Monday, September 12, 2022

"One Summer Night..."

"One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space. Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. My companion and I were alone with the stars: the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will."
- Rachel Carson

Canadian Prepper, "Warning: Emergency In Russia - General Mobilization Is Coming!"

Canadian Prepper, 9/12/22:
"Warning: Emergency In Russia - 
General Mobilization Is Coming!"
"No one is analyzing the situation from all angles,
 let's attempt to do that."
Comments here:
Related:
Full screen recommended.
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 9/12/22:
"Scott Ritter - Ukraine Sept. Counter Offensive"
Comments here:

The Daily "Near You?"

Ellijay, Georgia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

“True Story: Streets of Philadelphia"

Full screen recommended, if you can stomach it.
kimgary, 9/10/22:
“True Story: Streets of Philadelphia"
"Violent crime and drug abuse in Philadelphia as a whole is a major problem. The city’s violent crime rate is higher than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. Also alarming is Philadelphia’s drug overdose rate. The number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50% from 2013 to 2015, with more than twice as many deaths from drug overdoses as deaths from homicides in 2015. A big part of Philadelphia’s problems stem from the crime rate and drug abuse in Kensington.

Because of the high number of drugs in Kensington, the neighborhood has a drug crime rate of 3.57, the third-highest rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia. Like a lot of the country, a big part of this issue is a result of the opioid epidemic. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed over the last two decades in the United States and Philadelphia is no exception. Along with having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% percent of Philadelphia’s overdose deaths involved opioids and Kensington is a big contributor to this number. This Philly neighborhood is purportedly the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast with many neighboring residents flocking to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high number of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have zoned in on this area to try and tackle Philadelphia’s problem."
"The 3200 block of Shelbourne St in Kensington is CRAZY.  Dealers/lookouts on both ends of the block. You can hear the lookout shout to announce our presence."
Full screen recommended.
Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia"

"America is the Empire of Debt"

"America is the Empire of Debt"

"This week on TWS: Bill Bonner advances his “Modest Theory of Civilization.” Funny story: When Bill and I wrote our first book together, "Financial Reckoning Day," we were sitting across from each other in the office on Rue de la Verrerie in Paris. We’re both old school writers; passing physical manuscripts back and forth was easy. I would hit ‘print’... hand Bill the pages… he’d get out his red pen… Mark it up… hand it back to me.

When we wrote our second book, "Empire of Debt" … ooh la la. Things changed. Bill was still living in Paris. I had relocated to Baltimore. Bill was also trying to manage a business in London. And had just bought several apartments in Buenos Aires. Instead of hitting print and handing the pages to him. I hit print… Then I had to triangulate to figure out where in the world Bill was going to be next so I could Fedex him the pages. If I knew he was going to be in Buenos Aires on such and such a date, I could send the pages there. And wait until I got his red ink scratches back.

Thing is, Bill has his own way of doing things. He would write things like “Move A to page 42.” With a circle around a couple of paragraphs. So… I’d grab the paragraphs circled, physically cutting the paper sometimes, and look on page 42. On page 42, it might say something like “insert C1 here.”

No invectives. Just a bit of confusion. I like word puzzles, anyway. Lather, rinse, repeat. Triangulate. Solve mystery edits. Write new stuff. You get the picture. We were six months late on our deadline using this method.

Here’s the best part of the story. On one draft, Bill drew a red line through roughly thirty pages of material I had written on the U.S. Dollar. To me, a red line through my work meant “cut this material.” Which, at the time, was a reasonable assumption given the conventions of copyediting those days. I “cut” the pages, but didn’t delete them. Kept them in my swipe file. Then turned them into the book that would become "The Demise of the Dollar." This book – my third – was published by John Wiley & Sons in a few months… ahead of the deadline… for a book the publisher didn’t expect.

The punchline: When Bill read the final manuscript of "Empire of Debt" he asked me, “Where’s that whole section I highlighted on the U.S. dollar?” “Highlighted?! Oops. I thought you wanted me to delete it!” Sometimes mistakes become the most unpredictable blessings.

Bill and I have both since matured enough to use electronic devices to do our writing. E-mail, it turns out, is cheaper, faster and more efficient than paper, ink and Fedex. Who'da thunk? And get this: We even conducted this interview over Zoom! A long way from handing hard copy to one another face to face."

"Follow your bliss,"

"How It Really Is"

 

"Relax..."

"Relax. They're not going to kill us. They're going to
TRY and kill us. And that is a very different thing."
 - Steve Voake, "The Dreamwalker's Child"

Jim Kunstler, "Is War What You Asked For?"

"Is War What You Asked For?"
Beware: Ukraine’s touted Kharkov offensive is probably 
not what the US news media cracks it up to be….
by Jim Kunstler

"Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception." 
- Carl Sagan

"The Russians called their move into Ukraine last February a “special military operation” for a reason. The description was precise. It was not a “war” prosecuted on the people of Ukraine. Russia could have completely disabled the Zelensky regime in an afternoon with air power, but they did not want to smash up the country’s vital infrastructure and foreclose the peoples’ future. The operation was designed to expel Ukrainian military forces from their forward dug-in positions along the Donbas frontier, where they had been shelling, harassing, and killing the Russian-speaking population for eight years - ever since the 2014 CIA-backed Maidan “color Revolution” brought Ukraine under American control.

The precipitating event of the operation begun last winter was the renewed threat to bring Ukraine into NATO, for the purpose of putting bases on Russia’s border. Russia would not tolerate that any more than America would tolerate Russian bases planted across our border with Mexico. The special operation was mounted to reestablish firm boundaries, both geographically and in geopolitical psychology, for an adversary, the West, who displayed an increasingly psychotic drive to smash all boundaries that make civilized life possible, even in their own countries.

Since then, the US has poured money into Ukraine at the rate of about $10-billion a month for the purpose of prolonging the struggle in Ukraine. We’re doing this at a moment in history when the US faces grave financial breakdown, along with the countries of the European Union and the UK. Nothing about our involvement in Ukraine is in the interest of the American people. Our foreign policy establishment has shown a blind animus toward Russia for no apparent good reason.

At this point reasonable people might conclude that it is for a bad reason. Increasingly it looks like a desperate diversion from the technocrat coup perpetrated by a supranational cabal emanating out of Davos, as led by the megalomaniacs at the World Economic Forum (WEF). The coupsters also happen to be intriguing behind America’s Democratic Party and the White House regime of the obvious tool, “Joe Biden.”

To digress from Ukraine for a moment, let’s consider the perilous condition of “Joe Biden’s” regime just now. All the “narratives” - the miasma of lies the regime has generated in its campaign to wreck our country - are falling apart. Much of this centers on the criminal misbehavior of the FBI, the regime’s clean-up crew, which has lost control of the clean-up. If the conservative opposition seizes majority control of the US House of Representatives on November 8, all the US players in this coup will be called to testify.

This includes the perpetrators of RussiaGate (of which the Ukraine mess is a continuation); the perps of the Covid-19 bioweapon op that will end up killing more Americans from the “vaccines” and the economic blowback of lockdowns as died from the virus itself; the backstage perps of the censoring and cancellation initiative run through the news and social media; the perps who arranged the ballot shenanigans in the 2020 elections; the perps who supported the Antifa and BLM riots of that same year; the perps behind the Mar-a-Lago raid; and, most threatening of all to the regime, the perps who concealed the Hunter Biden laptop evidence of international bribery and treason committed by the current President of the United States. He knows it, he can sniff the danger, as do the rogues and degenerates behind him. Hence, his recent mendacious fulminations against “MAGA Republicans [being] a threat to our democracy” and his ramped-up FBI police-state antics against Donald Trump and his associates. “Joe Biden” must sense that he is going down.

The New York Times today is ballyhooing the Ukraine military’s “lightning advance” east of Kharkov. I’d argue that what The Times wants you to see is not exactly what is happening. Rather the Russians appear to have made an orderly, tactical retreat from the outskirts of Kharkov, inducing the NATO-trained Ukraine forces eastward across the Siverskyi Donets River and out into the flat, open country where they will be cut off, cauldroned, and slaughtered. Everything that NATO and the US have done in this conflict has been a stupid move. Why should this one be an exception?

At the same time, Russia has hit a number of power generation plants around Ukraine, leaving many Ukrainians without lights, hot water, communications - in short, what’s needed to remain civilized. This was exactly what Russia had hoped to avoid the past eight months, but the obdurate pathological idiocy of our country’s leaders has forced Russia to send a harsher message to provoke some rational thought here about ending this conflict. There is even chatter on the web that Russia is about to declare that the special military operation is now a war, with all that implies about targets.

The US may be crazed beyond redemption, but the people of the NATO member countries might have had a clarifying experience lately watching their governments barter away the natural gas they desperately need to run industry and heat their homes this winter - in the foolish gesture of jumping on America’s sanctions bandwagon. Will Germany, France, Italy, and the rest now leap into a war against Russia on the plains of Ukraine in winter? I think they will sooner overthrow their own WEF-directed governments. This appears to be just what has happened in Sweden’s election on Sunday where a bloc of center-right parties has ousted the left government led by Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson.

The question for now is this: Will the US jump stupidly into World War Three over Ukraine? If not, how much does Russia have to disrupt life in the rest of Ukraine outside the Donbas to drive the US and NATO into serious peace talks? It better happen soon because otherwise the West will be completely preoccupied with the collapse of its financial markets, currencies, and economies - and probably before the November elections here."
Before you chant slogans and wave your cute little Ukrainian flags while knowing nothing about the true situation, you really should get the facts and not just accept all the lies and propaganda they're feeding us. Know where your $65 billion in "military assistance" is really going? It's not the Ukrainian troops. Really want to fight the Russians? You'd better factor this into the decision if you do... Reposted from 4/18/22:
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, PM 4/18/22:
"Oh S#!%... "SATAN" Nuclear Missile is Being Prepared"
"We are so close to the brink... Russia is reported to have conducted a test launch of the RS-28 (15A28) Sarmat ICBM, which will replace the Soviet R-36M2 Voyevoda missile. This is the worlds largest nuclear missile that includes 15 warheads each with high nuclear yield. According to Russian information, on April 24, a Sarmat ICBM test launch took place from Plesetsk in the Arkhangelsk region with the final destination being the Kura training field in Kamchatka. It is worth noting that this information was leaked to the Russian media immediately after the loss of the Moskva cruiser. The Russians note that there is no reason to follow the example of the US, which canceled the test launches of Minuteman III twice in March and April of this year under the fictitious pretext of "non-escalation" of the situation. Launch is only necessary for a complete re-equipment."
RS-28 Sarmat

15 warheads per missile, 11,000 mile range, 
hypersonic speed of 15,880 mph.
Do we really want to do this?
This from Russian state TV...
Full screen recommended.
It would be wise to hear this, but they won't...
Meanwhile, 9/12/22:

"Elon Musk Issues a Dire Warning About the Economy - Do You Care?"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, 9/12/22:
"Elon Musk Issues a Dire Warning 
About the Economy - Do You Care?"
"Do you take it seriously when a business professional tells you that things are going to go up or going to go down? The latest is Elon Musk who has told us that we are headed for a devastating recession if interest rates are raised at all."
Comments here:

Bill Bonner, "Death by Government"

"Death by Government"
Millions await the fallout from 
The State's grandest experiment of all...
by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "For all the hand-wringing about Europe’s energy and economic crisis… Paris seemed calm last week. The restaurants were full. People walked around as usual. It felt like a city that had been taken over by the lizard people, all pretending to be human. Everything looked normal. People acted normal. But, as they say on TV, winter is coming.

Already, on our trip back to Ireland, crossing the English Channel and then the Irish Sea, the clouds came in from the North Atlantic. The sea was not as tranquil or as blue as it had been a month ago. Instead, it was like an old man, starting to turn gray and grumble; his best days are behind him. Fastened to a dying animal… he must bear the bad weather ahead. After all, the autumnal equinox is only 3 days away.

As to the ‘scientific’ claims of the ‘green’ lobby, we are agnostic. But suspicious. Every time the elite sets its sights on a Great Campaign, it enlists ‘science,’ religion and the press… and the result is almost always a catastrophic scam. We have no reason to believe this time will be different.

We keep an open mind. But right now, the Old World seems to be leading the way into the new disaster. Eager to cut off fossil fuels in order to save the planet… and keen on supporting the Ukraine in order to save democracy… the frogs, krauts, and wops have cut off their own fuel supplies. Ahead: gloomy months of cold contemplation and regret. Bloomberg: “The current crisis is leaving businesses facing a stark choice,” [from a survey of British manufacturers]… “Cut production or shut up shop altogether if help does not come soon.”

Reuters: "Germany faces the “bitter reality” that Russia will not restore gas supplies to the country, the German economy minister said on Monday, ahead of planned halt by state energy giant Gazprom of exports to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. “It won’t come back … It is the bitter reality,” Robert Habeck said in a panel with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen."

But wait. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Another Grand Experiment: So what if the Dutch have to turn down their thermostats? Who cares if you can no longer sit under a warm gas radiator on a sidewalk in Paris? And really, wouldn’t we all be better off if the smokestacks smoked a little less?

We don’t know. It’s another grand experiment… a “teachable moment” in human history. But are humans really teachable? Aren’t the TV shows of 2022 full of the same wickedness and errors committed 2,000 years ago? Are our judges today wiser than Solomon? Are our lovers more artful than Cleopatra or more faithless than Delilah? Do our deciders make better decisions than Pontius Pilate?

But this is something new. Never before did a people deliberately strangle the goose that laid the basis of its whole economy. That is the “Great Transition,” from fossil fuel to un-fossilized fuel, that western leaders believe will save us from the apocalypse. What the ‘transition’ will mean in the long run, we don’t know. But in the short run, the damned bird is likely to be missed. From Zerohedge: "European Crop Yields Collapse Amid Worst Drought In 500 Years"

"Besides the news of record high electricity prices, a troubling new crop failure report about Europe's upcoming harvest was published Monday. The bloc's Monitoring Agricultural Resources forecasted corn yields could drop by nearly a fifth due to a devastating drought, according to Bloomberg.

Before we dive into the crop report, Europe's centuries-old 'hunger stones' were recently revealed in the Elbe River, which runs from the mountains of Czechia through Germany to the North Sea. The stones date back to a drought in 1616 and read: "Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine." That translates to "if you see me, then weep." The warning on the stones appears correct because the new crop report forecasts corn yields will drop 16% below the five-year average. That compares with a July forecast of an 8% decline.

Supermarket prices for meat in the EU jumped 12% in July versus a year earlier. Milk, cheese, and eggs are also skyrocketing at record rates. This leaves us with the idea that inflation in Europe will remain sticky, as explained by Germany's central bank chief Joachim Nagel: "The issue of inflation will not go away in 2023."

270 Million Dead: A drought is an act of nature. Heat waves, storms, plagues and pestilence – they still happen too, recurring episodically. In the past, these natural disasters were much more deadly than they are today. The Industrial Revolution – powered by fossil fuels – gave humans a much larger margin for error. If crops failed in one area, prices rose, drawing in produce from other areas. If a hurricane threatened the coast, people had plenty of warning; they could stock up on toilet paper… put plywood over their windows (using portable electric drills)… or pack up the car and head for higher ground.

We all take precautions to protect ourselves. We store up grain for the “seven lean years” that might come. We save money to give ourselves a ‘margin of error.’ We put on a pair of suspenders, just in case the belt fails. Since the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to the widespread use of fossil fuel, the death toll from natural disasters has been relatively low. Now, it is the unnatural disasters, the ‘errors’ made by the ‘deciders,’ we have to worry about.

R.J. Rummel wrote a marvelous book in which he spelled it out. WWI… revolution… purges… pogroms… intentional starvation… ubermensch… gulags… concentration camps… the killing fields of Cambodia… Mao’s famine – “Death by Government,” says Mr. Rummel, cost the world 270 million lives in the last century. How many will die in the 21st century? We wait to find out."
For the five-volumes of "Understanding Conflict and War,"
by R.J. Rummel, read online here:

Gregory Mannarino, "Expect Industry Wide Bailouts And Much Higher Inflation"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/12/22:
"Expect Industry Wide Bailouts And Much Higher Inflation"
Comments here:

"Economic Market Snapshot 9/12/22"

"Economic Market Snapshot 9/12/22"
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
Latest Market Analysis, Updated 9/12/22
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
September 12th to 13th
Financial Stress Index

"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: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Job cuts and much more.
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
And now... The End Game...

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Musical Interlude: Sharon Lewis & Texas Fire, “What’s Really Going On?”

Sharon Lewis & Texas Fire, “What’s Really Going On?”

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead: The Key To The Market"

Gregory Mannarino, 9/11/22:
"Markets, A Look Ahead: The Key To The Market"
Comments here:

"Banks are Closing Accounts If They Don't Like You"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, 9/11/22:
"Banks are Closing Accounts If They Don't Like You"
"What is your business deal? We don’t like that. We’re going to close your account because we don’t like landscapers and painters and anything else that we seem as questionable."
Comments here:

"Get Out Of The Matrix Now, The System Is About To Crash; Be Very Careful, This Is About To Get Bad"

Jeremiah Babe, 9/11/22:
"Get Out Of The Matrix Now, The System Is About To Crash;
 Be Very Careful, This Is About To Get Bad"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Supertramp, “The Logical Song”

Supertramp, “The Logical Song”

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Braided, serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Like its mythological namesake, the nebula is associated with a dramatic transformation.
The planetary nebula phase represents a final stage in the evolution of low mass stars like the sun, as they transform themselves from red giants to hot white dwarf stars and in the process shrug off their outer layers. Ultraviolet radiation from the hot star powers the nebular glow. The Medusa's transforming star is near the center of the overall bright crescent shape. In this deep telescopic view, fainter filaments clearly extend below and to the left of the bright crescent region. The Medusa Nebula is estimated to be over 4 light-years across.”

"Be Like The Bird..."

"What matter if this base, unjust life
Cast you naked and disarmed?
If the ground breaks beneath your step,
Have you not your soul?
Your soul! You fly away,
Escape to realms refined,
Beyond all sadness and whimpering.
Be like the bird which on frail branches balanced
A moment sits and sings;
He feels them tremble, but he sings unshaken,
Knowing he has wings."

-Victor Hugo

Mark Twain, “On The Damned Human Race”

“On The Damned Human Race”
by Mark Twain

“I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the lower animals (so-called), and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since it now seems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.

In proceeding toward this unpleasant conclusion I have not guessed or speculated or conjectured, but have used what is commonly called the scientific method. That is to say, I have subjected every postulate that presented itself to the crucial test of actual experiment, and have adopted it or rejected it according to the result. Thus I verified and established each step of my course in its turn before advancing to the next. These experiments were made in the London Zoological Gardens, and covered many months of painstaking and fatiguing work.

Before particularizing any of the experiments, I wish to state one or two things which seem to more properly belong in this place than further along. This, in the interest of clearness. The massed experiments established to my satisfaction certain generalizations, to wit:

1. That the human race is of one distinct species. It exhibits slight variations (in color, stature, mental caliber, and so on) due to climate, environment, and so forth; but it is a species by itself, and not to be confounded with any other.

2. That the quadrupeds are a distinct family, also. This family exhibits variations (in color, size, food preferences, and so on; but it is a family by itself).

3. That the other families (the birds, the fishes, the insects, the reptiles, etc.) are more or less distinct, also. They are in the procession. They are links in the chain which stretches down from the higher animals to man at the bottom.

Some of my experiments were quite curious. In the course of my reading I had come across a case where, many years ago, some hunters on our Great Plains organized a buffalo hunt for the entertainment of an English earl. They had charming sport. They killed seventy-two of those great animals; and ate part of one of them and left the seventy-one to rot. In order to determine the difference between an anaconda and an earl (if any) I caused seven young calves to be turned into the anaconda’s cage. The grateful reptile immediately crushed one of them and swallowed it, then lay back satisfied. It showed no further interest in the calves, and no disposition to harm them. I tried this experiment with other anacondas; always with the same result. The fact stood proven that the difference between an earl and an anaconda is that the earl is cruel and the anaconda isn’t; and that the earl wantonly destroys what he has no use for, but the anaconda doesn’t. This seemed to suggest that the anaconda was not descended from the earl. It also seemed to suggest that the earl was descended from the anaconda, and had lost a good deal in the transition.

I was aware that many men who have accumulated more millions of money than they can ever use have shown a rabid hunger for more, and have not scrupled to cheat the ignorant and the helpless out of their poor servings in order to partially appease that appetite. I furnished a hundred different kinds of wild and tame animals the opportunity to accumulate vast stores of food, but none of them would do it. The squirrels and bees and certain birds made accumulations, but stopped when they had gathered a winter’s supply, and could not be persuaded to add to it either honestly or by chicane. In order to bolster up a tottering reputation the ant pretended to store up supplies, but I was not deceived. I know the ant. These experiments convinced me that there is this difference between man and the higher animals: he is avaricious and miserly; they are not. In the course of my experiments I convinced myself that among the animals man is the only one that harbors insults and injuries, broods over them, waits till a chance offers, then takes revenge. The passion of revenge is unknown to the higher animals.

Roosters keep harems, but it is by consent of their concubines; therefore no wrong is done. Men keep harems but it is by brute force, privileged by atrocious laws which the other sex were allowed no hand in making. In this matter man occupies a far lower place than the rooster. Cats are loose in their morals, but not consciously so. Man, in his descent from the cat, has brought the cats looseness with him but has left the unconsciousness behind (the saving grace which excuses the cat). The cat is innocent, man is not.

Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity (these are strictly confined to man); he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nothing; they are not ashamed. Man, with his soiled mind, covers himself. He will not even enter a drawing room with his breast and back naked, so alive are he and his mates to indecent suggestion. Man is The Animal that Laughs. But so does the monkey, as Mr. Darwin pointed out; and so does the Australian bird that is called the laughing jackass. No! Man is the Animal that Blushes. He is the only one that does it or has occasion to.

Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. It is a trait that is not known to the higher animals. The cat plays with the frightened mouse; but she has this excuse, that she does not know that the mouse is suffering. The cat is moderate (unhumanly moderate: she only scares the mouse, she does not hurt it; she doesn’t dig out its eyes, or tear off its skin, or drive splinters under its nails) man-fashion; when she is done playing with it she makes a sudden meal of it and puts it out of its trouble. Man is the Cruel Animal. He is alone in that distinction.

The higher animals engage in individual fights, but never in organized masses. Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out, as the Hessians did in our Revolution, and as the boyish Prince Napoleon did in the Zulu war, and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.

Man is the only animal that robs his helpless fellow of his country, takes possession of it and drives him out of it or destroys him. Man has done this in all the ages. There is not an acre of ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner, or that has not been taken away from owner after owner, cycle after cycle, by force and bloodshed.

Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day he is always some man’s slave for wages and does that man’s work; and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living.

Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people’s countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns, he washes the blood off his hands and works for the universal brotherhood of man, with his mouth.

Man is the Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion, several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself, and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven. He was at it in the time of the Caesars, he was at it in Mahomet’s time, he was at it in the time of the Inquisition, he was at it in France a couple of centuries, he was at it in England in Mary’s day, he has been at it ever since he first saw the light, he is at it today in Crete (as per the telegrams quoted above) he will be at it somewhere else tomorrow. The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out, in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste.

Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal. Note his history, as sketched above. It seems plain to me that whatever he is he is not a reasoning animal. His record is the fantastic record of a maniac. I consider that the strongest count against his intelligence is the fact that with that record back of him he blandly sets himself up as the head animal of the lot: whereas by his own standards he is the bottom one. In truth, man is incurably foolish.

One is obliged to concede that in true loftiness of character, Man cannot claim to approach even the meanest of the Higher Animals. It is plain that he is constitutionally incapable of approaching that altitude; that he is constitutionally afflicted with a Defect which must make such approach forever impossible, for it is manifest that this defect is permanent in him, indestructible, ineradicable. I find this Defect to be the Moral Sense. He is the only animal that has it. It is the secret of his degradation. It is the quality which enables him to do wrong. It has no other office. It is incapable of performing any other function. It could never have been intended to perform any other. Without it, man could do no wrong. He would rise at once to the level of the Higher Animals.

Since the Moral Sense has but the one office, the one capacity (to enable man to do wrong) it is plainly without value to him. It is as valueless to him as is disease. In fact, it manifestly is a disease. Rabies is bad, but it is not so bad as this disease. Rabies enables a man to do a thing, which he could not do when in a healthy state: kill his neighbor with a poisonous bite) one is the better man for having rabies: The Moral Sense enables a man to do wrong. It enables him to do wrong in a thousand ways. Rabies is an innocent disease, compared to the Moral Sense. No one, then, can be the better man for having the Moral Sense. What now, do we find the Primal Curse to have been? Plainly what it was in the beginning: the infliction upon man of the Moral Sense; the ability to distinguish good from evil; and with it, necessarily, the ability to do evil; for there can be no evil act without the presence of consciousness of it in the doer of it.

And so I find that we have descended and degenerated, from some far ancestor (some microscopic atom wandering at its pleasure between the mighty horizons of a drop of water perchance) insect by insect, animal by animal, reptile by reptile, down the long highway of smirch-less innocence, till we have reached the bottom stage of development (namable as the Human Being). Below us, nothing.”

"Not Knowing..."

“Not knowing you can’t do something
is sometimes all it takes to do it.”
- Ally Carter

"Journey to the End of the Earth, Part II"

"Journey to the End of the Earth, Part II"
Life in Argentina, from the cost of living to safety, 
education to healthcare and more...
by Joel Bowman

Buenos Aires, Argentina - "Barely a month has gone by since we returned to our little pied-à-terre down by the Rio de la Plata and yet, in many ways, it feels as though we never left. The morning light reflecting off the grand, cupola-crowned buildings up and down Avenida Libertador... the lively tones of the first patrons meeting at our favorite café, down on the corner... the smell from the little French bakery opposite our apartment. It’s all so... familiar. Maybe this is what being “home” is supposed to be like?

Full disclosure: Hardly one to speak of the sedentary lifestyle, your walkabout editor is (at best) an incurable peripatetic. Our own wanderlusting journey has (so far) spirited us across ~85 countries, in many of which we received snail mail, paid utility bills and knew the name of our local barkeep.

Over a quarter of a century or so “on the road,” we’ve found ourselves living in a Lucky Country/Nanny State (Australia), a Constitutional Monarchy/Jilted Empire (England), a Constitutional Republic/Corporatocracy (the USA), an Authoritarian Theocracy/Squabbling Brotherhood (United Arab Emirates), a Paper Democracy/Dragon Snack (Taiwan), a Federal Republic/Kleptocracy (Mexico), a Democratic Republic/Narcocracy (Colombia) and of course, in our present country of residence... the Constitutional Ineptocracy of Argentina...with plenty of other “isms,” “ocracies” and misguided debacles along the way.

Martyrs and Knaves: One of the upsides of living like a primitive nomad is that one gets to compare and contrast systems more responsible folk might take for granted, to see the world with childlike (many would say childish) eyes. Like someone who has stumbled out of a bizarre religious cult, only to discover there is a world outside the canon, we gaze upon each new and shiny political arrangement with equal parts awe and incredulity.

It goes without saying that all cultural mythologies have their saints and their sinners, their high priests and priestesses, their martyrs and their knaves. Civic religions are no different. There are hymns (anthems) to sing and icons (flags) to salute, along with holy (oil) wars to be won and heathens to be converted (to Capital “D” Democracy). Each place, each population, each individual person is different. What is to one man the heavenly promise of seventy-two virgins is to another the living hell of seventy-two mother-in-laws. To each his own.

But for all that, one still has to live... somewhere. And with macroeconomic and geopolitical trends shaping up as they are presently – deglobalization, consumer price inflation + financial asset deflation, bifurcation of the international monetary system, the rumblings of a very real energy crisis, the growing threat of nuclear war etc. – where you invest your precious time may well prove to be just as important as where you invest your capital in the years ahead.

To that end, many dear readers have written in to question your weekend editor’s sanity, having chosen for his place of residence the literal “fin del mundo.” We addressed some of these concerns in an essay a couple of months back: "Journey to the End of the Earth." A few more points we promised to meet in a future Sunday Session. Welcome to that Session. Please enjoy Part II of our little Ode to Argentina, below...

"Journey to the End of the Earth, Part II"
by Joel Bowman

"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

"During the seventy year period from 1880 to 1950, Argentina found herself among the ten wealthiest countries on the planet. Indeed, “To be rich like an Argentine,” was a phrase people used without irony... and without a tear of nostalgia in their eyes. And yet, for the past seven decades, since 1950, the country has been in inexorable, sometimes violent, decline. Her grand old buildings, broad avenidas and sophisticated older generations hint at a noble and dignified past, but the headlines at the local newsstand paint a very different picture of today. One wonders: Is it better to have had wealth and lost it, than to never have known riches at all?

At the turn of the 20th century, Argentina was ranked as the 8th most prosperous nation on earth. Only Belgium, Switzerland, Britain and a handful of former English colonies – including the United States – were more favorably positioned, economically. In 1913, Argentina’s bustling, cosmopolitan capital, Buenos Aires, had the thirteenth highest per capita telephone penetration rate in the world. Her per capita income was, around the time, 50% higher than in Italy, almost twice that of Japan and five times greater than her northern neighbor, Brazil.

Argentina’s industry churned out quality textiles and an extensive rail network, laid down by the British, carried her prized beef, first introduced in 1536 by the Spanish Conquistadors, from the fertile plains of the Pampas to port... where it was shipped north, off season, to the farthest reaches of the known world. The agricultural show at nearby La Rural, in which prize cattle were paraded before wealthy estancieros, was considered a “must-attend” event of the social season. And when the great Pavarotti performed Puccini’s La bohème in Teatro Colon in 1987, almost 80 years after the magnificent building was inaugurated, he told adoring fans the theater had but one flaw: “The acoustics are so perfect, if the artist should make a mistake, the whole world will notice.”

But by the time the fat man had sung, the curtain was already coming down on Argentina’s glorious past. The well known Argentine investor, entrepreneur and author , Federico Tessore, took up the story as the decline was getting underway in his excellent book, "Argentina Power: How to be the Richest Country in the World Again": "The turning point was the year 1950, when we stopped starring in the ranking of the ten countries with the highest GDP per capita in the world, and we never recovered. On the contrary, we entered a long and sad decline: in 2019 we ranked 77th in per capita GDP globally. Seventy years plummeting, in which dictatorships and democracies, Peronists, radicals and independent governments ruled. None could stop the decline."

Ruin Aplenty: In "Argentina Power," Sr. Tessore examines a half dozen foreign lands – Norway, Germany, Ireland, China, South Korea and neighboring Chile – all poorer than Argentina at the midpoint of the 20th century... all richer than Argentina today. What policies did the above countries adopt, what fortune did they encounter, that Argentina missed entirely? What self-inflicted wounds did Argentina suffer that these others avoided, whether by design or by chance?

War, currency debasement, civil unrest, military rule and the catalyzing agent of political aspiration, swelling the breast of the corrupt and the inept alike, all conspired to stultify this once-proud nation’s potential. The great Argentine poet and essayist, Jorge Luis Borges, described one such misadventure with characteristic flair and wit: “The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.”

And yet, as the great moral philosopher, Adam Smith, one observed: there is a lot of ruin in a nation. That is to say, despite the best efforts of the political class and their spineless apparatchiks in the academies and the media, there remains in Argentina the bones of a once-great nation. Your editor lives in a Belle Époch-style building, built around the turn of the last century, during Argentina’s glory years. In his short story, "The Immortal", Sr. Borges himself alludes to the building as “a labyrinth, a house built to confuse men, its architecture lavish in symmetries, subordinated to that end.” (Rather an appropriate residence for your frequently confounded correspondent...)

A similar residence in the “Paris of the North” (known among podean circles, simply, as Paris) would require of the inhabitant some special talent or industry or pedigree... or at least the favor of a very rich and lately deceased relative. Here, even failed novelists drift off to sleep under double-overhead ceilings, visions of well attended book signings dancing in their heads. As long as one eschews the tacky glass and steel highrises, favored by the nuevos ricos down in Puerto Madero, real estate prices here in the capital – both to rent and buy – compare very favorably with major cities regionally and around the world.

The site Expatistan estimates the cost of living in Buenos Aires to be 27% cheaper than in Barcelona... and 53% cheaper than neighboring Santiago de Chile. And that, as far as we can tell, is taking the national currency at face value, which is to say, the official rate. The “blue market” – or unofficial rate, which can easily be obtained at any one of a thousand-plus cuevas around the city – offers roughly double that rate... effectively halving the “official” cost of living.

Of course, money is but one (albeit rather important) consideration among many when deciding where to invest that most precious of your resources: Time. What about health, safety and education, for instance? Let us address these non-trivial line items, by way of personal anecdote, in reverse...

The Three Rs:
School: Your editor’s seven year old daughter attends a top tier private school in our barrio, where she takes classes in Spanish in the morning and English in the afternoon.Twice a week students take a half-day excursion to the campo, where they do physical activities and play team sports (girls: field hockey; boys: football). After school (also twice weekly), dear daughter attends violin practice with the primary school orchestra. Hot meals are served daily in the cafeteria, although mom and/or dad are usually on hand for lunch in a nearby café.

Monthly fees – including materials, meals, extra curricular activities, excursions, etc. – come to ~$85,000 pesos... or ~US$600 (official); ~US$300 (unofficial). Annually (fees are charged all 12 months of the year), this amounts to ~US$7,200 (official) or ~$3,600 (unofficial). NB: We’ve had it gently suggested to us on more than one occasion that this is an outrageous expense and that a quality, private school education here can be enjoyed for half this amount. Probably so.

You can make your own comparisons as you like. We were shocked when we looked up the price of primary school education in our native Australia. According to one website, fees at the top 30 private primary schools in Sydney ranged from about AUD$16,000 (US$11,000) per year to over AUD$31,000 (US$21, 250) on the top end. Other Australian capital cities were more or less in line. In the UK, the average came in at about £14,940 per year (US$17,300) for private day students. In the USA, this might be considered a bargain.

Fair warning: Price aside, Argentine schools are mercifully “behind the times,” meaning they focus on old fashioned things like reading, writing and arithmetic in lieu of more fashionable programming in equity, diversity and antiracism. Among other quaint anachronisms... teachers still hug the kids when they fall and bump their knees... on sports day, only the winning team gets a trophy... and on birthdays, students are encouraged to bring cakes and snacks to share... even ones that (gulp!) may contain peanuts.

Healthcare: Family coverage at Swiss Medical, arguably the best private provider in the country (although there are others to choose from), runs about $70,000 pesos per month, or ~US$500 (official), ~US$250 (unofficial) for a family of three for the highest plan offered. It’s worth mentioning that comprehensive coverage here includes things like full dental, Lasik and even certain elective surgeries, depending on the plan. It’s not uncommon for people to use their private care to cover rhinoplasty, for example, or even augmentation mammoplasty. Again, to each his (or in this case, her) own.

Care, in our experience, is absolutely top notch. We live within a 5-7 minute drive to three private Swiss Medical clinics, and there are plenty more throughout the city and around the country. Whether you arrive for a routine consultation or scheduled test, or you’re delivered by ambulance to the emergency room, you don’t have to fear what’s in (or not in) your bank account – there is no copay. Simply present your medical card and the rest is taken care of. Many plans also cover international travel, including to the US (and is why ours is about double the price of most others).

Safety: Government websites are practically designed to scare citizens into cowering invalids, convinced the big bad world is full of danger and menace at every turn. And certainly, risk management is part of life. The truth is, crime is very much like real estate in that, even within a given city, it is all about location, location, location. There are parts of Buenos Aires your editor would not dream of walking, even during the daytime. So it goes for practically every major metropolis on the planet. We’ve lived in New York, London, Mexico City. We’ve seen a gang of teens attack a group of Chinese shoppers on the Paris metro... witnessed a young woman mugged outside a tapas bar in Madrid... and heard gunshots echo across the night when we lived in Baltimore. (While residing in Charm City, we even had an intruder break into our 5th floor apartment via the fire escape... while we were still home!)

Every city has its desirable areas... and its not so desirable ones. Oftentimes, as is the case in Baltimore, the difference is measured by a matter of blocks. And yet, the best neighborhood of a “dangerous” city is often much safer than the seediest neighborhood of a “safe” one. As anyone who has visited many metropolises will know, a little common sense goes a long way. We’ve lived in Argentina’s capital now (on and off) for over a decade and never had any problems. The few times we’ve heard of someone running into trouble, it’s usually because they were playing on the proverbial train tracks. Of course, a man might never leave his bunker, bolt the doors, monitor every delivery, isolate himself from society entirely... and still slip in the shower and crack his lonely skull.

For the most part, crime in Buenos Aires happens unseen. You're more likely to get ‘robbed’ with a counterfeit note, or lose an unseen bag (Note: don’t hang purses or backpacks from the back of your chair).

There are myriad other considerations one must take into account when choosing one’s own paraíso (to the extent that it even exists); language, climate, culture, lifestyle, etc. Uncertainties abound, to be sure, but they must not become so stifling that one forgets to live. “Nothing is built on stone,” Borges once wrote, “all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.” After seventy years in the sun...and seventy years in darkness...one wonders whether Argentina will ever rediscover her lost fortune. Either way, at this strange moment in our life, it feels like home."

The Daily "Near You?"

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

"Lemons..."

"When life hands you a lemon, say
"Oh yeah, I like lemons. What else you got?"
- Henry Rollins

The Poet: Maya Angelou, "Alone "

"Alone"

 "Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home,
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone.
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong,
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone,
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use,
Their wives run round like banshees,
Their children sing the blues.
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone,
But nobody,
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone,
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know...
Storm clouds are gathering,
The wind is gonna blow.
The race of man is suffering,
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody,
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone,
Nobody, but nobody,
Can make it out here alone."

- Maya Angelou