Chet Raymo, “The Journey”

“The Journey”

by Chet Raymo

“Here’s a deep-deep sky map of the universe from the March 9, 2006 issue of "Nature". The horizontal scale is a 360 view right around the sky; the vertical gaps at 6 hours and 24 hours are the parts of the universe that are blocked to our view by the disk of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The vertical scale – distance from Earth – is logarithmic (10, 100, 1000, etc.) measured in megaparsecs (a parsec equals 3.26 light-years). Across the top is the Big Bang, and the oldest and most distant thing we can see, the cosmic microwave background, the radiation of the Big Bang itself. A few relatively nearby galaxies are designated at the bottom. All that stuff in the middle that looks like smoke or dusty cobwebs are quasars and galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

A smoke of galaxies! (2 trillion galaxies according to latest estimates.- CP) A universe cobwebbed with Milky Ways! Each galaxy itself a smoke of stars, hundreds of billions of stars, many or all of them with planets. My book, “Walking Zero,” is about the human journey from the omphalos of our birth into the world of the galaxies, a journey many of us are disinclined to make. Here is how the Prologue to the book begins:

“Each of us is born at the center of the world. For nine months our physical selves are assembled molecule by molecule, cell by cell, in the dark covert of our mother’s womb. A single fertilized egg cell splits into two. Then four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. Ultimately, 50 trillion cells or so. At first, our future self is a mere blob of protoplasm. But slowly, ever so slowly, the blob begins to differentiate under the direction of genes. A symmetry axis develops. A head, a tail, a spine. At this point, the embryo might be that of a human, or a chicken, or a marmoset. Limbs form. Digits, with tiny translucent nails. Eyes, with papery lids. Ears pressed like flowers against the head. Clearly now a human. A nose, nostrils. Downy hair. Genitals.

As the physical self develops, so too a mental self takes shape, not yet conscious, not yet self-aware, knitted together as webs of neurons in the brain, encapsulating in some respects the evolutionary experience of our species. Instincts impressed by the genes. The instinct to suck, for example. Already, in the womb, the fetus presses its tiny fist against its mouth in anticipation of the moment when the mouth will be offered the mother’s breast. The child will not have to be taught to suck. Other inborn behaviors will express themselves later. Laughing. Crying. Striking out in anger. Loving.

What, if anything, goes on in the mind of the developing fetus we may never know. But this much seems certain: To the extent that the emerging self has any awareness of its surroundings, its world is coterminous with itself. We are not born with knowledge of the antipodes, the plains of Mars, or the far-flung realm of the galaxies. We are not born with knowledge of Precambrian seas, the supercontinent of Pangea, or the Age of Dinosaurs. We are born into a world scarcely older than ourselves and scarcely larger than ourselves. And we are at its center.

A human life is a journey into the grandeur of a universe that may contain more galaxies than there are cells in the human body, a universe in which the whole of a human lifetime is but a single tick of the cosmic clock. The journey can be disorienting; our first instincts are towards coziness, comfort, our mother’s enclosing arms, her breast. The journey, therefore, requires courage – for each individual, and for our species.

Uniquely of all animals, humans have the capacity to let our minds expand into the space and time of the galaxies. No other creatures can number the cells in their bodies, as we can, or count the stars. No other creatures can imagine the explosive birth of the observable universe 14 billion years ago from an infinitely hot, infinitely small seed of energy. That we choose to make this journey – from the all-sustaining womb into the vertiginous spaces and abyss of time – is the glory of our species, and perhaps our most frightening challenge.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

The Poet: May Sarton, “Now I Become Myself”

“Now I Become Myself”

“Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places,
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before —”
(What? Before you reach the morning?
or the end of the poem, is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move,
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the Sun!”

~ May Sarton,
 Collected Poems, 1930-1993

"12-Step Recovery Program for Menticide"

Full screen recommended.

Sprouts, "Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity"

"12-Step Recovery Program for Menticide"

by Margaret Anna Alice

"Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued that stupid people are more dangerous than evil ones. This is because while we can protest against or fight evil people, against stupid ones we are defenseless - reasons fall on dead ears. Bonhoeffer's famous text, which we slightly edited for this video, serves any free society as a warning of what can happen when certain people gain too much power."

“Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed - in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical - and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.…

There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them.

It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity...

The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.

The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings. Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity.”

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Many of you are well-educated and simply too busy with life’s obligations to seek out unbiased information for yourself, so you defer to people you’re told are experts instead of conducting your own investigations. Unfortunately, this was a potentially lethal error, but realizing that and reversing course before you submit yourself to further rounds of experimentation could save your life and the lives of those you love.

If you recognize any of the above signs in yourself, not to worry. Just follow this twelve-step recovery program, and you’ll be thinking clearly, logically, rationally, and independently in no time! All you have to lose are your manufactured delusions; misplaced pride; gullibility; fear; terror; anxiety; rage; and mental and physical enslavement. In exchange, you gain an independent mind; critical-thinking abilities; research skills; fact-based knowledge; confidence in your understanding; internal peace; empowerment; mental and physical health; and maybe even your life.

Nothing is more consequential to your life than facing the fact that you have been deluded and seeking to understand the evidence your deceivers are hiding from you. If you cannot take that crucial step, then you are stupid according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s "Theory of Stupidity", and you might as well stop reading here.

Only you can liberate yourself from willful stupidity. Continuing to read this article and being willing to implement these twelve steps proves you have the intelligence to do so."

Please view this complete, critically important, article here:

"12-Step Recovery Program for Menticide"

- https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/

"The Long Dark"

"The Long Dark"

by Chris Floyd

"We are in the Long Dark now. Both hope and despair are the enemies of our survival. We must live in the awareness that we might not see the light come back, without ceasing to work - with empathy, anger and knowledge - for its return.

We must be here, in the moment, experiencing its fullness (whatever its horrors or joys), yet be elsewhere, removed from the madness pouring in from every side, the avalanche of degradation. We must be here, now, but also in a future we can’t see or even imagine.

We must see that we are lost, with no clear way forward, no sureties or verities to cling to, no roots to anchor us, no structures within or without that will always keep their coalescence in the chaotic, surging flow.

We must live in discrete moments of illumination and connection, pearls hung on an almost invisible string winding through the darkness. Striving, always striving, but not expecting; striving without hope, without despair, without any certainty at all as to the outcome, good or bad.

These are the conditions of the Long Dark, this is what we have to work with, this is where we find ourselves in the brief time we have in this vast, indifferent, astounding universe. As I once wrote long ago, quoting the old hymn: “Work, for the night is coming.”

So do we counsel fatalism, a dark, defeated surrender, a retreat into bitter, curdled quietude? Not a whit. We advocate action, positive action, unstinting action, doing the only thing that human beings can do, ever: Try this, try that, try something else again; discard those approaches that don't work, that wreak havoc, that breed death and cruelty; fight against everything that would draw us down again into our own mud; expect no quarter, no lasting comfort, no true security; offer no last word, no eternal truth, but just keep stumbling, falling, careening, backsliding, crawling toward the broken light.

And what is this "broken light"? Nothing more than a metaphor for the patches of understanding – awareness, attention, knowledge, connection – that break through our darkness and stupidity for a moment now and then. A light always fractured, under threat, shifting, found then lost again, always lost. For we are creatures steeped in imperfection, in breakage and mutation, tossed up – very briefly – from the boiling, chaotic crucible of Being, itself a ragged work in progress toward unknown ends, or rather, toward no particular end at all. Why should there be an "answer" in such a reality?

What matters is what works – what pulls us from our own darkness as far as possible, for as long as possible. Yet the truth remains that "what works" is always and forever only provisional – what works now, here, might not work there, then. What saves our soul today might make us sick tomorrow.

Thus all we can do is to keep looking, working, trying to clear a little more space for the light, to let it shine on our passions and our confusions, our anger and our hopes, informing and refining them, so that we can see each other better, for a moment – until death shutters all seeing forever."

- http://www.chris-floyd.com/home/

The Daily "Near You?"

Elyria, Ohio, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"So You Remember..."

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"

"Israel’s Willing Executioners"

"Israel’s Willing Executioners"

by Chris Hedges

"Run, the Israelis demand, run for your lives. Run from Rafah the way you ran from Gaza City, the way you ran from Jabalia, the way you ran from Deir al-Balah, the way you ran from Beit Hanoun, the way you ran from Bani Suheila, the way you ran from Khan Yunis. Run or we will kill you. We will drop 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs on your tent encampments. We will spray you with bullets from our machine-gun-equipped drones. We will pound you with artillery and tank shells. We will shoot you down with snipers. We will decimate your tents, your refugee camps, your cities and towns, your homes, your schools, your hospitals and your water purification plants. We will rain death from the sky.

Run for your lives. Again and again and again. Pack up the pathetic few belongings you have left. Blankets. A couple of pots. Some clothes. We don’t care how exhausted you are, how hungry you are, how terrified you are, how sick you are, how old, or how young you are. Run. Run. Run. And when you run in terror to one part of Gaza we will make you turn around and run to another. Trapped in a labyrinth of death. Back and forth. Up and down. Side to side. Six. Seven. Eight times. We toy with you like mice in a trap. Then we deport you so you can never return. Or we kill you.

Let the world denounce our genocide. What do we care? The billions in military aid flows unchecked from our American ally. The fighter jets. The artillery shells. The tanks. The bombs. An endless supply. We kill children by the thousands. We kill women and the elderly by the thousands. The sick and injured, without medicine and hospitals, die. We poison the water. We cut off the food. We make you starve. We created this hell. We are the masters. Law. Duty. A code of conduct. They do not exist for us.

But first we toy with you. We humiliate you. We terrorize you. We revel in your fear. We are amused by your pathetic attempts to survive. You are not human. You are creatures. Untermensch. We feed our libido dominandi – our lust for domination. Look at our posts on social media. They have gone viral. One shows soldiers grinning in a Palestinian home with the owners tied up and blindfolded in the background. We loot. Rugs. Cosmetics. Motorbikes. Jewelry. Watches. Cash. Gold. Antiquities. We laugh at your misery. We cheer your death. We celebrate our religion, our nation, our identity, our superiority, by negating and erasing yours.

Depravity is moral. Atrocity is heroism. Genocide is redemption.

Jean Améry, who was in the Belgian resistance during World War II and who was captured and tortured by the Gestapo in 1943, defines sadism “as the radical negation of the other, the simultaneous denial of both the social principle and the reality principle. In the sadist’s world, torture, destruction, and death are triumphant: and such a world clearly has no hope of survival. On the contrary, he desires to transcend the world, to achieve total sovereignty by negating fellow human beings – which he sees as representing a particular kind of ‘hell.’”

Back in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Netanya, Ramat Gan, Petah Tikva who are we? Dish washers and mechanics. Factory workers, tax collectors and taxi drivers. Garbage collectors and office workers. But in Gaza we are demigods. We can kill a Palestinian who does not strip to his underwear, fall to his knees, beg for mercy with his hands bound behind his back. We can do this to children as young as 12 and men as old as 70.

There are no legal constraints. There is no moral code. There is only the intoxicating thrill of demanding greater and greater forms of submission and more and more abject forms of humiliation.

We may feel insignificant in Israel, but here, in Gaza, we are King Kong, a little tyrant on a little throne. We stride through the rubble of Gaza, surrounded by the might of industrial weapons, able to pulverize in an instant whole apartment blocks and neighborhoods, and say, like Vishnu, “now I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

But we are not content simply with killing. We want the walking dead to pay homage to our divinity.

This is the game played in Gaza. It was the game played during the Dirty War in Argentina when the military junta “disappeared” 30,000 of its own citizens. The “disappeared” were subjected to torture – who cannot call what is happening to Palestinians in Gaza torture? – and humiliated before they were murdered. It was the game played in the clandestine torture centers and prisons in El Salvador and Iraq. It is what characterized the war in Bosnia in the Serbian concentration camps.

This soul crushing disease runs through us like an electric current. It infects every crime in Gaza. It infects every word that comes out of our mouths. We, the victors, are glorious. The Palestinians are nothing. Vermin. They will be forgotten.

Israeli journalist Yinon Magal on the show “Hapatriotim” on Israel’s Channel 14, joked that Joe Biden’s red line was the killing of 30,000 Palestinians. The singer Kobi Peretz asked if that was the number of dead for a day. The audience erupted in applause and laughter.

We place "booby-trapped" cans resembling food tins in the rubble. Starving Palestinians are injured or killed when they open them. We broadcast the sounds of women screaming and babies crying from quadcopters to lure Palestinians out so we can shoot them. We announce food distribution points and use artillery and snipers to carry out massacres.

We are the orchestra in this dance of death.

In Joseph Conrad’s short story “An Outpost of Progress,” he writes of two white, European traders, Carlier and Kayerts. They are posted to a remote trading station in the Congo. The mission will spread European “civilization” to Africa. But the boredom and lack of constraints swiftly turn the two men into beasts. They trade slaves for ivory. They get into a feud over dwindling food supplies. Kayerts shoots and kills his unarmed companion Carlier.

“They were two perfectly insignificant and incapable individuals,” Conrad writes of Kayerts and Carlier: "…whose existence is only rendered possible through the high organization of civilized crowds. Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence; the emotions and principles; every great and every insignificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd; to the crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion. But the contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature and primitive man, brings sudden and profound trouble into the heart. To the sentiment of being alone of one’s kind, to the clear perception of the loneliness of one’s thoughts, of one’s sensations – to the negation of the habitual, which is safe, there is added the affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous; a suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable, and repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites the imagination and tries the civilized nerves of the foolish and the wise alike".

Rafah is the prize at the end of the road. Rafah is the great killing field where we will slaughter Palestinians on a scale unseen in this genocide. Watch us. It will be an orgy of blood and death. It will be of Biblical proportions. No one will stop us. We kill in paroxysms of excitement. We are gods."

- https://chrishedges.substack.com/

 Israel..."to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee;

 for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."

- Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"

If I said what I truly felt and think they'd delete this blog in a heartbeat...

- CP

"Social Moore’s Law"

"Social Moore’s Law"

by Brian Maher

"Moore’s Law: the theory that computational power doubles every other year. In brief, that computational power accelerates at an accelerating rate - an exponential rate. We begin to suspect that a sort of social Moore’s law is in effect. That is, that societal change is accelerating at an accelerating rate. This directional movement - we hesitate to label it progress - is likely the child of technological progression. Let us first consider the technological progression.

Gradually, Then Suddenly: From year one anno Domini to year 1820 anno Domini… the Western world’s economic growth averaged an invisible 0.06% a year. 0.06% annual growth equals 6% per century.

United States economic growth alone exceeded 6% in the years 1962, 1965, 1966 and 1984. United States economic growth likewise exceeded 6% following the 2020 plague. We exclude this expansion due to the unnatural contraction that preceded it. Yet the cardinal fact remains: In one year alone… the United States economy has often exceeded the work of an entire century - before the 19th century that is.

The Special Century: An unlikely series of inventions came springing forth in the mid-to-late-19th century. These inventions raised the curtain on a golden age of technological and economic progress… an era of such high razzle-dazzle… it faces no equal in history. The electric light bulb made nighttime daytime. Electric power sent progress hurling on a thousand fronts. The railroad, steamship and internal-combustion engine finally put period to the “homely plod of hoof and sail” that paced transportation since the beginning of the chapter. The telegraph, telephone and radio unhorsed the terrible twin tyrants of time and distance.

The result was a “special century” of technological and economic progress, 1870–1970. Man crammed more technological progress into that one special century than the previous dozen combined. He was chained to Earth some 400,000 years before the Wrights shattered gravity’s “surly bonds” at Kitty Hawk. The 12-second “flight” worked a mere 12 feet of altitude… and 120 feet of distance. Sixty-six years later? Man was rocketing to the moon and Neil Armstrong was taking his giant leap for mankind. Impossible - but there it is.

Moore’s Law and AI: Today some claim that artificial intelligence will surpass natural intelligence, human intelligence, by next year. And if not by next year, in some soon year. The very term “artificial intelligence” had no existence prior to 1955. Inch by glacial inch the technology progressed. And now - if you accept the verdict of experts - artificial intelligence will soon race past its human originator… and show him its dust. In summary, the technological evolution accelerates at accelerating gaits. What about social progress?

Stability Across Time: For nearly his entire existence, the human being was a tribalized and localized creature. Agriculture later moved him into the fields. The state took form. Yet was the social life of 1750 very much different than the social life of 1650 or 1550? Your editor is not credentialed within the field of social history. And he concedes he draws his historical sketch with a wide, wide brush. Yet he hazards the man of 1550, 1650 and 1750 were close relatives.

He was likely Christian and a church-attending man. The devil was real to him and Charles Darwin was alien to him. He likely had his existence within a racially and ethnically homogenized society. He practiced a trade that his father and his father’s father practiced. The concept of social or technological progress was unknown to him. That is because the theory of “progress” was a creation of the 19th century, with its dizzying novelties.

Accelerating Changes: Modern man created the technologies - and the technologies in turn created modern man. Fantastic industrialization, economic effervescence, population expansion and urban primacy transformed his social arrangements. The millimetric changes of millenia became the careening changes of decades. Within a generation, the centuries-old farming community was given over to the assembly line and the punch clock. A new proletarian class came with it. Would you know the name Karl Marx absent the Industrial Revolution and its social upheavals? You would not.

Meantime, the 20th century witnessed fresh social developments. In the United States these included feminism, civil rights legislation, expanded drug intake, sexual liberation, environmentalism, profound secularization. Yet social Moore’s law had yet to acquire existence.

The Biggest Demographic Transformation in History: Now it has acquired existence, at least in our telling. For the American of 2024 inhabits an age of accelerating social acceleration. He inhabits an age of social Moore’s law.

The United States population was 90% Caucasian in 1950. In 2024 the United States population is under 60% Caucasian. Before long it will be under 50% Caucasian. Never in history - never in history - has a nation’s population withstood such vast demographic transformation within so brief a space. The continent of Europe is undergoing a parallel process. You may like it or dislike it. Yet you cannot deny its transformational reality.

Social Moore’s Law Takes Effect: The American man of medium years knew who Daniel Boone was. He very likely kneeled before the altars of George Washington, Tom Jefferson and the nation’s founders. The youthful American of 2024 very likely does not. He likely condemns these fellows as irredeemably racist, sexist, gay-fearing - and in every probability - transgender-fearing.

The older American could not conceive that the statues of his heroes would be dragged down and that schoolhouses bearing their names would be rechristened. For much of his life he was stranger to the term “LBGTQ+.” The concept of homosexual matrimony was alien to him. His pronoun was as obvious to him as the nose upon his face. He is staggered to learn that some 30% of Americans aged 18–25 presently label themselves “non-binary.” It astonishes him that youths as tender as 5 are offered “gender-affirming” care to reverse their biological designation.

That is: In the span of a few brief years the granite, immemorial inviolability of biological sex has itself gone into the hellbox. Societal elites insist that biological females must combat biological males in athletic contests - else it is “transphobic.” We do not stretch or exaggerate the facts. We merely report them.

A Unique Moment in History: Could the American man of 1950 take it all aboard? To ask the question is to answer the question. Nor could the man of 1900, 1800, 1700 or 100 take it all aboard. That is because this man did not inhabit the age of social Moore’s law. The American man of 1980 or 2000 did not even inhabit the age of social Moore’s law. The American man of 2024 - in contrast - does inhabit the age of social Moore’s law.

The society-accepted fundaments of centuries and millennia have collapsed in a heap — within years. Perhaps the nearest historical examples are France’s revolution of 1789–1799 and China’s Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976.

Yet not even Monsieur Robespierre and Chairman Mao believed men could birth children. Nor did they believe - to our knowledge - that boys can blossom into girls and girls can blossom into boys. In 2024 entire societal segments believe it. It is not our intention to condemn it. It is simply to illustrate today’s dizzying pace of change.

When the Acceleration Accelerated: When did social Moore’s law begin to truly gallop? Under our theory of social Moore’s law, the polarizing Obama and Trump regencies represented great accelerations. The vast deliriums of the year 2020 represented another. The triumph of “social” media provided the technological accelerant. Through this media form the most eccentric concepts are thrown into general circulation.

You may agree with these developments or you may disagree with these developments. Yet you cannot deny - as we see it - the lightning pace of these developments. We begin to suspect that the sun will soon rise in the west, set in the east, that Earth will go around the moon and that the sun will go around Earth. What next? The election of an honest politician?

Assume social Moore’s law accelerates ahead. What will society resemble in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years - 100 years? We do not pretend to know. We know only it will not resemble the present…"

- https://dailyreckoning.com/

"Mass Mental Illness Exploding Across Western Civilization"

"Mass Mental Illness Exploding Across Western Civilization:

 Transgenderism, Climate Cultism And More"

by Mike Adams

"Western civilization is increasingly being defined by the mass mental illness now sweeping across society. Some people believe they need to cut off their genitals to be "normal," and others think they will merge with the machines to become immortal cyborgs. Some people believe in climate cultism, and others are obedience compliance worshipers who go crazy trying to comply with every crazy demand placed upon them by governments or corporations. As a result of all this mental illness, our society is crumbling, and there's nobody in any real position of power who is both mentally stable and also capable of turning this situation around. Like Rome, America is falling, and as it happens, things will get even crazier from here forward."

View video here:

- https://www.brighteon.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"One Can Fight Evil..."

Boobus Americanus, champion of willful ignorance.

They don't know because they don't want to know...

And, as Oscar Wilde said:

"If you're going to tell people the truth make them laugh,

otherwise they'll kill you."

○

'One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless.'
- Henry Miller

○

 "Alas, regardless of their doom,

The little victims play!

No sense have they of ills to come,

Nor care beyond to-day..."

- https://coyoteprimeblog2.blogspot.com/

○

Oh, we so deserve what we get...

"The Consequences Of Our Choices..."

“Life does not require us to be consistent, cruel, patient, helpful, angry, rational, thoughtless, loving, rash, open-minded, neurotic, careful, rigid, tolerant, wasteful, rich, downtrodden, gentle, sick, considerate, funny, stupid, healthy, greedy, beautiful, lazy, responsive, foolish, sharing, pressured, intimate, hedonistic, industrious, manipulative, insightful, capricious, wise, selfish, kind or sacrificed. Life does, however, require us to live with the consequences of our choices.”

- Richard Bach, “Running From Safety”

"Tens Of Millions Of Americans Are “Trapped” In An Endless Cycle Of Debt That Is Sucking The Life Out Of Them Financially"

"Tens Of Millions Of Americans Are “Trapped” In An Endless

 Cycle Of Debt That Is Sucking The Life Out Of Them Financially"

by Michael Snyder

"Did you know that U.S. households are 17,690,000,000,000 dollars in debt? Of course household debt is only one part of a much larger story. The federal government is 34 trillion dollars in debt, state and local governments are absolutely drowning in debt and unfunded liabilities, and corporate debt is at an all-time high. As a society, we are on the greatest debt binge in the history of the world, and it just gets worse every single year. Previous generations handed us an economy that provided us with an incredibly high standard of living, but we always had to have more. So we have been borrowing and spending with no end in sight, and now our day of reckoning is fast approaching.

According to the New York Fed, U.S. household debt surged to another record high during the first quarter of this year…"In the first three months of 2024, total household debt surged to a fresh record of $17.69 trillion, an increase of $184 billion, or 1.1% from the previous quarter. The increase mostly stemmed from a jump in mortgage balances, which rose $190 billion from the previous quarter to $12.44 trillion at the end of March."

If we could handle all that debt, there wouldn’t be much cause for alarm. Unfortunately, delinquency rates are rising. In fact, the proportion of credit card balances in serious delinquency has risen to the highest level since 2012…"A growing number of Americans are falling behind on their monthly credit card payments as they continue to battle high inflation and interest rates, according to New York Federal Reserve data published Tuesday. Credit card delinquencies, which have already surpassed their pre-pandemic levels, continued to rise in the three-month period from January to March.

The flow of credit card debt moving into delinquency hit 8.9% in the first quarter at an annualized rate, compared with an 8.5% rate the previous quarter and 5.87% at the end of 2023. In fact, the percentage of credit card balances in serious delinquency climbed to its highest level since 2012."

In 2012, we were just coming out of the Great Recession. Now a new economic crisis has begun, and millions of U.S. households are teetering on the brink of financial disaster. If you use credit cards, it is so important to pay them off in full every month. Unfortunately, approximately 44 percent of all cardholders do not do that…"Overall credit card balances totaled $1.115 trillion in the first quarter of the year, $129 billion more than last year. For card users who pay their balance in full every month, that’s not a problem. But according to Bankrate, roughly 44% of borrowers carry credit card debt over from month to month."

It has always been financial suicide to carry credit card balances from month to month, and that is especially true today because interest rates are so ridiculously high…"The rise in credit card usage and debt is particularly concerning because interest rates are astronomically high. The average credit card annual percentage rate, or APR, hit a new record of 20.72% last week, according to a Bankrate database that dates to 1985. The previous record was 19% in July 1991."

If people are carrying debt to compensate for steeper prices, they could end up paying more for items in the long run. For instance, if you owe $5,000 in debt, which Americans do on average, current APR levels would mean it would take about 279 months and $8,124 in interest to pay off the debt making the minimum payments.

I always encourage my readers to pay off high interest debt as soon as possible. If you have credit card debt, eliminating it should be your number one financial goal. Sadly, the New York Fed’s new report tells us that an increasing number of Americans are getting behind on their credit cards and their auto loans…"The Fed’s report showed 6.9% of credit card debt transitioned to serious delinquency last quarter, up from 4.6% a year ago. And for credit card holders aged 18–29, 9.9% of balances were in serious delinquency.

Auto loan delinquencies are also higher as the average monthly car payment jumped to $738 in 2023. Close to 2.8% of auto loans are now 90 or more days delinquent — that equates to more than 3 million cars. Auto loans are the second-largest debt category following mortgage debt, with $1.62 trillion outstanding."

Tens of millions of U.S. households have severely overextended themselves financially. When you get to a point where you are so far in debt that you can barely make the minimum payments, it can feel like you are “trapped” with no way out…"High interest rates are pushing low- and moderate-income Americans who have fallen behind on credit card payments and auto loans to the brink, according to a new report. “It’s crazy,” 43-year-old Army veteran Ora Dorsey told The New York Times. “It does make it hard to get out of debt. It seems like you’re only paying the interest. We don’t have the credit to be able to buy a house, and we have a bunch of debt, either student loans or credit card debt,” 31-year-old Chris Nunn, who drives for the DoorDash delivery app, told the Times. “So we’re trapped.” Dorsey told the outlet she has been trying to cut down debts accrued following various health issues for years. She is working three jobs to cut down her substantial debt.

Today, Americans are more pessimistic about the economy than they have been in a very long time. It can be absolutely soul crushing to work as hard as you possibly can and still not have enough money for all the bills. If you are feeling a tremendous amount of stress about your finances, you are certainly not alone.

According to one recent survey, approximately half of the entire population is struggling with mental health issues due to financial stress…"About half of U.S. adults are struggling with their mental health because of their financial situation. Forty-seven percent of adults say concerns about money have, at least occasionally, caused anxiety, stress, worrisome thoughts, loss of sleep, depression or other effects, according to Bankrate’s latest Money and Mental Health Survey.

About 65% of them say their biggest concern is inflation and rising prices, and nearly 60% say their stress derives from paying for everyday expenses such as groceries and utilities. About 56% say they are worried about having enough emergency savings, and 47% are most concerned about being in debt, according to the survey."

After seeing numbers like that, how in the world can anyone possibly claim that the U.S. economy is in good shape? The level of economic pain that we are already witnessing is absolutely staggering, and conditions are only going to get worse during the chaotic months and years that are ahead of us. But even though our leaders continue to make incredibly reckless decision after incredibly reckless decision, many people out there continue to be convinced that everything is going to work out just fine somehow."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

o

"When people pile up debts they will find difficult and perhaps even impossible to repay, they are saying several things at once. They are obviously saying that they want more than they can immediately afford. They are saying, less obviously, that their present wants are so important that, to satisfy them, it is worth some future difficulty. But in making that bargain they are implying that when the future difficulty arrives, they'll figure it out. They don't always do that."

- Michael Lewis, "Boomerang"

Dan, I Allegedly, "The 2008 Crisis is Back! Are You Prepared?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 5/16/24

"The 2008 Crisis is Back! Are You Prepared?"

"Buckle up because we're diving into some serious territory today—it's 2008 all over again, and things are looking grim. From skyrocketing insurance rates to commercial real estate failures, we're seeing history repeat itself in ways we never thought possible."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Scott Ritter, "Russia Demands Zelensky's Replacement Amidst Israel's Faltering Palestine Conflict"

Full screen recommended.

Scott Ritter, 5/16/24

"Russia Demands Zelensky's Replacement 

Amidst Israel's Faltering Palestine Conflict"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Are You Ready For An Inflationary Depression? For Some It's Here Now"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/16/24

"Are You Ready For An Inflationary Depression? 

For Some It's Here Now"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Massive Sales At Kroger Right Now!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 5/16/24

"Massive Sales At Kroger Right Now!"

"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger and are noticing some massive sales going on right now. As we continue to see prices rise at the grocery stores, I take you with me to see how much we can save through different deals and a variety of coupons."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"What The F!$#?! You Won't Believe His Theory, The Collapse Won't Be Like Most People Think!"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 5/15/24

"What The F!$#?! You Won't Believe His Theory, 

The Collapse Won't Be Like Most People Think!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "This Is Mind Blowing, Americans Are Out Of Money; Inflation Will Cripple Them"

Jeremiah Babe, 5/15/24

"This Is Mind Blowing, Americans Are Out Of Money; 

nflation Will Cripple Them"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gerald Celente, "Amerika: You Are Condemned For Speaking The Truth!"

Gerald Celente, 5/15/24

"Amerika: You Are Condemned For Speaking The Truth!"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"A Restaurant Apocalypse Is Starting To Sweep Across America & That Is Bad News For The U.S. Economy"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 5/15/24

"A Restaurant Apocalypse Is Starting To Sweep

 Across America & That Is Bad News For The U.S. Economy"

"You just have to look around and see what's happening to the restaurants in your area to understand that the U.S. economy is headed in the wrong direction. When the economy is booming, restaurants are full and chains open more locations to expand their business. But when the economy is struggling, restaurants get increasingly emptier, and underperforming locations go belly up. Sadly, it seems that a "restaurant apocalypse" has started to sweep across the country this year. Faced with higher living expenses, most households have very little discretionary income to spend as a result of inflated prices, and that's particularly true for our young adults.

Americans love to eat out, but these days about 60% are living paycheck to paycheck, and report experiencing financial distress. Without the extra dollars to spend at the end of each month, people are consuming less, and many sectors are hurting. The restaurant industry is being disproportionately hard hit by this trend. According to data from Placer.ai, visits to sit-down restaurants were down nearly five percent in the past year. People just can't afford to dinner out as much as they once did. Consequently, we're witnessing a wave of restaurants closings that is growing larger all over the nation. Even in the Big Apple, many famous restaurants are being shut down.

Despite being known for its great fining spots, New York City has been facing a major decline in foot traffic in recent years. From December 2023 to January 2024 alone, more than 40 big restaurants and bars were shut down, with some owners saying business simply never picked up after COVID lockdowns in 2020."

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Land of Forever"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Land of Forever"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk.

With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bulge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago."

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

"Life..."

"Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do. Lots of times people just let themselves get lost, dropping into a wide open, huge abyss. But that's why we have to keep trying. We have to push through all that hurts us, work past all our memories that are haunting us. Sometimes the things that hurt us are the things that make us strongest. A life without experience, in my opinion, is no life at all. And that's why I tell everyone that, even when it hurts, never stop yourself from living."

- Alysha Speer

"The joke was thinking you were ever really in charge of your life. You pressed your oar down into the water to direct the canoe, but it was the current that shot you through the rapids. You just hung on and hoped not to hit a rock or a whirlpool."

- Scott Turow

"Life's funny, chucklehead. You only get one and you don't want to throw it away. But you can't really live it at all unless you're willing to give it up for the things you love. If you're not at least willing to die for something - something that really matters - in the end you die for nothing."

- Andrew Klavan

Free Download: T.S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"

“Little Gidding”, Excerpt

"We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring 

Will be to arrive where we started 

And know the place for the first time. 

When the last of earth left to discover 

Is that which was the beginning; 

At the source of the longest river 

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree.

Not known, because not looked for 

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always - 

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flames are in-folded 

Into the crowned knot of fire 

And the fire and the rose are one.”

- T.S. Eliot

The "Little Gidding" is the last of T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets," 

which you may freely download here:

- http://www.paikassociates.com/pdf/fourquartets.pdf

"What We Pretend To Be..."

"We are what we pretend to be, 
so we must be careful what we pretend to be."
- Kurt Vonnegut, "Mother Night"

"People are sad. People are broke. People are worried about money, people are worried that they're not enough and not amounting to anything and they don't feel good about themselves. People have rough times, and everybody's pretending it's not true, and we need to break that veneer."

- Eve Ensler

“You go up to a man, and you say, “How are things going, Joe?” and he says, “Oh fine, fine... couldn’t be better.” And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn’t be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody’s having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

"A Tribute to Dogs"

"A Tribute to Dogs"

by George Graham Vest

"George Graham Vest (1830-1904) served as U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1879 to 1903 and became one of the leading orators and debaters of his time. This delightful speech is from an earlier period in his life when he practiced law in a small Missouri town. It was given in court while representing a man who sued another for the killing of his dog. During the trial, Vest ignored the testimony, but when his turn came to present a summation to the jury, he made the following speech and won the case:

"Gentlemen of the Jury: The best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us, may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies. And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death."

- George Graham Vest, - c. 1855
- http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/vest.htm