Sunday, January 9, 2022

The Poet: Langston Hughes, “Life Is Fine”

“Life Is Fine”

“I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn’t,
So I jumped in and sank.
I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn’t a-been so cold
I might’ve sunk and died.
But it was cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.
I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn’t a-been so high
I might’ve jumped and died.
But it was high up there! It was high!

So since I’m still here livin’,
I guess I will live on.
I could’ve died for love -
But for livin’ I was born.
Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry -
I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!”

- Langston Hughes

"When We Have Time..."

“How small a portion of our life it is that we really enjoy. In youth we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age, we are looking backwards to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day, when we have time.”
- Charles Caleb Colton, “Lacon”
“The problem is, you believe you have time.”
- Buddha

"How It Really Is"

 

Greg Hunter, "Huge Number of Vax Deaths & It’s Getting Worse – Dr. Pierre Kory"

"Huge Number of Vax Deaths & It’s Getting Worse – Dr. Pierre Kory"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"World renowned CV19 critical care and pulmonary expert Dr. Pierre Kory says the data is clear the CV19 injections are “not safe, not effective” and shows they are causing a huge number of deaths. It’s going to get much worse if we don’t stop the shots. Dr. Kory warns, “They already broke death records with these vaccines almost a year ago. Now, you are starting to see it in actuarial data with life insurance companies. The life insurance companies have been paying out claims like they never have before, and they are noticing the deaths cannot be explained by Covid. If you look at the actual morbidity and mortality from the CDC   2019, 2020 and 2021 in the ages of 18 to 64 you’ll see in America, starting in quarter two of the year 2021 (when the vaccines started), the mortalities started to rise, and it rose from 120% above normal to 140% above normal, and it’s far exceeded the death rates in 2020. 

The difference in 2020 and 2021, we had covid in both years. In 2021, we had the vaccines. They know the amount of deaths they are reporting cannot be explained by Covid. There is something else driving a huge and extremely terrifying mortality signal in the U.S. population. To think that it is anything but the vaccines, if we get this wrong and if you keep saying they are safe, that line which is already in a significant and steep incline will continue the more we boost and the more we vaccinate. This has to stop. We have to stop, people are dying.”

Meanwhile, the captured regulatory agencies like the CDC and FDA are trashing and cutting off proven scientific cures for Covid such as Ivermectin. Dr. Kory says Ivermectin has been proven effective in defeating Covid infections, and he says, “It is “one of the safest drugs ever brought to market.” Dr. Kory also says the so-called experimental vaccines “are not safe and not effective.” So, why do government agencies push them anyway? Dr. Kory says, “I have had a front row seat to see this.” And he goes on to say government agencies are suffering from “regulatory capture” by big Pharma. Meaning, the FDA and CDC push ineffective and dangerous vaccines so Big Pharma can make money off them, while disregarding cheaper, safer and more effective drugs like Ivermectin. 

 Dr Kory gives a real-world example during the pandemic and explains, “Prescriptions in this country (for Ivermectin) in August were hitting 90,000 per week. So many doctors were using it for Covid that it spooked the pharmaceutical companies. In response to the massive uptake in the use of Ivermectin by physicians with prescriptions and pharmacists filling them, the CDC went on the attack. They sent a bulletin to every state department of health which was full of propaganda and misinformation screaming the FDA has not approved Ivermectin (for treating Covid) and it’s not a proven drug, and it’s dangerous and there are overdoses and all of these things that were false. It went to all state departments of health. But guess what happened next? 

The medical boards and the pharmacy boards started sending that to every licensed physician and pharmacist in the land. The average physician and pharmacist, I am sorry to say this, is not well read. They are not keeping up with data. They are overwhelmed and they are easily influenced. That’s why in this country you have a war between the physicians that know that Ivermectin is effective and are at war with the pharmacies. A huge proportion of pharmacists will refuse to fill a decades-old safe drug for Covid because they have been threatened and manipulated by their boards. They are afraid to lose their licenses. It all smoke. It’s all B.S. because you cannot lose your license for use of a safe drug. We need our doctors to do doctoring, and we need our pharmacists to do pharmacy and stop being influenced by propaganda by pharmaceutical companies who don’t want you to use this drug. We have to stand up, and we have to resist on behalf of our patients. We are finding that with compounding pharmacies and small pharmacies we can still get access (to Ivermectin), but it is a battle and you do have to navigate.”

Former Pfizer VP Dr. Michael Yeadon said this week, “Max vaccination is leading to mass death.” Dr. Kory agrees and explains, “It’s not only data from a life insurance company that came out this week that is based on CDC data that can’t be explained by Covid alone, there are huge increases of dying in this country this year. They have done huge analysis of the European mortality data as well as the U.S. mortality data and they controlled for vaccination status. They found that for every age range that they looked at, the all-cause mortality of the vaccinated were increased over the unvaccinated. All-cause mortality and that means that you are more likely to die of something if you are vaccinated. All-cause mortality are coming out of actual databases by credible scientists. 

You have life insurance companies showing the data, and you have our own federal government showing unexplained large rises in dying. Don’t you think a good scientific question and a good hypothesis to test would be ‘Could these be the vaccines?’ The answer is ‘the vaccines,’ and I cannot find a better fit to answering that hypothesis than that, it’s this mass explosion of this vaccination policy with single, double and booster shots. It’s going like wildfire through the population. If the mortality of the vaccinated is higher than the unvaccinated, you have the data that you can safely and confidently conclude the vaccines are associated with and causing death.”

In closing, Dr. Kory says, “What has happened in the last month or so is the data for adverse reactions and effects are no longer hidden and suppressed. They are coming out on servers  and actuarial tables.” Dr. Kory tells people to go to the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance website and get any and all information for treating Covid-19 for free."

"Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Dr. Pierre Kory, one of the top Pulmonary and Covid Critical Care experts on the planet, who is co-founder of the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (flccc.net). (There is much more in the nearly 59 min. interview)."

"What If The Largest Experiment On Human Beings In History Is A Failure?"

"What If The Largest Experiment On 
Human Beings In History Is A Failure?"
by Dr. Robert Malone

"A seasoned stock analyst colleague texted me a link, and when I clicked it open, I could hardly believe what I was reading. What a headline. “Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64”. This headline is a nuclear truth bomb masquerading as an insurance agent’s dry manila envelope full of actuarial tables.

People frequently write to Jill and myself. People we have never met. They call, they arrive at the farm by appointment or unannounced, they fill our email in boxes with their inquiries. They all want something; time, attention, an interview. Many want to tell us about their fear, illness, nightmares, or (what often seems like) outright paranoid conspiracies. And then, over time, these fears and “conspiracies” keep getting confirmed. As Jan Jekielek (a senior editor with The Epoch Times) recently said to me, it is getting harder and harder to tell which ones are mere conspiracy theories and which are true reality.

One farm visitor told me of his foreshadowing massive numbers of deaths within three years consequent to the genetic vaccines, and that this was all about the “Great Reset” and the depopulation agenda of the World Economic Forum (WEF). I tried to reassure him that, in my opinion, this was highly unlikely - while privately thinking about how easily people fall into this type of conspiracy ideation, and how I need to be careful to avoid going there when confronting so many public health decisions that appear either incompetent or nefarious. At the time, I only knew of the WEF as the host of a big annual party in Davos Switzerland where the uber rich and the hoi oligoi of the Western nations went to watch Ted talks, drink the best wine, see and be seen. Silly me. What a long, strange trip this has been. I doubt that even Hunter S. Thompson could have imagined it in his most drug and booze addled state. Suffice to say, I nominate Ralph Steadman as official illustrator of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Or a resurrected Hieronymus Bosch.

But I am wandering from a point that I am afraid to clearly state. It is starting to look to me like the largest experiment on human beings in recorded history has failed. And, if this rather dry report from a senior Indiana life insurance executive holds true, then Reiner Fuellmich’s “Crimes against Humanity” push for convening new Nuremberg trials starts to look a lot less quixotic and a lot more prophetic.

Here is what lit me up in this report from The Center Square contributor Margaret Menge: “The head of Indianapolis-based insurance company OneAmerica said the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people. “We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica,” the company’s CEO Scott Davison said during an online news conference this week. “The data is consistent across every player in that business.”

OneAmerica is a $100 billion insurance company that has had its headquarters in Indianapolis since 1877. The company has approximately 2,400 employees and sells life insurance, including group life insurance to employers in the state.

Davison said the increase in deaths represents “huge, huge numbers,” and that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying, but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64” who are the employees of companies that have group life insurance plans through OneAmerica. “And what we saw just in third quarter, we’re seeing it continue into fourth quarter, is that death rates are up 40% over what they were pre-pandemic,” he said. “Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic,” he said. “So 40% is just unheard of.””

So, what is driving this unprecedented surge in all-cause mortality?\ “Most of the claims for deaths being filed are not classified as COVID-19 deaths," Davison said.“What the data is showing to us is that the deaths that are being reported as COVID deaths greatly understate the actual death losses among working-age people from the pandemic. It may not all be COVID on their death certificate, but deaths are up just huge, huge numbers.””

Take a moment to read the entire article. Now. Then let’s continue on, assuming that you have.

AT A MINIMUM, based on my reading, one has to conclude that if this report holds and is confirmed by others in the dry world of life insurance actuaries, we have both a huge human tragedy and a profound public policy failure of the US Government and US HHS system to serve and protect the citizens that pay for this “service”. IF this holds true, then the genetic vaccines so aggressively promoted have failed, and the clear federal campaign to prevent early treatment with lifesaving drugs has contributed to a massive, avoidable loss of life.

AT WORST, this report implies that the federal workplace vaccine mandates have driven what appear to be a true crime against humanity. Massive loss of life in (presumably) workers that have been forced to accept a toxic vaccine at higher frequency relative to the general population of Indiana.

FURTHERMORE, we have also been living through the most massive, globally coordinated propaganda and censorship campaign in the history of the human race. All major mass media and the social media technology companies have coordinated to stifle and suppress any discussion of the risks of the genetic vaccines AND/OR alternative early treatments.

IF this report holds true, there must be accountability. We are not just talking about running over the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States and grinding it into the mud with an army of artificial intelligence-powered heavy infantry. This article reads like a dry description of an avoidable mass casualty event caused by a mandated experimental medical procedure. One for which all opportunities for the victims to have become self-informed about the potential risks have been methodically erased from both the internet and public awareness by an international corrupt cabal operating under the flag of the “Trusted News Initiative”. George Orwell must be spinning in his grave.

I hope I am wrong. I fear I am right."
"The Vaccine Death Report"
by David John Sorenson and Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, MD

"Purpose: The purpose of this report is to document how all over the world millions of people have died, and hundreds of millions of serious adverse events have occurred, after injections with the experimental mRNA gene therapy. We also reveal the real risk of an unprecedented genocide.

Facts: We aim to only present scientific facts and stay away from unfounded claims. The data is clear and verifiable. Over one hundred references can be found for all presented information, which is provided as a starting point for further investigation.

Complicity: The data suggests that we may currently be witnessing the greatest organized mass murder in the history of our world. The severity of this situation compels us to ask this critical question: will we rise to the defense of billions of innocent people? Or will we permit personal profit over justice, and be complicit? Networks of lawyers all over the world are preparing class-action lawsuits to prosecute all who are serving this criminal agenda. To all who have been complicit so far, we say: There is still time to turn and choose the side of truth. Please make the right choice."
Freely download "The Vaccine Death Report" here:

Saturday, January 8, 2022

"Coming Financial End Game Has Begun; Homeless Epidemic; Economy Already Collapsed; Bad Choices"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 1/8/22:
"Coming Financial End Game Has Begun; 
Homeless Epidemic; Economy Already Collapsed; Bad Choices"

"Brace for More Economic Fireworks - Banks Closed, Inflation and Supply Chain Issues"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly PM 1/8/22:
"Brace for More Economic Fireworks - 
Banks Closed, Inflation and Supply Chain Issues"
"There is so much happening in the coming week with the economy. From bank closures, supply chain issues and economic earnings that will dramatically affect the stock market. We have a very busy week ahead."

"Supply Chain Crisis Threatens Perfect Storm For Bankruptcies As Freight Rates Soar 500 Percent"

Full screen recommended.
"Supply Chain Crisis Threatens Perfect Storm For
 Bankruptcies As Freight Rates Soar 500 Percent"
by Epic Economist

"If you thought last year's shortages were bad, and the price increases were absurd, you'll probably be very upset to know that the situation is going to get a whole lot worse this year. Our global supply chains are broken, and there isn't a simple solution to fix it. One of the biggest problems we had last year were the lack of enough containers in the right places and the excess of empty containers in the wrong places, which has exacerbated port congestion and delivery delays, and contributed to long lead times, surging freight and transportation costs, increasingly empty retail shelves, and higher prices at the stores.

The problems associated with the shortages will continue to grow as the new wave of virus cases spreads around the globe. We're already witnessing a new round of lockdowns, disruptions in production, and widespread factory shutdowns in major manufacturing countries. And as our issues at ports compound, industry executives are reporting that there's a huge buildup of empty containers in the wrong places right now, and travel and movement restrictions are only aggravating the problem. As a result, ocean freight skyrocketed by 121.2% from a month ago, with the cost of a single shipping container rising by a further 16.3% in December. The increase is sparking outrage amongst shippers, who already had to cope with a more than 400% surge in freight rates over the past two years.

Some shipping companies and freight forwarders have seen their net profits rise to unprecedented levels, as they dealt with increased cargo volumes and benefit from higher freight rates in 2021. Amongst them, Cosco Shipping Holdings recorded a profit surge of a staggering 1651% last year. All in all, revenues rocketed by 117.5% to $33.24 billion across the shipping industry over the past 12 months. On the other hand, millions of businesses worldwide are deeply struggling to pay higher transportation costs to ship their products or get imports delivered. The rate hikes are effectively making it harder for them to stay afloat.

On top of all that, road transport prices are also spiking. In the U.S., a shortage of truckers and rising fuel costs are making it significantly more expensive to move goods around the country. According to Joel Fierman, president of New York-based Joseph Fierman and Sons Inc., when companies finally find available truckers, they're having to pay exorbitant fees. “It’s really a pity when your cost for transportation pretty much is as high as your cost for goods,” he said. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing that this country is experiencing right now. Nothing in the industry has gone up at the same rate as freight has," he continued.

As it gets harder and harder to move goods around the planet, companies are bracing for more steep increases in shipping and logistics prices in the months ahead, and much of these higher costs will be absorbed by consumers. The emergence of a new virus variant is only adding more stress to our domestic supply chains, given that some workers are leaving their jobs and others are getting sick. In the food industry, this means trouble for the processing of perishable food items, and most worryingly, it means that more shortages at grocery stores are all but certain. Just like two years ago, lockdowns are being reinstituted and panic buyers are clearing store shelves of food staples, such as canned goods, rice, pasta, flour, and - of course - toilet paper. Only this time, things are different. Local supermarkets are struggling to get their products into stores because so many staff members have been calling in sick.

Given that energy prices jumped by 33.3% in December, while gasoline is up by 58.1%, and food prices already rose 31.4% since 2020, inflationary pressures will hit American workers particularly hard in 2022. Even though gross pay has increased 4.8% over the past year, real average hourly earnings accounting for inflation dropped another 2%, according to data released by the Labor Department. In short, people's wages aren't keeping up with the sharp increases in the price of consumer goods. Right now, at least $24 billion in goods are still stuck outside the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach alone, according to Goldman Sachs estimates, and our domestic supply chain crisis is likely to persist "at least" through the middle of the year, in the best-case-scenario. Unfortunately, given the chaos going on on a global level, these problems will stay with us for a long time. So we should all prepare accordingly."

"Streets of Philadelphia, After Snowstorm, January 07, 2022"

Full screen recommended.
"Streets of Philadelphia, After Snowstorm, January 07, 2022"
Full screen recommended.
"Code Blue in Kensington!" 1/8/22:
"See what it's like when Philadelphia officials issue a Code Blue emergency. The temp is dropping and so are the homeless. We apologize in advance for the breaks in play on this video. We decided to post it in spite of to show there is still compassion for human life."

Musical Interlude: 2002, “Even Now”

Full screen recommended.
2002, “Even Now”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Point your telescope toward the high flying constellation Pegasus and you can find this expanse of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies. Centered on NGC 7814, the pretty field of view would almost be covered by a full moon. NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy.
Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive central bulges cut by a thinner disk with dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing to be smaller and fainter only because it is farther away. A very faint dwarf galaxy, potentially a satellite of NGC 7814, is revealed in the deep exposure just below the Little Sombrero.”

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

“How Buster Douglas Beat Mike Tyson”

"The image that comes to mind is a boxing ring. There are times when... you just want that bell to ring, but you're the one who's losing. The one who's winning doesn't have that feeling. Do you have the energy and strength to face life? Life can ask more of you than you are willing to give. And then you say, 'Life is not something that should have been. I'm not going to play the game. I'm going to meditate. I'm going to call "out". There are three positions possible. One is the up-to-it, and facing the game and playing through. The second is saying, Absolutely not. I don't want to stay in this dogfight. That's the absolute out. The third position is the one that says, This is mixed of good and evil. I'm on the side of the good. I accept the world with corrections. And may [the world] be the way I like it. And it's good for me and my friends. There are the only three positions."
- Joseph Campbell
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact,
it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are,
what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”
- Maya Angelou
“How Buster Douglas Beat Mike Tyson” 
by johnnysmack7

“Going into the fight, Mike Tyson was the undefeated and undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. He held the WBC, WBA, and IBF titles. Despite the several controversies that marked Tyson’s profile at the time, such as his notorious, abusive relationship with Robin Givens; the contractual battles between longtime manager Bill Cayton and promoter Don King; and Tyson’s departure from longtime trainer Kevin Rooney, Mike Tyson was still lethal in the ring, scoring a 93-second knockout against Carl “The Truth” Williams in his previous fight. Most considered this fight to be a warm-up bout for Tyson before meeting up with then-undefeated number 1 heavyweight contender Evander Holyfield (who was ringside for the fight). Tyson was viewed as such a dominant heavyweight that he was not only viewed as the world’s top heavyweight, but often as the number one fighter in the world pound-for-pound (including by “Ring Magazine”), a rarity for heavyweights.

Buster Douglas was ranked as just the #7 heavyweight by Ring Magazine, and had met with mixed success in his professional boxing career up to that point. His previous title fight was against Tony Tucker in 1987, in which he was TKO’d in the 10th round. However, a string of six consecutive wins gave him the opportunity to fight Tyson. In the time leading up to the fight, Douglas faced a number of setbacks, including the death of his mother, Lula Pearl, 23 days before the fight. Additionally, the mother of his son was facing a severe kidney ailment, and he had contracted the flu on the day before the fight.”

“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. 
That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.”
- Vince Lombardi

At 2:40 of this video Douglas takes a tremendous uppercut and goes down, kneeling to clear his head; you can see him wondering to himself if he should get up. No one at all expected him to, but he reached for something deep inside himself, found an inner strength perhaps even he was unaware of, and got back up to continue the fight. The rest, as they say, is history… and real glory. 
– CP
Full screen recommended.

“88 Truths I’ve Learned About Life”

“88 Truths I’ve Learned About Life”
by David Cain

“In the early days of this blog I published what I thought was a throwaway post, entitled “88 Important Truths I’ve Learned About Life”. It was nothing but 88 sweeping aphorisms I had collected as they occurred to me, delivered with a bit of snark. But it was a huge hit and still brings new people to Raptitude. Today I can’t bear to look at it. It’s just too preachy. But I understand the appeal. It’s fun to throw down an aphorism, and ask yourself if you really believe it. Here’s what I’ve learned (I think) in the seven years since. Also quite preachy.

1. Growth means doing things that are hard for you right now. There’s no other way.
2. The news doesn’t show you how the world is. It shows you whatever will make you watch more news.
3. Metal tools and utensils cost a lot more, but last about twenty times as long as plastic ones.
4. Good listeners are rare. When you find one, keep them in your life. And pay it forward.
5. Nobody sees you the way you see yourself, which should probably come as a relief.
6. Often nobody wants to make decisions for the group. Everyone appreciates the person willing to propose a time or a place.
7. Every generation thinks the one that came before them and the one that came after them are the worst.
8. For whatever reason, everywhere in the world human beings are willing to spend enormous amounts of money and time on alcohol.
9. Almost all casual photos would be improved simply by getting closer. You don’t need to get people’s entire bodies in the frame.
10. You don’t really know someone until you know what they struggle with most.
11. Not long ago, tea, sugar and spices were really hard for ordinary people to get. But they’re still as delicious as they always were. So enjoy!
12. If you spend a week tracking how you actually spend your waking hours, you will probably be shocked.
13. Friendships take work to maintain, and it's possible the other person is doing all the work.
14. One way to add hours to your week, and months to your life, is to put your phone somewhere beyond arm’s reach.
15. Often, to make a breakthrough with something, you just need to stick with it a little longer than you usually do. Even five or ten minutes.
16. You can shave a decade or two off your working life by understanding compound interest and the long-term value of your purchases.
17. It’s almost impossible to convince someone of something once they see you as being on the “other side”.
18. Losing weight really is as simple as reducing the number of calories you eat. Not easy, but very simple.
19. Often we convince ourselves that we have less freedom than we really do, so that we don’t have to be responsible for doing the right thing.
20. Listening to the blues really does help when you have the blues.
21. I said this last time, but as a reminder: it’s worth retrying foods you didn’t like the first time.
22. We all have unconscious biases, even nasty ones about race, class and sex. Don’t believe anyone who says they don’t have any.
23. We are all thinking and ruminating nearly all day long, which is why we constantly seek activities that can relieve us from it, like music, TV, drinking, sex and death sports.
24. Romantic love might be a pretty recent invention, so don’t get too bent out of shape if your experience doesn’t fit the mold.
25. When you quit smoking you immediately realize how bad you stank all those years.
26. Daily meditation has a way of making solutions to many of your problems suddenly obvious.
27. “Comfort zone” is an annoying term but it sure is useful. It’s the only place to find solutions to your longest-running problems.
28. Everything has more detail to be found, if you take some time to look even closer. Especially plants.
29. The main reason we argue online is because it feels good, but we like to imagine it’s also somehow noble or helpful.
30. “Act the way you want to feel” actually works a lot of the time.
31. One thing nobody regrets is becoming a fit, active person.
32. Our beliefs about right and wrong come from mostly from intuitions and gut feelings, not logic.
33. We evolved to go days without food. Missing a meal shouldn’t be a big deal, but if you skip the odd lunch people will assume you have an eating disorder.
34. New York City is a pretty neat place. Don’t die without visiting, if possible.
35. Pretty much all double albums would have been better as single albums. Except maybe The Wall.
36. Propaganda’s effects can last forever. Two hundred years later, most people still think Marie Antoinette said “Let them eat cake”.
37. It’s really liberating, after trying to look smart for so many years, to start freely admitting when you’re wrong and when you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
38. Every household should have an aloe plant. Don’t wait until you burn yourself to go get one.
39. We’re all going to die, and on the whole that is definitely a good thing. Wouldn’t it be terrible if all of this never ended? It would also get very crowded.
40. John Waters was on to something when he said, “If you go home with someone, and they don’t have any books, don’t f**k them.”
41. Voting is only one of many avenues individuals have for shaping the direction of society, and it’s an extremely low-leverage one.
42. The ability to make good art depends a lot on your willingness to make lots of bad art in between.
43. We tend to think more than negative events than positive ones. Knowing that is helpful, in case you think there’s something wrong with you.
44. A decent definition for self-love is “Doing for yourself what you would want your kids to do for themselves.”
45. Not making your bed in the morning sets the bar kind of low for the rest of the day.
46. Having a defensible opinion, on any topic at all, actually requires a ton of work. Mostly reading.
47. Everything you own has an effect on your psyche. Less stuff makes for a less disturbed mind in general.
48. Bachelors, if you want to class your place up a bit, a few plants goes a long way.
49. We are all atheists, in a sense. Every person denies the existence of either most or all of the gods that have been proposed.
50. The most insightful news source in America is The Onion.
51. Meeting and/or staying with locals completely changes the travel experience.
52. The best and worst thing about life is all the other people. Well, mostly.
53. Becoming exceptional at something is probably just a matter of making #15 your normal way of doing things.
54. Going for a walk almost always alters the mood, at least a little.
55. One quality everyone finds attractive is competence, at anything really. Experts are super sexy.
56. We would probably be more moral creatures if we acknowledged how fairness and compassion actually is for members of our species.
57. Lasting habit changes always involve some kind of identity shift. Running every day stops being a grind only once you begin to feel like a runner.
58. To pass easily through crowded sidewalks, stare just above everyone’s hairline and keep your speed up. They will get out of the way.
59. Not hiding it when you’re wrong commands more respect than always appearing to be right.
60. We are all selfish, to a pretty alarming degree. If you’ve ever bought a cocktail, you bought it instead of eyeglasses or medicine for some poor kid somewhere.
61. Whoever invented the zipper was a goddamn genius.
62. When a party has degenerated into people showing each other their favorite YouTube videos, it’s time to call a cab.
63. Future societies will laugh at us for how we let advertising cover nearly every available public space.
64. Other people, generally, can see solutions to your problems more clearly than you can. (Use this to your advantage.)
65. Fears get stronger whenever you heed them, and weaker whenever you act in spite of them. This is a simple law you can depend on.
66. Most of the difficulty and awkwardness associated with a task is stacked right at the beginning, so it’s over with quickly unless you chicken out really early on.
67. Listening attentively to someone’s problem without trying to solve it is a skill that’s greatly appreciated, and is worth practicing.
68. Humans are too complex for everything in their lives to run smoothly at once; it’s probably normal to be a mess in at least a few areas.
69. Lots of people you know are hiding addictions, and you’d never guess who.
70. There will always be enough suffering in the world to horrify you a million times over, so it may not be worth dwelling on at times when you’re not doing anything about it.
71. There’s a kind of low-brow pleasure we get from being angry and indignant, and very often there’s nothing else we gain from it.
72. Most classic novels are very readable, but we think of them as dry and awful because of the ones forced on us in high school.
73. There is a paradoxical relationship between ease and difficulty; sticking to easy things makes life hard, while doing hard things makes life easy.
74. Posture has a predictable and immediate effect on mood.
75. Goals have to improve your life in the short-term in order for you to keep at it all the way to the long-term rewards.
76. It can be really freeing to see a given present moment as though it’s the beginning of your life. In a sense, it is.
77. People usually like it when you ask them for advice in their areas of expertise. Also, #64 makes this a smart thing to do.
78. How free you feel in day-to-day life depends a lot on your willingness to open up to discomfort when it happens. That can be practiced.
79. There’s no need to eat iceberg lettuce in a world with available romaine, baby spinach, arugula and endive. Branch out!
80. By the time voices are raised, communication has stopped.
81. A few fancy, high-quality grocery purchases are still way cheaper than even a crappy restaurant experience, and there will be leftovers.
82. People that lie to others in your presence would probably lie to you just as easily.
83. We overvalue pithiness because it’s immediately gratifying, and we undervalue nuance because it takes too much work. But you should share this post anyway.
84. Keeping secrets is really hard for almost everyone. The secret-keeper eventually confides in one other person, thinking they won’t do the same thing.
85. We tend to think the person we are is the person we’ve been so far.
86. Self-doubt is hard to deal with but it does keep our standards high. The worst art is made by people who think everything they do is great.
87. We always think that our latest dilemma is is the one that will destroy us, but so far none of them have. The sky has fallen a thousand times already.
88. Don’t worry, everybody else is crazy too.”

"There Is Always The Hope..."

“What happens to people living in a society where everyone in power is lying, stealing, cheating and killing, and in our hearts we all know this, but the consequences of facing all these lies are so monstrous, we keep on hoping that maybe the corporate government administration and media are on the level with us this time. Americans remind me of survivors of domestic abuse. This is always the hope that this is the very, very, very last time one’s ribs get re-broken again.”
- Inga Muscio

"I'd Still Swim..."

"If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told
the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim.
And I'd despise the one who gave up."
- Abraham Maslow

The Daily "Near You?"

Arkansas City, Kansas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Level Of Intelligence..."

"If man were relieved of all superstition, and all prejudice, and had replaced these with a keen sensitivity to his real environment, and moreover had achieved a level of communication so simplified that one syllable could express his every thought, then he would have achieved the level of intelligence already achieved by his dog."
- Robert Brault

"Why Don't We Cut Out the Middleman and Just Elect Pfizer and Merck?"

"Why Don't We Cut Out the Middleman
and Just Elect Pfizer and Merck?"
by Charles Hugh Smith

"There's a fancy word for cutting out the Middleman: disintermediation. Removing intermediaries who take a cut but neither produce nor add value makes perfect sense, reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Maybe it's time to eliminate the politicians who soak up hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from corporations and the super-wealthy and just elect Pfizer, Merck, Amazon, General Dynamics, etc. directly. Since corporate lobbyists write most of the legislation anyway, why not cut out the intermediaries in the process?

The super-wealthy buy political power via Political Action Committees (PACs and Super-PACs), think tanks and philanthro-capitalist foundations (Gates Foundation, et al.). Now that it takes tens of millions of dollars to buy the conventional "winning campaign," the political class spends much of its time fund-raising, i.e. lavishing kisses on the derrieres of corporations and the super-wealthy, implicitly promising to do their bidding better than the alternative candidates that the corporations and super-wealthy could buy.

Recall Smith's Neofeudalism Principle #1: If the citizenry cannot replace a kleptocratic authoritarian government and/or limit the power of the financial Aristocracy at the ballot box, the nation is a democracy in name only. The reality that our elected government doesn't respond to voters has been well-established: "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens."

Politics has been reduced to claiming to serve the public while serving as handmaidens to a neofeudal autocracy. The public would be well-served by stripping away the obfuscating artifice and fakery and revealing just who's in charge.

Our "democracy" is nothing but an invitation-only auction of political power cloaked with fine-sounding excuses. Politics has always been about money, so this is nothing new; I would love to serve the public interest but gosh-darn it, I need to raise $30 million pronto or I'll lose my seat at the banquet; we're the party of noble idealism and public service, blah blah blah....

America is nothing but a vast moral cesspool that the public is told is a pristine pond of wonderfulness. The secular religion is self-interest cloaked as caring, profiteering sold as "value," fraud packaged as "finance" and rapacious monopolies marketed as "enterprise."

Many wonder why the nation is fracturing, but few bother to look at the collapse of moral legitimacy as a primary factor. Does anyone ask why trust in institutions and government has collapsed? The reason is these institutions have become little more than rackets enriching insiders and middleman-grifters; they have lost moral legitimacy which is the fundamental foundation of democracy and a market-based economy.

As I explain in my new book "Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States", civic virtue is the foundation of social cohesion. Once moral legitimacy and civic virtue - the obligation of elites to serve the common good - have been lost, social cohesion unravels and the nation falls.

Those waiting around for campaign finance reform to actually have any positive consequences are delusional. The system serves the Corporatocracy and the super-wealthy, period, and those in power have zero incentive to do more than present threadbare simulations of "reform" to generate a short-lived illusion that we're not living in a neofeudal autocracy.

All we will have is a neofeudal autocracy until we stop voting for candidates who accept contributions from corporations and the shills and front organizations of the super-wealthy. Nothing will change for the better in America until only candidates who accept zero dollars from corporations and the super-wealthy win elections and every candidate who accepted corrupt money and tried to hide it loses by a landslide.

We don't need more toothless campaign reform; we need a populace who starts voting exclusively for candidates who only accept small contributions from the public and accept absolutely zero dollars from corporations and the super-wealthy. All the tiresome political theater serves to obscure what really matters: the difference between hard-earned moral legitimacy and the self-serving corruption of the neofeudal autocracy.

If we no longer have the capacity to distinguish between moral legitimacy and self-serving corruption, then we might as well eliminate the Middleman and vote directly for Pfizer or Merck. At least the corruption, neofeudalism and autocracy would finally be transparent. Come on, Merck: fund a new stadium for our gladiators and you'll get my vote."