Jim Kunstler, "Boldly Into the Chaos"

"Boldly Into the Chaos"

by Jim Kunstler

“When you give power over law to people who see law only as a weapon with which to get enemies, you destroy the rule of law. That’s what the dumbshit white liberals have done.” 

- Paul Craig Roberts

"Everybody I talk to feels a gnawing tingle of dread in their livers and lights as our world tilts into the season of darkness. The Party of Chaos rules solely on the basis of insults to its citizens. They are certainly trying to provoke something like civil war, something they can label “white supremacy,” as if that would justify declaring a state of siege - an emergency suspension of rights to speak, to move, to assemble, to resist the sticky pseudopods of the malevolent Blob that Washington has become.

These insults are all obvious untruths, and behind them, you can be sure, lurk great crimes. Crimes, of course, call for adjudication and payment. That has been the American way. So, naturally, the Party of Chaos, stolidly based against the American way, has hijacked the law to prevent it from being applied to them. They have spoiled and dishonored every authority in this land and disgracing the law is their ultimate prize.

It’s hard to say which of their insults is the worst, they are all so gross and arrant, but the untruths around the Covid-19 vaccine operation seem the most conspicuously sinister. CDC director Mandy K. Cohen is still pushing these shots for all Americans down to six-month-old babies, despite a freight train of evidence that they are useless for preventing the disease and blatantly harmful, especially for children. She is either very stupid, dangerously wicked, or insane. You decide:

Last autumn, the “uptake” on Covid boosters was 17 percent. That number should not induce a whole lot of confidence this time around among the CDC officials and their masters from Pfizer Inc. Papers are now circulating that say all the Covid variants coming out of the woodwork are lab-made pathogens. The CDC and its sister public health agencies lied extravagantly about the original virus, of course, and now everybody knows it. Who is left to fool in our country? If they move to surreptitiously release something with a much higher fatality rate - to reignite fear in the population - they could easily put their own lives in jeopardy, since its unlikely their labs might as quickly develop a vaccine they could protect themselves with.

Calling for more lockdowns and school closures won’t go over so well this time either, and federal enforcement efforts will be laughed at in the states where a majority is not insane. Working people know they’ll be ruined financially again if the schools are not available for babysitting. Even the states under the sway of mass formation psychosis, such as my New York, will be deeply divided. New Yorkers are sick of the vile automaton Kathy Hochul, even down in New Woke City.

The Ukraine war caper has pretty clearly lost its appeal as a supposed crusade for “democracy.” The yellow and blue flags vanished from the front porches and car bumpers months ago. It was a lie from the get-go that we have any national interest in that sad sack country. Our own government engineered the fiasco, and from every angle it has been a dead loss for all parties on our side. Ukraine has been reduced to a failed state in-waiting; Euroland has sacrificed its industrial economy for nothing; and the USA has squandered its last bits of prestige among other nations in this ignominious game of Lets You and Him Fight. Also, Americans have begun to notice that the billions funneled into Mr. Zelensky’s cadre of neo-Nazis and kleptocrats is money that is not going to places like East Palestine, Ohio, Lahaina, Maui, and the towns along our tortured southern border from Matamoros to Tijuana. Even the people who supposedly elected “Joe Biden” are becoming a little concerned about blundering into World War Three over the mess created by Victoria Nuland & Company.

How did we come to the point that it is now illegal to question the veracity of elections in America? And to charge a former president of the US for doing it? Much as the deck is stacked against Mr. Trump, his enemies have stupidly stuffed that deck full of jokers that are liable to shriek and giggle their way out of court when turned face-up. Judge Tanya Chutkan of the DC District Court is one of the jokers, having already branded Mr. Trump a seditious insurrectionist in the trails of many J-6 demonstrators she sent to jail on longer sentences than the prosecutors even asked for. DA Fani Willis of Fulton County, Ga, is another joker who constructed a career-ending booby-trap for herself, and DA Alvin Bragg of New York County (Manhattan) will not be the one laughing when he’s finally bum-rushed out of his law license.

An interesting fate awaits “Joe Biden” in the months ahead as the revenue stream of the Biden family foreign consulting firm gets audited in a House impeachment Inquiry. And an interesting-er fate awaits the Party of Chaos when it finally has to admit that it doesn’t have a candidate for the 2024 presidential election - at least a candidate anyone has ever heard of. The “president” stands (shakily) bestride a dilemma. He can gracefully bow out of office and avoid the historic humiliation of being unmasked as the crookedest chief executive ever - but if he does that, he loses the ability to pardon the son he so loves in any upcoming indictments, or pardon himself as CEO of Biden Consulting Inc.

Or, just maybe, the Blob will steal into the White House residence some gloomy pre-dawn morn, and settle its quivering, gelatinous endoplasm over “JB’s” face until his struggles with Congress and everything else on this plane of existence come mercifully (for us) to their end."

- https://kunstler.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "What Business Will Close Next?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly AM 9/18/23

"What Business Will Close Next?"

"We are seeing two things that you cannot stay away from. Number one, we are seeing that more businesses are filing bankruptcy than in the last 20 years. We are also seeing personal debt climb to a record, and people have no other choice than to file bankruptcy "

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Grocery Prices Set To Skyrocket In Fall And Winter 2023! This Might Get Rough!"

Adventures With Danno, AM 9/18/23

"Grocery Prices Set To Skyrocket In Fall 

And Winter 2023! This Might Get Rough!"

"We are discussing the recent surge in grocery prices and new reports coming in on more food shortages! It is getting crazy out here as more families are struggling to put food on the table!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Economic Market Snapshot 9/18/23"

"Economic Market Snapshot 9/18/23"

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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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 

You and I are not in the Big Club."

- George Carlin

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

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- 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...

o

"Gas Prices Are Crushing Consumers; Americans Are Out Of Money And In Big Trouble"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 9/17/23

"Gas Prices Are Crushing Consumers; 

Americans Are Out Of Money And In Big Trouble"

Comments Here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Spirit Tribe Awakening, "Raise Positive Vibration"

Full screen recommended.

Spirit Tribe Awakening, "Raise Positive Vibration"

"Peaceful, empowering and soothing music and nature to nurture your mind, body, and soul. Supporting and empowering you on your life journey. 528Hz positive energy healing music with 417Hz Solfeggio frequency. These frequencies have a specific healing effect on your subconscious mind. Be kind to yourself, savor this extraordinarily beautiful video. Headphones recommended, not required."

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Like delicate cosmic petals, these clouds of interstellar dust and gas have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile star fields of the constellation Cepheus. Sometimes called the Iris Nebula and dutifully cataloged as NGC 7023 this is not the only nebula in the sky to evoke the imagery of flowers. Still, this remarkable image shows off the Iris Nebula's range of colors and symmetries in impressive detail. Within the Iris, dusty nebular material surrounds a hot, young star.

The dominant color of the brighter reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. Central filaments of the dusty clouds glow with a faint reddish photoluminesence as some dust grains effectively convert the star's invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Infrared observations indicate that this nebula may contain complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. The bright blue portion of the Iris Nebula is about six light-years across.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120929.html

"Nothing Happens..."

"Nothing happens to anyone that he is not fitted by nature to bear."

- Marcus Aurelius

"Mourning The Loss Of A Loved One Is Not A Disease"

"Mourning The Loss Of A Loved One Is Not A Disease"

by Dick Polman

"My wife of 45 years died six months ago this week. I have been processing her loss ever since. But the American Psychiatric Association now says that I have only six more months to heal myself, and that if I blow the deadline, I should be clinically defined as mentally diseased.

It’s not in my nature to use this column for personal business. But the APA’s decision to add “prolonged grief” (defined as one year or more) to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders strikes me as a ludicrous attempt to reboot natural bereavement as a disease. And once you’re diagnosed with this newly created disorder, I bet there will be meds to make it all better.

I can’t speak for other grieving souls, and, granted, I’m still a newbie. But I’ll hazard a guess that most people in similar straits fail to reorient their emotional framework within one year’s time. Heck, some people conclude their time on earth without ever finding a modicum of peace. We, the walking wounded, are grappling with life’s worst disorders, navigating at our disparate speeds. That doesn’t mean we’re “sick.”

Six months after my own heart was gutted, I seem to be an everyday functioning person. But there’s no way that I can clear the APA’s one-year hurdle. I’m quite sure I will meet the association’s new definition of diseased. I’ll still feel pained when I hear a song that my wife and I loved. I’ll still feel pained when I try to watch new seasons of a show that she never got to finish. I’ll still sit with a book and zone out about some shared moment 30 years past. I’ll still keep the “peasant dress” that she wore on our first New Year’s Eve. I’ll still hear echoes of her doctors talking in code (“it’s a tricky case” and “it’s a complicated case,” which meant she was doomed). At odd moments I’ll still hear her voice (“Oh, Rick?”) summoning me to her sickbed. At odd moments I’ll still feel lost in time and space. But I won’t see any of that as illness.

I’m sure there are extreme cases of grief that do require medical treatment, but, as NYU psychiatry professor Benjamin Sadock points out, “In rare instances, prolonged grief progresses to depression, a well-recognized disorder that encompasses all of the symptoms of the ‘new’ diagnosis of prolonged grief, a disorder that is unnecessary, unwarranted, and one that may stigmatize those so diagnosed.”

Devyn Greenberg, a grad student who lost her dad to COVID writes: “It’s not just personal indignation that stirs me about the (APA’s) decision. I worry for others who have loved and lost – at some point, all of us. I worry that this framing will render us even lonelier in our pain, even more convinced that our nonlinear, unpredictable paths through loss are ‘wrong’…Many of the symptoms the psychiatric association uses to define ‘prolonged grief’ are shockingly common. ‘Intense emotional pain (e.g., anger, bitterness, sorrow)’? Let’s call that a Tuesday. ‘Identity disruption’? When you’ve walked through a portal through which you cannot return, of course your sense of self changes dramatically.”

And Martha Weinman Lear, who authored a book about loss, writes that the beneficiaries of the APA’s new diagnosis will be “pill makers.” She says: “What strikes me as abnormal is not grief beyond the APA’s one-year prescription, but the degree of chutzpah required, professional training notwithstanding, to presume to set timelines for the normal grief of others, which in fact is as various as the grievers themselves.”

The APA’s one-year deadline smacks of classic American impatience: “Get over it” and “Move on with your life.” Like the cowboy in Lonesome Dove who said, “Best thing to do with death is to ride off from it.” Um, it’s not that simple. At my six-month mark, I do feel myself “getting over it” – the worst of it anyway, but with many caveats. I do feel myself “moving on” – as best I can, but with many caveats: Is it possible to feel happy again? Is it wrong?

Bottom line: I like the Bob Dylan line, “he not busy being born is busy dying.” What you do is, you learn to live with the emotional pain. Then you cushion it with all the joy you can muster for the good things in your life – be they family, friends (old and new), work, travel, biking, hiking, whatever – because you realize that gratitude can be a powerful palliative. You accept melancholia and whenever possible you lighten it with mirth. You honor your loss and accept the fact that your old life, and all the ways your loved one enhanced it, is irrevocably over – and that it’s now incumbent to craft a new one.

Sorry, headshrinkers. I won’t need meds for that."

- https://www.cagle.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Ex Obscurum"

Full screen recommended.

"Ex Obscurum, Adagio for Strings, Op. 11"

"From emotional turmoil, hatred, and addiction the miracle of recovery begins in this Spadecaller Video entitled "Ex Obscurum" (From Darkness). Featuring original poetry narrated by the author and visual artist, Matthew Schwartz. Composer Samuel Barber's powerful musical score, adopted for the movie "Platoon", (Adagio for Strings) sets the background for this spiritual exodus "From Darkness."

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Donkey and the Meaning of Eternity"

"The Donkey and the Meaning of Eternity: Nobel-Winning

 Spanish Poet Juan Ramón Jiménez’s Love Letter to Life"

by Maria Popova

Excerpt: "Beneath our anxious quickenings, beneath our fanged fears, beneath the rusted armors of conviction, tenderness is what we long for - tenderness to salve our bruising contact with reality, to warm us awake from the frozen stupor of near-living. Tenderness is what permeates Platero and I (public library) by the Nobel-winning Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez (December 23, 1881–May 29, 1958) - part love letter to his beloved donkey, part journal of ecstatic delight in nature and humanity, part fairy tale for the lonely.

Living in his birthplace of Moguer - a small town in rural Andalusia - Jiménez began composing this uncommon posy of prose poems in 1907. Although it spans less than a year in his life with Platero, it took him a decade to publish it. At its heart is a simple truth: What and whom we love is a lens to focus our love of life itself.

The tenderness with which Jiménez regards Platero - whom he addresses by name over and over, like an incantation of love - is the tenderness of living with wonder and fragility. He celebrates Platero’s “big gleaming eyes, of a gentle firmness, in which the sun shines”; he reverences him as “friend to the old man and the child, to the stream and the butterfly, to the sun and the dog, to the flower and the moon, patient and pensive, melancholy and lovable, the Marcus Aurelius of the meadows.” He beckons him: “Come with me. I’ll teach you the flowers and the stars.”

And so he does: "Look, Platero, so many roses are falling everywhere: blue, pink, white, colorless roses… You’d think the sky was crumbling into roses… You’d think that from the seven galleries of Paradise roses were being thrown onto the earth… Platero, it seems, while the Angelus is ringing, that this life of ours is losing its everyday strength, and that a different strength from within, loftier, more constant, and purer, is causing everything, as if in fountain jets of grace… Your eyes, which you can’t see, Platero, and which you are mildly raising skyward, are two beautiful roses."

Together, poet and donkey traverse the Andalusian countryside in a state of rapturous harmony with each other and the living world: "Through the low-lying roads of summer, draped with tender honeysuckle, how sweetly we go! I read, or sing, or recite poetry to the sky. Platero nibbles the sparse grass of the shady banks, the dusty blossoms of the mallows, the yellow sorrel. He halts more than he walks. I let him.

[…]

Every so often Platero stops eating and looks at me. Every so often I stop reading and look at Platero."

There are echoes of Whitman in Jiménez’s exultations: "Before us are the fields, already green. Facing the immense, clear sky, of a blazing indigo, my eyes - so far from my ears! - open nobly, welcoming in its calm that indescribable placidity, that harmonious, divine serenity which dwells in the limitlessness of the horizon."

This longing for the infinite accompanies the young man and the old donkey as they cross the hills and valleys on their daily pilgrimages: "The evening extends beyond its normal limits, and the hour, infected with eternity, is infinite, peaceful, unfathomable."

Again and again, Platero’s presence magnifies the poet’s relishing of beauty, deepens his contact with the eternal: "I remain in ecstasy before the twilight. Platero, his black eyes scarlet with sunset, walks gently to a puddle of crimson, pink, and violet waters; he softly immerses his lips into the mirrors, which seem to liquefy as he touches them."

Punctuating these ecstasies are the inevitable spells of melancholy stemming from the fact that the price of being awake to life is being also awake to mortality. Aware that this enchanted life with his beloved Platero is only for the time being, Jiménez reaches into the sorrow of the future to consecrate it with joy: "Platero. I shall bury you at the foot of the large, round pine in the orchard at La Piña, which you like so much. You will remain alongside cheerful, serene life. The little boys will play and the little girls will sew beside you on their little low chairs. You will get to hear the verses that the solitude will inspire in me. You’ll hear the older girls singing when they wash clothes in the orange grove, and the sound of the waterwheel will be a joy and a solace to your eternal peace. And all year long the goldfinches, greenfinches, and vireos, in the perennial freshness of the treetop, will create for you a small musical ceiling between your tranquil slumber and Moguer’s infinite, ever-blue sky."

Full, wonderful article is here:

- https://mailchi.mp/themarginalian/

The Poet: Robert Frost, "Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"

"Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"

“The past is a bucket of ashes.”

1

The Woman named To-morrow

sits with a hairpin in her teeth

and takes her time

and does her hair the way she wants it

and fastens at last the last braid and coil

and puts the hairpin where it belongs

and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?

My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.

What of it? Let the dead be dead.

2

The doors were cedar

and the panels strips of gold

and the girls were golden girls

and the panels read and the girls chanted:

We are the greatest city,

the greatest nation:

nothing like us ever was.

The doors are twisted on broken hinges.

Sheets of rain swish through on the wind

where the golden girls ran and the panels read:

We are the greatest city,

the greatest nation,

nothing like us ever was.

3

It has happened before.

Strong men put up a city and got

a nation together,

And paid singers to sing and women

to warble: We are the greatest city,

the greatest nation,

nothing like us ever was.

And while the singers sang

and the strong men listened

and paid the singers well

and felt good about it all,

there were rats and lizards who listened

… and the only listeners left now

… are … the rats … and the lizards.

And there are black crows

crying, “Caw, caw,”

bringing mud and sticks

building a nest

over the words carved

on the doors where the panels were cedar

and the strips on the panels were gold

and the golden girls came singing:

We are the greatest city,

the greatest nation:

nothing like us ever was.

The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,”

And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.

And the only listeners now are … the rats … and the lizards.

4

The feet of the rats

scribble on the door sills;

the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints

chatter the pedigrees of the rats

and babble of the blood

and gabble of the breed

of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers

of the rats.

And the wind shifts

and the dust on a door sill shifts

and even the writing of the rat footprints

tells us nothing, nothing at all

about the greatest city, the greatest nation

where the strong men listened

and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was.

- Robert Frost

Free Download: T. S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"

“Little Gidding”, Excerpt

"We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring 

Will be to arrive where we started 

And know the place for the first time. 

When the last of earth left to discover 

Is that which was the beginning; 

At the source of the longest river 

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree.

Not known, because not looked for 

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always - 

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flames are in-folded 

Into the crowned knot of fire 

And the fire and the rose are one.”

- T.S. Eliot

The "Little Gidding" is the last of T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets," 

which you may freely download here:

- https://www.fadedpage.com/

o

- https://www.fadedpage.com/

An absolute treasure...

"The Credit Crisis Will Wipe Out Millions Of Americans This Winter"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 9/17/23

"The Credit Crisis Will Wipe Out 

Millions Of Americans This Winter"

"A credit crisis is already in motion in 2023, and it is threatening to collapse the standard of living of many American families as loan conditions get tighter while the cost of living continues to climb. Access to credit is about to become an enormous issue for U.S. consumers. Today, we’re carrying far more debt than ever before, and the risk of widespread failures in the banking system is much higher, so financial institutions are far more careful about who are they going to lend money to.

Now, a combination of persistent inflation and soaring interest rates is further stretching consumer’s budgets, and data shows that most households are reaching a breaking point. Last month, Americans’ debt levels just hit a new, but undesirable, milestone. For the first time ever, credit card debt surpassed $1 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In the second quarter, credit card balances skyrocketed by $45 billion, or almost 5%, to land at $1.03 trillion. That's more than triple the average amount of new debt households have taken on in that period since after the Great Recession, the Fed’s latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit revealed.

This happened because the cost of living has risen four times faster than incomes since 2020. For the past two and a half years, we’ve been spending more to consume less each month. For households earning the median income or less, which represents about half of the population, turning to credit has become the only option they have to afford basic expenses.

From July 2022 to July 2023, total credit card debt grew by 8%, going up for five consecutive quarters, and increasing at some of the largest rates in 20 years, according to WalletHub, a personal finance website. “Unfortunately, it’s only going to go up from here,” says Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst for LendingTree. “What’s driving it is inflation, higher interest rates, and just generally how expensive life is in 2023.” The firm estimates that the average household’s credit card debt stands at $10,170. The Fed’s policies are allowing credit card companies to charge higher interest rates, making balances even tougher to pay off. At the moment, credit card interest rates are at a staggering 20.6%, the highest since data started being tracked in 1994.

At the same time, it’s been getting a lot harder for the average person to take out a loan or get approved for a credit card as banks and other financial institutions continue to tighten their lending standards. They are outright rejecting applicants, raising minimum credit score requirements, charging more interest, and lowering credit limits. Back in the spring, after the collapse of several major banks, several financial analysts sounded the alarm over a so-called “credit crunch,” a term used to describe the economy when consumers and businesses can no longer get access to the loans they need. Numbers from the U.S. central bank show the trend from a different angle. By the end of June, the rejection rate for all types of loans, including credit cards, mortgages, and auto loans, had jumped to nearly 22%: the highest point in five years and one of the highest readings since the survey started in 2013.

The ongoing credit crunch will financially strangle many borrowers who are carrying high levels of debt. Now is a time to batten down the hatches and prepare for the stressful years ahead. Banks are in danger. The financial system is being shaken. The Fed will not bail us out anymore. So the potential for disaster is very real, and the longer we wait, the bigger the problem becomes."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com

"WW 3 Update, 9/17/23"

Full screen recommended.

Redacted, 9/17/23

"Oh SH*T, What Russia And China Are Doing Will 

Change Everything, And The West Wants WAR"

"What Russia, China and North Korea are doing will change everything. The massive economic expansion is pushing the West to do some very desperate things. This week Russia and North Korea signed remarkable new trade agreements. It came on the same week as China and Russia launched a new cross border energy hub. Do you see what's happening?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls 9/17/23

"We Don't Want War With Russia"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Community Church of Boston, 9/17/23

"CIA Analyst Ray McGovern and Scott Ritter

 Talk About Russia And Ukraine"

Comments Here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Reporterfy Media & Travel, 9/17/23

"Scott Ritter: UKRAINE IS DONE!

 Ukraine's Counteroffensive Fails, Millions Could Die"

"Join us for a riveting live stream live stream event hosted by Alex, a renowned personality from Reporterfy Media. In this captivating discussion, our attention will be firmly fixed on the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia. Scott Ritter is back and has a lot to say."

Comments:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Full screen recommended.

Vera Lynn, "Dr. Strangelove - We'll Meet Again"

"How It Really Is"

 

'Here Comes $10 A Gallon Gas"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly 9/17/23

'Here Comes $10 A Gallon Gas"

"With everything that’s happened in the last two weeks we have seen gas prices around the country completely spike. Here in California they have shot up to seven dollars a gallon. What’s next? You got it - $10 a gallon gas."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Food Shortage Reports And Grocery Price Hikes Coming!"

Adventures With Danno, 9/17/23

"Food Shortage Reports And

 Grocery Price Hikes Coming!"

"We are discussing the recent surge in grocery prices and new reports coming in on more food shortages! It is getting crazy out here as more families are struggling to put food on the table!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"This Is The Worst Economy In US History; Las Vegas Shocking Crime; Financial Crisis Unavoidable"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 9/16/23

"This Is The Worst Economy In US History;

 Las Vegas Shocking Crime; Financial Crisis Unavoidable"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Soothing Relaxation, "Dance of Life"

Full screen recommended.

Soothing Relaxation, "Dance of Life"

Be kind to yourself, forget all the troubles 

for a little while and enjoy this beautiful video...

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"A Look to the Heavens"

“The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its more familiar outlines are seen in the brighter central region of the nebula in this impressive wide-angle view. But the composite image combines many short and long exposures to also reveal an extremely faint outer halo. At an estimated distance of 3,000 light-years, the faint outer halo is over 5 light-years across.

Planetary nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase in the life of a sun-like star. More recently, some planetary nebulae are found to have halos like this one, likely formed of material shrugged off during earlier episodes in the star's evolution. While the planetary nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years, astronomers estimate the age of the outer filamentary portions of this halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years. Visible on the left, some 50 million light-years beyond the watchful planetary nebula, lies spiral galaxy NGC 6552.”

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

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“Big Space”

"Our planet is a tiny porthole, looking over a cosmic sea.

Can we learn what lies beyond our own horizons of perception?" 

"What Is Hope?"

"What Is Hope?"

"What is hope? It is the pre-sentiment that imagination is more real and reality is less real than it looks. It is the hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress us is not the last word. It is the suspicion that reality is more complex than the realists want us to believe. That the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual; and in a miraculous and unexplained way, life is opening creative events which will light the way to freedom and resurrection. But the two - suffering and hope - must live from each other. Suffering without hope produces resentment and despair. But hope without suffering creates illusions, naïveté and drunkenness.

So let us plant dates even though we who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see. That is the secret discipline. It is the refusal to let our creative act be dissolved away by our need for immediate sense experience, and it is a struggled commitment to the future of our grandchildren. Such disciplined hope is what has given prophets, revolutionaries and saints the courage to die for the future they envisage. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope."

- Rubin Alves

The Poet: Charles Dickens, "Things That Never Die "

"Things That Never Die"

 "The pure, the bright, the beautiful

that stirred our hearts in youth,

The impulses to wordless prayer,

The streams of love and truth,

The longing after something lost,

The spirits longing cry,

The striving after better hopes -

These things can never die.

The timid hand stretched forth to aid

A brother in his need;

A kindly word in griefs dark hour

That proves a friend indeed;

The plea for mercy softly breathed,

When justice threatens high,

The sorrow of a contrite heart -

These things shall never die.

Let nothing pass, for every hand

Must find some work to do,

Lose not a chance to waken love -

Be firm and just and true.

So shall a light that cannot fade

Beam on thee from on high,

And angel voices say to thee -

 These things shall never die." 

- Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

"In Praise of Traditional Family Values… Mostly"

"In Praise of Traditional Family Values… Mostly"

By Paul Rosenberg

"Humanity has a problem of clinging to extremes, as I’m quite sure you’ve noticed. They love the Reds and hate the Blues, or they love the Blues and hate the Reds. They believe deeply in God, or they consider belief to be insane. And once they’re on one side or the other, they instinctively repel any modification of their opinion. Their polarization jumps to defend itself. Facts for its defense are assembled afterward, as a second step.

Discussions of “family values” have stood on this kind of battlefield for decades, making them hazardous at best. Nonetheless, I think that it’s time to remove this topic from automatic polarization. And I do think that many people are ready for it. So let’s give it a shot.

The Gulf Between Beneficial and Mandatory: There are two big obstacles to letting go of this polarization, and both involve the difference between “beneficial” and “mandatory.” These two obstacles are the political and the cultural. We’ll go through each.

Problem #1: The Political: The problem with anything politicized is that all political decisions include threats of violence. That’s what laws are, after all; without physical force standing behind them somewhere, laws would merely be suggestions. So, when we politicize something, we mix it with violence. That violence may stand at the end of a long process, but it’s always there. For this reason, politicized family values polarize people, and understandably so - no one likes having a gun pointed at them.

Both “you must” and “you must not” are mandatory statements, and if politics is involved, they’re also threats. If you don’t comply, something bad will happen to you. As related to values, this is nearly the worst foundation imaginable. Even if we could pick a “family value” that nearly all us would agree with, forcing people to comply with it removes their judgment - their agency - from the equation. By doing that, we minimize them, degrade them, insult their consciousness. So, political solutions, regardless of which side of the polarization divide “wins,” damage and degrade far more than they can fix.

Problem #2: The Cultural: There are strong and enduring reasons why certain “family values” persist, though they’re not always the best of reasons. For example, the majority of humans have an instinct to reproduce and to see their offspring reproduce. That’s simply built into the race; none of us would be here without it. Nonetheless, this feeling, while necessary, is not something that we should force on others. By pressuring people to conform to our wishes, we move perilously close to violating their agency.

I happen to think that having children is a good thing for adults to do. But it would be wrong of me to pressure others to do so. My opinions on the beneficial should not be made mandatory for any other person. I have a moral right to require that others do no harm, but I have no right to make them live according to my feelings. That would make them a slave, not a free being with agency over his or her life. However important I think childbearing may be, I have no right to enslave people to my way of life.

Christians and Parents and Gays, Oh My! Now let’s look at some of the “hard cases,” the ones that drive people to wild reactions:

Christians. I am not unsympathetic to Christianity, and certainly not to Jesus. I understand people who want to live according to their book, and I think they have every right to do so. If they think homosexuality is a bad thing, that’s their right. And they should be able to discuss their opinions openly, so long as they do it politely. What Christians should not do is force others to live by their book. That is, they shouldn’t try to enforce their values. And a primary reason they shouldn’t is their own belief in free will. As their book says, “Whosoever wills, let him come.”

If a Christian believes that God gave man free will, compelling other men to live against their will is to fight against God. Furthermore, it voids the concepts of faith and of “cleaning the inside of the cup first.”

Parents: Parents are often unhappy with grown children who wish not to have families. This is part of the current human condition and will probably remain for a very long time. So, it will continue to be a sore spot. Children who don’t wish to have families will have to understand that their parents feel differently and not be overly sensitive on the subject. Parents in this situation can ask occasionally and even make their case for family life once in a while, but parents should be the more mature party in this conflict of opinions. They should not push their children.

Gays. Let me start with a note to heterosexuals: I’d like you, for just a moment, to imagine the pain of growing up gay. What if you naturally felt for the same sex as you do now for the opposite sex? How would you deal with it at 12 years old, when all the boys were talking about kissing girls, or all the girls were whispering about boys? And what if they also told “homo” jokes and looked for opportunities to insult each other? Being the only one who was different and knowing that you couldn’t escape them at school, how would you feel? My point is that heterosexuals should have compassion for gay kids… and for older gay folks too. Their road is difficult, and I don’t think most of them simply choose it.

Now, a note to gays: Have a bit of understanding for straight folks. Yes, there are a few who talk about you maliciously, but most straight people have no interest in hurting you and might very well defend you in a pinch. Furthermore, you should not use the same political manipulation that your opponents once used. As I noted above, laws always entail violence, and you don’t have any more right to lord it over straight people than they have to lord it over you. If you want solid, long-term acceptance, you must convince people, not force them. Yes, that way is slower and harder, but it builds with durable materials, not materials that will blow away with the next change of the political winds.

The Case for Traditional Values: I think I’ve made myself abundantly clear that family values ought not be enforced on anyone. With that said, however, I’d like to make a case for them.

I’ve seen lots of people living lots of ways, and my observation (over quite a few decades) is that far more people thrive within the traditional family arrangement than within any other. Most of us are happier and more productive living long term with a committed spouse. And most of us gain a great deal from raising children. I’m not claiming that this arrangement is best for everyone, but I’ve known a lot of people over a lot of years, and this conclusion seems very solid to me.

Having a family is no panacea. Marriage is not automatically easy, and raising children is long, hard, and sometimes thankless work. I’m not saying that this way of life is painless; I’m saying that it’s productive and that we tend to mature and grow better within this arrangement than within others. I’ll go even further and say that there is value in the classic arrangement of the husband working and the wife tending the children and the home. In my opinion, it’s a productive way of life.

One difficulty in the husband/wife arrangement is that the woman is especially limited by it. Tending children and keeping house are hard. (Husbands: I strongly suggest that you try switching roles for a week.) No woman can do this full time and still have time and energy left for all her intellectual interests. That’s why this must be a choice. There is much to be gained by it, but there are real trade-offs.

Raising children is one of the most significant things that a person can do. It matters a tremendous amount, and women who choose to do it should be held in high esteem. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was a token of great respect for a man to address an older woman as “mother.” That might be a good thing to bring back.

I should add that men too bear a burden in having their wives stay home with their children; they have to work more, they need to help at home anyway, and they worry right along with their wives. The difference - and it is a difference that matters - is that the husband has outside interests and is gone from the home most days. In most cases, the husband’s role, which is legitimately hard, is still less difficult than the mother’s. So, to sum up: while no one should be forced to follow traditional roles, they are very often the most productive choices for us.

Why We Don’t Have to Worry About the Family: I have, for a long time, heard people expressing their worries that “the family” will fracture because of modern changes. So, let me put your minds at ease: the family will not vanish as the preferred human grouping. I can say this with confidence because I have proof. And the best piece of proof I have is from the Oneida colony of the mid-19th century. (I covered these people in Free-Man’s Perspective #16.) Here, briefly, is the story:

The people of Oneida believed that traditional man/woman marriage was contrary to God’s will. They practiced - and enforced - group marriage, and over quite a long time. No one was permitted to have any sort of monogamous relationship… and there were hundreds of people involved. Over time, however, Oneida fell apart, mainly because the children of the first members wanted monogamous relationships. They took frightening risks and suffered harsh punishments in order to be monogamous. Everything in their lives powerfully opposed and punished monogamy, yet they could not be held back from it.

So don’t worry about the family. Gay people will not eliminate it, and political stupidity will not kill it. The vast majority of us are simply wired that way, and that wiring is not easily changed. As the Roman poet Horace wrote: 'You can expel nature with a pitchfork, but it just comes back.'"

- https://freemansperspective.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Bristol, Connecticut, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Meanwhile, Elsewhere..."

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Travelling with Russell 9/15/23

"Moscow Metro: How To Get 

From Vnukovo Airport to Moscow"

"The newest Metro Station on the Moscow Metro recently opened. In This video I detail How to get from Vnukovo Airport to Moscow. Airport Vnukovo Metro Station is directly below the arrivals hall of the Airport. Let's discover together how to get to Moscow from Vnukovo Airport."

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