Jim Kunstler, "This Is the Way the World Ends"

"This Is the Way the World Ends"

Feel like we’re on the ragged edge of something 

new and awful? You are not alone…

by Jim Kunstler

"That “singularity” so many blab about is not what they think it is: the merging of human intelligence with Bill Gates’s Office products, leading to an orgasmic nirvana of infinite memoranda from your HR department concerning new diversity, inclusion, and equity policy. Rather, I speak of the magic moment when the necromancers of finance discover that the proverbial can they’ve been kicking is filled with Schroedinger’s cat food… and the road they’ve been kicking it down actually comes to a dead end up their own highly-credentialed wazoos. Economics will never be the same hereafter.

The bond market has gone south, and that spells The End for the great game of financialization. The bond market is Moby Dick compared to the little blowfish that is the stock market. The global money system is based on bonds, which are… what? That’s right: loans… promises to pay you X at some future moment. So, what happens when a daisy-chain of promises-to-pay gets broken? Or, perhaps more precisely, when all those promises lose their last shred of plausible reality? Why, the money that these broken promises are denominated in loses its essential cred. Trick question: how much is worthless money worth? (Answer: not enough to pay for a can of Scroedinger’s cat food.)

Which is where all this folderol leaves a lot of ordinary people all over Western Civ (and beyond!) trying to scratch up enough increasingly worthless money to feed the family and pay the landlord. Many will never understand what happened. But they will not be any less pissed off at the result.

This is the way the world ends for the hapless phantom known as “Joe Biden” the child-sniffing ectoplasm that haunts the White House these days of late empire. Somehow, the bamboozled nation has so far passively accepted the pranks and punishments laid on them by the backstage managers behind the Figment-in-Chief. Eight-plus percent inflation? No problemo, right? Eighty-seven thousand new IRS agents on-board to drive you batshit while destroying your household and your posterity (ha!)? Half the population of South America flooding across the border? (The vibrancy! You no like?) A hundred dollar fill-up at the gas pump, and no heat for you this winter? (But… Netflix!) Drag queens to amuse and edify your children about the delirious realm of sexual pathology. All that…and how about a Russian hypersonic nuclear missile up your ass if the preceding somehow failed to move you? (Because: Russia, Russia, Russia…!)

Meanwhile, a trend is manifesting in other lands. The people of, first, Sweden and now Italy are voting in “right wing” nationalist governments - the horror - sending their equivalent of our Party of Chaos to the showers. This has irked the President of the European Union, one Ursula von der Leyen, no end. She has threatened to send Italy to its room without supper for the effrontery Of course, Madame von der Leyen’s fellow Germans have already been sent to their room without so much as a kartoffelklop, plus no heat or hot showers for you, Hansel and Gretel. Embrace the suck.

You may be sure that we’re in for the business here in America, too. The thermometers are trending down and Halloween won’t be so much fun when the little goblins come home to a house that’s the same temperature inside as the night air outside. Little Skippy’s face is turning blue, and not because he went trick-or-treating as Robert the Bruce.

The aforementioned Party of Chaos, the gang that queered the last big election, is surely gearing up to run a whole lot of work-arounds for massaging the November 8 midterm vote in their direction. Nothing is beyond them. One of their avatars, the podcaster Sam Harris, said it out loud a month ago: that lying and cheating is perfectly ethical in service to the Left’s being able to continue imposing its will upon all of us. Whoops! He let Schroedinger’s cat out of its hypothetical sack. The punishments must continue until morale improves! (Hope you enjoyed your career, Sam.)

And so it begins… as they intone in the horror movies when the contents of the family’s raised ranch, chattels, children, mom, dad, the golden retriever all get sucked out of the universe via some quantum portal in the television. Today the markets, tomorrow our beloved country will be overrun by what’ll look like an alien invasion of re-po men. This is the way the world ends… not with a bang… but with a physics lesson: the lonesome sound of Schroedinger’s cat’s meow."

- https://kunstler.com/

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"The Hollow Men"

I

"We are the hollow men,

We are the stuffed men,

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass,

Or rats' feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar.

Shape without form, shade without color,

Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us-if at all-not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men,

The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams,

In death's dream kingdom

These do not appear:

There, the eyes are

Sunlight on a broken column.

There, is a tree swinging,

And voices are

In the wind's singing,

More distant and more solemn

Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer

In death's dream kingdom.

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field

Behaving as the wind behaves

No nearer-

Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land,

This is cactus land.

Here the stone images

Are raised, here they receive

The supplication of a dead man's hand

Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this

In death's other kingdom,

Waking alone

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness,

Lips that would kiss

Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here,

There are no eyes here

In this valley of dying stars,

In this hollow valley,

This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech,

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear,

As the perpetual star

Multifoliate rose

Of death's twilight kingdom,

The hope only

Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear,

Prickly pear, prickly pear,

Here we go round the prickly pear

At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea

And the reality,

Between the motion

And the act,

Falls the Shadow.

                                     

                                           For Thine is the Kingdom...

Between the conception

And the creation,

Between the emotion

And the response,

Falls the Shadow

                         Life is very long...

Between the desire

And the spasm,

Between the potency

And the existence,

Between the essence

And the descent,

Falls the Shadow.

                                         For Thine is the Kingdom...

For Thine is,

Life is,

For Thine is the,

This is the way the world ends,

This is the way the world ends,

This is the way the world ends,

Not with a bang but a whimper."

- T.S. Eliot

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SoundCloud:

- https://soundcloud.com/anton-jarvis

"Banks are Preparing for Power Blackouts"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 9/26/22:

"Banks are Preparing for Power Blackouts"

"Things are getting crazier and crazier. Banks are starting to prepare for blackouts. This is happening globally with all the major banks preparing for power outages."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Economic Market Snapshot 9/26/22"

"Economic Market Snapshot 9/26/22"

Market Data Center, Live Updates:

- https://www.marketwatch.com/market-data 

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

Only the consequences are real - to you!

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Latest Market Analysis, Updated 9/26/22

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

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

September 26th to 27th

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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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: 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/

Job cuts and much more.

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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... beyond words. Any I know anyway...

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And now... The End Game...

"Europe To Become Economic Wasteland As industry Dies And Banks Fail"

"Europe To Become Economic Wasteland

As industry Dies And Banks Fail"

by Mike Adams

"Europe's economy, currencies and industries are in free fall, plunging toward "economic wasteland" status that's less than a year away if natural gas supplies from Russia aren't quickly restored. The situation is so dire that Germany chemical giant BASF -- formerly part of the Nazi-run IG Farben chemical conglomerate that carried out war crimes against humanity -- is now threatening to shut down operations for industrial plants that have run continuously since the 1960s.

BASF is critical to the world's supply chain for fertilizer, petroleum refining, medicines, plastics, consumer products, industrial materials and more. If BASF were to go down, Western Europe's industrial economy would rapidly collapse into ruin, and the global supply chain crisis would dramatically worsen far beyond anything we saw due to covid lockdowns. Astonishingly, BASF warns that if it were to shutter operations, no one knows whether it could be restarted. This means a permanent shutdown of industry across Europe.

Banking failures, agricultural collapse and an industrial wipeout look to be imminent, and some analysts are warning that Europe will face at minimum three winters without energy, food and industry. See the astonishing full story here:

- https://www.brighteon.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Currency Crash, Bond Market Free-Fall, Stocks Dive, Much Higher Inflation Coming!"

Gregory Mannarino, 9/26/22:

"Currency Crash, Bond Market Free-Fall, 

Stocks Dive, Much Higher Inflation Coming!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Learning from Ants"

"Learning from Ants"

by Jeff Thomas

"If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask vs. Anti-Mask. Vax vs. Anti-vax. Rich vs. poor. Man vs. woman. Cop vs. citizen. [Etc.] The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar… and why?"

The above observation by Shera Starr cannot be improved upon. And yet, the answer to the question is fairly simple. But let’s first take a look at this anomaly. It’s natural to identify with some individuals more than others. That tendency occurred before Homo sapiens came into being. In addition, the tendency for animals to group into families or packs also predates humans.

We tend to want to be around those who behave the way we do and have the same perceptions as we do. That only makes sense. We wish to surround ourselves with those who are unlikely to surprise and possibly even endanger us by behaving in a fashion that we would not ourselves choose. This is the basis of trust – an essential in group or herd mentality. And being a part of a group or herd brings to us increased safety.

So, what then, of those who are not within our group or herd? How do we relate to them? Well, any nature program that covers animals gathered around a water hole can provide that answer. We see a small group of wild pigs drinking alongside a group of wildebeests. Neither species is predatory, so they learn to recognize that, even though one group is made up of savannah-living grazers and the other are forest-living foragers, they can easily co-exist, which will increase the ability of both species to use the water hole at the same time.

We might also see a group of hyenas using the water hole, but we notice that the prey animals all seek to keep a distance between themselves and the predatory hyenas. Everyone understands that they are all at the water hole for the same reason and it makes sense to share, even if, in another situation, they are natural enemies. In fact, in most of nature, we see that species adapt to a condition of mutual tolerance in order to be able to coexist.

No surprise, then, that Homo sapiens got on the mutual tolerance bandwagon in its formative stages and, for the most part, has remained that way. But it is also true that predators develop dual habits. They may exercise tolerance at the water hole, but at some point, they mean to make a meal of their water hole neighbors. And when doing so, many species create associations with others of their kind to hunt.

This, too, is true of humans. Most of humanity seeks to live in a spirit of cooperation with others. In the countryside, people erect walls and fences to establish boundaries, then find it expedient to respect such divisions in order to live in peace. Even in cities, people who live cheek by jowl in the same building respect each other’s privacy for the most part. Even if they do not become friends, they either remain polite or ignore each other.

Although there are always exceptions, for the most part, mankind behaves in a manner that is based upon "getting along." He might argue with others, but for the most part, he understands that cooperation generally should be the objective, as it’s in his best interests.

But why, then, are we seeing in so many of the countries of the First World, a rapidly increasing polarity amongst people. Ms. Starr is exactly correct. Those who would be most inclined toward mutual tolerance have, in recent years, become so polarised that they cannot so much as get together with their own families for the holidays without getting into heated arguments.

Why are people of today so solidly in one of two camps? Can this be blamed on the rise of the internet? Well, no, the internet has become the source of a plethora of opinions and perceptions. And more than closing people off to polarized "A" and "B" choices, the internet has served to broaden public discourse.

Of course, most people express distrust for the media, particularly those networks that purportedly deal in "news." What passes for news today is far from objective information that the viewer can then assess at his leisure. On one network, we view unceasing diatribes against one political party. Then we turn the channel and view unceasing diatribes against the opposing party. In turning on the News, we arrive at Indoctrination Central.

But if we really pay attention objectively, we discover that the same programs are dictating to us that it is either our humanitarian duty to vax, or that vaxxing will enslave us to globalists who will inject us with microchips. They are also our source for the opposing beliefs that warfare is essential to protect us against those who seek to destroy us, or that it will be the wars themselves that will destroy us.

In fact, all of Ms. Starr’s concerns find their source in the media. When we ask the question, "Who is shaking the jar… and why?" we find that those who control the media are at the source of the polarization of people, especially in the First World. As to the "Why?" the answer is so simple that it’s often overlooked. Like the ants, the more a people can be made to fight each other, the easier it is to subjugate them. And since the effort to polarize people has become so massive, we can only conclude that the ultimate objective will be to implement a far greater level of subjugation, in an abnormally short period of time.

Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. white. Man vs. woman. Divide and conquer. In such a socio-political climate, the challenge will be to keep your wits about you. As the jar is shaken on a daily basis, it will be vital to recognize that those who control the media are creating a war between the pigs and the wildebeests. This is something that is not desired by either species, but as Hermann Goering stated, "Why, of course the people don’t want war." They must be goaded into it if those who are pulling the stings are to achieve greater subjugation.

In the coming years, this trend can be expected to become far worse than at present. The best you can and should do is to stay informed so that you can protect yourself in the best way possible."

- internationalman.com

"How It Really Is"

 

Bill Bonner, "30 Trillion Reasons"

"30 Trillion Reasons"

Plus real debt, phony notes and pounded sterling...

by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - “Pound Crashes to All Time Low” is the headline at Bloomberg this morning. The pound plunged almost 5% to an all-time low after Kwasi Kwarteng vowed to press on with more tax cuts, stoking fears that the new Chancellor of the Exchequer’s fiscal policies will send inflation and government debt soaring.

The pound is down against the dollar. But why? Our own Tom Dyson asks: “Why is the dollar so strong when the economy is entering recession, the stock market is in correction, and the government is $31 trillion in debt?” He might have added that the dollar is losing value at an 8.3% annual rate. What is the meaning of it? Is Britain headed towards more inflation? Mr. Kwarteng is the UK’s new treasury secretary. His tax cut policy is similar to Donald Trump’s tax cut in 2017. It is designed to light a fire under the economy.

Investors expect that it will light a fire under inflation instead; they’re selling pounds and buying dollars. The dollar is still the world’s go-to currency. But as the go-to dollar goes up, other currencies are looking like goners. Especially those from emerging markets. They borrowed cheap dollars. Now, they are expected to pay back in much more expensive currency. And what about Americans? Didn’t they borrow dollars too? And doesn’t each rate hike make their dollars dearer and their debts harder to pay? Are they goners too?

The Sneaky Tax: Last week, we took up a provocative subject. Maybe inflation is not so bad for everyone. And maybe the feds – in the UK as well as America – are not as eager to fight it as they appear. But let’s back up.

There are universal rules. And there are policies. The rules – don’t kill, don’t steal, drive on the right side – benefit just about everyone. The policies (regulations, programs) always benefit a few at the expense of the many.

And inflation? Inflation is a policy. It’s a tax. Like all taxes, it lands on some harder than others. And the farther you go down the wealth mountain, the harder it falls. For the first 20 years of this century, inflation was a gift to the elite. The Fed inflated the currency and bought bonds, putting $8 trillion in new money into Wall Street. This new money drove down interest rates and increased asset prices while leaving consumer prices scarcely touched.

But the Fed’s claptrap zero interest policy caused people to borrow far too much money. That excess is now embedded in debt – $30 trillion for the US government, $60 trillion for business and households. Somebody’s gotta pay that debt. And this may be the only thing the Republican and Democratic elite agree on – it ain’t gonna be them.

Right now, the Fed is raising the carrying cost of debt. Stocks and bonds have come down – 15% to 20%, some of them even more. Jerome Powell says he will keep at it, openly discussing a Fed Funds rate north of 4%. With every step, Powell believes he grows taller, following in the giant footsteps of Paul Volcker, and positioning himself for a Nobel prize… or at least the cover of TIME. He will be the man who saves the planet by defeating inflation.

But getting control of inflation will require more exertion. Paul Volcker had to put the Fed Fund rate all the way up to 20% – fully 700 basis points ABOVE consumer price inflation (CPI) – in order to bring inflation under control. The Fed has a long way to go.

Survival Mode: Remember, it’s either inflate…or the Bubble Economy dies. And if it dies, the graveyard gets crowded…with bonds, stocks, businesses, loans, mortgages, real estate – almost all assets. Much of the wealth of the elite gets buried. And while asset prices go to Hell…the federal government goes into purgatory. Not completely dead, but with much less room to maneuver.

Colleague Dan Denning: "The US government cannot afford to pay $1 trillion in interest on its trillions of dollars’ worth of debt that must now be refinanced at much higher interest rates. Expenses would have to be cut back – drastically. No more ‘stimmies’. No more giveaways. No more unemployment incentives. No more checks to the Ukraine. No more ‘green energy’ transition; the feds would be in survival mode.

The rest of the economy would be back-pedaling too… reeling from much higher interest expenses. “Liquidity” (ready cash, when you need it) would disappear. Lenders would see defaults coming from every direction. America would enter a deep depression, probably accompanied by riots, strikes, social chaos and political violence."

Is that going to happen? We don’t think so. An honest man, when he can’t pay his debts, admits it and accepts the consequences. He tightens his belt. He goes meekly into Chapter 7 or Chapter 11. He tries to make amends. But a man with $30 trillion in debt and a printing press in the basement? He has another option: inflation. Every year, inflation reduces his debt burden. He is happy to print money. He pays his debts with his phony notes. And everyone wonders why things are getting so expensive."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"Future Generations (If There Are Future Generations)"

"Future Generations (If There Are Future Generations)"

by Caitlin Johnstone

"Future generations, if there are future generations,

will scarce believe that our species once stockpiled armageddon weapons on purpose,

once built our entire civilization around economic models that could only result in the destruction of our biosphere,

once permitted corporations who profit from war to successfully lobby policymakers to start more wars,

once warehoused living beings in factory farms where they were tortured and brutalized,

once starved children to death with sanctions because their rulers disobeyed our rulers,

once made policies which kept people poor so they’d be financially coerced into facilitating military mass murder,

once let people go hungry and homeless if they didn’t have enough imaginary numbers in their bank accounts,

once stripped this planet of biodiversity and old growth forests to turn the gears of an imaginary economy instead of collaborating with our ecosystem.

Future generations, if there are future generations,

will look back in perplexity at our omnicidal madness,

at our blind subservience to the very worst among us,

at our remarkable ingenuity in always finding groundbreaking new ways to hate each other,

at our fanatical devotion to competition and control when we knew that all we really wanted was to be loved,

at the way we’d marginalize and outcast those who thought differently from the rest of us even though we knew full well that our way of thinking wasn’t working,

at the way we’d spend our lives feeding insatiable hungry ghosts only to wind up on our deathbeds wondering why we feel dissatisfied,

at the amount of energy we’d pour into not experiencing the beauty which surrounds us in every moment and rejecting the gifts we were being showered with from every direction,

at the herculean effort we poured into keeping enlightenment from crashing in,

at our nonstop desperate flailing attempts to be anywhere but here and now,

at the amount of work we put into avoiding being at ease.

Future generations, if there are future generations,

I am so glad that you made it past all the many obstacles we put up between our present age and your birth.

Praise be to you and your parents

for cleaning up our mess,

for setting things right,

for becoming conscious,

for valuing a healthy world,

for getting humanity to where you’re at now

so that the real adventure of our species could begin.

Future generations, if there are future generations,

thank you for your kindness and compassion as you gaze back on us through the records we have left you.

It might not be immediately obvious,

but some of us here saw what you’re seeing from there."

- https://caitlinjohnstone.com/

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SoundCloud Reading by Tim Foley:

- https://soundcloud.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "The Global Financial System Is Collapsing"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/26/22:

"The Global Financial System Is Collapsing"

- https://traderschoice.net

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Huge Price Increases At Sam's Club! This Is Ridiculous! Not Good!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 9/26/22:

"Huge Price Increases At Sam's Club! 

This Is Ridiculous! Not Good!"

"In today's vlog we are at Sam's Club, 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!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Must View! "15 Reasons Why Your Grocery Bill Is Sky-high Right Now"

Full screen recommended.

"15 Reasons Why Your Grocery Bill Is Sky-high Right Now"

by Epic Economist

"Feel like your grocery bill is high? You’re definitely not alone. At this point, it’s hard to remember when grocery prices were “normal”. Every time we wheel the cart down supermarket aisles, we fear which unwelcome surprise we might find next. In recent years, many of us have become accustomed to doing quite a bit of mental math when we go shopping because with each passing month we continue to see the cost of everything continuously climb. The items we used to toss into our carts without a second thought about the cost have become way too expensive to make their way into our pantries.

Over the past year, food prices have jumped by 11.4%, according to official numbers. But U.S. consumers are seeing much higher increases in a wide range of everyday staples. Bread, for example, surged 16.2% in the past 12 months. The cost of meat, poultry, and fish is about 16% higher since the start of 2022. Meanwhile, egg prices soared by a shocking 39.8% - and we’re being told that this is just the beginning.

The compounding challenges of labor shortages, soaring energy prices, and shortages of commodities and raw materials have resulted in a significant production slowdown that’s been affecting virtually every sector of the industry. But the food sector, in particular, has been disproportionally impacted by this deceleration. Many processing plants had to slash headcount to avoid crowded working conditions amid the pandemic, but since then, some have never resumed normal operations. In turn, food producers had to increase the price they charge consumers to make up for their higher operational costs.

After the global health emergency exploded in 2020, food retailers have seen consumers stockpiling essentials at a staggering pace. Many of them tried to boost their inventory levels to meet the unexpected surge in demand, but up until this day, they are still having difficulties finding reliable suppliers, and even when they do, they might not be able to order the volume they want.

Food inflation is a trend that is likely to persist. Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri- Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University said during an interview with Bloomberg that: "People will have to get used to paying more for food. From now on, it’s only going to get worse.” For low-income families, the outlook is particularly troubling. Skyrocketing food prices are regressive and particularly damaging to them, given that they are forced to spend a greater share of their monthly income on food compared with upper-income households. Their trade- offs are not just foregoing a non-essential expense or not paying a utility bill. It might be far worse, such as not going to the doctor, or not getting their full dietary needs, such as an adequate protein intake, because it’s simply too expensive. Some of them will have to find aside income just to cover their extra grocery costs.

By now, it has become a common thing to start making calculations in our heads at the checkout line to determine what other things we might have to sacrifice financially because we just got hit with a high food bill. Many Americans who have never struggled with money before are having to make difficult decisions, such as turning to food banks for the first time in their lives.

Unfortunately, there's not only one problem or one solution that could fix this situation -- analysts say it will take time for consumers to see relief, which means that, until then, our grocery bills will keep shooting higher and higher. There are many factors pushing food costs to stratospheric levels, and they're combining to create a nightmare scenario for our food supply chains in 2023. That’s what we’re going to expose today."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

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Musical Interlude: Mike Oldfield, "Tubular Bells, Finale"

Mike Oldfield, "Tubular Bells, Finale"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“This colorful skyscape features the dusty, reddish glow of Sharpless catalog emission region Sh2-155, the Cave Nebula. About 2,400 light-years away, the scene lies along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus.

Astronomical explorations of the region reveal that it has formed at the boundary of the massive Cepheus B molecular cloud and the hot, young, blue stars of the Cepheus OB 3 association. The bright rim of ionized hydrogen gas is energized by the radiation from the hot stars, dominated by the bright blue O-type star above picture center. Radiation driven ionization fronts are likely triggering collapsing cores and new star formation within. Appropriately sized for a stellar nursery, the cosmic cave is over 10 light-years across.”

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

Must View! "It's Too Late To Party - The Worst Is Yet To Come; Stop Spending Money And Prepare"

Jeremiah Babe, 9/25/22:

"It's Too Late To Party - The Worst Is Yet To Come;

 Stop Spending Money And Prepare"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Beware of Restaurant Closures"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 9/25/22:

"Beware of Restaurant Closures"

"Over the last two years we have seen it time and again where a restaurant will be closed because of staffing issues. We have seen it with the big chains and we have seen it with the smaller locations. You need to be aware of this because sometimes it’s not a staffing issue."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Empty Shelves Everywhere At Kroger! Not Good! This Is Crazy!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 9/25/22:

"Empty Shelves Everywhere At Kroger! Not Good! This Is Crazy!"

"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing lots of empty grocery shelves! This is not good as we are seeing massive price increases, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead"

Gregory Mannarino, 9/25/22:

"Markets, A Look Ahead"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit"

 

Full screen recommended.

Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit"

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“Reality is what we take to be true.

What we take to be true is what we believe.

What we believe is based upon our perceptions.

What we perceive depends upon what we look for.

What we look for depends upon what we think.

What we think depends upon what we perceive.

What we perceive determines what we believe.

What we believe determines what we take to be true.

What we take to be true is our reality.”

- Gary Zukav

The Daily "Near You?"

Rhododendron, Oregon, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"How to Remember You're Alive"

"How to Remember You're Alive"

by David Cain

"One way to appreciate virtually any moment of your life is to pretend that the whole thing is already over. Your life came and went a long time ago, but for some reason you’ve just been sent back to this random moment, here in this office chair, or in line at Home Depot.

It isn’t clear why you’ve been sent back. Maybe it was a cosmic accounting error, or a boon from a playful God. All you know is that you’re here again, walking the earth, having been inexplicably returned to the temporary and mysterious state of Being Alive.

Any moment will do for this experiment. In fact, the more mundane the moment, the more profound the effect. You might find yourself, in this instance, pushing a cart through the frozen foods aisle. Or maybe you’re seated in front of a bowl of cereal at the speckled Formica breakfast table you bought on Craigslist. Or you’re carrying a bag of recycling down the back stairwell on a muggy night. It’s definitely your life though, and at least for now, you get to be alive again.

When you view life as something you’re returning to - rather than something that has never not been happening - it feels like the gift it perhaps always should. It’s just so damn interesting to be alive and experiencing things, and choosing what to do during those experiences.

Seeing life as the curious and rare condition it is gives even ordinary events the character of a brilliant film. An oblong rectangle of sunlight on the table flutters with the shadows of leaves. While you fold laundry, your phone lights up: a friend texting you a cheesy pun she knows you will appreciate. A short-lived party of bubbles appears and disappears when you fill a glass of water from the tap. A thin mist pours from the open freezer display onto your sandaled feet. It’s all spectacular, just because it’s happening, and once it’s over you would greatly miss it if you could. So why not miss it now? Or at least understand why you would.

The state of Being Alive also comes with a rich and distinct sense of possibility. You can make any number of interesting things happen by sheer will. You can scrawl sentences on a scrap of paper that will trigger certain thoughts later, for you or someone else. You can touch a few buttons on your phone and be speaking to any of a hundred people you know, and whatever is said would change each other’s day, or life, in some way. You could clean the house this afternoon, or leave it messy, and each option would give a different shape to the evening.

Can you believe that this condition - of being in the world, of feeling stuff and doing stuff - was once happening all the time? Remember being able to open windows and pet dogs and wash your hands in warm water? What an amazing time that was. No matter what happened, whether life was decidedly going “well” or not, it was always so eventful, and you got to decide what to do in each moment of it.

It’s all over, of course, which is too bad. You didn’t realize at the time how small a window it was, and you can’t believe you spent a lot of it complaining. However, for right now at least, for some reason, you’re back. You have at least this moment to enjoy being alive. There may be more coming afterward, but you can’t count on that. Not this time anyway.

Except in moments of extreme emotional tilt, this exercise always seems to work. I can almost always, when I think of it, choose to see the current moment as a certain kind of an unexpected gift - a long-awaited return to the most interesting thing ever, which is being alive.

It works because if it were true - you really had just been sent back to the realm of the living - chances are you really would think it’s unutterably great to be here, even if you didn’t the first time. By mentally jumping out of life and then back in, it becomes clear that the experience of being alive really is a profoundly interesting thing, and we can live with an ongoing awareness of that. That few seconds of contemplation reframes virtually any moment as the best thing that can happen: you, enjoying a rich pocket of Being Alive Right Now, amidst a vast universe that is almost entirely not that.

At least, it becomes interesting when you’re aware that there’s no reason any of this should necessarily be the case. There will not always be things happening. You will not always have the ability to experience the world and respond how you please. But - by the grace of whoever - you do right now. Whatever the metaphysics of it really is, the point is that the window is small, and if you’re in it right now, that should probably be regarded as a profoundly lucky thing, whether it’s your first time here or you’ve been sent back for another tour.

However, because the window is open continuously until it’s closed for good, it’s hard to feel the luckiness of being alive while life is still happening. This is one way to contact that sense of good fortune reliably - see the moment as an inexplicable return to the wild and spectacular condition of Being Alive, which was once so abundant you forgot to appreciate it. This experience you’re having right now, of being here in a body, experiencing the world and choosing how to respond - is gone, and by the Law of Joni Mitchell, you only now know what you had. But by some unbelievable stroke of luck, here it is again."

- https://www.raptitude.com/

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

"You Think..."

"That's why crazy people are so dangerous.

You think they're nice until they're chaining you up in the garage."

- Michael Buckley

"The Story Of Man"

“The sands of time blew into a storm of images... images in sequence to tell the truth! Glorious legends of revolutionaries, bound only by a desire to be true to themselves, and to hope! Parables of colliding worlds, of forbidden love, of enemies healing the wounds of circumstance! Projected myth of persecution through greed and selfishness... and the will to survive! The Will to survive! And to survive in the face of those who claim credit for your very existence! We survive not as pawns, but as agents of hope. Sometimes misunderstood, but always true to our story. The story of Man."

- Scott Morse

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Vangelis, "Alpha"

This song always suggested the image of our relentless, idealized, noble, glorious March of Mankind through the ages. Despite it all, despite ourselves, we survive and march onward towards our unknown destiny.

Still, some wonder about our true nature as a species, as the Apex Predator of this planet, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did when he asked,“What can we know? What are we all? Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite, with the aspirations of angels and the instincts of beasts.” Indeed, Angelic aspirations regardless, the historical record suggests a less benevolent but far more accurate and truthful view of the instincts of beasts within Humanity... - CP

Steve Cutts, "MAN"

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“What a chimera then is Man, what a novelty, what a monster, what chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, yet an imbecile earthworm; depository of truth, yet a sewer of uncertainty and error; pride and refuse of the universe. Who shall resolve this tangle?”

- Blaise Pascal

"Pride and refuse," indeed...