Full screen recommended.
2002, "Children in Time"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Sunday, October 17, 2021
"A Look to the Heavens"
"It may look like a huge cosmic question mark, but the big question really is how does the bright gas and dark dust tell this nebula's history of star formation. At the edge of a giant molecular cloud toward the northern constellation Cepheus, the glowing star forming region NGC 7822 lies about 3,000 light-years away. Within the nebula, bright edges and dark shapes stand out in this colorful and detailed skyscape.
The 9-panel mosaic, taken over 28 nights with a small telescope in Texas, includes data from narrowband filters, mapping emission from atomic oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur into blue, green, and red hues. The emission line and color combination has become well-known as the Hubble palette. The atomic emission is powered by energetic radiation from the central hot stars. Their powerful winds and radiation sculpt and erode the denser pillar shapes and clear out a characteristic cavity light-years across the center of the natal cloud. Stars could still be forming inside the pillars by gravitational collapse but as the pillars are eroded away, any forming stars will ultimately be cut off from their reservoir of star stuff. This field of view spans over 40 light-years across at the estimated distance of NGC 7822."
"How Do We Know What We Want: Milan Kundera on the Central Ambivalences of Life and Love"
"How Do We Know What We Want: Milan Kundera
on the Central Ambivalences of Life and Love"
by Maia Popova
“Live as if you were living already for the second time,” Viktor Frankl wrote in his 1946 masterwork on the human search for meaning, “and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!” And yet we only live once, with no rehearsal or reprise - a fact at once so oppressive and so full of possibility that it renders us, in the sublime words of Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, “ill-prepared for the privilege of living.” All the while, we walk forward accompanied by the specters of versions of ourselves we failed to or chose not to become. “Our lived lives,” wrote psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in his magnificent manifesto for missing out, “might become a protracted mourning for, or an endless tantrum about, the lives we were unable to live. But the exemptions we suffer, whether forced or chosen, make us who we are.” We perform this existential dance of yeses and nos to the siren song of one immutable question: How do we know what we want, what to want?
Czech-French writer Milan Kundera examines our ambivalent amble through life with unparalleled grace and poetic precision in his 1984 novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (public library) - one of the most beloved and enduringly rewarding books of the past century.
Because love heightens all of our senses and amplifies our existing preoccupations, it is perhaps in love that life’s central ambivalences grow most disorienting - something the novel’s protagonist, Tomáš, tussles with as he finds himself consumed with the idea of a lover he barely knows:
"He had come to feel an inexplicable love for this all but complete stranger.
[…]
But was it love? … Was it simply the hysteria of a man who, aware deep down of his inaptitude for love, felt the self-deluding need to simulate it? … Looking out over the courtyard at the dirty walls, he realized he had no idea whether it was hysteria or love."
The woman eventually becomes Tomáš’s wife, which only further affirms that even the rightest choice can present itself to us shrouded in uncertainty and doubt at the outset, its rightness only crystallized in the clarity of hindsight. Kundera captures the universal predicament undergirding Tomáš’s particular perplexity:
"We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.
[…]
There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, “sketch” is not quite the word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture."
"The Unbearable Lightness of Being," it bears repeating, is one of the most life-magnifying books one could ever read. Complement this particular point of inflection with Donald Barthelme on the art of not-knowing and Adam Phillips on the rewards of the unlived life."
Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead: Critical Must Know Updates"
Gregory Mannarino, 10/17/21:
"Markets, A Look Ahead: Critical Must Know Updates"
"Being Poor Ain't Cheap"
"Being Poor Ain't Cheap"
by Joshua Wilkey
"Poor people are cash cows.
It makes no sense, really. One would think that poor people, by virtue of being poor, would not be profitable customers. However, for many large corporations that target the poor and working poor, there's big money to be made on the backs of those who have no money.
At Dollar General Store locations, customers can get cash back on their purchases. This is not novel. In fact, most all retailers these days offer this option. Soccer moms get cash back so they can have lunch money for their children. Restaurant patrons can get money back to leave a cash tip for their servers. I sometimes get cash back at the grocery store so I can buy Girl Scouts cookies on the way out. It's a simple process. Click "yes" when the little screen asks for cash back, tap the $20 icon, and the cashier hands you some bucks along with your receipt. We've all done it. For those who are poor and those of us who are not but who have limited retail options, however, there's often a sinister catch.
I noticed this a few years ago, first at Dollar Tree, then at Dollar General. There's a little asterisk after the standard "would you like cash back?" prompt. The footnote indicates that "a transaction fee may apply." The transaction fee is usually $1 no matter the amount of cash back. If one opts to get $10 cash back, one is charged a dollar. That's a ten percent fee, for a service that costs the retailer nothing. It's just another way for retailers like Dollar General to make a profit off of their customers, many of whom are very often living below the poverty line.
If an organic grocer or movie theater were charging a fee of this sort, I would likely be annoyed by it, but I wouldn't be so annoyed that I would write about it. However, the poorest members of our communities do not shop at Whole Foods, and they do not often get a chance to go see the latest blockbuster at the theater. They can afford neither. In fact, they likely do not have either organic grocers or first-run theaters in their neighborhoods. Instead, they have Dollar General. Dollar General's stores grow like kudzo in rural America. Even if there isn't a real grocery store in most tiny communities, there's probably a DG.
These ridiculous transaction fees are but one example of how corporations make billions of dollars by taking advantage of socioeconomically disadvantaged customers with few options. There are many other examples, though, and politicians continue to allow it at the expense of their poorest and most marginalized constituents.
Payday lending is one of the most sinister ways that large corporations exploit poor people. For those who are not familiar, payday lending goes something like this: People who are running short on money but who have a verified record of regular income (whether it be Social Security, SSI, payroll, etc.) are able to go to payday lenders and receive a cash loan to be repaid on payday. Often, borrowers are unable to repay their full loan balances and simply “roll over” their loan until a future payday, accruing all sorts of fees and additional interest. The annualized interest rate on these loans is often in the triple digits. Yes, that’s right. Sometimes the annual interest rate is over one hundred percent.
In defense of this practice, many payday lenders and their high-dollar lobbyists argue that they are simply offering a service to poor borrowers that said borrowers cannot obtain anywhere else. This is partially true. The poorest members of society have no access to traditional forms of credit. Some even lack access to checking accounts because of low credit scores or a history of financial missteps.
I know some people who make occasional use of payday lending because they genuinely have emergencies arise that they could not address without a short-term infusion of cash. I also know people, including members of my own family, who have been riding the high-interest payday loan merry-go-round for years, and who have paid thousands more back than they have borrowed yet still owe more. In debating the role of payday lending in our communities, it is essential that we take a nuanced approach. Some form of short-term credit is necessary for those mired in poverty. However, it is flat-out immoral that we regulate payday lending so loosely in many places that people end up feeling crushed under the weight of small high-interest loans that they have no hope of ever repaying. Taking out a $1,000 payday loan should not mean a person becomes tied to tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
Another egregious example of corporations exploiting the poor is rent-to-own retailing. Companies like Aaron’s and Rent-a-Center purport to offer a valuable service for the poor. Because those at the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum are seldom able to save for big-ticket items like appliances or furniture, these retailers offer a pay-by-the-month scheme that often requires no credit check and no money down. The result is that customers pay as much as three times the retail price of the item, assuming they are able to make payments until the item is paid for. When they are not able to maintain the payments, the retailers simply show up to repossess the items.
Like payday lenders, rent-to-own retailers argue that they provide a valuable service to poor consumers. However, many observers, myself included, conclude that some rent-to-own practices are ethically questionable and tend to target vulnerable consumers who need immediate access to essentials like appliances and bedding. In many states, companies are not required to disclose the final price of the items. Instead, they simply tell customers the amount of the monthly or weekly payments. Because companies call the arrangement "rent-to-own," in many places they are not required to disclose the amount of "interest" customers will pay because it technically isn't interest. When consumers can no longer afford the payments and have to return the item, they often get no credit for payments they have made even if they have paid substantially more than the item is worth. Many customers never realize that they are paying as much as three times the retail price for their items. Those who do realize it likely have no choice apart from going without a bed or refrigerator.
In some instances, state attorneys general have successfully sued major rent-to-own retailers for violating usury and consumer protection laws. However, because these retailers are covered generally by state laws rather than by federal laws, there exists a hit-and-miss patchwork of regulations. Some consumers enjoy greater protections than others. The only determining factor is their location. Those states with more corporation-friendly attorneys general are unlikely to see any activity that might force retailers to behave more ethically toward their customers, because such enforcements will result in a drop in profitability for the retailers. Many major corporations spend good money to be sure that politicians protect their interests rather than the interests of consumers. Rent-to-own retailers and payday lenders are no exception. The poor, of course, can’t afford lobbyists or political contributions.
There are some who will argue that the free market, not the federal government, is the best solution to corporations that exploit the poor. However, those at the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum, especially the rural poor, do not live in anything resembling a free market. Also, it is important that we label the behavior of rent-to-own companies and payday lenders as what it is: exploitation.
In the hills of Appalachia, poverty is often the rule rather than the exception. One of the most poverty-stricken ZIP codes in the United States is Manchester, Kentucky. Manchester is located in Clay County, which has a population of just over 20,000 people. According to the most recent US Census data available, the per-capita income average between 2011 and 2015 was just $13,802 (less than half the national average) and 46% of the population lives below the poverty line. In Manchester, Rent-a-Center is often the go-to option for poor people looking to buy appliances or furniture. The county has a Walmart, but the nearest discount appliance and furniture dealers are miles away, too far for many to drive. There are some locally-owned options, but few in Clay County are able to pay cash for major purchases given the high rate of poverty and the low rate of employment.
In addition to the rent-to-own retailers, Clay County also has no less than five payday lenders, but only two traditional banks. Conveniently, the primary shopping center in Manchester currently houses a Dollar General, a Rent-a-Center, and two payday lending branches, all within feet of one another.
In places like Manchester, rent-to-own and payday lending outfits thrive. They do so often to the detriment of the poor folks who frequent their businesses. Those promoting the so-called free market approach might argue that customers are not forced to do business with these types of companies. However, given their dire financial circumstances and lack of available options, poor people in Manchester have little choice. They are excluded from participating in the wider world of commerce, often because of forces beyond their own control.
Manchester is not a rare exception. Particularly in central Appalachia, rent-to-own retailers are often the only option for poor people, and payday lenders outnumber banks by large measure. In addition to being food deserts, many poverty-stricken communities are retail deserts. In the most isolated rural areas in Appalachia, Dollar General is one of the only available retail options. Within ten miles of our house in rural Jackson County, NC, there are four Dollar General stores, and our community isn't even particularly isolated. Dollar General is the closest store to our home, and my wife and I tend to shop there by default because it is either that or a ten minute drive to the closest grocery store, or worse, a twenty minute drive into town. While we have the resources to go to town any time we want, many of our neighbors do not. The folks in the trailer park down the road often walk to Dollar General because they have few other options. This does not seem much like a free market driven by competition. Therefore, "free market" solutions simply do not work here.
Dollar General is, I believe, fully aware of the demographics of their shoppers. They know that there are often few ATMs near their locations, and their customers often lack access to traditional banking anyway and end up paying fees of three or four dollars to access their money at ATMs. Especially for people who depend on Social Security or SSI for their income, access to money is an important issue. Dollar General and similar retailers, it seems, understand this. Their solution is not to offer a resource for their customers but to profit from their customers’ limited access to funds. It's cheaper than an ATM, but it's a fee more affluent shoppers never have to think about. While there is nothing illegal about this, it is certainly morally questionable.
That’s the thing about the so-called free market. It makes no accounting for moral right or wrong. That, free market proponents allege, is up to the consumers. Poor consumers, however, still need to eat. They still need ovens and beds. Consumer choice and self-advocacy is often, like so many forms of social or political action, a full-stomach endeavor. When one is hungry, one’s ability to be an activist is diminished. When poor people have no choice but to do business with the greedy companies who reap a hefty profit from their customers' lack of options, those drawing the short straw simply do what they must to survive. Surviving is what poor people do best, and it makes for a miserable life. I know, because I have been there.
When poor people have little option but to do business with discount retailers who charge cash-back fees, rent-to-own retailers who charge inflated prices, and payday lenders who mire their customers neck-deep in impossible-to-pay-back high-interest loans, they are even less likely to ever escape poverty. The stark reality is that poor people often pay substantially more for essentials – bedding, appliances, housing – than would those of us with means. If my wife and I needed a new washer, we'd shop around for the best deal and go buy it. In fact, we might even buy it from Amazon Prime and get free two-day shipping. When my mother, who lived her entire life in poverty, needed a new washer, she was forced to buy one from a rent-to-own outfit that charged her an outrageous delivery fee and hassled her every time she was even a few hours late on a payment. She probably ended up paying $2,000 for a $450 washer. The poor do not have access to Amazon Prime like the rest of us because they can't afford a hundred bucks a year to subscribe. They do not get free delivery and obscenely low prices. They get fleeced.
The limited options available to those in poverty are rarely considered by the political ideologues who are so prone to victim-blaming. These retailers, who are all too often protected by state and federal lawmakers from both parties, package their predatory tactics as opportunities. What they are really selling are tickets on yet another segment of the poverty train. The politicians who protect them should be deprived of options and see just how much more expensive it is to survive. They should be ashamed for protecting those who profit from poverty, and those of us who know about it and have the resources to fight back should be ashamed for letting it happen to our neighbors."
"Insider View on the Supply Chain Issue: People Have No Idea What’s Coming"
"Insider View on the Supply Chain Issue:
People Have No Idea What’s Coming"
by Chris Black
"This is what a guy who works in retail told me yesterday: "The problems are many, starting with the insane margin requirements of Big Retail. Tell me why Target should get to make $65 on a $100 item? Amazon is the same. The average big box margin on most items is 55-60%. It doesn’t matter if it is online or a store.
There are exceptions, like some electronics where they only make 15-20%. Clothing margins are usually 70-80%. Jewelry is as high as 90%. I know for a fact that Crown Bolt pays a nickel for a machine screw they sell at Home Depot for $1.25. Most people have no idea how much air exists in the products they buy.
Most $100 items left a factory in China for less than $10. One of my competitors just said they can’t deliver product for next spring. In a seasonal business, that means you are out of business. I was supposed to get twelve containers last week, we got two. We’ve rerouted a lot of traffic to New York from LA, but the New York ports aren’t capable of handling the traffic of LA. So there are massive delays.
Rates are through the roof, and the publicly traded companies are buying out containers from smaller companies, offering $20k above spot just to get a container. The entire supply chain is toast.
I would love to make my stuff in the USA, but it is nearly impossible. We don’t have the textiles, molding machines, and workers. Where am I going to find 150 people to sew in a room? Plus the environmental regulations and standards make it really hard to even get something like that approved.
I did get a quote from an American manufacturer for one product. I was quoted $38. My wholesale price is $22 for a $50 retail. At $38, I’d have to set my wholesale at $50 to clear any meaningful profit. My retail partners would then put it at $115. I doubt any American consumer would pay $115 for the exact same product they could buy for $50, just so they can buy American.
I have been notified of 20% price hikes from my overseas factories. We used to factor in $1 per unit shipping cost, it is now $4. People also forget that there are still additional tariffs on top of the normal duty, 20%. The normal duty is 14%. So that is 34% on top of the FOB price. What was a $12 item with $1 shipping, and $1.68 duty. Is now $15 with $4 shipping, and $5 duty. $14.68 landed is now $24. That additional $10 represents $30 at retail. The $60 retail item is now $90. That isn’t 2% inflation. People have no idea what’s coming."
"I'm Sure..."
"I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life.
It's just been too intelligent to come here."
- Arthur C. Clarke
"It’s Time For All Good Men to Stop Fearing John Galt"
"It’s Time For All Good Men to Stop Fearing John Galt"
by Tom Luongo
“Who is John Galt?
Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"
"There comes a point in every person’s life when they have to reckon with the person in the mirror. Who am I? What do I want? Where am I going? Since the beginning of the COVID-9/11 story I’ve watched it break so many people who couldn’t answer these basic questions. The fear of the virus uncovered a lot about all of us. For many, unfortunately, it provoked their inner tyrant.
Last year, during the height of the COVID insanity after publicly hanging up on an unhinged Lee Stranahan live on Sputnik Radio I tweeted this out: "When you hit someone's existential fear that's when you uncover their inner tyrant. When something is beyond their capacity to understand, that's when they turn to projecting that fear on other people.
This is what was done to justify the lockdown."- Tom Luongo (@TFL1728) April 27, 2020
This wasn’t just directed at Lee, but it really was. The hard investigative journalist of February 2020 turned into a sniveling, state-worshipping baby by late April. Fear of death uncovered his Room 101. That incident, among others, eventually took down his radio show with certified stand-up guy, Garland Nixon. Today it’s a shadow of its former self.
I don’t know if my action was the catalyst for the changes that came, but I do know after that day nothing was the same. The sad truth is that Lee wasn’t alone. His collapse was just the most public version I ran into personally. When you buy into fear, you sell your reason. Gone is your skepticism as your world collapses. Your eyes focus on your next step too afraid to raise them to the horizon. There is no bigger picture, there is only the moment.
For 20 months now, we have lived among people terrorized by a story, not a virus but a story, that told them they are the heroes for being afraid and the skeptics are the villains. To save ourselves we just have to give up our humanity and submit to an authority incapable of telling us the truth. Because the truth is we had very little to actually fear.
These are the real villains, the Faucis, Bidens, Schwabs, Psakis, Trudeaus and anyone who still believes their patter. It was never about the disease, it was about control and the real damage being done to our psyches, our bodies and our communities, exactly as I argued to Lee on the radio eighteen months ago before I hung up on him.
They created the fear and then manipulated it into something violent. They preyed on our common decency and humanity, twisting it into something evil which is now plain for anyone who lifts his eyes off the ground to see.
Because vaccine mandates are the ultimate form of state violence, the death penalty notwithstanding. Once they had a large enough segment so terrorized they would rather die than admit they had been duped, those villains pushed the ultimate Hobson’s Choice on us: get the vaccine against COVID-9/11 and you can have your life back. But it was never their life to take in the first place. We gave it to them, hoping they weren’t as evil as many suspected.
It’s amazing how just one year after a summer of looting and burning over police brutality against a black man who overdosed on fentanyl, these same people are making excuses for even worse police violence against people walking around in sunshine unmasked. To them we are the Untermenschen, the unvaxxed, the unclean. And that makes their violence justified because, to them, we are the ones keeping things from getting back to normal.
Once the threat from COVID-9/11 was well established, rationality should have returned. But it hasn’t. Too many people are still stuck in Room 101, wedded to their shame over being duped by villains. They now wish death by COVID on those who refuse to get a shot for a virus that has a defined low probability of killing them and for which multiple therapeutic options are available. If they would just shut up, trust the science and let doctor’s practice medicine, life would really return to something close to normal.
But it’s increasingly obvious to enough people that these mandates don’t measure up to the threat of the virus. Every day it becomes clearer that this is about their fear of us seizing back the power we gave them.
To save themselves from The COVID they wish it on us, just like Winston Smith, who looked in the mirror and betrayed his love to serve a master who hates him as much as he hates himself. It doesn’t matter if the vaccines are ‘safe’ and ‘effective’ or not. I’m not here to argue that. That’s your personal choice, make it as you see fit. No blame. No shame. What’s important is that it is no one else’s choice.
Further, it’s not your personal choice to tell me that I can’t partake in civil society if I don’t get the shot or, like Joe Rogan, choose a different path to treating COVID-9/11 than you would. Joe Rogan asks Sanjay Gupta if it bothers him that CNN outright lied about Rogan taking horse dewormer to recover from covid. This is fantastic: pic.twitter.com/PEgJqIXhSD
- Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 14, 2021
Because Winston always had a choice. He could choose to face his fear and finally become a man, like Joe Rogan. Or he can project his fear onto real men and stay in his personal hell for all the world to laugh at:
"Hey @joerogan nice to hear you paused from gargling Goat Urine or whatever you did instead of overcoming your fear of the Vaccine, to call me "unhinged" for pointing out what terrified snowflakes you and your clown car of followers are.
Here's the video that set off Mr. Afraid:" pic.twitter.com/gLOgKiWlGs
- Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) October 13, 2021
Watching this man’s Two Minutes of Hate is revealing of everything that is wrong with the COVID-9/11 story. And that same choice is now directly in our path, vaxxed or unvaxxed. COVID-9/11 is never going away. Neither will the flu, the common cold or any other virus endemic to the environment.
Life is risk and it belongs to those willing to face those risks to keep the world from breaking. Cower in fear if you like, but scapegoating the unvaxxed won’t save you. I saw this in March 2020 saying we have to be brave and celebrate everyone willing to go to work to make the things we need to treat the sick and protect the healthy.
In a real economy, everyone is an essential worker. This is because everyone contributes in their small way to the fully functional world that ensures the shelves are stocked, the energy flows and our meager triumphs over nature’s hostility to our presence remain in place.
For months now we have been openly threatened with having our lives taken away because we don’t have our party registration papers up to date. We’ve all wrestled, at some level, with our disbelief that things would degrade this badly and this quickly.
The Olbermensch tells us we can be friends again after we just get the damn shot. What he won’t admit is that we know he’s lying. Keith hates us for the mirror we hold up in front of him. Take a long look, that is the face of shame. Because ideals are judges. Those ideals only shame men capable of admitting it. The rest sink into solipsism and insanity.
In Rand’s novel, John Galt built the engine that could change the world. But he refused to give it to the world he lived in. The Olbermensches would just use it to perpetuate their power, their evil.
Who is John Galt? He’s that best version of ourselves that knows who we are, what we want and where we will end up. And it’s past time we stopped fearing the loss that comes with stating that directly.
The strike of the productive and the self-aware Rand envisioned is here. The airline pilots, an Ubermensch class of people if there is one in this sick, sad world, walked out over last weekend taking most of Southwest Airlines’ staff with them. The Olbermensches are furious, openly lying about what happened and castigating anyone who says otherwise. But we shouldn’t care. Just like we shouldn’t care that Sanjay Gupta, after Rogan’s shaming, was forced into a public Struggle Session to retain his place at CNN, proving to all the world that he is a man without principles, ideals or shame.
As I write this, on October 15th, vaccine mandates go into effect all around the Davos-controlled world. The choice is now in front of hundreds of millions of people. Becoming your own version of John Galt comes with loss. It means giving up something today to retain not just your integrity but provide strength to those not quite there yet.
Everything rests on giving them your consent. The Olbermensches do not negotiate, they bully. Bullies are cowards. Your consent today feeds their addiction to fear.
Previously I told you to quietly, “Just Say No” to them. Now I’m telling you that takes the form of withdrawing consent completely, risking today’s comfort for tomorrow’s benefit. The strength you display today is the foundation of a world we build back better than the one that is gone.
I had a good gig with Sputnik Radio. But I owed them nothing. But when the mask of civility fell, it was time to go. We all wear that mask at times but only with those worthy of reciprocating. All things come to an end, good and bad. What matters is who we choose to be, what we want and unafraid of where those choices lead us."
"Only Human..."
"A person who is going to commit an inhuman act invariably
excuses himself to himself by saying, 'I'm only human, after all.'"
- Sydney J. Harris
Only human... compared to what?
○
"Whenever I hear someone sigh and say life is so hard
I'm always tempted to ask 'Compared to what?'"
- Sydney J. Harris
○
Full screen recommended.
Billy Joel, "You're Only Human"
"Truth..."
"If Truth is taken away from us, then Right and Wrong are taken from us as well. If we don't know Right and Wrong, then we can't, we won't control ourselves, but will look to someone else to bring order through brute force and raw power. We will be controlled by a tyrant, and we will no longer be free."
- Frank Perettio
"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.
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Fascinating, an absolute treasure trove! Enjoy!
“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 51,400 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.”
"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 treasure for those who love the language...
The Poet: James Broughton, "Having Come This Far"
"Having Come This Far"
"I've been through what my through was to be,
I did what I could and couldn't.
I was never sure how I would get there.
I nourished an ardor for thresholds,
for stepping stones and for ladders,
I discovered detour and ditch.
I swam in the high tides of greed,
I built sandcastles to house my dreams.
I survived the sunburns of love.
No longer do I hunt for targets.
I've climbed all the summits I need to,
and I've eaten my share of lotus.
Now I give praise and thanks
for what could not be avoided,
and for every foolhardy choice.
I cherish my wounds and their cures,
and the sweet enervations of bliss.
My book is an open life.
I wave goodbye to the absolutes,
and send my regards to infinity.
I'd rather be blithe than correct.
Until something transcendent turns up,
I splash in my poetry puddle,
and try to keep God amused."
- James Broughton
"The Monstrous Thing..."
"The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured - disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui - in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off."
- Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer”
"Subway Sandwich Is Disgusting; Talking To Zombies; You Will Lose Your House And Be Happy"
Jeremiah Babe, PM 10/16/21:
"Subway Sandwich Is Disgusting; Talking To Zombies;
You Will Lose Your House And Be Happy"
Saturday, October 16, 2021
"The End of Banking and Money as We Know It"
"The End of Banking and Money as We Know It"
by Dan Denning
"The German military strategist Carl von Clausewitz famously said that “war is the continuation of politics by other means.” But when it comes to money – public money issued by the government versus private money made by nature and issued by God (gold) or secured by cryptography and limited in supply (bitcoin) – politics has become the continuation of war by other means.
The United States has all but declared war on sound money… and your financial privacy. I say “all but declared” because as we know, Congress has shirked its Constitutional obligation to declare war for decades. It does so only rhetorically, and only against ideas or concepts, like “terror,” “poverty”, or “drugs.”
But the government has ended the war in Afghanistan (on terror) only so it can focus more fully on its war here in the United States… on you. It’s an all-out war on your freedom of speech, your freedom of movement, your right to privacy, and on private money itself.
President Biden has proposed to create a new army of (over 80,000) IRS investigators to close the “tax gap” – Washington D.C.’s term for the difference between what Americans owe in taxes and what they are actually paying. The proposal – buried in a report put out earlier this year by the Treasury Department – would require that any inflow or outflow of more than $600 into any of your financial accounts during the year be automatically (and electronically) reported to the IRS by the financial account provider through which the money flowed.
Evidently, this was a bridge too far, even for some Democrats in Congress. Last month, they announced plans to set a threshold higher than $600. Responding to claims that the $600 level would “weaponize” the IRS against ordinary Americans, and lead to abuse and misuse, they assured critics they are only after real tax cheats.
But note that they didn’t reject outright the idea of total financial surveillance. They agree with that principle. They’re only arguing now, it would seem, over the size of the transaction at which reporting is compulsory. And as you know, whatever size transaction they determine now could be revised later (and lower).
New Currency Czar: What you’re seeing is an all-out counterattack by the state against sound money and financial privacy. Enter Saule Omarova, the academic Joe Biden nominated last week to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). She’s the biggest threat to a fully centralized (and weaponized) national money system since the introduction of the greenback to finance the Civil War.
Officially, Omarova is a Ukrainian immigrant and academic from Cornell. Unofficially, she’s a monetary Marxist revolutionary, with ambitions to “end banking as we know it” and completely centralize the creation of money and allocation of capital and credit in the economy. She’s yet another in the long line of public officials and academics who want to “transform” America as we know it.
In Omarova’s case, she wants to remove all retail banking accounts to the Federal Reserve. Then, with that money as a deposit base, she wants to radically expand on the government’s ability to borrow even more money, to be invested by a National Infrastructure Authority.
Here are some of her most dangerous ideas in her own words, from a paper written last year: "Massive inflows of deposit money [formerly in retail banks] would create both new pressures on, and new opportunities for, the Fed to channel resources to productive use in the nation’s economy. By not addressing, or even acknowledging, these potentially game-changing implications of FedAccounts for system-wide credit allocation, the current debate overlooks the full transformative potential of this reform. It also precludes a deeper discussion of how FedAccounts could affect the structure and operation of the U.S. financial system. Glossing over these consequences obscures potentially significant policy choices involved in the process.
My new working paper seeks to shift the debate by confronting these fundamental questions. The paper advocates a comprehensive reform of the structure and systemic function of the Fed’s balance sheet as the basis for redesigning the core architecture of modern finance. It offers a blueprint for transforming the Fed’s balance sheet into what it calls the People’s Ledger: the ultimate public platform for generating, modulating, and allocating sovereign credit and money in a democratic economy.
[…]
The Fed would invest in securities issued by existing and newly-created public instrumentalities for the purposes of financing large-scale public infrastructure projects. One such new public instrumentality is the National Investment Authority (NIA), a development-finance institution proposed elsewhere. As proposed, the NIA would act directly in financial markets as a lender, guarantor, securitizer, and venture capitalist with a broad mandate to mobilize, amplify, and direct public and private capital to where it’s needed most.
Accordingly, by purchasing NIA-issued bonds, the Fed would be investing in the long-term development of the nation’s economic capacity. In effect, it would be offsetting the dramatic increase in its own liabilities by dramatically augmenting the flow of credit into the coordinated nationwide construction of public infrastructure that enables and facilitates structurally balanced, socially inclusive and sustainable economic growth."
This paper, called "The People’s Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy," goes beyond anything the Chicago Plan envisioned in 1933.
It’s a complete centralization of the nation’s financial resources. And it puts private wealth in the service of financing “investing” decisions made by “deciders” in Washington, D.C. Their investment goals are things like “equity,” “inclusivity,” and “sustainability.”
The big battle in this war is who gets to say what money is. This is why you’re seeing what looks like a coordinated pushback by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Reserve, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) on cryptocurrencies, stable coins, and digital assets.
Cryptocurrencies and gold aren’t legal tender, by law (except certain minted coins). But they are still a threat to the government’s monopoly on money, and all the control that enables them to exert over you. The crux of the matter is that Washington wants to replace a centralized and inflationary banking system run by Wall Street (which owns the Federal Reserve) with a centralized inflationary banking system run by the insiders in the D.C. swamp.
As corrupt and dangerous to your wealth as the current system (run by Wall Street) is, one run by the D.C. elite, who redefine money as central bank digital currency and then demand total financial surveillance of your life, is not an improvement. It’s as bad as, if not worse than, anything the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have in mind. In fact, it’s probably exactly what the CCP has in mind. But don’t expect the radicals who support that plan here to be that transparent."
Chief Tecumseh, "So Live Your Life"
Full screen recommended.
RedFrost Motivation,
Chief Tecumseh, "So Live Your Life"
Read by Shane Morris
Friday, October 15, 2021
"Chaos At Sea: 1 Million Containers Are Now Stuck Off US Ports As Shipping Crisis Accelerates"
Full screen recommended.
"Chaos At Sea: 1 Million Containers Are Now
Stuck Off US Ports As Shipping Crisis Accelerates"
by Epic Economist
"The largest ports in the US are facing a record-breaking backlog of cargo ships, which altogether are carrying almost one million containers that are now stuck offshore. In the port of Los Angeles alone, nearly half a million 20-foot shipping containers - carrying 12 million metric tons of goods - are waiting for a berth along the port to dock and finally unload their massive cargo volume, according to data released by the Marine Exchange of Southern California. At the moment, the port has 19 mega-container ships waiting to dock, the largest of which is carrying roughly 20,000 20-foot shipping containers.
Along with the port of Long Beach, there are currently 90 container ships at the coast of California, 63 of which are still waiting off the shore, a number that largely exceeds the 2019 average of zero to one ship at anchor. Given the unprecedented congestion along the shore, some carriers have decided to relocate their ships to other ports. However, the situation is similarly chaotic at the ports of Savannah and New York. At least 24 ships are still waiting off of the Port of Savannah, an all-time record. And nine mega-ships are off the Port of New York City. The new volume arriving is rapidly overwhelming the facilities in both areas.
Nationwide, almost one million containers are now stuck outside US ports and waiting for a spot to dock and get unpacked. And this shocking number may escalate even further as more and more ships arrive to deliver holiday goods. On the other hand, waiting times at the port for these ships can extend for as long as a month and a half. This week, one vessel from Asia that had been waiting off the coast since September 5 was finally unloaded after more than 40 days of waiting - a problem experts warn will cause widespread shipping delays in the run-up for the holiday shopping season.
Of course, the U.S. is not the only country dealing with a massive backlog of containers. Over the weekend, Bloomberg reported that a series of new restrictions and shutdowns had created a "ripple effect" and pushed the prices of goods across the globe higher. Industry executives have warned that they now expect the shipping crisis to last until 2023. The supply chain bottlenecks are expected to create major issues for holiday shoppers, that's why retail giants, such as Walmart, are now chartering their own vessels in an effort to beat the disruptions that threaten to jeopardize the retail sector's make-or-break holiday season. Other big retailers, including Target, Home Depot, Costco, and Dollar Tree, have also said they will chartering ships to transport their goods during the holiday season. An extraordinary phenomenon that Steve Ferreira, the head of shipping consultancy Ocean Audit, has described as "Containergeddon."
According to Burt Flickinger, the managing director at retail consultancy Strategic Resource Group, at least 25% of the goods stuck on ships are unlikely to make it onto shelves in time for the November 26 Black Friday, seen as the kickoff for the holiday shopping season, when retailers make more than a third of their profits. Another source in the shipping industry told Bloomberg that other firms were snapping up second-hand container vessels of all sizes. And while these big companies can afford to charter their own ships to get their goods in time, smaller companies can't, which gives a huge advantage to the big corporative players at the expense of small businesses. Just take a moment to consider the economic implications of that and the imbalances created in our pricing system.
One giant shipping company in Japan is now looking to charter a ship for $130,000 a day for three years, which would have cost about $20,000 in 2020. One U.S. company decided to put up $35 million for the first nine months in cash, on day one. Another one of America's largest big-box retailers just chartered a cargo ship for $80,000 a day for one year that would have cost about $10,000 a day a year ago, and, of course, small- and medium-sized businesses simply cannot compete with them and pay such absurd prices. But this also means that someone is going to pay for those increased transport costs. And who's going to pay for all that? You are! We all are. The price of goods is going to explode in the coming months, and if that doesn’t scream inflation to you, you're not paying attention. We're on the verge of an inflationary spike that will stick around for years, and what we experienced so far was just a hint of the crisis that lies ahead."
"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave 10/14/21"
Full screen recommended.
"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave 10/14/21"
"Violent crime and drug abuse in Philadelphia as a whole is a major problem. The city’s violent crime rate is higher than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. Also alarming is Philadelphia’s drug overdose rate. The number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50% from 2013 to 2015, with more than twice as many deaths from drug overdoses as deaths from homicides in 2015. A big part of Philadelphia’s problems stem from the crime rate and drug abuse in Kensington.
Because of the high number of drugs in Kensington, the neighborhood has a drug crime rate of 3.57, the third-highest rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia. Like a lot of the country, a big part of this issue is a result of the opioid epidemic. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed over the last two decades in the United States and Philadelphia is no exception. Along with having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% percent of Philadelphia’s overdose deaths involved opioids2 and Kensington is a big contributor to this number. This Philly neighborhood is purportedly the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast with many neighboring residents flocking to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high number of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have zoned in on this area to try and tackle Philadelphia’s problem."
Musical Interlude: "Beautiful Relaxing Music - Calming Piano & Guitar Music"
Full screen recommended.
Soothing Relaxation,
"Beautiful Relaxing Music - Calming Piano & Guitar Music"
"Beautiful relaxing music by Soothing Relaxation. Enjoy calming piano and
guitar music composed by Peder B. Helland, set to stunning nature videos."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“About 70 million light-years distant, gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 289 is larger than our own Milky Way. Seen nearly face-on, its bright core and colorful central disk give way to remarkably faint, bluish spiral arms. The extensive arms sweep well over 100 thousand light-years from the galaxy's center.
At the lower right in this sharp, telescopic galaxy portrait the main spiral arm seems to encounter a small, fuzzy elliptical companion galaxy interacting with enormous NGC 289. Of course spiky stars are in the foreground of the scene. They lie within the Milky Way toward the southern constellation Sculptor.”
Chet Raymo, “Take My Arm”
“Take My Arm”
by Chet Raymo
“I’m sure I have referenced here before the poems of Grace Schulman, she who inhabits that sweet melancholy place between “the necessity and impossibility of belief.” Between, too, the necessity and impossibility of love.
Belief and love. They have so much in common, yet are as distinct as self and other. How strange that two people can hitch their lives together, on a whim, say, or wild intuition, knowing little if nothing about the other’s hiddenness, about things that even the other does not fully understand and couldn’t articulate even if he did. Blind, deaf, dumb, they leap into the future, hoping to fly, and, for a moment, soaring, like Icarus, sunward. The necessity of wax. The impossibility of wax. We “fall” in love, they say. Schulman: “We slog. We tramp the road of possibility. Give me your arm.”
The Poet: Wendell Berry, “Leavings”
“Leavings”
“In time a man disappears
from his lifelong fields, from
the streams he has walked beside,
from the woods where he sat and waited.
Thinking of this, he seems to
miss himself in those places
as if always he has been there.
But first he must disappear,
and this he foresees with hope,
with thanks. Let others come.”
- Wendell Berry
○
“Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have passed before him – his early hopeful struggles, his manly successes and prosperity, his downfall in his declining years, and his present helpless condition – no chance of revenge against Fortune, which had had the better of him -neither name nor money to bequeath – a spent-out, bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the end here! Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, “Tomorrow, success or failure won’t matter much, and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil.”
- William Makepeace Thackeray, “Vanity Fair”
"Grief..."
“The dictionary defines grief as: “Keen mental suffering or distress over affliction of loss; sharp sorrow, painful regret.” We’re taught to learn from and rely on books, on definitions, on definitives but in life, strict definitions rarely apply. In life, grief can look like a lot of things that bear little resemblance to sharp sorrow.
Grief may be a thing we all have in common but it looks different on everyone. It isn’t just death we have to grieve. It’s life, it’s loss, it’s change. And when we wonder why it has to suck so much sometimes, it has to hurt so bad. The thing we gotta try to remember is that it can turn on a dime. That’s how you stay alive when it hurts so much you can’t breathe. That’s how you survive. By remembering that one day, somehow, impossibly, it won’t feel this way. It wont hurt this much. Grief comes in it’s own time for everyone in it’s own way. So the best we can do, the best anyone can do, is try for honesty. The really crappy thing, the very worst part of grief is that you can’t control it. The best we can do is try to let ourselves feel it when it comes and let it go when we can. The very worst part is that the minute you think you’re past it, it starts all over again and always, every time, it takes your breath away.
According to Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, when we are dying or have suffered a catastrophic loss, we all move through five distinctive stages of grief. We go into denial because the loss is so unthinkable, we can’t imagine it’s true. We become angry with everyone. We become angry with survivors, angry with ourselves. Then we bargain, we beg, we plead. We offer everything we have. We offer up our souls in exchange for just one more day. When the bargaining has failed and the anger is too hard to maintain, we fall into depression, despair. Until finally we have to accept that we have done everything we can. We let go. We let go and move into acceptance.”
- “Grey’s Anatomy”
"The Global Economy is in a Perfect Storm - Business News You Can Use"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly,
"The Global Economy is in a Perfect Storm -
Business News You Can Use"
"We are getting hit from all sides. It makes no difference where you live because the world is starting to feel the storm that’s coming. Inflation, joblessness, higher interest rates and foreclosures are on the rise."
Gerald Celente, "America In Decline, Get Ready For A Technological Revolution"
"America In Decline, Get Ready For A Technological Revolution"
Gerald Celente and Mark Ross
Strong language alert!
"Gerald Celente, Publisher of the Trends Journal, is joined by investor and entrepreneur, Mark Moss, from The Mark Moss Show, for an in-depth analysis of current events forming future trends. Here are a few of the topics we cover:
● Breakdown and Collapse of America● Crypto Technological Revolution
● Inflation, Supply Chain Disruptions, Food Shortages
● War with China
● Forecasts for #BTC & CBDCs
● Big Announcement About The Universal Church of Freedom, Peace, and Justice
● Much more!"
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