Tuesday, June 25, 2024

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Galaxies of the Virgo Cluster are scattered across this deep telescopic field of view. The cosmic scene spans about three Full Moons, captured in dark skies near Jalisco, Mexico, planet Earth. About 50 million light-years distant, the Virgo Cluster is the closest large galaxy cluster to our own local galaxy group. Prominent here are Virgo's bright elliptical galaxies from the Messier catalog, M87 at the top left, and M84 and M86 seen (bottom to top) below and right of center.
M84 and M86 are recognized as part of Markarian's Chain, a visually striking line-up of galaxies vertically on the right side of this frame. Near the middle of the chain lies an intriguing interacting pair of galaxies, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, known to some as Markarian's Eyes. Of course giant elliptical galaxy M87 dominates the Virgo cluster. It's the home of a super massive black hole, the first black hole ever imaged by planet Earth's Event Horizon Telescope."

"'Life Doesn’t Owe Anyone a Damn Thing'; or 'Handle Hard Better'"

"'Life Doesn’t Owe Anyone a Damn Thing'; 
or 'Handle Hard Better'"
by Justin Smith

“We all wait in life for things to get easier. It will never get easier. What happens is you handle hard better. That’s what happens. Most people think that it’s going to get easier. Life is going to get easier. Basketball is going to get easier. School is going to get easier. It never gets easier. What happens is you become someone who handles hard stuff better. And if you think life when you leave college is going to all of a sudden get easier because you graduated, and you got a Duke degree, it’s not going to get easier. It’s going to get harder. So make yourself a person that handles hard well.” ~ Kara Lawson, Head Coach for Duke University Women’s Basketball Team and Graduate of the University of Tennessee [July 5th 2022]

An incredible number of Americans today have been coddled, pampered and fed a sense of entitlement from birth that continued into their early adulthood, making them always look to others or the government for help in acquiring their needs and wants. They have been raised without a backbone, weak-willed and dependent; and so, whenever they find themselves to be in a minority, they more often than not petition the federal and state governments, protest and riot, in order that their particular concerns are proactively pursued and implemented as favored, privileged and superior, no matter how insane, from destroying humanity by way of transgenderism or energy and job-killing fallacious “climate change” policies.

From my earliest memories, I saw hard men, laughing, loving, fighting hard and playing just as hard, as they’d rise each day to head out to work, in the mines, the forests, office buildings and on the nation’s lines of defense, and in particular I recall learning something of worth from each of them, much as I did from my Granddad Spurge, who was a coal miner and a stone mason. They were a hardy bunch of industrious scrappers, who pulled up their sleeves and worked hard to make a better life for themselves and their children, to build better communities, a better America.

But what passes for young “men” today is but a mere shadow of men of worth from better days gone by, what with their feminine appearances and their aversion to doing anything to break a sweat. And aside from weak bodies, too much coddling has made their minds work in a new, cunning devious manner, in which they waste enormous amounts of effort sidestepping real work and figuring out how to get something for nothing rather than perform an honest day’s work to pay for bills they make, without any intention of ever repaying, such as student loans.

Half of America seems content to allow Uncle Sam to make life better for them and their children via the welfare system and the government cheese, even tho’ it means a life of subsistence, just scraping by. Although today, many have developed gaming the system into a real art, whereby they live just about as good as anyone working a full-time job, complete with HUD homes, EBT cards, late model cars, color T.V.s and government purchased cellphones.

Life doesn’t owe any of us a thing, regardless of the circumstances and station of our birth. The miracle of your birth alone doesn’t mean you are automatically owed a job, a house, a bed or a single meal after you are a grown adult and supposedly capable of doing for yourself. You’re not owed recognition and understanding for simply existing, and neither are you owed success and comfort, abundance and happiness or immunity from the problems, pain and suffering that is simply a part of the human condition, and you certainly aren’t due any money you haven’t earned through your own sweat and effort, not from me, the American taxpayers or the U.S. government.

The only thing anyone should expect from The Government, if we are to accept the Contract found in our Constitution, are those things enumerated in its original form, and in that sense, we are owed a strong, affirmative and fierce defense of our Inalienable God-given Rights, as expressed and defined in the Bill of Rights, to be left alone to our own devices to live and thrive as free born Americans, without interference from The Government and its agents where no real harm is being done.

People aren’t created equal in the very real definition of the word and life has never been fair to anyone, and yet, the constant refrain heard all across all levels of American society today, from the ranks of the Mau Mau Marxist-Maoist totalitarians, those lovers of “democracy”, is “the world is so unfair”. They were evidently raised to believe “all men are created equal” in the context of the Declaration of Independence meant they are somehow guaranteed equal outcomes in everyday life, instead of the simple “equality under the law” as intended. And their voices are now amplified by an out-of-control regime that seeks to use their envy to complete the fundamental transformation of America, by any means necessary, no matter how unconstitutional or illegal they might be and are currently proving to be.

Standing on one’s own two feet and making your way through the merit of your own knowledge and work are now a thing of the past, as the poorest results in school and on the job are given the same weight and worth as the best and everybody gets a participation trophy. And in its place, envy, greed, sloth, gluttony, lies, sex and murder, the destroyer of worlds, are the rule, for a generation indoctrinated through Marxist-Maoist multiculturalist doctrine and propaganda, taught from kindergarten through university, who are now driven by an unhinged hate and anger directed at white society and capitalism.

This, in part, is the reason we see whole cities, controlled by the Marxist-Maoists and the totalitarian minded, enacting new “laws” that make the theft of anything $900 or less a misdemeanor, giving way to thousands of groups of poorly taught, undisciplined, predominantly black “youths” rampaging, rioting and looting numerous times a day, taking $900 dollars worth of merchandise nine times a day, if not more, taught racism and hatred and driven by envy and greed. It’s the reason cities across America are folding up, shriveling like a crop attacked by locusts and dying on the vine where once they thrived, back when our people, indeed our youth, had more pure hearts and moral directions and had not strayed far and away from America’s Christian roots.

Over the past thirty years, the nutcases of the Democrat Party have advocated a pathologically negative agenda for America that is based on destroying the Founding and revising history to portray early America as evil and worth casting on the ash-heap of history. Accelerating their plans through the public education system, an entire generation of America’s youth have been brainwashed to believe our planet is dying due to manmade CO2 and “climate change”, in defiance of actual science, and as if that isn’t enough, we are all constantly inundated with one alarm after another raised over racism — even as reverse racism against whites is now advocated, capitalism — which hasn’t really existed in America for over 100 years, homophobia / gender bigotry, capitalist oppression — even tho’ our system is economic fascism, and the fallacious assertion that White Supremacist Nazis are ascending in every community in America.

The real problem found within the ranks of the Takers? They just can’t face the fact that life isn’t easy for anyone, especially the Makers; and it never has been, although exceptions can be found in those born into wealth. But even the wealthy are weighted with life’s problems, if of a different variety, much as the old adage says that “money can’t buy you love or happiness”, even if it does buy you a line of coke and hookers, in a sad sort of dystopian world of a different immoral construct.

The routines many of us indulge in daily have made the largest percentage of Americans, a fairly large majority, complacent and apathetic, caring next to nothing on matters of government and whether or not they are actually living free.

Americans rise each morning, check their emails and cellphones, shower, shave and maybe brush their teeth, to rush off to their same, everyday, boring regular job that may or may not quite pay the bills, grabbing their $7 dollar cup of Starbucks special latte of the day, to do a job they find meaningless. At day’s end, they may grab some overpriced fast-food on the way home, to relax and maybe drink a cheap beer or glass of whiskey, while they watch The Voice — or is it porn [?] — call some friends to complain over how bad things are, and then simply watch some news, ’til they call it a night, sleeping fitfully and rising the next morning to do it all over again, and everyday afterward, year after year, until one day someone hands them their walking papers or a copper watch upon their “retirement”.

Too many live under the delusion that they should be able to drive brand new $60k cars, own $400k homes complete with the most exquisite adornments and furniture on their $15 per hour paycheck at McDonald’s, having never put forth the effort to gain useful knowledge demanded by skilled and professional career positions, in order to make themselves more valuable to society on the whole, and thus able to demand a salary that would allow them to buy all the trappings of such success. Instead, they cast an envious eye in the direction of the Makers and scheme on how to take what they want, by any scheme, any illegal act, any means necessary. They believe their mere existence entitles them to other people’s property, just because deep down in their black little souls, they really, really want it — just not enough to go after it the right way.

Our youth have lost all sense of shame and seem fine with getting anything they want, right when they want it, no matter how they come to acquire it. They never learned that something worth having is worth the work it takes to purchase, as if stuff is just supposed to fall from the heavens and land in their lap.

Things of real worth don’t come easy.

Sure. Not everyone has the intelligence and capability to become a surgeon, but if that’s your dream, you will never know if you could have been one, until you try — same for anything else that any of you are dreaming of being, no matter if you dream of being a content farmer or a successful writer. Whatever you want in life, put forth the effort to achieve competency in that field and then go do it.

If you want something of worth in life, stop depending on others. Venture out on your own in some business or capacity you love, rather than settling to work for someone else your entire life. And for your own sake, quit wallowing in self-pity over bad circumstances created by your own bad choices.

As Ms Lawson notes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDzfZOfNki4) at one point: "Any pursuit in life, if you want to be successful, it goes to the people that handle hard well. Those are the people that get the stuff they want. People that wait around for easy, you probably see them at the bus stop. They’re waiting on the easy bus to come around. Easy bus never comes around. Go handle hard.”

Too many parents, too many schools, too many churches have failed America by failing to teach them that hard times won’t break you if only you have the right state of mind on life — that there is a loving God — and no one will ever find a fulfilling or positive way of life by looking to The Government for answers and solutions. Our society stopped teaching the youth how to be strong and independent somewhere along the way, as the tyrant-wannabes persisted in teaching “everyone is a victim”; but the fact remains today, anyone can be a proud survivor of hard times, if only they persevere and never give-up and never give-in to defeat, choosing to ultimately succeed and live good, prosperous and happy lives."

Chet Raymo, “The Silence”

“The Silence”
by Chet Raymo

“The hiding places of my power
Seem open; I approach, and then they close;
I see by glimpses now; when age comes on,
May scarcely see at all, and I would give,
While yet we may, as far as words can give,
A substance and a life to what I feel…”

“These few lines from Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” leapt off the page at me. They capture well enough what my life has become. All those years of teaching, of writing in the Boston Globe, were years of sharing public knowledge, knowledge that had been vetted by the scientific community. The work was not about me. The teacher was me, the writer was me, but what I taught and wrote was reliable, consensus knowledge of the world. A student in my classes or a reader of my newspaper columns would have been hard pressed to know my politics or my religion or the nature of the questions that came in the darkest hours of the night. And that is the way it should have been; that was my homage to objectivity.

Those were valuable years, years of building up a sturdy polder in the sea of mystery, a place to stand with a firmness of foot. And now, in retirement, with time on my hands - and on my mind - I find myself more inclined to explore what Wordsworth called “the hiding places of my power.” I approach. They close. I touch with my hand the surface of the pond that Pat wrote about the other day; my hand comes out of the depths to meet me. I see by glimpses. It is, I suppose, a kind of forgetting. With the forgetting comes a certain freshness. My fingertip touches the surface of the world from above and from below, and concentric circles spread outwards, rippling, like a soundless sound, and I struggle, in words, as best I can, to give a substance and a life to what I feel.

This does not mean, I trust, that I am going soft, finding supernaturalist religion or getting all New Age squishy as “age comes on.” I keep my feet planted on solid fact and read my weekly “Science” and “Nature” along with my Wordsworth. No, it is rather a simple freedom to explore the hiding places, attending to private particulars as opposed to public universals, listening for the small voice that whispers from the nooks and crannies of yet unassimilated reality.

There is a passage in “The Prelude” where a young Boy (the poet?), standing in evening air by the glimmering lake, makes a mimic hooting with his hands to his mouth and the owls answer. Twooo-twooo. And the reply. Twooo-twooo. Then, unaccountably, the answers cease. And in the silence the boy becomes more keenly aware than ever of water, rocks, and woods, and mountain torrents, “that uncertain heaven, received into the bosom of the steady lake.” Thoreau has something similar. He rejoiced in owls; their hoot, he said, was a sound well suited to swamps and twilight woods. The interval between the hoots was a deepened silence, suggesting, to Thoreau, “a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized.” It is that that I now attend: the deepened silence between the hoots.”

"The Trouble With Most People..."

"Kaufman thought his public health students at the Kennesaw State University might know more than high schoolers. During the same week, he conducted an ad hoc survey in class, “How many of you believe the American dream is dead?” He asked his class of about 25 students. “Ninety percent raised their hands,” said Kaufman. “I was just blown away.”

He asked his college students what the American dream was. Not getting an answer, he defined it for them, “The American dream is, in this country, if you work hard, you sacrifice, and you never quit, you will find some type of success in your life.” After giving the students his definition, he tried again, “How many of you still believe the American dream is dead?” Still, 90 percent raised their hands.

“If you believe the American dream is dead in this country, why are you sitting in a college classroom?” he asked. The class was silent. Students looked shocked, and one said he hadn’t thought about that."
"Back when I taught at UCLA, I was constantly amazed at how little so many students knew. Finally, I could no longer restrain myself from asking a student the question that had long puzzled me: ''What were you doing for the last 12 years before you got here?''
- Thomas Sowell
"The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. 
The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think.
The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; 
he confuses it with feeling."
- Thomas Sowell
"The trouble with most people is that they think with their
hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds."
- Will Durant
"It takes considerable knowledge just to 
realize the extent of your own ignorance."
- Thomas Sowell

"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 polarized 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 challenge will be to escape the jar if you can. Find a location where the state of warfare is less pronounced, or if this is not possible, seek a location within the jar that’s away from the fray. Those who fall for the bait – who buy into rabidly supporting one political party or another, or who allow themselves to be angered at an entire race, or who are conned into hatred of an entire gender – will prove to be the greatest casualties of subjugation."

Gregory Mannarino, "The U.S. e-CON-omic Con Job Is Worsening Faster!"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/25/24
"The U.S. e-CON-omic Con Job Is Worsening Faster!"
Comments here:

"The Worst Of Them All..."

"Science may have found a cure for most evils,
but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -
the apathy of human beings."
- Author Unknown
"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass.  When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination - indeed, everything and anything except me."
- Ralph Ellison, "Prologue to Invisible Man"
Full screen recommended.
Phil Collins, "Another Day In Paradise"

The Daily "Near You?"

Concord, North Carolina, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"There's So Much More To Life..."

And there's so much more inner satisfaction than
enduring the relentlessly ongoing horror show of the world.
See the 3 posts below, explore other aspects of life.
Discover yourself...

"The Web Gallery of Art"

"The Web Gallery of Art"

"The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 52,800 reproductions. It was started in 1996 as a topical site of the Renaissance art, originated in the Italian city-states of the 14th century and spread to other countries in the 15th and 16th centuries. Intending to present Renaissance art as comprehensively as possible, the scope of the collection was later extended to show its Medieval roots as well as its evolution to Baroque and Rococo via Mannerism. More recently the periods of Neoclassicism and Romanticism were also included.

The collection has some of the characteristics of a virtual museum. The experience of the visitors is enhanced by guided tours helping to understand the artistic and historical relationship between different works and artists, by period music of choice in the background and a free postcard service. At the same time the collection serves the visitors' need for a site where various information on art, artists and history can be found together with corresponding pictorial illustrations. Although not a conventional one, the collection is a searchable database supplemented by a glossary containing articles on art terms, relevant historical events, personages, cities, museums and churches.

The Web Gallery of Art is intended to be a free resource of art history primarily for students and teachers. It is a private initiative not related to any museums or art institutions, and not supported financially by any state or corporate sponsors. However, we do our utmost, using authentic literature and advice from professionals, to ensure the quality and authenticity of the content.

We are convinced that such a collection of digital reproductions, containing a balanced mixture of interlinked visual and textual information, can serve multiple purposes. On one hand it can simply be a source of artistic enjoyment; a convenient alternative to visiting a distant museum, or an incentive to do just that. On the other hand, it can serve as a tool for public education both in schools and at home."
For those so inclined, this is a treasure trove of material. Enjoy!

"Luminarium"

"Luminarium"

“I have undertaken a labor, a labor out of love for the world, and to comfort noble hearts: those that I hold dear, and the world to which my heart goes out. Not the common world do I mean, of those who (as I have heard) cannot bear grief and desire but to bathe in bliss. (May God then let them dwell in bliss!) Their world and manner of life my tale does not regard: it's life and mine lie apart. Another world do I hold in mind, which bears together in one heart its bitter sweetness and its dear grief, its heart's delight and its pain of longing, dear life and sorrowful death, dear death and sorrowful life. In this world let me have my world, to be damned with it, or to be saved.” - Gottfried Von Strassburg


"A comprehensive anthology and guide to English literature of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Seventeenth Century, Restoration and Eighteenth Century. This site combines several sites first created in 1996 to provide a starting point for students and enthusiasts of English Literature. Nothing replaces a quality library, but hopefully this site will help fill the needs of those who have not access to one.

Luminarium is the labor of love of Anniina Jokinen. The site is not affiliated with any institution nor is it sponsored by anyone other than its maintainer and the contributions of its visitors through revenues from book sales via Amazon.com, poster sales via All Posters, and advertising via Google AdSense.

For all materials, authorities in a given subject are consulted. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, and The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English are some of the general reference works consulted for accuracy of dates and details. Many of the materials collected here reside elsewhere. Quality and accuracy are concerns, and all materials are checked regularly. However, "Luminarium" cannot be held responsible for materials residing on other sites. Corrections and suggestions for improvements are encouraged from the visitors.

The site started in early 1996. I remember looking for essays to spark an idea for a survey class I was taking at the time. It seemed that finding study materials online was prohibitively difficult and time-consuming - there was no all-encompassing site which could have assisted me in my search. I started the site as a public service, because I myself had to waste so much time as a student, trying to find anything useful or interesting. There were only a handful of sites back then (read: Internet Dark Ages) and I could spend hours on search engines, looking for just a few things. I realized I must not be the only one in the predicament and started a simple one-page site of links to Middle English Literature. That page was soon followed by a Renaissance site.

Gradually it became obvious that the number of resources was ungainly for such a simple design. It was then that the multi-page "Medlit" and "Renlit" pages were created, around July 1996. That structure is still the same today. In September 1996, I started creating the "Sevenlit" site, launched in November. I realized the need to somehow unite all three sites, and that led to the creation of Luminarium. I chose the name, which is Latin for "lantern," because I wanted the site to be a beacon of light in the darkness. It was also befitting for a site containing authors considered "luminaries" of English literature."

"Internet Sacred Text Archive"

"About Sacred Texts"

"All ancient books which have once been called sacred by man, will have their lasting place in the history of mankind, and those who possess the courage, the perseverance, and the self-denial of the true miner, and of the true scholar, will find even in the darkest and dustiest shafts what they are seeking for, - real nuggets of thought, and precious jewels of faith and hope."
- Max Müller, "Introduction to the Upanishads" Vol. II.

"This site is a freely available archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, where possible, in the original language. This site has no particular agenda other than promoting religious tolerance and scholarship. Views expressed at this site are solely those of specific authors, and are not endorsed by sacred-texts. Sacred-texts is not sponsored by any religious group or organzation.

Sacred texts went live on March 9th, 1999. The traffic started to increase when sacred-texts was listed at Yahoo! under 'Society and Religion|Texts'. In its first year of operation sacred-texts had about a quarter million hits. By 2004, it was receiving well over a quarter million hits per day. Today, site traffic often exceeds a million hits a day. Sacred texts is one of the top 20,000 sites on the web based on site traffic, consistently one of the top 10,000 sites in Australia, the US and India, and is one of the top 5 most visited general religion sites (source: Alexa.com).

The texts presented here are either original scans from books and articles clearly in the public domain, material which has been presented elsewhere on the Internet, or material included under fair use conditions in printed anthologies. Many of the texts included here were originally posted in ftp archives or on bulletin boards before the growth of the World Wide Web and have been lost. In some cases, the texts were posted in such a form as to make them unusable by non-technically oriented users. Some of these texts were on the web at some point but have completely disappeared because the site they were posted on has closed. Thus the need for an archive which organizes this material in a persistent location.

From the start, we have had a special focus on remedying the under-representation of traditional cultures on the Internet. The site has one of the largest collections of transcriptions of complete books on Native American, Pacific, African, Asian and other traditional people's religion, spiritual practices, mythology and folklore. While many of these pre-20th century books are flawed due to orientalist or colonialist biases, they are also eye-witness accounts by reliable observers, typically at the moment of contact. These texts are crucial to the study of tribal traditions, and in many cases, the only link with the past. Locked up in academic libraries for decades, sacred-texts has made them freely accessible anywhere in the world. We have scanned hundreds of books which have all been made freely accessible to the world. A comprehensive bibliography of the texts scanned at sacred texts is available here.

We welcome email regarding typographical or factual errors in any file at sacred-texts. Please write us if you spot an error; include the URL and a few lines of context so we can pin down the location. While all due care has been taken in the reproduction of the texts here, none of the texts or translations here are represented to be sanctioned by any particular religious body or institution. We welcome advice as to errors of fact or transcription.

Some of the material here may be copyrighted. It is our hope that the copyright holders may allow these texts to be posted here in the public interest. If you are the copyright holder of record of a text which you believe has been archived at this site in error, please contact us at the email address listed at the bottom of this page. We have made a good-faith effort to determine the provenance of each text and apologize if we have posted a text in error. Note: If you are requesting the removal of a file, you must be the copyright holder of the file, and you must specify the exact URL of the file.”
Fabulous, an absolute treasure trove! Enjoy!

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:

I highly recommend you explore this website:

"It'll Do..."

Deputy Wendell: "It's a mess, ain't it Sheriff?"
Sheriff Ed Tom Bell: "Well, if it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here."
- "No Country For Old Men"

Oh, the mess is here alright...and you ain't seen nothin' yet...
Brace for impact.
And if they act like this over a TV, 
what happens when there's no food?

"How It Really Is"

 

"Our National Migration Crisis Is Supercharging The Growth Of Homelessness All Over The United States"

"Our National Migration Crisis Is Supercharging
The Growth Of Homelessness All Over The United States"
by Michael Snyder

"Over the past three years, millions of migrants have come pouring into this country looking for a better life. They were promised that things would be so much better once they got here, but for so many of them that has turned out to be not true at all. There just aren’t enough resources to care for the vast number of migrants that are arriving, and as a result many quickly find themselves homeless. It is a tragedy of monumental proportions, and it is getting worse with each passing day.

Just look at what is happening to the city of Chicago. According to a new report that was just released, the homeless population in the Windy City tripled between January 2023 and January 2024…"The number of Chicagoans living in city shelters or on city streets tripled between January 2023 and January 2024, according to the annual survey used by federal officials to track homelessness, city officials announced Friday."

When your homeless population triples in a single year, you have a major problem on your hands. And please keep in mind that these are just the ones that they can actually find and count. Studies have shown that the real homeless population is often several times greater than official counts reveal.

According to this latest report, the migration crisis is the primary reason why the homeless population in Chicago is exploding…"The point-in-time count estimates the number of people in shelters, transitional housing, encampments and other “unsheltered” locations. The estimate noted the pressures the migrant crisis poses to the city. “Since August 2022, Chicago has welcomed over 40,000 New Arrivals arriving from the southern border, many of whom have needed shelter and services,” it said. “The largest increase in this year’s Shelter Count was due to the continued influx of New Arrivals to Chicago in 2023.”

When 40 people show up, it is easy to take care of them. When 40,000 people show up, that is another matter entirely. A similar thing is happening in San Antonio. One Catholic charity that cares for migrants says that it simply cannot keep up with the “huge increase” in migration that has occurred… A Catholic charity has said it can’t keep up with a “huge increase” of migrants entering San Antonio through the U.S.-Mexico border, who are now finding themselves on the streets.

Over the past several years, San Antonio has been completely transformed. According to official city data, a whopping 619,919 migrants have arrived in the city since January 2021… According to the city’s migrant dashboard, as of June 19, migrant arrivals since January 2021 have totaled 619,919. Those numbers peaked in November and December 2022, at 30,900 and 37,146, respectively."

For many, San Antonio is not the final destination. But there are others that have ended up stuck in the city because they literally have nowhere else to go… “I can tell you we have seen a huge increase of people in the streets, so we have our mobile units go around like south side, west side, places we usually give out food to the homeless people, we’re having now an increase in people coming to the food pantry and our mobile unit who are from Venezuela,” said Fernandez. With no place to sleep and no money for a bus or plane ticket, Fernandez said many of these migrants are out on the streets, adding to the homeless population Catholic Charities already serves.

We should all be greatly saddened by what we are witnessing. So much of this suffering could have been easily avoided if our politicians had made different decisions.

At one shelter in Los Angeles, it is being estimated that migrants now account for about 90 percent of the people that are being served… “We’re mainly serving people that come from other countries like Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua,” said Salvador Mendoza, the shelter’s lead case manager. “I will say yeah, 90%.” The bulk of the shelter’s residents are now asylum seekers who’ve arrived in the U.S. in the past several months, he said. Most are from Venezuela. Some came on buses from Texas; others made it to L.A. themselves, some after being initially bused elsewhere. Many had plans to stay with acquaintances, relatives or other sponsors, but those plans fell through.

“So they come to this cruel reality, you know, of not being able to find a job, not being able to have a roof over their head, not knowing the language, not knowing where to go, what to do, so their only option is just being on the street,” Mendoza said.

Some cities have decided that the solution to the migrant crisis is to simply ship migrants somewhere else. Recently, reports that Denver was shipping large numbers of migrants to Salt Lake City caused a tremendous uproar…"News that the city of Denver was covering the transportation costs of some immigrants to travel from the Colorado capital to Salt Lake City caused an uproar last Friday. Denver, also overwhelmed by an immigrant influx, has also covered the cost of transporting immigrants to Chicago and New York City, which actually received a larger influx than Salt Lake City, according to a report last February by Denverite, a Colorado publication.

Cox called Denver’s practice “completely unacceptable” and said Utah resources “are completely depleted.” Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County officials also said the situation has stressed their ability to contend with the housing and other needs of the immigrants, which led to the alert, published in both Spanish and English."

Denver is absolutely overwhelmed by migrants. But so is Salt Lake City. And so is Chicago. And so is New York City. Transporting them from city to city isn’t going to solve anything. But many local politicians feel like they have to do something because of all the social problems that are erupting.

In the Big Apple, there has been a lot of violence and crime, and that includes one recent incident that involved two police officers…"A mob of migrants are facing gang assault charges after allegedly pummeling two NYPD cops outside a Queens hotel shelter, prosecutors and law enforcement sources said Tuesday. Four men were busted after they attacked two of New York’s Finest shortly before 4:30 a.m. Monday as the cops were checking on three unattended children outside the converted Long Island City hotel that now houses asylum seekers, according to authorities. When they asked about the unsupervised kids the men allegedly pounced on them."

As I have been relentlessly warning my readers, a tremendous amount of social unrest is in our future, and adding millions of extremely desperate migrants to the equation is only going to make things even worse.

We depend upon our politicians in Washington to make common sense decisions, and they have completely and utterly failed us. Now major cities all over the nation are being absolutely overwhelmed by deeply suffering people, and that is a reality that should greatly sadden every single one of us."
o

Bill Bonner, "The Aging of Empire"

"The Aging of Empire"
Since 1999, too, US government debt has risen by $30 trillion,
while the dollar - compared to gold - has lost nearly 90% of its value.
by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - "Let's go over what we think we know. There are deep patterns in nature. They are not perfectly reproducible or predictable, but they are there. We don’t know exactly when or how we will die, for example, but we wouldn’t bet against it.

The stock and bond markets follow long patterns too. From high to low, low to high, often over many decades... we call it the Primary Trend. In the bond market, for example, bonds hit a high in the late 1940s. The next epochal high did not come until 2020 - almost 80 years later. Stock market highs, meanwhile, came in 1929... again in 1966... and most recently, in 2021.

Of course, we don’t know until later if these latest highs were the ultimate highs. Years go by, and it may still be uncertain. But in the bond market, it seems very unlikely that prices will hit their 2020 highs again in our lifetimes. In the stock market, on the other hand, prices have gone up... even surpassing their 2021 levels. What to make of it?

No Recovery: First, the picture is fuzzed by inflation. Nominal prices (in current dollars) have hit new highs. But the dollar has lost about 20% of its value since 2020. So, in real terms - adjusted to inflation - stock market prices have still not recovered.

There is also something very funny going on in the stock market. While a handful of tech wunderkind are hitting incredible new highs, most stocks are not. The Wall Street Journal: "The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies is down 17% from its November 2021 peak and has made no progress at all this year. In the S&P 500, which includes the biggest companies, the average stock is about where it was at the start of 2022, and more than half of the current constituents are down since then. Worse still, only 198 have managed gains this month, even as the index reached new intraday highs on 11 out of 13 trading days."

Our old friend, Chris Mayer, adds this comment: "It's been a strange year in the market: S&P is up 15% YTD, but that's mostly because of Nvidia and a couple of other tech giants. Most stocks have gone nowhere this year. At Woodlock House [Chris’s investment fund], we're up about 5% YTD. My competitive instincts don't like being so far behind the S&P but I think the S&P will have some problems with these over-valued, over-hyped tech stocks in the next few years. We will stay the course!"

Nvidia has gone up 30,000% over the last ten years. That’s something else we’ve learned... that investors can become ‘irrationally exuberant’ from time to time. Nvidia is now thought to be worth $3.3 trillion. But it is almost impossible that the company could ever earn enough money to justify that price. Yes, the company is growing fast. But its stock price is growing much faster. Either the sales pick up... or the stock price falls. Most likely, it will be the latter.

We’ve also looked at US markets as part of a larger pattern - that of empires. Just as we can never be sure where we are in the patterns of the Primary Trend, there is even more doubt about the empire. We know it will end, but we never know exactly where we are in the cycle.

And that picture, too, gets fuzzed by our own perceptions. People come to think what they need to think when they need to think it. Investors now believe Nvidia’s price - however absurdly high it is - will go higher. So must Americans come to see themselves as citizens of a great empire, destined to rule forever not merely over the 50 states... but over Ukraine and the South China Sea. Both thoughts set them up for big losses.

Led to Decline - Our guess is that the top for the US empire came right around the turn of the century. In gold terms, that was when stocks topped out - at more than forty ounces to the Dow. Now - again, measured in ounces of gold - the best of America’s public companies are worth only about half of what they were then. Since 1999, too, US government debt has risen by $30 trillion, while the dollar - compared to gold - has lost nearly 90% of its value.

If empires must decline, they must find the leaders who can help them do it. In that regard, the 21st century has blessed the US with the jefes it needed. George W. Bush did not have to squander $8 trillion on a silly ‘war against terror.’ Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke did not have to distort the whole economy, after the mortgage finance crisis of ’08, with bailouts for Wall Street and ultra-low interest rates for a decade. Donald Trump did not have to panic when the Covid virus appeared... and he and Joe Biden did not have to blow up the empire’s finances with another $15 trillion in pointless debt. These policy choices were almost preternaturally dumb. But they - like a lit cigarette at a gas pump - were just what the aging empire needed.

And here, with today’s final word, is the New York Post: "Pay up, America: Each of us owes $100K as national debt balloons to $35 trillion." Biden administration officials don’t care. They want to spend more. Already they are spending so much that they’re increasing our debt by a  trillion dollars every 100 days. President Donald Trump was no better: His administration increased our debt by almost $8 trillion. This will not end well. More to come..."

Dan, I Allegedly, "Are You Ready for AI and Bad Service?"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 6/25/24
"Are You Ready for AI and Bad Service?"
"Artificial intelligence is all around us. We’re supposed to believe that this is going to change everything for the better. Self-service and automation are taking over, and I'm not sure we're ready for it yet. From my frustrating experience with Taco Bell's new AI chatbot to the shocking announcement that 400 Taco Bell locations will no longer have indoor dining, this episode covers it all. Labor costs are driving these changes, but the customer service is suffering big time. Imagine getting your order wrong and not being able to walk inside to fix it! Plus, it's not just Taco Bell - big names like Home Depot and Walmart are also jumping on the AI bandwagon. The implications for customer service are scary."
Comments here:

Monday, June 24, 2024

"WTF Alert! Russia Downs 'US Drone'?! NATO Attacks Russia, Nuclear Radars Attacked Again!"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 6/24/24
"WTF Alert! Russia Downs 'US Drone'?! 
NATO Attacks Russia, Nuclear Radars Attacked Again!"
Comments here:

Jeremiah Babe, "Hacking Group Hits Federal Reserve (Banking Secrets At Risk)"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/24/24
"Hacking Group Hits Federal Reserve 
(Banking Secrets At Risk)"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Shadows In The Wood"; "Footprints On The Sea"

 

Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Shadows In The Wood"
Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Do you see the bat? It haunts this cosmic close-up of the eastern Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, the expanding debris cloud from the death explosion of a massive star. While the Veil is roughly circular in shape and covers nearly 3 degrees on the sky toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus), NGC 6995, known informally as the Bat Nebula, spans only 1/2 degree, about the apparent size of the Moon. That translates to 12 light-years at the Veil's estimated distance, a reassuring 1,400 light-years from planet Earth. 
In the composite of image data recorded through narrow band filters, emission from hydrogen atoms in the remnant is shown in red with strong emission from oxygen atoms shown in hues of blue. Of course, in the western part of the Veil lies another seasonal apparition: the Witch's Broom Nebula."