"Searching for Home"

"Searching for Home"

by Bill Bonner

"This Ole House"

"This old house once knew my children,

This old house once knew my wife.

This old house was home and comfort

As we fought the storms of life.

This old house once rang with laughter,

This old house knew many shouts,

Now she trembles in the darkness

When the lightning walks about.

Ain't gonna need this house no longer,

Ain't gonna need this house no more,

Ain't got time to fix the shingles,

Ain't got time to fix the floor.

Ain't got time to oil the hinges,

Nor to mend the window pane,

Ain't gonna need this house no longer

I'm getting ready to meet the saints.

This old house is getting shaky,

This old house is getting old,

This old house lets in the rain and

This old house lets in the cold.

My old knees are getting chilly,

But I feel no fear or pain,

'Cause I see an angel peeping through

The broken window pane.

Ain't gonna need this house no longer,

Ain't gonna need this house no more,

Ain't got time to fix the shingles,

Ain't got time to fix the floor.

Ain't got time to oil the hinges,

Nor to mend the window pane,

Ain't gonna need this house no longer

I'm getting ready to meet the saints.

This old house is afraid of thunder,

This old house is afraid of storms.

This old house just groans and trembles

As the lightning flings its arms.

This old house is getting feeble,

And it needs a coat of paint,

Just like me it's tuckered out

I'm getting ready to meet the saints.

Ain't gonna need this house no longer,

Ain't gonna need this house no more,

Ain't got time to fix the shingles,

Ain't got time to fix the floor.

Ain't got time to oil the hinges,

Nor to mend the window pane.

Ain't gonna need this house no longer

I'm getting ready to meet the saints.

Ain't gonna need this house no longer

I'm getting ready to meet the saints."

–  by Stuart Hamblen, 1954


POITOU, FRANCE – “Our family lived here for more than 200 years,” the young woman explained. She was a great-niece of the woman from whom we bought the place. Attractive, polite… blond and slight, she just walked in through the front gate and introduced herself. “I never lived here, but my father and grandfather talk about it all the time. It was their home.” We gave her a little tour yesterday.

Downsizing: Word comes this morning that Elon Musk, sometimes the world’s richest man, sold his many lavish mansions and now lives in a tiny, $50,000, pre-fab house. Mr. Musk is, of course, a phenomenon. Founder of several billion-dollar companies (the best known, Tesla)… married three times (twice to the same woman)… already father to five boys from his first marriage and now having children with his current partner… he is probably not a good illustration of anything.That is, he is sui generis – like a man with three buttocks – an example of only one thing: himself.

Last year, Musk vowed to “sell almost all physical possessions.” We spent last week exploring the trend. Transitory. Transactional. The “subscription” economy. In the future, says the World Economic Forum, “we will own nothing… and we will be happy.” Today, we neither propose nor anticipate a countertrend. Instead, we write in elegiac mode, not about what lies ahead, but about what is being left behind…

Beating Heart: This weekend, we tidied up our workshop after years of neglect. A man’s workshop, like a woman’s diary, is where he has most control over his thoughts. In his atelier, if nowhere else, he is boss. He can hammer, screw, bend, cut… all the things he might like to do elsewhere, but civilization and good sense hold him back.

His workshop, too, is where he keeps his whatchamacallits and thingamajigs… ready to plug the leaks, charge the batteries, and restore order to the cabinet doors. It is his command center… the beating heart of the home. It is where he can think most clearly. And more importantly, he doesn’t have to.

Bill’s workshop at his house in France.

A workshop implies not just a house, but a home. It is not just something you live in, but something you take care of… something you share your life with. A house may be transitory, but a home is permanent.

Finding a Home: Our house here in France was a wreck when we found it in 1994. It had little functioning heating, plumbing, or electricity when we moved in. But it had a workshop. And we were young and full of energy. We spent the next 18 years fixing up the house.

We left our home in Maryland to explore the world. We wanted to know how others lived. We wanted to see things… do business… learn languages and foreign customs… go places. As soon as we were able, we went… and this was one of the first places we went to. It was here that we raised our children. Even when we were living and working in Paris and London, we still came here for weekends and holidays…This was home.

Moving On: But we couldn’t stay. There was more to discover. More places to go. More things to do. The children left France for college in America. We had to move, too… but we didn’t entirely move on. We left France, but kept the house. One son, who now lives in Paris, comes down periodically to check on things. But mostly, the house sits and waits. Doors locked. Shutters closed. Furniture covered with sheets to keep the cobwebs off. Like a faithful hound at the gate, it watches the road… looking for our return.

Home Again: And then, when we finally get here, it welcomes us with shutters and windows thrown open and a warm gush of summer air…In a matter of minutes, the old house comes back to life… It is home again. And then, we go to work… just as we did more than a quarter of a century ago. For now, after so many years, it is time to repaint the woodwork… repair the cracks… oil the hinges… and fix the roof.

An ancient relative of ours used to refer to the homeplace as “the family stronghold.” There was a time when houses were fortified against marauders and brigands. Later, the family stronghold became where you started out… and where you retreated to when you were down on your luck or needed a rest. Out in the country, big houses became centers of industry, where teams of people – men, women, and children – worked together to bring in the crops.

Friends of ours in Ireland live in the oldest continually inhabited house on the island. Surrounded by thick, stone walls, it was built for safety. Now, it presides over a large farm… and is used as a venue for music festivals.

Changing Times: Times change. Stone walls don’t offer the protection they once did. And farm life no longer requires so many people. Today, young people leave… and the old farmers spend the days alone in their air-conditioned cabs. The old houses need upkeep. And not everyone enjoys scraping paint on his holidays. The next generations make their lives in distant cities. Instead of coming back to the homeplace for vacations, they go skiing.

There are old homes in America, too. A family friend had a certificate on his wall. It congratulated him for keeping the Maryland farm in the same family since the time of the Revolution. Our friend had lived all over the world; he was an army lawyer, who played a key role in the Nuremberg trials. But when he retired, he came home to run the family farm. He died a few years later. By then, his five daughters had departed for careers in New York, San Francisco, and even Moscow. None of them wanted the farm. It was a burden. They sold it… and the old farmhouse burned down in mysterious circumstances soon after.

More to come… No, not all memories of home are happy ones."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"How It Really Is"

"Time To Get Off The Couch, Americans"

"Time To Get Off The Couch, Americans"

by Michael Reagan

"Yesterday I went to my urologist for one of my regular checkups. I’ll spare you the medical details, but my trip to the doctor gave me a quick lesson in why there are still millions of Americans who are not returning to their jobs.

What normally happens at the urologist’s office is that after I pee in a bottle, a staffer or assistant takes my blood pressure, draws a sample of my blood and does an ultrasound on my bladder. Then the doctor himself comes in, we have a quick conversation, he inspects me, tells me I’m fine and I’m out the door. But yesterday, no one took my blood pressure or gave me an ultrasound. When I asked the doctor why that was, he said, “We don’t have the help anymore. We’re so shorthanded we can’t do all the normal things.” The clinic was understaffed because its workers can “earn” more sitting on their butts opening state and federal unemployment checks than they could if they returned to their jobs.

If you recall, starting at the end of March 2020, the Trump administration’s $2.2 trillion Cares Act included $600 a week for Americans who lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 lockdowns. Added to existing state unemployment benefits, millions of restaurant workers, retail workers and even part-time Uber drivers found themselves on easy-chair street.

This March Biden’s American Rescue Plan cut the unemployment relief check to $300 a week, but his regime kept the generous federal gravy train running until Sept. 4. Given the way everyone’s talking about lockdowns again because of the delta variant, don’t be surprised if those $300 checks keep coming till Christmas.

What was so sad, my urologist said, is that despite having no patients during the early days of the pandemic, his medical group decided to stay open so its employees would have a paycheck. “Then one day the federal government decided to send checks to them,” he said, “and they went home – and never came back.”

You wonder why those federal employment numbers keep coming in lower than expected while so many restaurants and small businesses are clamoring for workers? To put it simply, people are being paid too well by the feds not to work. It’s not that they can’t find a job. Every storefront in America has a “Help Wanted” or “Hiring for All Positions” sign in its window. They just can’t get their backsides off the couch – if they’re actually at home.

A lot of unemployed Americans apparently are in Vegas, which is so crowded you can’t find a hotel room and the average wait for an Uber is more than half an hour. Restaurants everywhere are really hurting because no one wants to take a pay cut and go back to work.

This week I saw the owner of a restaurant in New York crying on TV that he was so short of help he had to clean the toilets himself. And now in New York City and LA they're saying no one will be allowed to eat indoors unless they can prove they’ve had a COVID shot. The health Nazis in charge want restaurants to start checking people at the door to make sure their vaccination papers are in order.

So who does Mayor De Blasio actually think will fill those new doorman jobs, the chef, the bartender or the restaurant owner? I guarantee whoever thought up that stupid idea never gave a second’s thought to how it would affect the restaurants in New York City that already are understaffed and barely breathing. If I ran a restaurant in LA, I’d go straight to the Southern border and hire a dozen illegal aliens – and I guarantee you they’d be happy to go to work. I’d rather hire someone who walked here from Central America than some lazy American who won't get off their couch."

- https://www.cagle.com/

"Danger, Cover Blowing"

"Danger, Cover Blowing"

by Jim Kunstler

"Of all the inane ideas shoved down the nation’s craw lo these years of the Covid-19 virus, “stop the spread” was surely the worst. For one thing, it was impossible, as in not going to happen no way, because the gift from Dr. Anthony Fauci & Associates spread anyway, despite all attempts to hide from it via lockdowns, or social distancing, or the wearing of face masks. All that accomplished was to destroy 40 percent of the small businesses in America.

Viruses will spread, especially viruses that are new to a population’s immune systems, because that’s what they do, and eventually they burn out. It’s as simple as that. But our current unsound psychological state of collective techno-narcissism made it easy for the public health authorities to put over the next stupid idea: that a miraculous vaccine could be engineered at “warp speed” to defeat the spread of Covid-19, a virus with a strikingly low death rate. Sunday, August 8, 171 people died of it in the USA, for a seven-day average of 516 deaths (stats from The New York Times), out of 330-plus-million citizens, and Gawd knows how many others here illegally. This has been termed “a surge.”

Speaking of people here illegally, the same government officials who bemoan the new “surge” in virus cases are the very ones deliberately allowing an unchecked surge of border-jumpers from all corners of the world to enter the USA from Mexico, many of them infected with new strains of Covid-19. And, if that wasn’t fiendish enough, the regime is putting them on airplanes and buses to towns all over America like fifty-thousand Typhoid Marys. That is, the federal government is doing all it can to worsen the spread of new strains of Covid-19.

This is the same outfit, under “Joe Biden,” that is making noises about a national vaccine mandate, for vaccines that are not actually vaccines, strictly speaking. We just call them that to reinforce our techno-narcissistic faith in miracle cures. After eight months of experimenting with these biochemical cocktails, there is very good reason to believe that they are unsafe, especially the latent effects of their main active ingredient, the spike protein, which can insidiously induce damage to blood vessels. No, thank you.

This was on top of the proposition that attempting mass “vaccinations” at the height of an epidemic accelerates the evolution of variant viruses via antibody dependent enhancement in those vaccinated, causing the virus to become more infectious and replicate at higher levels - which has happened in every other coronavirus vaccine development program ever attempted - while the efficacy of the vaccines wanes over a few months’ time.

Could you paint a picture of a greater public health policy fiasco? Really, the emerging questions about all this must be: 1) Have they done it on purpose? And 2) Is all the messaging confusion the result of Dr. Anthony Fauci desperately trying to cover his ass for his role in developing Covid-19, as well as the so-called vaccines marshaled to heroically defeat it? Perhaps both.

You could construct a case that it was done on-purpose and, in this age of manufactured narratives, some have proposed the story that the disease was a mere excuse to introduce a slow-working lethal pseudo-vaccine to reduce the global population efficiently and drastically - so that nefarious “elites” could enjoy life (and its immortal transhuman successor state) on a planet uncluttered by billions of human riffraff.

That story has seemed pretty preposterous to me. More likely, the hyper-ambitious and heedless Dr. Fauci just got in too deep with China’s PLA-connected bioweapons lab in his mad scientist quest to be remembered as the man who defeated all coronaviruses with a single silver bullet - enabling a “release” of this virus, with (from China’s point of view) the advantageous weakening of Western economies, and the socio-political destruction of their once-cohesive cultures. If so, well done!

At this point, at least half the country now distrusts and disbelieves the incoherent messages emanating from “Joe Biden’s” government about this Covid-19 problem and any attempt to force vaccinations on the “hesitant” public will pull the pin out of the national grenade that has been waiting to go off. The “insurrection” next time will be the real thing, not Nancy Pelosi’s faked-up soap opera.

It’s also possible that the hyped “delta surge,” and all the threats prompted by it, are just a manufactured distraction from the slow-moving train-wreck of “the most secure election in US history” narrative as actual proof emerges of, yes, widespread fraud in 2020. Who would be surprised, by the way, if our friendly, local Intel Community wasn’t somehow behind all of that, both the election fraud and the distractions - and especially the management of the news about it that people get from TV-land and the remaining major newspapers?

All the pieces in the story are flying apart: the virus, the election, the border debacle, the Woke race hustle, the fiscal lunacy, the contrived sexual derangement, the captive news media… All recent US history is starting to look like one big comprehensive fraud by forces seeking to wreck the country. The tension arising from that startling state-of-affairs is finally primed to begin resolving itself. The release could be dangerous."

- https://kunstler.com/

"Economic Market Snapshot PM 8/9/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot PM 8/9/21"

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

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

- John Maynard Keynes

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

Only the consequences are real - to you!

Your guide:

Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/9/21:

"Critical Market Updates! 

WATCH FOR A F@LSE FL@G EVENT!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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

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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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MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

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

CNN Market Data:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

CNN Fear And Greed Index:

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

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

August 9th to 11th, Updated Daily

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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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Daily Job Cuts

- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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And now, the End Game...

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Oh yeah...

"Shipping Crisis And Container Shortage Push Freight Rates From China To Skyrocket By 200 Percent"

Full screen recommended.

"Shipping Crisis And Container Shortage Push Freight 

Rates From China To Skyrocket By 200 Percent"

by Epic Economist

"Having already scaled all-time highs, shipping costs hit another record high this week as the fast spread of the Delta variant across several countries has added to the upward price pressure by slowing global container turnaround rates. Last week, devastating floods ravaged China's southern coast, which also contributed to the worsening of the crisis that is affecting the world’s most important method for moving everything from appliances and furniture to car parts and electronics. “These factors have turned global container shipping into a highly disrupted, under-supplied seller’s market, in which shipping companies can charge four to ten times the normal price to move cargoes,” as explained by Philip Damas, Managing Director at maritime consultancy firm Drewry. “We have not seen this in shipping for more than 30 years,” he added, revealing that he expects the "extreme rates” to last until Chinese New Year in 2022.

According to Reuters, the soaring container prices have resulted in higher charter rates for container vessels, which pushed shipping firms to prioritize service on the most lucrative routes. “Ships can only be profitably operated in the trades where freight rates are higher, and that is why capacity is shifting mostly to the U.S.,” outlined Tan Hua Joo, executive consultant at research consultancy Alphaliner. The sharp rate increase is a reflection of a series of disruptions that started to happen ever since the health crisis pushed the global economy to the brink in early 2020 and sparked huge changes to the flows of goods and healthcare equipment around the globe.

When new virus cases were detected at Yantian Port in late May, that key export center halted its operations by 70% for most of June. Similar disruptions are likely to occur in the coming weeks, while shipyards might soon see their delivery schedules come under extra pressure if any stricter lockdown measures are put in place. With the latest weekly update of container shipping rates showing that there's no drop in sight for prices, the Delta variant is a new threat that can send already sky-high prices into orbit. Right now, most Chinese ports are now requiring all crew to be tested, with vessels forced to remain at anchor until negative results are confirmed, and requiring ships to remain in isolation for 14-28 days if they are coming from India or changed crew within less than 14 days of arriving. Meanwhile, according to a report from Braemar ACM released this week, for freight markets, the restrictions mean there will be more "delays at ports as authorities screen crews of incoming vessels and a hit to China’s oil demand if widespread lockdowns are imposed".

The head of the consultancy firm Shipping Strategy, recently warned that “if those lockdowns include coastal regions, key ports, and logistics centers, then globalized supply chains will become chaotic". At this point, chaos has already become a constant factor in the U.S. supply chains, and the aggravation of the shipping crisis is remarkably burdening the economy. Recent reports show that shipping a container of hazardous chemicals from Shanghai to Chicago previously cost about $6,600. In recent days, John Logue, the Royale Group chief executive, revealed that he pays as much as $29,000 - and that's if he is lucky enough to find much-sought-after cargo vessel space plying the Pacific trade routes.

The freight troubles faced by the Royale Group, which compromise both existing operations and efforts to increase manufacturing in the United States, illustrate the market power of a handful of shipping companies and railroads that transport goods from distant factories to American homes. U.S. consumers are currently feeling the impact of stressed supply lines, but the worse is yet to come.

Several U.S. companies are in deep distress due to transportation problems. Unfortunately, no one in the industry expects any kind of relief until well into 2022. In the meantime, supply chain issues and shipping prices continue to weigh on inflation forecasts and rates. All of these factors are a clear sign that as opposed to what the Federal Reserve persistently affirms, inflationary pressures are not at all transitory. Even Deutsche Bank analysts recently said that due to the current policies, higher prices will persist for much longer than people expect. “We worry that inflation will make a comeback," it said, adding that “it is a scary thought that just as inflation is being deprioritized, fiscal and monetary policy is being co-ordinated in ways the world has never seen". With so many strains in global trade, disrupted supply chains, surging shipping costs, and more notably, the lack of effective policies to fight inflation, the price of products can only head in one direction: upwards. So we should all brace for astronomical price increases in the coming months as the global shipping crisis continues to go from bad to worse."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, “Night Light”

Liquid Mind, “Night Light”

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The most distant object easily visible to the eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy some two and a half million light-years away. But without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy - spanning over 200,000 light years - appears as a faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda. In contrast, details of a bright yellow nucleus and dark winding dust lanes, are revealed in this digital telescopic image. 

Narrow band image data recording emission from hydrogen atoms, shows off the reddish star-forming regions dotting gorgeous blue spiral arms and young star clusters. While even casual skygazers are now inspired by the knowledge that there are many distant galaxies like M31, astronomers seriously debated this fundamental concept in the 20th century. Were these "spiral nebulae" simply outlying components of our own Milky Way Galaxy or were they instead "island universes" - distant systems of stars comparable to the Milky Way itself? This question was central to the famous Shapley-Curtis debate of 1920, which was later resolved by observations of M31 in favor of Andromeda, island universe.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100109.html

Chet Raymo, "On Saying 'I Don't Know'"

"On Saying 'I Don't Know'"

by Chet Raymo

“Johannes Kepler is best known for figuring out the laws of planetary motion. In 1610, he published a little book called “The Six-Cornered Snowflake” that asked an even more fundamental question: How do visible forms arise? He wrote: "There must be some definite reason why, whenever snow begins to fall, its initial formation is invariably in the shape of a six-pointed starlet. For if it happens by chance, why do they not fall just as well with five corners or with seven?"

All around him Kepler saw beautiful shapes in nature: six-pointed snowflakes, the elliptical orbits of the planets, the hexagonal honeycombs of bees, the twelve-sided shape of pomegranate seeds. Why? he asks. Why does the stuff of the universe arrange itself into five-petaled flowers, spiral galaxies, double-helix DNA, rhomboid crystals, the rainbow's arc? Why the five-fingered, five-toed, bilaterally symmetric beauty of the newborn child? Why?

Kepler struggles with the problem, and along the way he stumbles onto sphere-packing. Why do pomegranate seeds have twelve flat sides? Because in the growing pomegranate fruit the seeds are squeezed into the smallest possible space. Start with spherical seeds, pack them as efficiently as possible with each sphere touching twelve neighbors. Then squeeze. Voila! And so he goes, convincing us, for example, that the bee's honeycomb has six sides because that's the way to make honey cells with the least amount of wax. His book is a tour-de-force of playful mathematics.

In the end, Kepler admits defeat in understanding the snowflake's six points, but he thinks he knows what's behind all of the beautiful forms of nature: A universal spirit pervading and shaping everything that exists. He calls it nature's "formative capacity." We would be inclined to say that Kepler was just giving a fancy name to something he couldn't explain. To the modern mind, "formative capacity" sounds like empty words.

We can do somewhat better. For example, we explain the shape of snowflakes by the shape of water molecules, and we explain the shape of water molecules with the mathematical laws of quantum physics. Since Kepler's time, we have made impressive progress towards understanding the visible forms of snowflakes, crystals, rainbows, and newborn babes by probing ever deeper into the heart of matter. But we are probably no closer than Kepler to answering the ultimate questions: What is the reason for the curious connection between nature and mathematics? Why are the mathematical laws of nature one thing rather than another? Why does the universe exist at all? Like Kepler, we can give it a name, but the most forthright answer is simply: I don't know.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Kinsman, Ohio, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

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 spirit’s 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 grief’s 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)

“Societal Collapse”

“Societal Collapse”

by Hardscrabble Farmer

“Anyone interested in understanding the mechanics of human history must first and foremost understand the cycles of Nature and the nature of living things. There exists a balance in every closed system; creation and dissolution, growth and decay, life and death. There is no escape from this dynamic, no means by which one can exist without the other. Sometimes societies ascend, but eventually, over time, they collapse.

For a very long time America has benefited from exploiting the reserves of other nations – their labor, their resources, and their environments in a form of cultural strip mining. It has given the appearance of a sustainable system that required no effort to store surpluses or to build reserves for the future. There has been a perpetual live for the moment feel to our experience that was based on such illusory systems as credit and fiat.

These things are not real. They are manifest realities, things that exist only because a critical mass of people agree to believe in them rather than what is reflected by actuality. When such time occurs that a large enough number of people abandon their participation in that system, reality rushes in to the void left behind.

A large part of what we are seeing – as described to us by experts or media – is occult in nature, hidden not by design or subterfuge, but due to the ignorance or stupidity of the mass of men. They no longer recognize that a large part of what is taking place on the streets of cities like Portland and Minneapolis is simply a mating ritual for a generation that was so atomized and dissolute that they had no opportunity to make real life connections with the opposite sex except through electronic devices. Living beings cannot - despite the assurances of the Musks and Weils - exist by proxy.

They must eat, sleep, perform some activity during their waking hours, seek companionship, etc. These drives can be sublimated or suppressed either by societal controls or chemical dependencies, but they cannot be removed from our core drive. This is what happens when humans are thwarted from fulfilling their animal destinies – the drives of their particular species. If you eliminate the family, you do not stop fornication. If you eradicate healthy foods and a connection to its production, you do not eliminate hunger. Thus the dramatic rise in obesity and the ubiquity of pornography.

Everything exists in context, there is no way to eliminate the void left behind in a fatherless home without a corresponding flow of the feminine. A mind that has no reason will seek to replace it with an equal measure of emotion.

The Western Cultural experience that gained prominence and near global hegemony over the past several centuries is in terminal decline, accelerated by the opportunistic interference of competing cultural spheres, but predominantly by its own senescence. We are, in short, spent. What we are seeing is not a political or ideological struggle – again, manifest realities – but the natural process of a cultural expiration. The West is dying and with it all of the ideals and symbols that were attached to its rise.

Just as an elderly family member in their last days makes a point to give away their possessions, America is passing its treasures on; freedom of speech, the iconic symbols of Manifest Destiny like the statues of its heroes, even its own birthright to the rising of a new cultural expression, one that is less concerned with things like honor, nobility, truth and justice. None of those things exist in Nature, but rather are created and used like iron tools to achieve an end. Now that its energy is spent they serve no purpose, especially to the multitudes of others who share a far more dynamic and exuberant expression of collective identity.

This is a natural event, no different from a forest fire, but one which applies to the human species specifically. This is how we clear the ground for whatever is to replace us and we will serve as its fertilizer.”

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"I'm Watching The Economy Collapse Daily; Americans Living Off Credit Cards; Stop Making Excuses"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/8/21:

"I'm Watching The Economy Collapse Daily; 

Americans Living Off Credit Cards; Stop Making Excuses"

"How It Really Is"

"When Things Fall Apart"

"Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don'tknow what's really going to happen. When we think something is going to give us misery, we don't know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all."

-  Pema Chodron, "When Things Fall Apart"

Gregory Mannarino, 8/8/21: “Markets, A Look Ahead: Expect An EPIC Week”

Full screen recommended.

Gregory Mannarino, 8/8/21:

“Markets, A Look Ahead: Expect An EPIC Week”

-https://traderschoice.net/

Greg Hunter, "2020 Election Biggest Crime & Cover-Up Ever"

"2020 Election Biggest Crime & Cover-Up Ever"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell has spent $17 million of his own money documenting and uncovering what he calls nationwide election fraud that happened in the November 3, 2020 election. This does not count all the money he has lost being kicked out of national chains selling his products. Lindell says, “I don’t care how much money it costs because if we don’t get the election fraud stopped, I won’t have a business anyway.” In Lindell’s ongoing attempt to shine a light on the fraud is his upcoming “Cyber Symposium.” It’s a 72 hour non-stop marathon next week August 10 – 12 on FrankSpeech.com. There’s a lot on the line, and Lindell explains, “This has been the biggest cover-up in history for the biggest crime ever. How did they disguise it? Let’s just look at Wisconsin and Michigan. All those mail-in votes went to Biden. That’s a lie. The mail-in votes were counted on the morning of the 3rd. They were the first votes counted. In Pennsylvania they added 700,000 to the mail-in votes. We checked with the U.S. Post office over there, and none of them went through the Post Office. They were able to manipulate all this with the machines and the computers. We are going to show all of that. It’s a miracle that they got this to me. We have all the data, and not just some. I have done this for months going over all this with lawyers and cyber experts.”

Lindell goes on to say, “Some of the biggest cyber-attacks came in California, Washington State and Oregon. Everyone says they are solid blue, they are solid blue. No, that’s not true. There are massive votes there that you can just flip, and you can make it look like Biden won by such a huge amount, then why even bother to audit. There is no way they cheated by 6 million votes. Yes, they did because you can use machines. The real totals are going to come in, and its 80 million votes for Trump to around 68 million for Biden. The cheating was in every state. The media, who attacks me every day, is going to go away. They should just start doing journalism again. This is the biggest story in the world. We have been attacked by a foreign country - China. Even my Democrat friends say there is something wrong, and this is not what they voted for. There were domestic people helping them. There were bad actors here helping China. They did not do this alone. You need to melt these machines down and turn them into prison bars because we are going to need to put a lot of people behind bars. These are traitors and people who committed treason who helped China attack our country.”

Lindell, who was a long time FOX News favorite, found out recently FOX would not allow advertising to promote his Cyber Symposium. Lindell now says, “Shame on FOX. FOX was the only station that denied advertising for the Cyber Symposium next week. I’ve got to be one of their biggest advertisers, and they denied this ad. It’s just a directional ad to the symposium for everyone to watch it on FrankSpeech.com on the 10th, 11th and 12th of August, and they denied that. I have pulled all my ads from My Pillow. I am done with them. This is $50 million in ads per year. Fox is destroying our country by keeping silent. It’s going to cost My Pillow maybe $1 million a week in sales. I said that they should become a weather channel, but I have changed my mind because I would not trust them to report an oncoming storm. I would not trust them to report the news. So, shame on FOX, they are worse than any other channel.”

In closing, Lindell says, “The big lie is ‘The Big Lie.’ Everyone needs to tell everyone to watch this and tune into FrankSpeech.com next week.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble he goes One-on-One with the CEO of My Pillow, Mike Lindell, as he explains his upcoming “Cyber Symposium” August 10, 11 and 12.

- https://rumble.com/

Musical Interlude: Tim Janis, "In The Place Of Dreams"

Full screen recommended.

Tim Janis, "In The Place Of Dreams"

"My instrumental music can help you find deep relaxation, relieve anxiety, and find peace. My music incorporates relaxing sounds of nature and features flute music, piano music, harp music, & violin music. I am a composer from Maine and created my channel as a place to visit, relax and find peace. In this video we journey to beautiful castles around the world while listening to soothing peaceful music. We hope you enjoy this video :)"

Peace and blessings,

Tim & Reno

"Is the U.S. Going Bankrupt? This Is All An Illusion"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, PM 8/7/21:

"Is the U.S. Going Bankrupt? This Is All An Illusion"

"The Economy is a very bad illusion that we are living through. We are told unemployment numbers that were supposed to believe a good one in fact everything is horrific in the economy."

Musical Interlude: Prelude, "After the Goldrush"

Prelude, "After the Goldrush" (Studio version)

Prelude, "After the Goldrush" (Live version)

Prelude comprise Irene Hume, Brian Hume, Ian Vardy.

"A Look to the Heavens"

"A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River (Eridanus). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, making it about one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy. Bluish clusters of young stars and dust lanes are seen to trace out NGC 1309's spiral arms as they wind around an older yellowish star population at its core.

Not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy, observations of NGC 1309's recent supernova and Cepheid variable stars contribute to the calibration of the expansion of the Universe. Still, after you get over this beautiful galaxy's grand design, check out the array of more distant background galaxies also recorded in this sharp, reprocessed, Hubble Space Telescope view.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130116.html

Chet Raymo, “Caught In The Middle”

“Caught In The Middle”

by Chet Raymo

"It doesn't take a genius to recognize that human males have a propensity for intergroup violence, and that the killing is often accompanied by rape. One need only read the newspapers. The only question is to what extent these tendencies are innate or culturally inculcated. Nature or nurture? Or both? A new book, "Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World," by population biologist Malcolm Potts and science writer Thomas Hayden, dishes up a bit of both. The violence is in our (male) genes, they maintain, but it is susceptible to cultural control.

What the authors calls "behavioral propensity to engage in male coalitional violence" evolved as far back as the common ancestor of humans and chimps, they claim, although our other close relations, bonobos and gorillas, seem to have found more peaceful ways of living. Genes predispose, say Potts and Hayden, but cultural forces can alleviate the worst of male nastiness. By empowering women to be leaders in cultural, social and political spheres, the violent propensities of men can be restrained. Further, empowerment will give women control of their reproductive destinies, and will therefore result in fewer offspring. Less population pressure will reduce other factors fueling violence and conflict, the authors claim.

Anthropologist Hillard Kaplan reviews the book in the October 9, 2009, issue of "Science." He agrees that the available evidence suggests that male intergroup violence has a long evolutionary history. He believes this tendency was exacerbated into large scale warfare with the development of agriculture and the associated larger population groups and competition for fertile land. Kaplan believes that male group violence is stoked by poor economic prospect for young males. To the empowerment of women he would add education and jobs as a way to reduce antisocial behavior.

There is nothing particularly new or revolutionary about any of this. Progress? Yes, I suppose so, but we clearly have a long way to go before women exercise equal power in society, or before young men in the developing world, especially, have an economic stake in social stability. Meanwhile, as the painting above by Jacques-Louis David, "The Sabine Women," suggests, women and children will continue to be caught in the middle.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up for 8/7/21"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up for 8/7/21"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

"What ever happened to the door knocking campaign from the Biden Administration to get the unvaxed, vaxed? It appears to be replaced with a tyrannical panicked push to get everyone vaxed right now. Kids, pregnant women, military and anyone unvaxed. Get vaxed or get fired. Legal cases are forming every day, and will religious exemptions save the day? Pay no mind to science or constitutional rights. Never mind the silly Nuremberg Code of 1947 that came out of the forced science experiments by Nazis doctors, they hanged by the way. Who cares about the well documented volumes of science on natural immunity? Half the country already has natural immunity according to top nationally recognized doctors. So, for half the country, a CV19 vaccine is not needed. “Get the damn vaccine” is the new narrative by evil vaxers. According to people like Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, this panicked push is because the Covid scam is unraveling at high speed.

The dark Covid powers withheld cures like HCQ and Ivermectin and are still withholding them. They are still letting people die so vax makers can continue making huge profits. The so-called CV19 vaccine is creating the variants according to one Nobel Prize winning doctor. Maybe this is why they are already rushing out a “booster.” You don’t need a booster if you have natural immunity. Natural immunity is much safer than getting an experimental mRNA gene therapy drug trial. There is talk of the FDA approving the Jab as safe and effective when company documents and vax reporting data says they are not. Who cares about facts and data, vax on and get that booster.

The Supreme Court ruled against the CDC and its moratorium on evictions for renters and homeowners not paying their bills. That did not stop the all-knowing and all-powerful CDC from extending the eviction moratorium until October. It was a tyrannical move on the Biden Administration’s part, but what’s the rule of law and the Supreme Court anyway? A lawless economy is a dangerous economy. Cut back on risk."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these 

stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 8/7/21:

- https://rumble.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Wednesbury, Staffordshire, United Kingdom. Thanks for stopping by!

Free Download: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Poems"

"The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are..."

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses"

•

FREELY download, in PDF format, the poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson here:

https://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/alfred_lord_tennyson_2012_3.pdf

"Children of Hope..."

"Children of Hope, to life we fondly cling,

Though woe on woe bitter hour may bring;

the spirit shrinks, and Nature dreads to brave,

The doubt, the gloom, the stillness of the grave.

But what is death? – a wing from earth to fee –

a bridge o’er time into eternity."

- Michelle, in “The Fear of Death Considered”

"Rain, Cleansing Nature"

"Rain, Cleansing Nature"

by Madisyn Taylor

"On the next rainy day, imagine the rain washing away and cleansing your emotional body. There are times when we might feel the need to wash away all of our troubles and call forth freshness into our lives. Since perhaps the most cleansing substance on this earth is water, we can think of the joy rain brings as an energetic bath, rejuvenating our minds, bodies and souls. Just being able to spend a few moments every time it rains to become aware of the healing powers water brings to us can renew us in so many ways. As we do this we will find that the more we appreciate the universe’s gift to us in the form of rain, the more we can see that a gentle rain shower is a strong reflective tool that has the ability to cleanse our entire being.

The next time it rains might be a good chance to experience the rain through all of your senses, allowing you to truly understand just how truly important each and every drop of water is. First, take a few minutes to look outside and notice how each individual raindrop seems to come down in a continual stream. By noticing this you can contemplate how it takes many small accomplishments to create the whole of your existence, for nothing exists in isolation. Then you might wish to focus your attention on the sound of the rainfall, letting the sounds of drops penetrate into the innermost recesses of your self. Listening in this way may bring you a greater sense of connection with nature and the world around you, knowing that the sounds you hear are an integral part of not just the physical sustenance you require but also nourish your spirit as well.

Consciously using our senses to feel nature’s healing energy as it comes to us in the form of rain is an act of internal cleansing. Just as the rain physically washes over the earth and rinses out any impurities and imperfections, so it also bathes our spirit in the joy that comes from knowing that we are in fact one with the world around us."

- http://www.dailyom.com/

○

Full screen recommended.

Yanni, "The Rain Must Fall”

"You Continue..."

“How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.”

- Barry Lopez

"How It Really Is"

 

“Done With Restaurants, Doing Food Preps; Payment Extensions Forever”

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, PM 8/6/21:

“Done With Restaurants, Doing Food Preps;

 Payment Extensions Forever”