Sunday, September 19, 2021

Chet Raymo, “The Still Small Voice”

“The Still Small Voice”
by Chet Raymo

"There is a power in nature, restless and terrible- storm, wildfire, earthquake, tidal wave. There is a delicacy too, to which we attend with a more perceptive eye and ear- the woolly bear caterpillar in the grass, the red-tailed hawk circling high and silent above the meadow, the six-dotted shadow of the water strider on the bottom of the pond. I think of lines from a poem of Grace Schulman, a poem called “In Place of Belief”:

“...I would eavesdrop, spy,
and keep watch on the chance, however slight,
that the unseen might dazzle into sight.”

Listening. Watching. Waiting admidst the clamor of strident certainity for the still small voice. Waiting for the unseen to dazzle into sight. Karl Popper, the eminent philosopher of science, once wrote, "It is imperative that we give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it is beyond our reach." Reaching. Groping. Evavesdroping. Four centuries after Galileo, the world is still beset by those who claim access to ultimate sources of knowledge- divine revelation through tradition, holy books, or prophets. If there is a fundamental way to divide people in the world today it is into those who know and those who grope.

In the southern hemisphere summer of 1848, at age twenty-three, Thomas Huxley was sailing Australian waters as Assistant Surgeon on HMS Rattlesnake. He was head-over-heels in love with a remarkable young women he had met Down Under, and drifting into the skepticism about matters of religion he would later dub "agnosticism." Other than young Henrietta "Nettie" Heathorn, the main thing on his mind was jellyfish, of which he had netted hundreds. As the ship sailed up the Australian coast he worked at sorting out the relationships between his many specimens, and between the jellyfish and other marine organisms. Huxley's biographer Adrian Desmond writes: "Nettie, a sensible girl who liked Schiller and penned love poems, must have asked 'Why jellyfish?' And he must have led her self-importantly from these pulsing 'nastinesses' to the great problem of existence, contrasting the tiny truths of creation with the great sandcastle sophistries for which men were willing to die. The tiny truths were real bricks which would build a palatial foundation to Truth. They were stanzas of Nature's great poem; and only by reciting the ultimate sonnet could we gain a rational set of mores and a real meaning to life."

The tiny truths of creation! Huxley was convinced that we have something to learn about the creation and ourselves by studying the lowliest blobs of protoplasm afloat in the sea. The great truths, if they are to be found, will be discovered in the Book of Nature, as a patient accumulation of individually minute observations. For Huxley, the only knowledge worth having was secular, not theological, and "was not to be delegated by episcopal patrons, but seized by plebeian hands." His jellyfish represented common knowledge - groping, partial, tentative - the still small voice, by and for the common man.”

"Real Church Sign"

 
"Oh yeah, we're fine, thanks for asking..."

The Daily "Near You?"

Tillsonburg, Ontario, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: Paul Laurence Dunbar, "We Wear The Mask "

"We Wear The Mask"

 "We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!"

- Paul Laurence Dunbar

"Attitude..."

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gift, or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes. "
- Charles Swindoll

Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/19/21: "Markets, A Look Ahead: Always Have The High Ground! And Expect THIS"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/19/21:
"Markets, A Look Ahead: 
Always Have The High Ground! And Expect THIS"

"How It Really Is"

 

"The Conspiracy Theorists Were Right; It IS a 'Poison-Death Shot'” (Excerpt)

"The Conspiracy Theorists Were Right; 
It IS a 'Poison-Death Shot'” (Excerpt)
by Mike Whitney

“I’ll do one more mind experiment with you: If everyone on the planet were to get Covid and not get treated, the death-rate globally would be less than half a percent. I’m not advocating for that, because 35 million people would die. However, if we follow the advice of some of the global leaders – like Bill Gates who said last year said “7 billion people need to be vaccinated” – then the death-rate will be over 2 billion people! SO, WAKE UP! THIS IS WORLD WAR 3! We are seeing a level of malevolence that we haven’t seen in the history of humanity!” Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, Author of The Zelenko “Early Treatment” Protocol that saved thousands of Covid-19 patients. (“Zelenko schools the Rabbinic Court”, Rumble; start at 11:45 minutes)."
Please view this complete article here:
Related:

Saturday, September 18, 2021

“Surviving Bank Closures and Cyber Attacks; Prepare For Economic Chaos; Do Not Support Walmart”

Full screen recommended,
Jeremiah Babe, PM 9/18/21:
“Surviving Bank Closures and Cyber Attacks; 
Prepare For Economic Chaos; Do Not Support Walmart”

"Are You Prepared for What’s Coming in the Economy? It’s Not Too Late"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, PM 9/18/21
"Are You Prepared for What’s Coming in the Economy?
 It’s Not Too Late"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River (Eridanus). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, making it about one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy. Bluish clusters of young stars and dust lanes are seen to trace out NGC 1309's spiral arms as they wind around an older yellowish star population at its core.
Not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy, observations of NGC 1309's recent supernova and Cepheid variable stars contribute to the calibration of the expansion of the Universe. Still, after you get over this beautiful galaxy's grand design, check out the array of more distant background galaxies also recorded in this sharp, reprocessed, Hubble Space Telescope view.”

"It Is Our Fate..."

"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

The Daily "Near You?"

Columbia, Missouri,, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

MUST WATCH! Greg Hunter, "CV19 Vaccines are Poison"

"CV19 Vaccines are Poison"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Karen Kingston is a top pharmaceutical analyst who has researched and written about many cutting edge drugs. She has been ostracized and attacked by Big Pharma because she is speaking out about the great harm being done by the so-called CV19 vaccines. Everything from heart failure, cancer and even ED are just some of the side effects of the vax injections. More and more is coming out about how the “vaccines” are hurting and killing people. Kingston, who has read and studied hundreds of pages of CV19 vaccine patents, says, “They are not vaccines. They are only intended to poison, mutate, cause genetic mutations, and kill adults and children. They contain advanced medical technologies called lipid nanoparticles that are made of hydrogel, which contains graphene oxide (poison to humans). There are strong immunosuppressants, different types of chemotherapies that could suppress your immune system while being injected by something that is going to highjack your immune system and actually produce this disease causing genetic material that can cause cancers, inflammatory diseases, genetic disorders, infertility and etc. That’s when I cried, not for myself or my family, but for God’s children basically.”

New research has come out this week from pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole, and he is seeing cancers in the fully vaccinated 20 times higher than normal. Kingston is not surprised and says, “I believe that’s (20 fold increase of cancers) a very conservative estimate as far as the increase of cancers we are going to witness in people who are injected with these ‘Emergency Use Authorization’ injections. What happened with the FDA is they violated their own laws. They actually have to prove that they have done all the tests and prove there is minimal risk to humans. That would be the pre-clinical testing or the animal testing, but they skipped the animal testing.”

Kingston says another bad side effect of the CV19 vaccinations is Erectile Dysfunction or ED, but it doesn’t stop there. Kingston explains, “Erectile Dysfunction, I believe, is a very common side effect in men with these mRNA vaccines. Why? Because they cause the proliferation or production of spike protein. What do these spike proteins do? They cause blood clotting. According to the FDA, this is called disseminated thrombolytic coagulation. This is a fancy word for blood clots throughout your body and small blood clots. So if your capillaries have small blood clots in them, they will experience Erectile Dysfunction. I believe a lot of men who have been vaccinated are probably experiencing this problem. Some people are sick right now from the vaccines and may not even know it. One of the first symptoms is chronic fatigue syndrome. So, if you are exhausted and you are injected, it is probably a side effect from that injection. This is why I brought up ED. People are considering this to be a lifestyle condition. So, whether it’s ED or exhaustion, they are not attributing it to the vaccine.”

Kingston says these side effects are only the beginning of increasing sickness caused by the vaccines. Kingston would not speculate on how many people would die from the CV19 injections, but she did say many fully vaxed people will keep getting sicker. Kingston talks about the unvaxed getting sick from the vaxed. Kingston also talks about natural immunity and what it means. Kingston tells pregnant women not only to not take the injections, but stay away from people who have been fully vaxed. (What is written here is only a small portion of what is covered. There is much more in the hour long interview.)"
Please view the Comments to this post.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One 
with pharmaceutical and medical device analyst Karen Kingston. 
https://rumble.com/

After the Interview: Kingston also says she believes that the new cancers and diseases are being created on purpose by Big Pharma. This way they can invent new treatments and drugs for the new diseases being created by the CV19 injections. Kingston says all the new diseases and cancers could mean a new $50 trillion windfall for Big Pharma. If you want to follow Karen Kingston, you can do so in LinkedIn.
Related:

"Too Often..."

"The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It’s overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt."
- Leo Buscaglia

"Reality Avoidance"

"Reality Avoidance"
by Morris Berman

"It’s quite amazing how the news is endlessly about filler, which is what I call it. Very little of this has anything to do with reality, which the Mainstream Media and the American people avoid like the plague. What then is real?

1. The empire is in decline; every day, life here gets a little bit worse; all our institutions are corrupt to varying degrees; and there is no turning this situation around.

2. A crucial factor in this decline and irreversibility is the low level of intelligence of the American people. Americans are not only dumb; they are positively antagonistic toward the life of the mind.

3. Relations of power and money determine practically everything. The 3 wealthiest Americans own as much as the bottom 50% of the population, and this tendency will get worse over time.

4. The value system of the country, and its citizens, is fundamentally wrong-headed. It amounts to little more than hustling, selfishness, narcissism, and a blatant disregard for anyone but oneself. There is a kind of cruelty, or violence, deep in the American soul; many foreign observers and writers have commented on this. Americans are bitter, depressed, and angry, and the country offers very little by way of community or empathy.

5. Along with this is the support of meaningless wars and imperial adventures on the part of most of the population. That we drone-murder unarmed civilians on a weekly basis is barely on the radar screen of the American mind. In essence, the nation has evolved into a genocidal war machine run by a plutocracy and cheered on by mindless millions.

Most Americans hide from these depressing, even horrific, realities by what passes for ‘the news’, but also by means of alcohol, opioids, TV, cellphones, suicide, prescription drugs, workaholism, and spectator sports, to name but a few. This stuffing of the Void is probably our primary activity. In a word, we are eating ourselves alive, and only a tiny fraction of the population recognizes this."

"Bank Meltdown Is Coming To China As Evergrande Crisis Triggers Commercial Real Estate Collapse"

Full screen recommended.
"Bank Meltdown Is Coming To China As Evergrande
 Crisis Triggers Commercial Real Estate Collapse"
by Epic Economist

"The financial disaster alert is on! A catastrophic bank meltdown seems to be looming in China: The country's entire financial sector is getting extremely alarmed with the possibility of a major default crisis, given that one of its biggest property developers, Evergrande, recently announced that it became unable to pay its gigantic debt. That debacle has exposed the perilous state of China’s vast property sector and its consequences could have a ripple effect across global markets and lead to billions in losses.

Last week, Evergrande, the world’s most indebted property developer, warned that it would likely fail to meet its financial obligations, triggering widespread panic among investors, dealing a severe blow to its bonds, and resulting in trading suspensions in the markets of Shenzhen and Shanghai.The crisis led two credit rating agencies to downgrade Evergrande last week, and it sparked a shocking 80% collapse on its Hong Kong-listed shares since the beginning of the year. And at the beginning of this week, the Shanghai Stock Exchange stopped trading in Evergrande's May 2023 bond after it dropped more than 30%.

Right now, the Chinese developer is sitting under a colossal pile of liabilities that total more than $300 billion, after decades of borrowing to finance its rapid growth. Over the past few weeks, Evergrande has been rushing to sell assets to generate cash but several companies are refusing to accept the firm's commercial paper. According to S&P analysts, the developer might be paying suppliers through transfers of its properties instead of cash.

In essence, the company has become exposed to a vicious debt cycle, and it doesn't have enough cash to finish its projects and generate further proceeds from sales. Only in August, sales declined by a staggering 26 percent compared to the same time last year despite the steep discounts. And, of course, the developer is in desperate need of that cash not only to service but also to reduce, its enormous debts.

Beyond financial markets, the most significant problems that could be triggered by the Evergrande downfall are a residential and commercial real estate collapse all across China, as well as a brutal crisis on the broader property sector. Other worries include the growing possibility of a bank meltdown, as at least 128 banks are highly exposed to Evergrande's liabilities, according to a 2020 leaked document. On top of that, 121 non-banking institutions are also exposed, and all of them are at risk of facing billions in losses.

Analysts have been comparing the imminent bank meltdown in China to the 2008 collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers, which sparked crises at counterparties and ended up collapsing global markets. Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities warned major lenders to China Evergrande Group "not to expect interest payments due next week on bank loans, which takes the cash-strapped developer a step closer the nation’s largest modern-day restructurings," and signals that China's "Lehman Moment" is right around the corner.

Authorities have been silent on whether they will allow Evergrande creditors to face major losses. Bondholders are speculating that a buyout, break-up, or bailout are the only possible scenarios, which has infuriated countless investors and creditors. The company's intricate web of obligations to bondholders, investors, banks, suppliers, and homeowners has essentially turned into one of the biggest sources of financial risk in the world’s second-largest economy.

It is now threatening to trigger a crisis that goes beyond a residential and commercial real estate collapse -- or even a widespread bank meltdown -- but it could result in a financial catastrophe that would impact the entire world. Analysts argue that now that investors started to sell off their holdings of the company, the broader credit market may be dragged further down if the property developer fails to buy time with banks to pay off its debt. The consequences are also threatening to spill over the Chinese economy.

Considering that real estate is the central engine of China's growth, which accounts for 29% of economic output, a residential and commercial real estate collapse in addition to the bankruptcy of such a large company would have severe repercussions on the economy. Investors are growing increasingly nervous that the Evergrande collapse could spread to other property developers and result in dangerous systemic risks for the country's banking system.

As the financial expert Mark Twain noted, companies go bankrupt in two ways. "Gradually, then suddenly." Until last week, Evergrande was in the "gradually" phase. Now, it just got to the "suddenly" phase. From now on, the collapse is likely to accelerate and generate a cascade of systemic failures, bankruptcies and push China to the verge of a default crisis never before seen in world history."
Related:

"How It Really Is"

 

Friday, September 17, 2021

MUST WATCH! “Investors About To Be Decimated As Global Crisis Could Lead To Full Blown Depression; Massive Debt”

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 9/17/21:
“Investors About To Be Decimated As Global Crisis
 Could Lead To Full Blown Depression; Massive Debt”

"Container Shortage Pushes Freight Rates To "Stratospheric" Levels As Chaos Sweeps Across US Ports"

Full screen recommended.
"Container Shortage Pushes Freight Rates To "Stratospheric"
 Levels As Chaos Sweeps Across US Ports"
by Epic Economist

"Shipping costs have never been a small expense for manufacturers, but over the past 18 months, prices exploded to unprecedented levels as the global freight crisis spiraled out of control. The relentless rise in prices started in the autumn of 2020, but the first half of 2021 has seen another major price hike across different freight rates, such as dry bulk and containers, all along major trade routes. 

Up until this point, there's no sign of relief for the shipping crisis, and consequently, rates are expected to continue spiking in the second half of this year, as the growing global demand will continue to be met with strained shipping capacity and congested ports. Just over the past 6 months, ocean freight from China to the US West Coast has surged three-fold, and the overall cost of freight from China soared by a shocking 200 percent. 

Most ships are exposed to the spot market, only a small share of the fleet is on fixed-rate contracts. For that reason, contracts keep getting repriced every week, and shippers can never forecast with precision when a new increase will occur and how much more it will cost.  As a result, companies often need to pass along those increases to consumers, which adds pressure to inflation crises erupting all over the globe. However, higher prices for goods aren't pushing the global demand down. Consumers are willing to pay more to get what they want. But on the other hand, according to Maersk chief executive Morten Engelstoft, port congestion, freight rate increases and consumer good inflation won’t go away until demand falls.

As supply chain bottlenecks aggravate and maritime transportation costs go through the roof, with the Baltic Dry Index reaching an 11-year high, companies are complaining that the top 10 international shipping companies have created cartels to keep pushing prices up all across the board.

Mike Garratt, chairman of MDS Transmodal, explained that “this high level of consolidation has the benefit of enabling lines to adjust capacity allocation in line with changing demand, but, combined with the resulting very high levels of utilization, have allowed freight rates to remain at historically unprecedented levels and imply that some potential freight may be being suppressed". Many shipping companies are guaranteeing delivery within a few short weeks - if the shippers agree to pay premium rates. Industry executives revealed that "importers are attempting to outbid one another, offering extra cash to snap up containers over their rivals".

With nearly 80% of all goods transported worldwide relying on maritime shipping, and the eight-week window before the holidays accounting for at least half of a retailer’s annual sales, it's safe to say that more strains are about to emerge in the already stressed global supply chains. This extremely challenging environment is making business owners panic as they realize that the extraordinarily high demand has stretched infrastructure to its limit, and those who cannot afford premium prices may be left at the end of the shipping list and display empty shelves during the busiest shopping season. Since the world lacks alternatives to ocean freight, it's been incredibly hard to avoid soaring transportation costs. 

"I have a gut feeling that we're going to see empty shelves," warned Stavros Karamperidis, the head of the Maritime Transport Research Group, referring to the Christmas period. And while shipping companies are expected to make record profits this year, retailers may see their profit margins shrink as the price of everything - from supplies and materials to parts and freight - only keeps going up. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Genco Shipping President, and CEO John Wobensmith, alerted that companies should brace for the worst. 

"I think rates can go higher from here," he said. "We do get to a point, and we've seen this in containers, where we hit a certain utilization rate, and companies start to go parabolic on rates. I think we're getting close to that period". Fundamentally, we've got demand outstripping supply growth in all product categories, Wobensmith highlights. And that means that consumer price inflation will not be as "transitory" as the Fed insists to affirm. In fact, given that prices are still rising at breakneck speed, the inflation crisis is set to keep running rampant and we might haven't seen the worst of it yet. Things are getting very ugly, and our economy seems to be gradually slipping into a recession once again."

Musical Interlude: Foy Vance, Ed Sheeran, "Make it Rain"

Foy Vance, "Make it Rain"
The original, Ed Sheeran's version is the cover.
Ed Sheeran, "Make it Rain"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“In one of the brightest parts of Milky Way lies a nebula where some of the oddest things occur. NGC 3372, known as the Great Nebula in Carina, is home to massive stars and changing nebulas. The Keyhole Nebula (NGC 3324), the bright structure just above the image center, houses several of these massive stars and has itself changed its appearance.
The entire Carina Nebula spans over 300 light years and lies about 7,500 light-years away in the constellation of Carina. Eta Carinae, the most energetic star in the nebula, was one of the brightest stars in the sky in the 1830s, but then faded dramatically. Eta Carinae is the brightest star near the image center, just left of the Keyhole Nebula. While Eta Carinae itself maybe on the verge of a supernova explosion, X-ray images indicate that much of the Great Carina Nebula has been a veritable supernova factory.”

Chet Raymo, “Living In The Little World”

“Living In The Little World” 
by Chet Raymo

"My wisdom is simple," begins Gustav Adolph Ekdahl, at the final celebratory family gathering of Ingmar Bergman's crowning epic “Fanny and Alexander.” I saw the movie in the early 1980s when it had its U.S. theater release. Now I have just watched the five-hour-long original version made for Swedish television. Whew!

But back to that speech by the gaily philandering Gustav, now the patriarch of the Ekdahl clan and uncle to Fanny and Alexander. The family has gathered for the double christening of Fanny and Alexander's new half-sister and Gustav's child by his mistress Maj. A dark chapter of family history has come to an end, involving a clash between two world views, one- the Ekdahl's- focussed on the pleasures of the here and now, and the other- that of Lutheran Bishop Edvard Vergerus, Fanny and Alexander's stepfather- a stern and joyless anticipation of the hereafter. It is not the habit of Ekdahls to concern themselves with matters of grand consequence, Gustav tells the assembled guests. "We must live in the little world. We will be content with that and cultivate it and make the best of it."

The little world. I love that phrase. This world, here, now. This world of family and friends and newborn infants and trees and flowers and rainstorms and- oh yes, cognac and stolen kisses and tumbles in the hay. The Ekdahl's are a theatrical family; we will leave it to the actors and actresses to give us our supernatural shivers, says Gustav. "So it shall be," he says. "Let us be kind, and generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world."

“Where the Wealth Was All Along”

“Where the Wealth Was All Along”
by David Cain

“I keep having this idea, not that I think it’s true, that when you die you appear in a talk show studio, and everyone is clapping. A host shakes your hand and asks you to sit down, and the both of you go over how you think you did. On a large screen, they play a long montage containing some of the more significant moments in your life. You and the host, along with the audience, look on as you make pivotal choices, overcome dilemmas, and meet the people who would become your friends and partners.

The film includes a lot of personality-defining moments, such as when you made the choice to embrace what became your art or your calling, if you had one, or when you took on a long-term responsibility that became a part of who you were. You also get to see, for only the second time, the moments in which your most important relationships went from superficial to true. Everyone in the studio is moved.

The members of the audience have seen many episodes of this show, and were once on it themselves. The overall tone of the production is quite pleasant and earnest. Clearly everyone is happy for you, celebrating your life rather than judging it, and probably remembering similar moments from their own reel.

The montage also covers things you missed—many of of the experiences and relationships that didn’t happen, but could have, if you had accepted or extended a particular invitation, if you had made a particular effort at small talk instead of sinking into another painful silence, if you had bought that piano after all, if you had attended the indoor climbing center’s open house instead of telling yourself you’d go next year.

Of all the missed possibilities, the missed human connections stand out above the other kinds—the missed career and travel opportunities, cultural experiences, even the creative achievements—because by the end of your life the only thing that seemed relevant was the people you loved, or ended up loving. When you died all the value in your world resided there, in the simple and all-important fact that you really knew other people and other people really knew you.  And this part lasts forever, because, as you learn quickly, you missed many more connections than you made. Maybe fifty or a hundred times more. In fact, many times a wonderful connection with another person was just one simple action away from you, but you pulled back.

Such an incredible wealth of human connection—the greatest part of life, you know now—hinged on a phone call you didn’t bother with, a conversation you shut down, or an apology you’d make in an instant if they sent you back now. There was so much available to you, and it was so much closer than it seemed at the time.

In most of these moments, you pulled away from a budding connection because you wanted to protect yourself from some mildly uncomfortable moment—that you might be bored at an acquaintance’s party and have to excuse yourself early, that a conversation you start might be difficult to escape from, that your act of openness might be taken advantage of. So you stayed home, said no, made excuses, and avoided many conversations. This small amount of uneasiness you avoided, you realize now, cost you many friendships as deep and rich as the best ones you did manage to have.

But you’re not going back, and there’s nothing left to cling to, and nothing left to protect yourself from. So the feeling you get watching all these missed connections isn’t regret, it’s abundance. It seems really wonderful that a human life could have contained fifty undeveloped relationships for every one that was allowed to thrive, given how rich and fulfilling some of those connections were. You’re happy to see that those chances were there, even though you didn’t quite recognize them in time to take advantage.

This all rests fine with you, knowing that you don’t need any more life advantages, because you’re done with the whole thing. Your lifelong wish of being safe from everything you fear has been granted. For the first time there is truly nothing to worry about. It was all tradeoffs anyway. One thing you didn’t do allowed for something else to happen. But you can’t deny that there is a pattern in these tradeoffs: you frequently chose another dose of the predictable and comfortable over developing a relationship with another person.

After your segment finishes, new guests come on the show and you see the same thing in most of their clips. There are a few people who apparently had no reservations about being open and proactive towards others, and a few people whose reticence clearly helped them get by. But for the most part, you see people who really valued friendship and connection—more than anything else, they would say now—but let it pass them by again and again, because of some comfort-related concern that seemed more important at the time. It is the perfect example of John Lennon’s “making other plans” remark.

Happily, a little bit of this kind of wealth goes a long way. Even one great friendship is enough to make a person feel blessed that life went the way it did. So you don’t feel bad for the new guests. But it is endlessly fascinating to watch people learn that there was so much more out there, just a little bit beyond what felt perfectly safe.”

"So..."

"That life. This life. It looks as if you can have both. I mean, they're both right there, one on top of the other, and it looks as if they'll blend. But they never will. So, you take this thing. You take this thing you want, and you put it in a box and you close the lid. You can let your fingers trace the cracks, the places where the light gets in, the dark gets out, but the lid stays on. You don't look inside. You don't look at this thing you want so much, because you Can. Not. Have. It. So there's this box, you know, with the thing inside, and you could throw it away or shoot it into space; you could set it on fire and watch it burn to ashes, but really, none of that would make a difference, because you cannot destroy what you want. It only makes you want it more. So. You take this thing you want and you put it in a box and you close the lid. And you hold the box close to your heart, which is where it wants to go, and you pretend it doesn't kill you every time you feel yourself breathe."
- Megan Hart

The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "I Want A Lot"

"I Want A Lot"

"You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.

So many live on and want nothing
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.
But what you love to see are faces
that so work and feel thirst...

You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Gregory Mannarino, PM 9/17/21: "Alert! More FED Officials Caught Insider Trading! Important Updates"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 9/17/21:
"Alert! More FED Officials Caught Insider Trading!
 Important Updates"

"The Sun is Setting on the Economy - The Problems are Everywhere"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, AM 9/17/21:
"The Sun is Setting on the Economy - 
The Problems are Everywhere"
"Our Economy is facing challenges from every direction. From Supply Chain Problems, Inflation and now Employment issues the problems are mounting. The sun is setting on the Economy. Today I am at the Montage in Laguna Beach, CA."

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 9/17/21"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 9/17/21"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, in the waning days of the Trump Administration, secretly went behind the back of President Trump and his Defense Secretary and called China to tell them if the USA attacked, he would tip the CCP off. This is, once again, treason by America’s top general. Will Milley be punished? We will see.

It looks like China is having its own “Lehman” financial meltdown, only China’s problem institution is five times bigger. A huge property company called Evergrande has collapsed, and they have stopped trading the company’s bonds. This, very likely, will cause panic selling and a collapse in other markets in China as well as around the world. Remember, the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008 did the same thing, and it was five times smaller.

They told us if you got vaxed, you would not catch Covid. That’s a total lie, and people who have been vaxed are way more likely to get Covid. We were also told the vaccines were safe and effective, and that’s a lie too. Now, in the UK, the government is reporting more than 30,000 people have died 21 days after getting the injection, and the UK has a fraction of the population of the USA. We are also now seeing cancer skyrocketing in the “fully vaccinated” at a rate 20 time higher than unvaxed people. There is so much we don’t know, and much more bad news is coming out about these ill-conceived so-called vaccines."

"Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these 
stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up."

"Daylight Robbery"

"Daylight Robbery"
by Bill Bonner

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "We are back in the USA. It is hot and humid here in B’more. We’ve scarcely set foot in the city the last two years, but not much has changed. Elizabeth was mugged on the street last week. She was taking a photo when a man grabbed her phone and ran off with it. But she didn’t give up! Instead, she gave chase… yelling…

Someone called the police… The chase went on… but the man got away. She then went back to the house and called up the “Find my Phone” app. It showed the phone near where the perp had given her the slip. Returning to the scene… she saw the miscreant wandering around. She gave chase again, keeping her distance… shouting… and making a scene. Again, she lost him, but later found her phone in the bushes. “It was just an old phone…” we began a question. “Wouldn’t it be better just to let it go? He could have turned around and shot you.” “Well, it was the principle of the thing,” she answered.

Privileged Elite: The nice thing about being mugged on the streets of Baltimore is that the principle is clear. No hidden agendas. No chicanery or disguised villainy. It was an honest, in-your-face robbery. And while we admire Elizabeth’s courage and scrappiness, we also have a sly respect for the creep who stole the phone. His life could have been so much simpler… so much easier… so much nicer. All he had to do was join the privileged elite.

How? First, you borrow money to go to college. Then, you put on a suit… and get a job in Washington. Or maybe even get yourself elected to Congress. Not too smart? Don’t worry about it; you’ll fit right in with the other morons.

And don’t turn your nose up at the private sector. Every company welcomes a willing and able employee. You might even work your way up to be CEO, earning 278 times more than the typical employee…

Crypto Boomers: Don’t want to go to college? Don’t want a job? No problem. Just follow the example of Michael Anderson, a self-described “Crypto Boomer,” profiled by The Wall Street Journal last week in its “Bitcoin to Bucks” article. The young man made a fortune – in cryptocurrencies. Or you could follow the example of Tom Osman, an NFT millionaire. The New York Post reports: "On Monday night, an anonymous buyer purchased a computer-based illustration of a rock with 400 ethererum (ETH), a cryptocurrency with the current equivalent value of over $1.3 million.

The geologic doodle, supplied from the free clipart website goodfreephotos.com, is one of a series of 100 such images of the same stone, each a slightly different shade, and attached to its own non fungible token (NFT). The project has existed since 2017 without much attention, Vice’s Motherboard reported - that is, until NFT sales broke through the mainstream last year.

UK crypto-trader Tom Osman came forward as the seller of EtherRock #42, which he purchased just a few weeks prior at only 1.7 ETH, or about $4,800 at the time. “I think this might be the best investment of my life so far,” he said of the transaction."

Or maybe you could have gotten a degree in “race relations” and scored a job as a diversity officer, helping a big corporation blackwash its workforce… Or how about this: start a hedge fund? You raise money from friends and family. You “invest” it in the highest-flying, fastest-moving tech companies on the market. If they go up, you become rich and famous. If they go down, well… it wasn’t your money.

Alternative Path: There are so many well-trodden paths to success in a late, degenerate, capitalist system. And the “not your money” mantra is the secret to them all. But who chases the suits through the streets? Who calls the police on them? Still, against the advice of his family (we presume) and all the counsellors, prison psychiatrists, and parole officers he ever met, the mugger chose a career of simple, old-fashioned crime.

And now, the poor man lives on the gritty streets of a gritty city, in the final days of a hot summer. He is neither enjoying a late-season holiday… nor Facebooking his friends… nor adding millions to his wealth. He is just trying to get enough cash for his next drug fix… and maybe a little more for a hamburger.

Better Idea: How much better it would have been to have studied the latest claptrap theories and fantasies of modern economics. Then, he could have gone to work for the Federal Reserve. Instead of sleeping in doorways and flophouses, he could have a nice house in Bethesda… and spend his days in a climate-controlled, paneled, cushy office… with wall-to-wall carpeting and a cappuccino machine down the hall. He could collect a handsome paycheck… while also watching his portfolio of stocks and bonds go up… and up… and up. And if they should ever begin to go down (markets normally go up AND down)… he could simply announce another stimulus plan! Stay tuned…"

The Daily "Near You?"

Camberwell, Southwark, United Kingdom. Thanks for stopping by!

"Of Course..."

"To show mercy is not naive. To hold out against the end of hope is not stupidity or madness. It is fundamentally human. Of course... we are all doomed; we are all poisoned from our birth by the rot of stars. That does not mean we should succumb to the seductive fallacy of despair, the dark tide that would drown us. You may think I'm stupid, you may call me a madman and a fool, but at least I stand upright in a fallen world."
- Rick Yancey

"Life Comes at You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"

"Life Comes at You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"
by Ryan Holiday

"In 1880, Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his brother, “My happiness is so great that it makes me almost afraid.” In October of that year, life got even better. As he wrote in his diary the night of his wedding to Alice Hathaway Lee, “Our intense happiness is too sacred to be written about.” He would consider it to be one of the best years of his life: he got married, wrote a book, attended law school, and won his first election for public office.

The streak continued. In 1883, he wrote “I can imagine nothing more happy in life than an evening spent in the cozy little sitting room, before a bright fire of soft coal, my books all around me, and playing backgammon with my own dainty mistress.” And that’s how he and Alice spent that cold winter as it crawled into the new year. He wrote in late January that he felt he was fully coming into his own. “I feel now as though I have the reins in my hand.” On February 12th, 1884 his first daughter was born.

Two days later, his wife would be dead of Bright’s disease (now known as kidney failure). His mother had died only hours earlier in the same house, of typhoid fever. Roosevelt marked the day in his diary with a large “X.” Next to it, he wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.”

Life comes at us fast, don’t it?  It can change in an instant. Everything you built, everyone you hold dear, can be taken from you. For absolutely no reason. Just as easily, you can be taken from them. This is why the Stoics say we need to be prepared, constantly, for the twists and turns of Fortune. It’s why Seneca said that nothing happens to the wise man contrary to his expectation, because the wise man has considered every possibility—even the cruel and heartbreaking ones.

And yet even Seneca was blindsided by a health scare in his early twenties that forced him to spend nearly a decade in Egypt to recover. He lost his father less than a year before he lost his first-born son, and twenty days after burying his son he was exiled by the emperor Caligula. He lived through the destruction of one city by a fire and another by an earthquake, before being exiled two more times.

One needs only to read his letters and essays, written on a rock off the coast of Italy, to get a sense that even a philosopher can get knocked on their ass and feel sorry for themselves from time to time.

What do we do? Well, first, knowing that life comes at us fast, we should be always prepared. Seneca wrote that the fighter who has “seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist… who has been downed in body but not in spirit…” - only they can go into the ring confident of their chances of winning. They know they can take getting bloodied and bruised. They know what the darkness before the proverbial dawn feels like. They have a true and accurate sense for the rhythms of a fight and what winning requires. That sense only comes from getting knocked around. That sense is only possible because of their training.

In his own life, Seneca bloodied and bruised himself through a practice called premeditatio malorum (“the premeditation of evils”). Rehearsing his plans, say to take a trip, he would go over the things that could go wrong or prevent the trip from happening - a storm could spring up, the captain could fall ill, the ship could be attacked by pirates, he could be banished to the island of Corsica the morning of the trip. By doing what he called a premeditatio malorum, Seneca was always prepared for disruption and always working that disruption into his plans. He was fitted for defeat or victory. He stepped into the ring confident he could take any blow. Nothing happened contrary to his expectations.

Life comes at us fast… but that doesn’t mean we should be stupid. We also shouldn’t be arrogant.

We have to hang on. Remember, that in the depths of both of Seneca’s darkest moments, he was unexpectedly saved. From exile, he was suddenly recalled to be the emperor’s tutor. In the words of the historian Richard M. Gummere, “Fortune, whom Seneca as a Stoic often ridicules, came to his rescue.” But Churchill, as always, put it better: “Sometimes when Fortune scowls most spitefully, she is preparing her most dazzling gifts.”

Life is like this. It gives us bad breaks - heartbreakingly bad breaks - and it also gives us incredible lucky breaks. Sometimes the ball that should have gone in, bounces out. Sometimes the ball that had no business going in surprises both the athlete and the crowd when it eventually, after several bounces, somehow manages to pass through the net.

When we’re going through a bad break, we should never forget Fortune’s power to redeem us. When we’re walking through the roses, we should never forget how easily the thorns can tear us upon, how quickly we can be humbled. Sometimes life goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t.

This is what Theodore Roosevelt learned, too. Despite what he wrote in his diary that day in 1884, the light did not completely go out of Roosevelt’s life. Sure, it flickered. It looked like the flame might have been cruelly extinguished. But with time and incredible energy and force of will, he came back from those tragedies. He became a great father, a great husband, and a great leader. He came back and the world was better for it. He was better for it.

Life comes at us fast. Today. Tomorrow. When we least expect it. Be ready. Be strong. Don’t let your light be snuffed out."

"Look Ye, Shipmates - He Breaches!

"Look Ye, Shipmates - He Breaches!"
by Jim Kunstler

"Like the white whale of legend surfacing close to the mainland, special counsel John Durham popped up this week with one Michael Sussman in his jaws, a smallish fish among the squamous and tentacled monsters hiding in the depths of the Deep State below the raging political seas. Who he, anyway?

Among the now well-known cast of creatures involved in the panoramic episode of perfidious sedition known as RussiaGate, Mr. Sussman was a bit-player, an errand boy for the Perkins Coie law firm that did much of Hillary Clinton’s dirty work in the 2016 campaign and for the Democratic Party beyond. Mr. Sussman is charged with lying to the FBI in conveying campaign dirt paid-for by Mrs. Clinton to the FBI’s general counsel, James Baker, Mr. Sussman’s old colleague from the days when he worked as a cyber-security expert at the bureau. He also peddled-around the same material, cooked up by Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS company and man-of-mystery Christopher Steele, to The New York Times and other news media, who ran with it like kids with a kite.

I have a theory about the case. It is a shot across the bow of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s ship, testing whether main DOJ will attempt to interfere with Mr. Durham’s mission to uncover the predicates of RussiaGate and the vast web of dishonest and illegal acts carried out subsequently by figures in the FBI, the DOJ, and other dark corners of a government gone rogue against its own citizens. Mr. Baker has long been suspected of acting as a cooperating witness in the RussiaGate matter, perhaps realizing early-on that he’d been played by old pal Mr. Sussman and set up for prosecution.

The problem for Merrick Garland is that Mr. Sussman’s activities amounted to a mere preface for the graver development of the Crossfire Hurricane operation, which involved a shoal of much-bigger fish across several agencies including Directors John Brennan of the CIA and James Comey of the FBI and many others. The Sussman indictment also provides a window into the FISA Court fakery that federal law enforcement used to go after people connected to candidate and then President Donald Trump.

Mr. Garland will be left having to explain why the DOJ and the FBI were never self-accountable for the illegal acts of their employees, including Robert Mueller’s fishy special counsel team, which now looks like a cover-up operation, not to mention current and continuing matters such as the DOJ sitting on the laptop of President “Joe Biden’s” son, Hunter, and its bales of incriminating memoranda detailing payoffs to the Biden family from companies run by the CCP. Really, the fate of the Democratic Party is on the line with what might potentially develop if Mr. Durham’s actions go beyond Michael Sussman’s little caper.

The overwhelming body of opinion for more than a year is that John Durham is a phantom doing next-to-nothing about the greatest political scandal in US history. If his efforts end with Mr. Sussman, he will disgrace himself, of course, and that’s a possibility. But I would venture to suppose that it won’t end there. The insult to the nation of all the epic dishonesty is too grave, even potentially fatal - since it has enabled a depraved skein of additional seditious activities afterward, including the 2020 election subterfuge, the lawlessness of BLM and Antifa, the psychotic race-and-gender “Woke” mind-f**kery infecting the US military, the ongoing invasion across the US-Mexican border, all the coercion around Covid-19, especially “mandated” shots of a dangerous so-called “vaccine,” and the destruction of small business from sea to shining sea. All of that has left the American public demoralized, economically savaged, and the country’s standing in the world dangerously reduced.

I hope you are ready for a month of shocks to the system. The deceit of the CDC and the FDA in gaming and cooking their Covid-19 data is now emerging from the fog of pandemic hysteria. I will also dare to conjecture that the number of recent and current Covid-19 “cases” turns out to be actually and overwhelmingly adverse reactions to the mRNA experiment, not the disease itself, and that holy hell will erupt among the public as it becomes understood that their livelihoods - and their health - are being stolen as part of this fraud. A week from today, the Arizona election audit results are now scheduled to be released. Expect trauma. Tomorrow, a demonstration in support of the 1/6 political prisoners is on-board for Washington, DC. The potential for Deep State manipulation of the event is high, so stay away from it. There are enough other forces in motion now to throw a spanner in the engine of malice our government has become. Let Karma do its thing and hold on tight for a rough ride."

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "The Economy Is DEAD. Is Evergrande Really Going To Bring Down The Financial System?"

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Your guide:
Gregory Mannarino,  AM 9/17/21:
"The Economy Is DEAD. Is Evergrande Really 
Going To Bring Down The Financial System?"
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