Heart Feels So Bad (Ben-E.dit)"
Moby, "Why Does My Heart Feels So Bad (Ben-E.dit)"
Full screen recommended.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)