"A Look to the Heavens"

“Point your telescope toward the high flying constellation Pegasus and you can find this expanse of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies. Centered on NGC 7814, the pretty field of view would almost be covered by a full moon. NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy. 

 

Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive central bulges cut by a thinner disk with dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing to be smaller and fainter only because it is farther away. A very faint dwarf galaxy, potentially a satellite of NGC 7814, is revealed in the deep exposure just below the Little Sombrero.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131025.html

"It Is Our Time..."

"Well, it is our fate to live in a time of crisis. To live in a time when all forms and values are being challenged. In other and more easy times, it was not, perhaps, necessary for the individual to confront himself with a clear question: What is it that you really believe? What is it that you really cherish? What is it for which you might, actually, in a showdown, be willing to die? I say, with all the reticence which such large, pathetic words evoke, that one cannot exist today as a person – one cannot exist in full consciousness – without having to have a showdown with one’s self, without having to define what it is that one lives by, without being clear in one’s mind what matters and what does not matter.” 

- Dorothy Thompson

"Fast Time and the Aging Mind"

"Fast Time and the Aging Mind"

By Richard A. Friedman

"Ah, the languorous days of endless summer! Who among us doesn't remember those days and wonder wistfully where they've gone? Why does time seem to speed up as we age? Even the summer solstice, the longest, sunniest day of the year, seems to have passed in a flash. No less than the great William James opined on the matter, thinking that the apparent speed of times passage was a result of adultsexperiencing fewer memorable events: Each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all, the days and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to contentless units, and the years grow hollow and collapse. 

Don't despair. I am happy to tell you that the apparent velocity of time is a big fat cognitive illusion and happy to say there may be a way to slow the velocity of our later lives.

Although the sense that we perceive time as accelerating as we age is very common, it is hard to prove experimentally. In one of the largest studies to date, Dr. Marc Wittmann of the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, in Germany, interviewed 499 German and Austrian subjects ranging in age from 14 to 94 years; he asked each subject how quickly time seemed to pass during the previous week, month, year and decade. Surprisingly, there were few differences related to age. With one exception: when researchers asked the subjects about the 10-year interval, older subjects were far more likely than the younger subjects to report that the last decade had passed quickly.

Other, non-age-related factors influence our perception of time. Recent research shows that emotions affect our perception of time. For example, Dr. Sylvie Droit-Volet, a psychology professor at Blaise Pascal University in France, manipulated subjectsemotional state by showing them movies that excited fear or sadness and then asked them to estimate the duration of the visual stimulus. She found that time appears to pass more slowly when we are afraid.

Attention and memory play a part in our perception of time. To accurately gauge the passage of time required to accomplish a given task, you have to be able to focus and remember a sequence of information. That's partly why someone with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder has trouble judging time intervals and grows impatient with what seems like the slow passage of time. The neurotransmitter dopamine is critically important to our ability to process time. Stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall, which increase dopamine function in the brain, have the effect of speeding up time perception; antipsychotic drugs, which block dopamine receptors, have the opposite effect.

On the whole, most of us perceive short intervals of time similarly, regardless of age. Why, then, do older people look back at long stretches of their lives and feel it's a race to the finish? Here's a possible answer: think about what it's like when you learn something for the first time, for example how, when you are young, you learn to ride a bike or navigate your way home from school. It takes time to learn new tasks and to encode them in your memory. And when you are learning about the world for the first time, you are forming a fairly steady stream of new memories of events, places and people.

When, as an adult, you look back at your childhood experiences, they appear to unfold in slow motion probably because the sheer number of them gives you the impression that they must have taken forever to acquire. So when you recall the summer vacation when you first learned to swim or row a boat, it feels endless. But this is merely an illusion, the way adults understand the past when they look through the telescope of lost time. This, though, is not an illusion: almost all of us faced far steeper learning curves when we were young. Most adults do not explore and learn about the world the way they did when they were young; adult life lacks the constant discovery and endless novelty of childhood.

Studies have shown that the greater the cognitive demands of a task, the longer its duration is perceived to be. Dr. David Eagleman at Baylor College of Medicine found that repeated stimuli appear briefer in duration than novel stimuli of equal duration. Is it possible that learning new things might slow down our internal sense of time?

The question and the possibility it presents put me in mind of my father, who died a few years ago at age 86. An engineer by training, he read constantly after he retired. His range was enormous; he read about everything from astronomy to natural history, travel and gardening. I remember once discovering dozens of magazines and journals in the house and was convinced that my parents had become the victims of a mail-order scam. Thinking I'd help with the clutter, I began to bundle up the magazines for recycling when my father angrily confronted me, demanding to know what the hell I was doing. I read all of these, he said.

And then it dawned on me. I cannot recall his ever having remarked on how fast or slow his life seemed to be going. He was constantly learning, always alive to new ideas and experience. Maybe that's why he never seemed to notice that time was passing.

So what, you might say, if we have an illusion about time speeding up? But it matters, I think, because the distortion signals that we might squeeze more out of life. It's simple: if you want time to slow down, become a student again. Learn something that requires sustained effort; do something novel. Put down the thriller when you're sitting on the beach and break out a book on evolutionary theory or Spanish for beginners or a how-to book on something you've always wanted to do. Take a new route to work; vacation at an unknown spot. And take your sweet time about it."

- http://www.nytimes.com/

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Richard A. Friedman is a professor of clinical psychiatry and the director of the psycho-pharmacology clinic at the Weill Cornell Medical College.

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/13/20"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/13/20"

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

DEC 13, 2020 AT 7:33 PM: "'A Final Middle Finger From Trump' - Dems Furious About White House COVID Vaccine Access: Live Updates"

DECEMBER 13, 2020 AT 9:50 AM: "NJ's Murphy Warns Next Few Weeks "Are Going To Be Hell"; Germans Furious Over Christmas COVID Lockdown: Live Updates". "The latest lockdown will last three weeks."

○

Dec. 13, 2020 

 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 

 Dec. 13, 2020 2:09 PM ET: 

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 71,196,400 

people, according to official counts, including 16,262,468 Americans.

At least 1,608,400 have died.

  Dec. 13, 2020 2:09 PM ET: 

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

- www.nytimes.com

○

"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.

- https://covidtracking.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Warrenton, Virginia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"I Am Part..."

"I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. There is not any part of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surfaces of the water." 

- D. H. Lawrence

The Poet: Paul Fisher, "The Boat"

"The Boat"

"Maybe the eyes of a dragon or goddess

glare from its prow.

More likely it leaks, loses an oar,

and reeks of rainbows awash on a sheen

of gutted salmon and gasoline.

If it's a liner, we lash ourselves

to whatever will float or sell.

No matter which. We choose. We're aboard,

icebergs or no, as we plow

through the songs of the siren stars -

one boat, black water, dark whispering below."

- Paul Fisher, 

"Rumors of Shore"

Chet Raymo, “The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics”

 

“The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics”

by Chet Raymo

“Let me share these lines from John Updike's "Ode to Entropy":

“Death exists nowhere in nature, not

In the minds of birds or the consciousness of flowers,

Not even in the numb brain of the wildebeest calf

Gone under to the grinning crocodile, nowhere

In the mesh of woods or the tons of sea, only

In our forebodings, our formulae.”

Can that be true? That no other creature than ourselves anticipates non-existence? Surely, other animals experience danger. The wildebeest calf darts to avoid the lunging crocodile. The rabbit in my neighbor's yard watches warily as I pass. The fearful infant chimp clings in its mother's protective embrace. Is this a threat response without awareness of fatal consequence? Is obliviousness of death the default condition of non-human nature?

I suppose, in the absence of a common language, there is no way to know for certain what goes on in a chimpanzee's or gorilla's brain. Nor do we know when and how the idea of personal immortality arose in the minds of humans. Funerary evidence would seem to suggest that a belief in immortality was universal among our ancestors. It is, however, a belief that flies in the face of everything modern science has learned about the nature of a human self.

For the great majority of humans, faith in an afterlife remains firmly entrenched. For myself, I have no greater expectation than that - like Updike's tossed banana peel - I might nourish the roadside chicory.”

- https://www.sciencemusings.com/

"We Like To Think..."

"We like to think that we are rational beings; humane, conscientious, civilized, thoughtful. But when things fall apart, even just a little, it becomes clear we are not better than animals. We have opposable thumbs, we think, we walk erect, we speak, we dream, but deep down we are still routing around in the primordial ooze; biting, clawing, scratching out an existence in the cold, dark world like the rest of the tree-toads and sloths."

- "Grey's Anatomy"

"Will San Francisco or Los Angles Become Detroit, Michigan 2.0 & Become Largest City Bankruptcy Ever?"

Michael Zuber, 

"Will San Francisco or Los Angles Become Detroit, 

Michigan 2.0 & Become Largest City Bankruptcy Ever?"

How It Really Is"

Click image for larger size.

"The Traitor..."

 

"There Comes A Time..."

"I make no bones about being partisan for my country. I also feel no shame whatever because of it. I absolutely disagree that "great thinkers don't let that affect the thoughts". I would say exactly the opposite: someone who refuses to let love-of-country affect their thoughts is a moral cripple irrespective of their intellectual prowess. I can look dispassionately at the situation, and I have done so repeatedly. But I will never forget which nation I love and support.

We Americans have a saying: “It’s more important what you stand for than who you stand with.” I do not rely upon peer opinion to decide what is right and what is wrong. I make those decisions for myself, and even if I discover that every other human alive chose differently, that doesn’t mean I was wrong.

There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to choose sides. I have chosen my side. I am comfortable with my decision. I do not think everyone on my side is a saint, but I know that those on the other side are much, much worse.

Sometimes a man with too broad a perspective reveals himself as having no real perspective at all. A man who tries too hard to see every side may be a man who is trying to avoid choosing any side. A man who tries too hard to seek a deeper truth may be trying to hide from the truth he already knows. That is not a sign of intellectual sophistication and “great thinking”. It is a demonstration of moral degeneracy and cowardice.”

- Steven Den Beste

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“Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.”

- Mark Twain

○

Soon, YOU may be forced to choose a side. Choose wisely…

"Democrats Push DEMAND For Arresting Trump Risking Igniting All Out Civil War, Texas GOP Says ENOUGH"

"Democrats Push DEMAND For Arresting Trump 

Risking Igniting All Out Civil War, Texas GOP Says ENOUGH"

○

This seems inevitable, and very soon...

"Trump at the Rubicon: The Insurrection Act"

There will be blood...

"Gut Check"

"Gut Check"

By Tim “xrugger” Stebbins

"What does it mean to be a free man anymore? Am I truly free when the money I pay in taxes goes to support the excesses of a profligate, overreaching, and immoral government? Am I truly free when the scum that make the rules do not abide by them? Am I not free then to ignore the rules?  Am I truly free when some cowardly dimwit at the grocery store looks askance at me for not wearing a filthy rag over my face? I know he is having an internal debate about whether he should confront me.

My hope is always that he decides in the negative, as I have had just about enough of this crap. Now, the highest court in the land has turned a blind eye to the egregious theft of the Presidency itself. Marxists across the nation are celebrating the final nail in the coffin of the American Republic. Democrats held it. “Conservatives” have hammered it home. The outward forms of ordered liberty are dead and there is no recourse for the redress of grievances. It is time for every patriot to face the situation, without illusion or reservation.

If we would recover our liberty, then we must look inward and assess our own desires, motives, and abilities. A time of choosing is upon each and every one of us. What do we owe and to whom do we owe it. What follows is an attempt to answer those questions for myself and myself alone. Others of a similar spirit may take what they wish from it and leave the rest.

The Indefensible Nation: What do I owe to my country? Its central government is thoroughly and irredeemably corrupt. It is bankrupt both fiscally and morally. As of this writing, its judiciary has shown itself incapable of defending the Republic against the depredations of leftist rabble. The tentacles of its bureaucracy reach into the lives and wallets of the productive class “eating out the substance of the people” exactly as Jefferson warned. Yet still, with the stench of corruption and theft pervading the country, this government  assumes my loyalty.

What, pray tell, has it done to deserve it? Mobs of the indoctrinated expect that we should all just “get over it” and “come together to heal” as if the gangrenous clot of necrotic tissue that is the political culture of this nation will ever heal. Our rulers, our media, and half our “countrymen” piss down our backs and still insist it’s raining. The fealty of helots is what the Lords of Washington expect. They will not get it from me.

The loyalty of free men is reserved for a government of equals, not an aristocracy of reptiles. The latter is what we suffer now. The former we once possessed, but it lies now in the dust of history. The outward form and function remain, but the spirit of liberty, which animated it, has gone. The ties by which free men bind themselves voluntarily to any form of government have long since been sundered by the actions of those who have chosen to rule rather than govern. I will not suffer those ties to become shackles.

Since my forbears bequeathed to me a form of government that no longer exists, I am released from further obligation to the abomination that has replaced it. My loyalty, like my liberty, belongs to me and me alone. It is mine to give or to withdraw as I see fit. I owe the rulers of this land nothing: not life, not liberty, not the pursuit of my own happiness. These things are mine from my first breath to my last gasp. They cannot be abrogated, regulated, or terminated by the denizens of a distant city who presume to know what is best for me. These…people (I do not have the words for the contempt I feel for them) have polluted our forms of government, destroying what they can, dismantling what they cannot.

Everywhere is grift and graft. They have taken nearly everything, yet they still want more. They want my body shackled, my spirit humbled, and my mind enslaved. They try to steal the very breath from my body with their filthy rags. They have trampled upon my God-given rights, indoctrinated my children, accused me, threatened me, and silenced me. Now they have stolen even my choice from me. This government and its leftist appendages have betrayed my trust and half my fellow citizens treat me and mine with undisguised contempt. My loyalty to them and to their government is at an end.

The Shenandoah Syndrome: What then, am I to do personally in the face of this betrayal?  My mind often comes back to the old Jimmy Stewart movie “Shenandoah.” In it, Stewart plays the patriarch of a family trying to stay out of Lincoln’s War. He hopes to keep his family intact and neutral in the conflict. He wants no part of it and sees no reason why he, or his sons, should choose sides in a war that is, in his view, peripheral to the concerns of his family and the life they have built. It is only when rape, murder, plunder and the other accouterments of war destroy the precarious balance he has maintained, that Stewart realizes that the choice has been made for him.

I know that, in the end, what is happening in this nation will come to blood. I know too, that I and mine cannot hope to be left untouched while the nation tears itself apart. My one hope is that, by virtue of where we call home, we will see the tenor and scope of the destruction before it touches our lives directly. Perhaps that small grace will allow us additional time to prepare, though I believe I have done all that common sense demands and limited resources allow in that regard.

What remains to be done is the taking an intensely personal inventory. Will I fight, run, or hide? Will I be able to lead and defend my family when the crunch comes? Would I be willing to leave them behind to engage in some broader defense of my own and other’s liberty? Do I wait for the storm or go to meet it? At 60 years of age, am I even mentally or physically capable of such an effort? My fervent wish is to be left alone to live a peaceful life. I know many like me wish the same, but Jimmy Stewart was just an actor, and my “Shenandoah” a bucolic dream. The fight will be forced upon us all. The choices we make will define us. In Lincoln’s words, “No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.”

The Refining Fire: I am a peacetime veteran. I served a three-year hitch in the eighties, half that time with the 2nd Ranger Bn. in Ft. Lewis, Washington and half with a line infantry company. I do not count myself among the many chest-thumpers who are overly certain of their own intestinal fortitude and are not afraid to expound upon their warrior attributes in any number of internet outlets. In my limited experience, those who talk the most usually run the fastest. I do not include in that company those who have seen war and its desolation first hand and who now seek to educate and guide those of us who have not. I’m talking about the posers who crow about “taking back the country,” and explain in detail their future exploits in the battle for freedom.

Personally, I am certain of only a few things:  I know what it is like to exit an aircraft more door bundle than man and land in a heap in the Alaskan snow. I know how dark it gets in an equatorial jungle and what it’s like to sit in the rain for days on end. I know what trench foot looks and feels like. To my everlasting embarrassment, I know the feeling of waking up with my own .45 (in the hands of a very angry platoon sergeant) staring me in the face because I fell asleep guarding a pallet of live ammo.

I know what it is like to catch multiple fragments of a 7.62 mm ricochet in the face due to the negligence of a range safety officer and the stupidity of a member of my M60 crew. I know that face and scalp wounds bleed a lot. These are some of the things I know, but they are the experiences of long ago and comparing them to the trials of actual combat would be like comparing regular roulette to the Russian variety.

I do not think I lack personal courage, but the simple fact is that I know what I do not know, and anyone who has not been in a fight like the one coming can say no different. Any man who claims a virtue not yet tested by the fight we face is a liar and a fool. As a young man, I would have welcomed the test. Now, decades on, I ponder the depth of my commitment, the strength of my arm, and the clearness of my mind. Is the man I am now fit for the fight? Only the fight itself will reveal the truth of it. I simply do not know how I will behave when the shooting starts and to claim otherwise is the height of hubris. At the least, I hope that this old man will give good account for blessings received while on this good earth.

Hope: No good thing ever achieved by man remains unsullied by the grasping hands of those who seek to exploit it. So it is with these United States. Time, trials, the certainties of fallen human nature, and the machinations of the unprincipled have accomplished what they always accomplish. This nation will crumble and the ensuing chaos will engulf us all to one degree or another. Something good, either a restoration of the old or the institution of the new, will rise from the blood and ashes. I pray that I do not love this life so much that I would live it as a slave or be unwilling to expend it for the sake of those to come. That, at least, is my hope."

-  https://www.theburningplatform.com/

○

A MUST View:

Click image for larger size.

"BLM Protestors Stab at Least 4 at Trump Rally

More Blood in DC Streets"

○

Night Of Chaos: 4 Stabbed, 23 Arrested After 

Proud Boys & Antifa Clash in Washington

○

○

 "A man who does not have something for 

which he is willing to die is not fit to live."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

○

Hat tip to The Burning Platform

The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal at the website:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

Greg Hunter, "Second Great Depression Starts in 2021"

"Second Great Depression Starts in 2021"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Analyst, professional trader and financial writer Rick Ackerman likes gold and silver too, but not because he sees explosive price rises. He likes precious metals because they are solid core investments. They work well in inflation or deflation. They are rugged and will work no matter what comes. Ackerman thinks what is coming will be far worse than the Great Depression, “I call it the ‘Second Great Depression.’ What are we going to have? A zombie apocalypse? I use the example of somebody riding to the soup kitchen on an $8,000 graphite trail bike. We are going to find out how many of the jobs are completely unnecessary, like 95% of people who work for government. That’s coming. It’s coming sooner or later, and we are going to have a time or day of reckoning. How long can this con go on? We are in a very unstable position and, financially speaking, we have stimulus not stimulating anymore in a meaningful way.”

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes 

One-on-One with analyst and financial writer Rick Ackerman.

Musical Interlude: Hilary Stagg, "Pleasant Dreams"

Hilary Stagg, "Pleasant Dreams"

Full screen highly recommended.

"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.”

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

"Do You Want..."

"Do you want to live life, or do you want to escape life?"

- Macklemore

"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"

○

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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 

 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 

 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

- www.nytimes.com

○

"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.

- https://covidtracking.com/

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

The Daily "Near You?"

Los Angeles, California, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

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."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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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."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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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:

"The New York Fed, Pumping Out More than $9 Trillion in Bailouts 

Since September, Gets Market Advice from Giant Hedge Funds"

$9 TRILLION to bail out these psychopaths since September, 

while children go hungry in this God-damned country?!!

Dec. 3, 2020: "House Hearing: Wall Street Gets Bailed Out by Fed; Main Street Gets Sold Out" "During the financial crisis of 2007 to 2010, the Federal Reserve, without any oversight or even awareness by Congress, secretly funneled a cumulative $29 trillion into Wall Street bailout programs. "

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."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

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Well of course we need, 40, 50,1,000 different coffee flavors!

Peasants, meh... sniff, 'tsk 'tsk...

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"How It Really Is"

 

Don't hold your breath...

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.

Musical Interlude: Mecano, "Hijo de la Luna"

Mecano, "Hijo de la Luna"

"48% Of U.S. Small Businesses Fear That They May Be Forced To “Shut Down Permanently”

"48% Of U.S. Small Businesses Fear That 

They May Be Forced To “Shut Down Permanently”

by Epic Economist

"What would the U.S. economic landscape look like without half of its small businesses? That's what we're going to discuss in today's video. Roughly 48% of all small business owners in the entire country have revealed in a recent survey their companies are on the brink of extinction. This is a very alarming rate, even considering the enormous economic deterioration experienced throughout this year. It means that while corporate giants will easily navigate through the new round of lockdowns, after this is all over, half of our beloved local businesses might be gone forever. As a result, mass lay-offs and much more financial pain are expected, but millions of Americans are already struggling to stay afloat during this very dark winter, and some have been resorting to shoplifting to have what to eat. The whole scenario is terrifying. 

Based on this week’s Alignable Q4 Revenue Poll, 48% of all small businesses are likely to shut down for good before the year’s end. The survey also provided some statements from small business owners that are truly heart-wrenching. One of them said that at the current stage, the sanitary outbreak has raised its ugly head again. "I’m a caterer and I’ve had no work in November and my clients are canceling for December. This is so sad. I have worked so hard to build my business for the last 14 years. My business has gone from half a million to not even 200,000. This is devastating for any business," he disclosed. 

Some sectors, such as spas and salons that require proximity between the service providers and the customers have been particularly hard hit by the new regulations. An owner of one of these establishments stated that because therapeutic massage is so ‘up close and personal,’ he has only come back to about 40% of his previous clientele, while affirming to be afraid that the governor will shut his business down again, which in his view, it would be the end. "I also believe the ‘ruling elite’ does not care about small businesses,” he said. 

Honestly speaking, the elites don't care at all. And every time one of these small companies close and lay-off their workers, the unemployment crisis only gets worse. Last Thursday, the Labor Department reported the highest weekly surge in unemployment claims since September 19. The report indicates that first-time claims for unemployment insurance totaled 853,000 - an acute growth compared to the 716,000 total figure from a week before. “This recent surge suggests that claims are not just stagnating, they’re actively worsening,” highlighted Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor. “The surge in initial claims is especially concerning when claims are still above levels near the peak of the Great Recession,” he completed.

The fact is that economists, analysts, and experts have been warning for months that the new lockdowns would make the numbers worse, and that is exactly what is happening now. And one financial strategist that was interviewed by CNBC is saying that this is just the beginning. 

As government authorities remain deadlocked about the passing of a new relief bill to support its businesses and citizens, millions of Americans have been unemployed for so long that they are no longer eligible to collect benefits. And in a matter of weeks, over 12 million Americans and their families will lose all federal benefits that kept them afloat. Right now, the situation is so dire that many are already becoming very desperate. Consequently, some have been turning to shoplifting to get essential supplies and have enough to eat.

Since the burst of the outbreak, shoplifting has been registered at higher levels than in past economic recessions. Retailers and security experts signaled that this time around the products that have been taken aren't highly-priced merchandise, but staples like bread, dried food, and baby formula.

According to the latest data from the Census Bureau, 1 in 8 Americans, which accounts for approximately 26 million adults, reported that they currently don't have enough to eat. And projections alert that this number might escalate to a whopping 54 million after the expiration of federal aid. 

Everywhere we look, our country's economy is crumbling all around us. Americans have been suffering like never before. It's lamentable to see so much pain and desperation in a season that was traditionally marked by celebrations and festivities. And despite the claims that everything is going to be okay as soon as a vaccine is widely distributed, the damages done won't be reversed overnight. At this point, all hopes are merely a mirage, and everything will continue to deteriorate as we head into 2021."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

"Supreme Court Tosses Texas Bid To Overturn Election"

"Supreme Court Tosses Texas Bid To Overturn Election"

by Tyler Durden

FRIDAY, DEC 11, 2020 - 18:38: "The Supreme Court on Friday tossed a last-minute bid by the state of Texas to overturn the 2020 election by challenging the results of four battleground states. Citing a lack of standing, Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a brief order that the state "has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections," adding "All other pending motions are dismissed as moot."

Justices Clarence Thomas joined Alito in stating that they do not believe the court has the authority to outright reject Texas's request, writing instead "I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue."

In doing so, the justices shut down a long-shot bid for Texas to challenge Biden's wins in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin - which was joined by 17 other states and over 100 House Republicans."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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Related:

“When on death ground, you must fight relentlessly.”

- Sun Tzu, "The Art Of War"

"Trump at the Rubicon: The Insurrection Act"

"Who Counts the Votes of the Presidential Electors?"