Jim Kunstler, "Shocks to the System"

"Shocks to the System"

by Jim Kunstler

There is something about being detached from reality that makes it hard to go about your everyday business. In the quaint asylums of yore, it was understood that a few shocks to the system could bring lunatics out of a fugue state of derangement - a cold water plunge… an insulin hot-shot to induce convulsions… some electrodes placed artfully on select regions of the brain…. It looks like America is about to be treated to some shocks. Will they break the mass formation psychosis that styles itself unironically as “progressive politics?”

The first shock will be the painful recognition that Ukraine is not prevailing against Russia’s Operation Z, despite the combined efforts of the US news media and the Intel Community to put over that narrative. True, it took Russia more than a few days to overcome Ukraine’s NATO-fortified defenses, but now most of that has been neutralized, and we’re into the final weeks heading towards resolution - which will be a Ukraine that is unable to make any more trouble in that corner of the world.

That’s right, hard as it is to accept, Operation Z came down on Ukraine because it misbehaved badly, egged-on by delusional war-gamers in Washington, who could only pretend to support Ukraine once the real action started. No amount of chanting Putin-Putin-Putin availed to stop the grinding Russian advance. State’s Antony Blinken and DoD’s General Austin were in Kiev over the weekend on a face-saving mission. My guess: they tried to persuade Mr. Zelenskyy to throw in the towel. He may be too desperate and crazy to listen, but it’s truly game-over. The Russians will treat him with kid gloves, perhaps give him leave to settle in Miami and enjoy the American dream with the fortune he has squirreled away. There will be changes in the map. Ukraine will sink back into peaceful obscurity while the US and Europe have to struggle with the impoverishing blowback from wrecking the global trade settlement system.

The next shock will be the utterly predictable crash of global financial markets, which started last Friday and is looking to gain momentum this week. Watch it shove Ukraine clean off the media landing pages and the cable news chyrons. The Hang Seng and Shanghai exchanges closed today down respectively 3.7 and 5.1 percent. Pretty awesome. China unravels with its massive lockdowns, factory shutdowns, and shipping breakdowns. All because of more Covid, really? (I doubt it.) Europe’s markets are red all over this morning, surely fretting over the suicide pact with America to go “green” by energy starvation. The dirty secret is that nobody will be going “green” the way fantasists propose. Rather, we’ll be going medieval.

You can see our nauseating freefall in real time. A friend set forth to shop for a car last week. Her current ride is eight years old and has 110-K on the odo. At two dealerships, there was no inventory of new cars on the lots. The low-mileage used cars were actually priced higher than the new ones (which were not there), and all prices are generally higher than a sinking middle-class can possibly afford. Delivery of a new car could not be promised before September at the earliest, the sales rep said. I will tell you what this means: it means that the car industry’s business model is broken.

Similarly, a conversation I had Saturday with the farm-and-garden store owner in town; supplies of everything are off. Wholesale cost of everything is out-of-sight. He usually has a hundred chain saws in stock this time of year. This April, he’s only got ten. Anything electrical - no replacement parts. They’re short on fertilizer and vegetable seeds. Meanwhile, food processing plants all around the country are mysteriously blowing up and burning down. No supper for you, America!

Next shock to the system: Remember Covid-19? Do you have any idea how much homicidal fraud was committed in its name by the pharmaceutical industry and the public health agencies of the US government? Follow Edward Dowd’s Gettr feed to get a general idea. The former Black Rock investment manager has been collecting the actuarial tables from the life insurance industry. From country-to-country we are seeing a 40 percent increase in all-causes mortality for people in the prime of life. Wall Street has noticed, Mr. Dowd says.

The key to the issue is that fraud obviates the liability shield conferred on Pfizer, Moderna, et al., by the government’s emergency use authorization (EUA). Awaiting in parallel to all that is the criminal culpability of many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of government officials, hospital executives, and doctors who killed their patients while in thrall to the CDC. Dr. Naomi Wolf has engaged over two thousand researchers and hundreds of lawyers in gathering the hard evidence of these frauds. All of this will eventually flip the Covidian catatonics out of their trances (and their stupid masks).

Sometime in May, Hillary Clinton attorney Michael Sussmann will be the second RussiaGater to go on trial (following FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith last year). It looks like Special Counsel John Durham does not need to make a plea deal with Mr. Sussmann; Durham’s office already has enough evidence to move up the feeding chain to the bigger fish. Many still doubt that he will actually try. I do not. Indictments of rogue bureaucrats and political celebrities will conclude the seditious mindf**k that sent the country reeling into mass formation.

None of these shocks can be postponed anymore. The Left’s war on America’s psyche is over. America is going to get its mind right, even as we suffer hardship from years of epic mismanagement of our affairs. What remains is separating out the dupes from the perps."

- https://kunstler.com/

"Massive Price Increases At Walmart! This Is Getting Crazy!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 4/25/22:

"Massive Price Increases At Walmart! This Is Getting Crazy!"

"In today's vlog we are at Walmart and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Gregory Mannarino, "Safety Trade/Fear Trade"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/25/22:

"Safety Trade/Fear Trade"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Economic Market Snapshot 4/25/22"

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

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"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will

do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

- John Maynard Keynes

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"Economic Market Snapshot 4/25/22"

Updated as available.

MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

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CNN Market Data:

- http://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

CNN Fear And Greed Index:

- http://money.cnn.com/data/fear-and-greed/

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Latest Market Analysis, Updated 4/25/22

- https://www.asktraders.com/analysis/

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

April 24th to 25th, 2022

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."

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- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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Oh yeah...

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And now... The End Game...

"This Is How Easy It Is..."

 

"This Is What it Feels Like When a Democracy Dies"

"This Is What it Feels Like When a Democracy Dies"

by Umair Haque

"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”

- Justice William O. Kennedy

"What does it feel like to live in a time really succumbing to tyranny? Would you know it if you were in such a time? Is it like the "Hunger Games", or a "Mad Max" movie? Spectacular, violent, repellent, and unmistakeable? Or is it something subtler? Something that, for example, you might not even know was happening at the very moment it was happening to you? After all, invisible poisons are the most corrosive and dangerous things of all.

Imagine that you're lying down in a park, on the grass, on a perfect summer day, your eyes closed. And from nowhere, from everywhere, a fog begins rolling in. Gentle and white, oddly out place. It washes across the tips of your feet. You feel pinpricks. Your eyes snap open. Your toes go numb. How strange, you think to yourself, as you think about getting up and running away. What is this fog doing here? Why is giving you pins and needles?

But by the time you are thinking all that, processing what is happening to you, the fog is already up to your knees. 'I really should get up!' you think to yourself. You are a little alarmed now. But as you've paused to even think that far, to register it you realize that while your knees are prickling, your feet, calves, ankles, have gone numb. And it's not entirely unpleasant. It's soothing, even, in the way that letting go is. Confused, puzzled, bewildered, you stop to think again.

Yet by now the fog, still rolling, as quiet as winter, has reached the tips of your fingers, blanketed your torso. Ahhh, you murmur. The pinpricks, you realize, only sting you where the fog's cold, icy edge is. The rest of you? It's numb. Cool. Gone. And there is a strange, disquieting peace in that. Nothing makes sense. The world seems to be vanishing and so do you. But it's not entirely a bad thing.

The fog keeps rolling. As it covers all of you, something in you cries out 'Get up!' But there is another part that is overwhelmed, which wishes to surrender to this pleasing, beautiful, gentle numbness. That longs for it. A few pins and needles, that's not much of a price for letting go, is it? After all, isn't that exactly why you were resting in the park on that perfect summer day, eyes closed? To let the whole world, including yourself, fall away?

Authoritarianism isn't what you think it is. A sudden, violent, visible rupture. That's what Americans, especially, have been led to believe by too many TV shows and movies, which are a kind of especially paranoid American annihilation fantasy (the Rapture, the commies, the immigrants.)

But tyranny isn't like that at all. It doesn't feel like that. These days, if we are a little bit educated about it, we call it creeping. but even that fails to convey the feeling, the sense, the experience. My little parable is a way to begin expressing the strange feeling of collapse, not just anxiety and panic, but also, conflicting with it, a kind of yearning for surrender and submission. We'd be foolish, by now, not to understand the dark roots of our own apathy and resignation, wouldn't we? So let me continue.

The thing we misunderstand most about tyranny is that we suppose life becomes one long exercise in rigid, total certainty. You receive your orders, salute, and snap to business. That is what violent rupture implies: one day democracy, the next, a tyrant is there, precisely ordering everyone's last thought and action. But the truth is precisely the opposite.

Tyranny kills with the grey haze, the white fog, of all-pervading uncertainty. An uncertainty so total, that after a time, people will give up all that they love, and everyone they love, to escape it. The fog kills everything it touches and yet, it can't be touched, held, known, captured. You can't fight fog with fists or words or speeches, can you? If you join hands with someone you love, the fog will laugh, and weave itself right between your fingers. So what can fight it? Who can resist it? First, let me explain it a little.

Who will be dehumanized today? Will there be an election? Is this a President or something more sinister? Is the law still working? Did they raid that town? Why are those camps rising? Whose door will they knock at today? Am I in danger? Are they going to use my words against me? Should I not speak them? Where are the children? Do you see what I mean by all-pervading uncertainty? The grey haze. The white fog. That, my friends, is what tyranny really is. And you are already knee-deep in it. Only perhaps you don't quite know it yet.

After a time, the uncertainty erases everything. Cleanses everything. Kills everything. All. It covers everything it touches, and leaves nothing revealed. It is total and all-encompassing. Is that a person? Am I? Who is a citizen? What about my friends, family, cousins? Are these words mine? Did I speak them? Are those my friends? Can I trust them? Did they get rid of those people? The fog. The haze. That is how it kills everything it touches, by making all things exactly the same thing. An unanswerable question.

Do you have the sense, lately, that things are unreal? Ah, you see. You are already being blanked by the grey haze, the white fog, of uncertainty. Uncertainty is what you are feeling, only you don't know it. It is that uncertainty that has turned everything unreal. Will they really put people in camps? Then why did they build them? Will women really have to go underground to get abortions? What about my kids? Will they really live without healthcare or education or retirement? You go numb, as any sane person would, having to think these terrible thoughts. Your vision goes blurry. Reality has come apart, because nothing is or isn't anymore. Everything is just the fog.

When all is fog, uncertainty, impossibility, unknowability, reality cannot be processed anymore. That is the point. To create a world where everything, being uncertain, becomes unreal. Nothing exists, or doesn't exist, only just maybe exists, but only if it is allowed to. So nothing can be held, contained, known, and therefore, held onto. Nothing. Not the people you love most. Not yourself. Not tomorrow. Not even today.

Have you ever read stories about how in tyrannies, brothers will betray brothers, husbands wives, and mothers sons? You have always thought that could never happen to me! But why do they do it? It isn't because the tyrant commands them to. He doesn't have to. They will do it for just a tiny morsel of certainty. Here, I am a good person. Let me prove it to you. Let me tell you who is a bad person. Will you reward me now, put me in the good books, give me some certainty, instead of keeping me at the edge? No human being can survive more than a few days in a totally uncertain world. So the fog takes everything, not just from us, but also in us. It takes away, at last, our capacity to feel. When that is gone, we are hollow, empty, numb. And when we are numb, what or whom won't we sell, betray, or abuse?

The tyrant has never lifted a finger. He has only produced the fog, with a conjuring trick. By shifting the sands beneath us, and letting the mist pour out of the cracks. The fog rolls over us, little by little, inch by inch, languorous tendrils whispering. We fall and fall slowly, gently into a long, dreamless coma.

In the end, nothing is left. People are erased. Time stands still. History vanishes. The future looks exactly like the present. Nobody is here at all. There is only the fog, the haze, the white. Nothing can be discerned in it. Nothing can be seen through it. But that is alright. There is nobody left to see nothing, anyways. There is just the white fog. And beneath it, the sleepers. Each one the same, none of them there, or not there.

If just one woke up, looked around, shocked, and roused another, and that one another, and so on maybe they might, together, strain, struggle, and lift one another up above the fog. But none of them ever quite understood that. The fog took them too fast, too invisibly, without a bullet, without a word, without a sound, just like that. It took all the fight in them, and turned it to surrender.

That is what tyranny feels like, my friends. And you might not know it, or you might, but the fog is rolling silently across you now, gentle, languorous, with love, with absolution, with death."

- https://eand.co/

"Silk..."

"You're going to meet many people with domineering personalities: the loud, the obnoxious, those that noisily stake their claims in your territory and everywhere else they set foot on. This is the blueprint of a predator. Predators prey on gentleness, peace, calmness, sweetness and any positivity that they sniff out as weakness. Anything that is happy and at peace they mistake for weakness. It's not your job to change these people, but it's your job to show them that your peace and gentleness do not equate to weakness. I have always appeared to be fragile and delicate but the thing is, I am not fragile and I am not delicate. I am very gentle but I can show you that the gentle also possess a poison. 

I compare myself to silk. People mistake silk to be weak but a silk handkerchief can protect the wearer from a gunshot. There are many people who will want to befriend you if you fit the description of what they think is weak; predators want to have friends that they can dominate over because that makes them feel strong and important. The truth is that predators have no strength and no courage. It is you who are strong, and it is you who has courage. I have lost many a friend over the fact that when they attempt to rip me, they can't. They accuse me of being deceiving; I am not deceiving, I am just made of silk. It is they who are stupid and wrongly take gentleness and fairness for weakness. There are many more predators in this world, so I want you to be made of silk. You are silk."

- C. JoyBell C

"Does the American Empire Conclude in a Fireball or in the Greatest Depression The World Has Ever Seen?"

"Does the American Empire Conclude in a Fireball 

or in the Greatest Depression The World Has Ever Seen?"

by Thomas Paine


"A planned total economic attack on a nuclear power is the worst of bad ideas. Few Americans realize it but one EMP nuclear bomb exploded 300 miles in altitude over the center of Kansas would fry every computer chip in the US. In less than a year 90% of Americans would be dead. Was bringing Ukraine into Nato really worth risking nuclear destruction of the entire world?

The first story doesn’t tell the most important facts about the mass shooting in Maidan in 2014. Actually Nuland told the very real right wing Nazis to murder people on both sides so international attention would be focused on the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Ukraine because he leaned towards Russia. Those same monsters are those the US, EU, Nato, the Swiss and the Pope support today. They are mad dogs that should be put to sleep.

The hidden origin of the escalating Ukraine-Russian conflict-The Maidan massacre:



https://johnmenadue.com/ivan-katchanovski-the-hidden-origin-of-the-escalating-ukraine-russian-conflict-the-maidan-massacre/



The idea that Putin just up and attacked Ukraine with no reason is part of an American propaganda campaign that is thirty years old at least. Russia has been attacked for thirty years based on the idea that the US should and can run the world. Anyone who doesn’t see a major flaw in that theory is missing the trees because of the forest in the way. The US just got booted out of Afghanistan after twenty years of fighting against units no larger than a good size Girl Scout troop made up of goat herders. Anyone believing the US can successfully fight a proxy war against the Russians needs to rethink.

James Baker put in writing in 1991 that the US would not oppose the reunification of Germany and would not expand Nato one inch to the east. Since then thirteen countries have been added to Nato. Nato had an expiration date of 1991 and should have died a death thirty years ago. Baker lied. In 2016 Ukraine agreed to the Minsk II agreement that called for Ukraine to stop murdering women and children in the Donbass region and to talk to them directly. Ukraine lied and has refused to comply with their own agreement.

Ukraine is a Pawn on the Grand Chessboard:

https://popularresistance.org/ukraine-is-a-pawn-on-the-grand-chessboard/

This has all been planned. But not by Putin. Actually the Rand report was a plan on how to force Russia into an attack on Ukraine. Tens of thousands of people have died on both sides in a useless war instigated by and for the US. Rand report prescribed US provocations against Russia; predicted Russia might retaliate in Ukraine. That was the entire purpose:

https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/blog/rand-report-prescribed-us-provocations-against-russia-predic

All those atrocities being committed today, they are the product of the Ukrainian government and we support them. That insane support based on opinions and not facts may end the world in a fireball that could have been prevented if people would do some research and learn to think for themselves.

Is Zelensky really some sort of superman fighting for truth and justice on behalf of the entire world? The media used to think differently:

And what of the “so-called” Nazis. How did the MSM write about them long before they started murdering civilians in Bucha because they wore white armbands indicating support of the Russian forces? The murders came days after the Russians withdrew from the city and the Nazis moved in.

Martin Armstrong has done some excellent reporting about what is really going on in Ukraine. Here is an interesting nine minute video about Zelensky from India: "The Real Zelensky from Outside the USA"

- http://www.321gold.com/

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Related:

"More (CIA) Myths About Ukraine"

Musical Interlude: Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"

Full screen recommended.

Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"

Singer David Draiman

130,624,387 views this live version.

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Full screen recommended.

Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"

802,554,672 views official release.

You will feel this in your soul...

"It's Hitting the Fan, Prepare for TOTAL Chaos"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 4/24/22:

"It's Hitting the Fan, Prepare for TOTAL Chaos"

"Russia state media hacked with threats of NATO nuclear strike, space war imminent, Taiwan prepares the people for an invasion, cyberattacks have food supply in its sights, sabatoge of Russo military facilities, 4/10 Britains will soon riot over cost of living, hell is breaking loose and thats only the start of it..."

"20 Reasons Why Millions Of Young Americans Are Furious About The Economy"

Full screen recommended.

"20 Reasons Why Millions Of Young Americans

 Are Furious About The Economy"

by Epic Economist

"Millions of young Americans have completely lost their faith in our nation. They are realizing that their future has been destroyed by decades of reckless decisions made by the ones we call leaders - and now, they're getting increasingly furious about the state of the economy. The economic downturn we're now witnessing has hit those under the age of 30 incredibly hard. Many young adults were ready for the future they were promised their whole lives, only to find out that those promises turned out to be empty.

Right now, hordes of young people should be entering their most productive years. Instead, they are sitting home trying to figure out ways to stay afloat for another month. Many of them have worked really hard throughout high school and college. Many have stayed out of trouble and have done everything the system told them to do. But after they concluded their education, the rewards they were promised never materialized.

Today, they're being forced to build their lives amid a declining economy, a decaying labor market, and the highest spike in consumer prices recorded since their grandparents had their age. On top of that, millions of young Americans are carrying massive loads of debt. Those who went to college have to face a crushing student loan debt before they even get the chance to start building wealth. To make things worse, they can't find good-paying jobs to help them ease that burden.

When you're young and things are uncertain, it can be absolutely devastating to send out hundreds, or even thousands, of resumes and not get a single interview. Most of us grew up believing that we would be "someone" when we got older. We would be able to figure things out and thrive just as our parents did. That's why so many of us are incredibly disappointed right now.

This new generation of Americans is having their dreams brutally crushed by a nightmarish reality. Now, this group is waking up to the fact that neither political party is providing any real answers, and that those in power don't have any real intentions of reversing the mess and the damages they've done to our country.

Americans under the age of 30 are realizing that they are not going to be able to do any better than their parents. They are going to have to "pay the price" for the mistakes made by the previous generations. They're facing a broken labor market whose jobs don't offer enough money for them to get by month by month, let alone get rid of their massive debt. The downfall of the young generation reflects the dark future the United States is creating. Over the past few years, large numbers of young adults had to move back with their parents. Their financial struggles are aggravated by soaring living expenses. And with each passing month, their debt only grows larger. It feels like we're in the process of creating a lost generation. It makes us wonder: what can be done to save the future of America?

In today's video, we compiled several stats that reveal why so many Americans under the age of 30 are giving up on the U.S. economy. Here are 20 Reasons Why Millions Of Young Americans Are Furious About The Economy."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

"Always Stand Up..."

"Always stand up for what you believe in…

even if it means standing alone."

- Kim Hanks

"Standing up for what you believe in comes at a price,

but backing down exacts a toll that your soul never stops paying."

- Lee Goldberg

In the movie  "The Lion in Winter", when the sons, in the dungeon, think they hear Henry coming down the stairs to kill them:
Richard: "He's here! He'll get no satisfaction out of us! Don't let him see you beg! Take it like a man!
Geoffrey: "You chivalric fool! As if the way one falls down matters!"
Richard: "Well, when the fall is all that's left, it matters a great deal."

"We All Know..."

“We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars… everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”

- Thornton Wilder

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“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.

That myth is more potent than history.

I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts.

That hope always triumphs over experience.

That laughter is the only cure for grief.

And I believe that love is stronger than death.”

- Robert Fulghum

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“For Those Who Have Died”

“Eleh Ezkerah” (“These We Remember”)

“Tis a fearful thing

To love

What death can touch.

To love, to hope, to dream,

And oh, to lose.

A thing for fools, this,

Love,

But a holy thing,

To love what death can touch.

For your life has lived in me;

Your laugh once lifted me;

Your word was a gift to me.

To remember this brings painful joy.

Tis a human thing, love,

A holy thing,

To love

What death can touch.”

- Chaim Stern

Graphic: “Into The Silent Land”, 

by Henry Pegram, 1905

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“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of Infinity. Life is Eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in Eternity.”

- Paulo Coelho

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“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”

- Dr. Seuss

And we shall meet again…

Full screen recommended.

Moody Blues, “The Day We Meet Again”

"All Men Seek Happiness..."

"All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves."

- Blaise Pascal

Musical Interlude: 2002, "We Meet Again"; "Challenge From Heaven"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "We Meet Again"

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Full screen recommended.

2002, "Challenge From Heaven"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way. About 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, M33 is itself thought to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy and astronomers in these two galaxies would likely have spectacular views of each other's grand spiral star systems.

As for the view from planet Earth, this sharp image shows off M33's blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions along the galaxy's loosely wound spiral arms. In fact, the cavernous NGC 604 is the brightest star forming region, seen here at about the 4 o'clock position from the galaxy center. Like M31, M33's population of well-measured variable stars have helped make this nearby spiral a cosmic yardstick for establishing the distance scale of the Universe."

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

"Assume Nothing..."

The Poet: Mary Oliver, “October”

“October”

"There’s this shape, black as the entrance to a cave.

A longing wells up in its throat

like a blossom

as it breathes slowly.

What does the world

mean to you if you can’t trust it

to go on shining when you’re

not there? and there’s

a tree, long-fallen; once

the bees flew to it, like a procession

of messengers, and filled it

with honey.

I said to the chickadee, singing his heart out in the

green pine tree:

little dazzler

little song,

little mouthful.

The shape climbs up out of the curled grass. It

grunts into view. There is no measure

for the confidence at the bottom of its eyes-

there is no telling

the suppleness of its shoulders as it turns

and yawns.

Near the fallen tree

something- a leaf snapped loose

from the branch and fluttering down- tries to pull me

into its trap of attention.

It pulls me

into its trap of attention,

And when I turn again, the bear is gone.

Look, hasn’t my body already felt

like the body of a flower?

Look, I want to love this world

as thought it’s the last chance I’m ever going to get

to be alive

and know it.

Sometimes in late summer I won’t touch anything, not

the flowers, not the blackberries

brimming in the thickets; I won’t drink

from the pond; I won’t name the birds or the trees;

I won’t whisper my own name.

One morning

the fox came down the hill, glittering and confident,

and didn’t see me - and I thought:

so this is the world.

I’m not in it.

It is beautiful."

- Mary Oliver

"Perhaps It Is Better..."

"Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy.

But it is the best of all to be sane and happy. Whether our descendants

can achieve that goal will be the greatest challenge of the future.

Indeed, it may well decide whether we have any future."

- Arthur C. Clarke

Chet Raymo, “The Spark of Life”

“The Spark of Life”

by Chet Raymo

"In a previous post I quoted Teilhard de Chardin referring to the discovery of electromagnetic waves as a "prodigious biological event." A biological event? What could he mean? The universe was awash with electromagnetic waves long before life appeared on Earth, or anywhere else in the universe. The cosmic microwave background radiation- the residue of the big bang- is electromagnetic. Starlight is an electromagnetic wave. You can "discover" electromagnetic waves by opening your eyes.

Of course, what Teilhard referred to was the conscious control of electromagnetic radiation by sentient biological creatures. Electromagnetic waves were predicted theoretically by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1864, as he played with equations describing electric and magnetic fields. Then, twenty-two years later, electromagnetic waves were experimentally demonstrated by Heinrich Hertz, who in effect made the first radio broadcast and reception. At Hertz's transmitter a spark jumped back and forth between two metal spheres 50 million times a second. Across the room a similar spark was instantly produced at the receiver. Invisible electrical energy had passed through space at the speed of light.

A spark dancing between two spheres- an unpretentious beginning for the age of radio, television, mobile phones and wireless internet. That first transmitter and receiver had a basement-workshop simplicity about them. Hertz demonstrated the nature of electromagnetic waves with constructions of wood, brass and sealing wax.

Wood, brass, sealing wax and conscious intelligence. Here on Earth - perhaps throughout the universe - stardust gave rise to living slime. The slime complexified, became conscious. Invented mathematics, experimental science. Caused sparks to jump between metal spheres. Sent the signature of biological activity across a room. Across a planet. Across the universe."

"Prodigious!”

- https://www.sciencemusings.com/

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