"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
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, July 21, 2022
"The Gods Laugh At Your Plans: Chekhov, Jaspers, And Life-changing Moments"
"The Gods Laugh At Your Plans:
Chekhov, Jaspers, And Life-changing Moments"
The most momentous and significant events in our lives
are the ones we do not see coming. Life is defined by the unforeseen.
by Jonny Thomson
"You’re in the shower one day, and you feel a lump that wasn’t there before. You’re having lunch when your phone rings with an unknown number: there’s been a crash. You come home and your husband is holding a suitcase. “I’m leaving,” he says.
Life is inevitably punctuated by sudden changes. At one moment, we might have everything laid out before us, and then an invisible wall stops us in our tracks. It might be an illness, a bereavement, an accident or some bad news, but life has a habit of mocking those who make plans. We can have our eyes on some distant shore, some faraway horizon, only to find everything come crashing down by the most unseen of events. As the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men. Gang aft agley” (often go wrong).
In Anton Chekhov’s remarkable play, "The Seagull," we meet a cast of characters who are all, in some way, in love with something. The young, idealistic artist Konstantin is in love with the idea of pure art. Arkadin, his mother, is in love with her fans and her celebrity. Konstantin’s girlfriend, Nina, is in love with becoming rich and famous. Everyone in the play has some kind of ambition and plan, or they live in regret over the life they chose. They rail against how misguided or mistaken their life has been, while longing for something else.
They are each like a seagull, flying over the sea or a great lake, and aiming purposefully for the shore. The view up there is wonderful. But the longer the seagull flies, the more oblivious they are to how they tire or weaken. They’re so fixated on some distant horizon that they’re at the mercy to life’s sudden changes. They’re blinkered and distracted, and the gods love nothing more than the hopeful hubris of mankind.
At one point in the play, Chekov has the character Trigorin recount a short story about a gull flying over a lake who’s, “happy and free.” But in the next moment, “a man sees her who happens to come that way, and he destroys her out of idleness.” The seagull is killed, its flight and plans annihilated, in one instant of random thoughtlessness.
Boundary Situations: While so much of our lives are spent in planning and preparation, the most transformative and significant moments are those which come at us out of the blue. These are what the psychiatrist Karl Jaspers called “boundary situations” - the ones we cannot initiate, plan, or avoid. We can only “encounter” them. These are not the mundane, everyday parts of our life - what Jaspers calls “situation being” - but rather they are things which thunder down to shake the foundations of our being. They change who we are. Although these “boundary situations” (sometimes called “limit situations”) change a bit in Jaspers’ works, he broadly sorted them into four categories:
Death: Death is the source of all our fear. We fear our loved ones dying, and we fear the moment and fact of our own death. When we know grief and despair, or when we reflect on mortality, we are transformed. We always know about death, but when it’s a boundary situation, it comes crashing into our lives like some grim scythe; an unforeseen curtain call. The awareness and subjective encounter with death transforms us.
Struggle: Life is a struggle. We work for food, compete for resources, and vie with each other for power, prestige, and status in almost every context there is. As such, there are moments when we are inevitably overcome and defeated, but also when we are victorious and champion. The final outcomes of struggle are often sudden and great, and they make us who we are.
Guilt: Hopefully, there comes a moment for each of us when we finally accept responsibility for things. For many, it comes with adulthood, but for others it comes much later still. It’s the awareness that our actions impact all around us, and our decisions echo into the world. It’s seeing the damage or tears we’ve caused. It’s to recognize that, however small or big, we’ve hurt and upset someone. It’s a profound pull of the heart that changes how we live, and it often comes on unexpectedly.
Chance: No matter how neat and ordered we might want our world to be, there will always be a messy, chaotic, and unpredictable exception. We can hope for the best, and make the plans we want, but we can never take a steering handle on the facts that will affect our existence. According to Jaspers, we each prefer, “assembling functional and explanatory structures… whose central axis lies in sufficient reason” and yet, “despite this, it is not possible for man to control and explain everything. In fact, day by day he faces events that he cannot call anything else other than coincidences or hazards.” We want order, and regularity. What we get is the mercurial and capricious throes of chance.
The best laid plans: What Chekhov’s Seagull and Jaspers’ “boundary situations” get right is that we are each much more vulnerable than we might want to allow. A wedding, three years and a fortune to plan, is ruined by a stomach bug. An hour-long journey home for Christmas winds up getting you stuck in the traffic of a freak snowstorm. A lifetime achievement is overshadowed by a national disaster. Our lives are defined by the unforeseen. We have our dreams, hopes and are flying to some faraway shore. Yet life doesn’t care. Around every corner, at every flap of our wings, everything can change."
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If you caught a glimpse of your own death,
would that knowledge change the way you live the rest of your life?"
- Paco Ahlgren, "Discipline"
The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "I Want A Lot"
"I Want A Lot"
"You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.
But what you love to see are faces
that so work and feel thirst...
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.
But what you love to see are faces
that so work and feel thirst...
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Bill Bonner, "Scorched Earth Policies"
"Scorched Earth Policies"
Wars against crime, homelessness, other wars...
and now, the earth's temperature!
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - "If we wanted to ruin a kid’s life, we’d tell him that whatever happened, it wouldn’t be his fault. “94 again today.” Yes, it’s hot here in Charm City. In more ways than one. Every weekend brings a heat wave and a crime wave. And the waves keep coming: “Three shot in street corner fight.” “Man rushed to hospital after shots exchanged on JFX.” “189 fatalities so far in 2022.” The local news is just one shooting report after another. The mayor is on the defensive… He looks overwhelmed… out of his depth… like he just got cut from a high-school basketball team. The chief of police, though, could have come right out of central casting… a heavy man with a decent manner, he sounds like he is doing his best.
It is a city on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Many of the shops, bars, and offices are empty. There are few people out on the streets. And those who are should probably be arrested… or put into some sort of long-term care. They shuffle… waddle… lean… and stumble along like zombies.
Blameless and Aimless: Many are ‘unhoused.’ That is, they are ‘suffering homelessness.’ These statements – brought to us by the press, the government, and activists – reveal the problem. It’s not their fault! Being ‘unhoused’ suggests no cause and effect between the housed and the houses. It is just something that happens. Like the weather. If someone is unhoused, it must be because the economy failed… the gods failed… or the government… or housing industry. Someone… somewhere… failed. But not the obvious person – the guy sleeping on the steps.
This morning, we walked up the hill to the office. There, in the doorway of the Methodist Church on the corner, someone was asleep. Laid out on the stone steps. A broken beer bottle next to him. Otherwise, nothing. The church steps seem to attract people who suffer homelessness. Practically every day, one or two are there suffering it… but mostly passed out. They get up eventually and make their way to one of the many shelters or ‘caring’ centers in the neighborhood. Some have been kicked out of their houses. Some have just never gotten themselves together. Others have drug, alcohol or mental issues. Often, it is some combination.
It is a remarkable time we are living through. A person is not expected to be able to put a roof over his head. And a city can’t keep its people from killing one another. But Americans think they should tell the Ukrainians what to do with the Donetsk Peoples’ Republic. And many humans believe they can control the weather for the whole planet.
Too hot? It’s just another problem to be solved – by the same people who solved the terrorist threat… and the Covid 19 threat. They rescued the world economy in 2009. They saved millions of lives in 2020-2021. And they’re solving the Russian aggression crisis….and homelessness, too.
“Code Red”: With so much on their plate already, do they really have the ability for the most ambitious crusade in the history of the world? They must think they have no choice. “Code red for humanity,” says President Biden.
Here’s the latest on the weather from The Washington Post: "Extreme heat prompts alerts in 28 states as Texas, Oklahoma hit 115." "Records are crashing as temperatures spike amid a high-end heat wave baking the Great Plains. Temperatures have spiked to 115 degrees in Texas and Oklahoma, with more than 60 million Americans anticipated to see triple-digit heat over the next week. Heat advisories and excessive heat warnings affect more than 105 million people in 28 states both across the central United States and the Northeast, where the combination of hot weather and high humidity will lead to conditions ripe for heat-related illness or heatstroke."
Meanwhile, from Europe… the scorched earth policy seems to be working already. But it’s not the Russians who are doing the scorching. It’s the weather. CNBC: "A deadly heat wave in Western Europe has triggered intense wildfires, disrupted transportation and displaced thousands of people as the continent grapples with the impact of climate change. The record-breaking heat is forecast to grow more severe this week and has prompted concerns over infrastructure problems such as melting roads, widespread power outages and warped train tracks.
Several areas in France have experienced record-breaking temperatures that approached or surpassed 100 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the national weather forecaster. In Britain, where few homes have air conditioning, the highest temperature has also reached nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit, falling just below the national record."
Our neighbors in Poitou, France, report temperatures in the ‘90s… swimming pools so hot they don’t want to get in… and the countryside is almost shut down during the day. “Only mad dogs and Englishmen,” venture out into the noonday sun, they say. The government has to ‘do something’ about it. Everybody says so. But what can it do? Declare an emergency! Announce more policies… more controls… more spending! Sure… whatever."
"The Economy is in Awful Shape - Real Estate Meltdown"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 7/21/22:
"The Economy is in Awful Shape - Real Estate Meltdown"
"There is so much happening within real estate. We’re seeing a real crisis with the mortgage industry. Refi's are at a 22 year low. Houses are down, but they’re still selling at record high prices. This cannot continue without a major collapse."
Comments here:
"The Sometimes Hidden Beauty of ‘This Too Shall Pass’"
"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent a sentence to be ever on view and which would be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, 'And this, too, shall pass away.'"
"The Sometimes Hidden Beauty of ‘This Too Shall Pass’"
By Richard Haddad
"“This too shall pass.” This proverb has no doubt been repeated millions of times in many different languages since the COVID-19 pandemic and economic collapse started. The sentiment may be difficult to accept amidst so many hardships from lost jobs, lost businesses and lost lives.
This adage grew from the roots of a Persian fable and became known in the Western world primarily through a 19th-century retelling by the English poet Edward FitzGerald, who crafted the fable “Solomon’s Seal” in 1852 illustrating how the adage had the power to make a sad man happy but, conversely, a happy man sad. The fable was reportedly also employed in a speech by Abraham Lincoln before he became the sixteenth President of the United States.
But the version I want to share today that I think is most beautiful and powerful was written in 1867 by American newspaper editor and abolitionist Theodore Tilton. He reworked the fable into a poem called “The King’s Ring.” Here again, the retooled adage wields a double-edged sword. It can help us endure the passage of difficult times, or keep our perspective and humility during good times. Here is the Tilton poem:
"The King’s Ring"
"Once in Persia reigned a King,
Who upon his signet-ring
Graved a maxim true and wise,
Which, if held before his eyes,
Gave him counsel, at a glance,
Fit for every change or chance;
Solemn words, and these are they:
“Even this shall pass away.”
Trains of camels through the sand
Brought him gems from Samarcand;
Fleets of galleys through the seas
Brought him pearls to rival these.
But he counted little gain
Treasures of the mine or main.
“What is wealth?” the King would say;
“Even this shall pass away.”
In the revels of his court,
At the zenith of the sport,
When the palms of all his guests
Burned with clapping at his jests,
He, amid his figs and wine,
Cried, “O loving friends of mine!
Pleasures come, but do not stay:
Even this shall pass away.”
Lady fairest ever seen
Was the bride he crowned the queen.
Pillowed on his marriage-bed,
Whispering to his soul, he said,
“Though no bridegroom never pressed
Dearer bosom to his breast,
Mortal flesh must come to clay:
Even this shall pass away.”
Fighting on a furious field,
Once a javelin pierced his shield.
Soldiers with a loud lament
Bore him bleeding to his tent.
Groaning from his tortured side,
“Pain is hard to bear,” he cried,
“But with patience day by day,
Even this shall pass away.”
Towering in the public square
Twenty cubits in the air,
Rose his statue carved in stone.
Then the King, disguised, unknown,
Gazing at his sculptured name,
Asked himself, “And what is fame?
Fame is but a slow decay:
Even this shall pass away.”
Struck with palsy, sere and old,
Waiting at the Gates of Gold,
Spake he with his dying breath,
“Life is done, but what is Death?”
Then, in answer to the King,
Fell a sunbeam on his ring,
Showing by a heavenly ray -
“Even this shall pass away.”
I believe enduring well is an essential part of the test we must pass while on this Earth together. I am still taking this test. We all are. I also believe we must have a certain amount of faith and hope as we do all in our power to make things right in this world while also accepting that we don’t have the power to control all outcomes. I’ve been learning these truths and striving to apply them more in my own life. In the past I have sometimes hearkened to gloomy voices in the world. Many a time I entertained unnecessary doubt and worry. But I am learning that worry works against faith and hope. My mother once shared this other saying with me that I have tried to apply in my older years - “Worry is interest paid on money never borrowed.” May we all strive to endure, live and love well, for this too shall pass."
"This is How You’re Going to End Up Eating the Bugs"
"This is How You’re Going to End Up Eating the Bugs"
by Chris Black
"Real meat is simply going to be priced out of the range of low to middle class people. Remember what the WEF said? “In the future you’ll eat much less meat. It’ll be like an occasional treat.” This is how it’ll happen. The food you will be able to afford will be prepackaged “foodlike substances” made with cricket flour. That’s how you’ll get your measly microdosis of protein. And to make sure “you’ll be happy” the media and public figures will tell you that your increasing levels of weakness, fatigue, brain fog, thinning hair, are a “good thing” and that you’re “saving the planet.” Think I’m wrong? Screenshot this and let’s revisit it in 5 years. Oh and by the way, there’s no stopping this train. Way too late now."
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Come on, let me hear it for the 10,000th time...
"Oh that could never happen here!"
How's that working out for you?
"5 Months Of Sanctions In Russia. Crisis? Empty Malls? Oh, Really?"
Full screen recommended.
St.Petersburg - Me,
"5 Months Of Sanctions In Russia. Crisis? Empty Malls? Oh, Really?"
"Let me show you life in Russia after almost 5 months of sanctions. I haven't been shopping in big shopping malls for almost 2 years now. And recently I have watched a lot of videos about empty malls in Russia. So I decided to see the growing crisis with my own eyes. I went to Europolis, a shopping mall not far away from my place in St. Petersburg. Sure, Russian economy is declining. But is everything that bad now?"
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
"Vkusno I Tochka. Why Does The New Russian
McDonald's Have Such A Weird Name?"
"I visited the new Russian McDonalds today which is called Вкусно - и точка, Tasty. And period (word-for-word translation). The correct translation is Tasty. That's it! However I visited this place not to taste a Big Mac, but to explain this weird name. Which is kinda weird even in Russian."
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So...how are the malls, stores, restaurants and food stores
near you, Good Citizen? Yeah, we all know, don't we?
Gregory Mannarino, "Important! Bigger Cracks In The Financial System - Is A Full On Meltdown Close?"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/21/22:
"Important! Bigger Cracks In The Financial System -
Is A Full On Meltdown Close?"
Comments here:
"Strange Prices At Kroger! This Is Getting Crazy!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 7/21/22:
"Strange Prices At Kroger! This Is Getting Crazy!"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing very strange price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:
"A Disease That Can Make It Feel Like Someone Is Peeling Your Skin With A Potato Peeler Is Spreading At An Exponential Rate"
"A Disease That Can Make It Feel Like Someone Is Peeling
Your Skin With A Potato Peeler Is Spreading At An Exponential Rate"
by Michael Snyder
"I would highly recommend that you take this new global monkeypox outbreak very seriously. On May 6th, there was one case. Now it has spread to 78 countries and there are 14,945 cases. In nation after nation we have seen monkeypox cases take off at an exponential rate, and that includes the United States. Monkeypox cases have now been confirmed in 45 U.S. states, and the total number of U.S. cases has jumped to 2,102. Any chance of containing this disease is gone, and that is really bad news.
Many have pointed out to me that this virus has been spreading primarily among those that are engaged in certain types of risky sexual activity, but that is not the only way that it spreads. A bartender in Dallas named Luke Shannahan recently got monkeypox, and he is not quite sure how he contracted it…"He’s not sure exactly how he got it, but Luke was contacted by the Dallas Health Department who told him he may have been exposed to monkeypox. “I was at bars. I was going to pool parties. I did attend a music event over the weekend and recently all of those people have been becoming positive,” Luke said. “Apparently it was a contact tracing phone call.”
It is entirely possible that he was engaged in sexual activity that he is not admitting. But if it is true that a lot of people that were at the same music event ended up contracting monkeypox, that would suggest that it is spreading fairly easily even in casual settings. After the call from the Dallas Health Department, he was given a monkeypox vaccine, but that didn’t prevent what came next…Shannahan was administered a monkeypox vaccine after he was diagnosed, but still became bedridden for two days and felt so ill he feared for his life.
I keep making the same point, but most people out there still don’t seem to get it. This is not the same monkeypox that we have dealt with before. Scientists are telling us that there are approximately 50 key mutations that set this virus apart from previous strains of monkeypox…"But in the new study, when microbial genomics researcher João Paulo Gomes of Portugal’s National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge (INSA) and his colleagues compared 15 virus samples from the current outbreak with viruses isolated from people who traveled to West Africa in 2018 and 2019, they found that the present-day virus had mutated about 50 times in just four years."
So the truth is that we may be starting from square one because this virus is radically different from anything that we have previously faced. And as I have warned in previous articles, this is a virus that you definitely do not want to catch.
According to Shannahan, any time that one of the sores on his skin touched something, it felt like “someone is taking a potato peeler to your skin”… Revealing his illness, Shannahan told KHOU 11: ‘It’s just the most traumatic experience I’ve ever had. It’s the worst sick I’ve ever been. You have these blisters that are inflamed and anytime it grazes something or touches something, it literally feels like someone is taking a potato peeler to your skin." It turns out that Shannahan has also had COVID, but he says that monkeypox is “100 times worse”…"The pain and tenderness was constant,’ he said. Asked whether it was like Covid, he said: ‘Oh, 100 times worse, this was a totally different level of extreme fatigue."
If the number of cases continues to rise at an exponential rate, it won’t be too long before monkeypox is literally everywhere. So what will we do then? If it can spread among people gathered at a music festival, then it can also spread at a church, at a store or at a school. Will health authorities ultimately decide that extended lockdowns are necessary? And will the general public start clamoring for such lockdowns?
Let’s hope not. Personally, I don’t want to see lockdowns in the United States ever again for any reason. But once people start to understand the sort of pain this virus causes, there will be a lot of panic among the general public. Shannahan says that during his worst days it was as if “someone took a ball of needles and kept on stabbing you with it”…“The pain and tenderness was constant,” Shannahan said. “It’s like if someone took a ball of needles and kept on stabbing you with it.”
Of course Shannahan is not the only victim that is speaking out. Another victim named Gabriel Morales says that he spent eight days alone in his apartment in “excruciating pain” after he contracted the virus…"Although he was covered with lesions, it took four hours of phone calls, and then five hours in a Harlem emergency room, for Gabriel Morales to be tested for the monkeypox virus earlier this month. And that was just the beginning of his wait. Mr. Morales was sent home and told the Department of Health would call with his results in less than a week. The call never came. He spent the next eight days alone in his apartment in what he described as excruciating pain, trying to find someone to prescribe him pain medication and a hard-to-access antiviral drug."
Doesn’t that sound fun? If this virus is not contained, we could soon have millions upon millions of victims suffering through the most intense pain that they have ever experienced in their entire lives. And just about everyone else could be in a state of full-blown panic because they are so fearful of catching the virus themselves. There is a very real possibility that this plague could cause even more panic than COVID, and so it is absolutely imperative that authorities get this thing under control.
Unfortunately, many experts are now entirely convinced that it will be impossible to do so…"It has been a mere nine weeks since the United Kingdom announced it had detected four cases of monkeypox, a virus endemic only in West and Central Africa. In that time, the number of cases has mushroomed to nearly 13,000 in over 60 countries throughout Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, new parts of Africa, South Asia, and Australia."
The growth in cases and the geographic spread has been rapid and relentless. Now, even as global health officials race to curb spread of the virus, most experts polled by STAT said they don’t believe it will be possible to contain it. For the record, I specifically warned that something just like this would happen. Now that day has arrived.
I am still hoping that the numbers will start to level off and that this crisis will start to fade. But I have been closely watching the numbers each week and so far that has not happened. In fact, I believe that the WHO will soon officially declare that we have another global pandemic on our hands. An era of great pestilences is here, and none of our lives will ever be the same again."
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Related:
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It just never ends, does it?
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"Here And Now..."
"That we can never know," answered the wolf angrily. "That's for the future. But what we can know is the importance of what we owe to the present. Here and now, and nowhere else. For nothing else exists, except in our minds. What we owe to ourselves, and to those we're bound to. And we can at least hope to make a better future, for everything."
- David Clement Davies
Wednesday, July 20, 2022
"You Own Nothing But Debt While Bills Pile Up; Fed Juiced Markets End Badly"
Jeremiah Babe, 7/20/22:
"You Own Nothing But Debt While Bills Pile Up;
Fed Juiced Markets End Badly"
Comments here:
"Major West Coast Cities Are Being Overwhelmed By Rats, Drugs, Garbage And Hordes Of Homeless People"
Full screen recommended.
"Major West Coast Cities Are Being Overwhelmed By Rats,
Drugs, Garbage And Hordes Of Homeless People"
by Epic Economist
"America’s major West Coast cities are becoming rotting hellholes that are being completely overwhelmed by rats, addicts, crime, piles of garbage, and hordes of homeless people. The rapid decay of some of the wealthiest cities in the nation is fueling the growth of criminality rates, as well as a dramatic increase in the number of tent cities, and worsening public sanitation problems. These issues are likely to spell a lot of trouble all across the U.S. as we head into another downturn. We're being warned that our societal challenges are set to unleash widespread chaos in the months ahead as economic conditions deteriorate even further and millions more Americans are forced to live on the streets. That's why in today's video we're going to expose the horrifying conditions some big west coast cities are in right now because soon these problems will impact the entire country and spark a wave of social unrest that's unlike anything we've ever witnessed.
All across the U.S. West coast, the number of people living on the streets is rising, so is the number of people living in their cars and the number of elderly residents is becoming unhoused. As a result, tent cities are growing at beaches, parks, highway underpasses, lots, and sidewalks. Official data shows that since 2012, the number of homeless people in cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland has grown by approximately 75 percent, and with each passing year, the situation only gets worse.
Local reports reveal that in several areas of downtown LA garbage is being left uncollected, which is raising public health concerns after a recent typhus outbreak. The article titled “The collapse of a city that’s lost control” highlights that large swaths of Los Angeles have become wastelands with rats scurrying among piles of decaying garbage and squalid tent cities. “The city of Los Angeles has become a giant trash receptacle,” wrote columnist Steve Lopez.
Offense rates are also soaring in the region. “Everyone living, working in, or visiting downtown has noticed the rapidly deteriorating conditions,” downtown resident Catherine Tomiczek emphasized. She revealed that a friend was beaten and robbed on the street and a neighbor was stabbed in her building. The number of serious delinquencies rose by almost 8 percent since January, official data shows. Needless to say, LA is far from alone.
Further up the California coastline, the homelessness crisis is getting so out of control that the wealthy San Francisco metropolitan area is facing the worst drug epidemic in the history of the United States. Residents say that large portions of the city have been transformed into stomach-churning cesspools of squalor. Since the start of the year, there were nearly 14,000 official complaints about human feces in the streets of San Francisco. The rental site, RentHop, examined public data from the city’s website and found a 311 percent increase in the number of complaints about human and animal waste over the past five years.
Similarly, the notoriously liberal city of Berkeley, California, had to remove over 75 tons of garbage, human waste, and drug paraphernalia from homeless camps in just nine months. The massive pile of garbage was collected between September 2021 and March 2022 by Berkeley's Homeless Response Team, according to the city's 2023 and 2024 prospective budget.
“As California goes, so goes the nation” is a phrase that people like to use, but we must hope that it isn’t true, because California is falling apart at a staggering pace and other major West Coast cities are already following the same path. Meanwhile, the new economic downturn continues to accelerate, and this means that our homelessness boom is going to spiral out of control in the coming months. Pretty soon, there will be tent cities in virtually every community in America. That’s why we shouldn’t look down on those that are living in tents, because the truth is that many “middle-class Americans” will ultimately end up joining them. We all need help at some point in our lives, and compassion is a better solution than repression. Sadly, hearts are growing cold all over the nation, and social unrest is spreading like wildfire."
Gregory Mannarino, "Blackrock 'Warns' Of Food Shortages; Existing Home Sales Crater!"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/20/22:
"Blackrock 'Warns' Of Food Shortages;
Existing Home Sales Crater!"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"
Deuter, "Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant.
The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
•
"When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged
in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams,
to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where
he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."
- Walt Whitman
"For Nothing Is Fixed..."
"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."
- James Baldwin
The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "Book of Hours II, 16"
"Book of Hours II, 16"
"How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing-
each stone, blossom, child-
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly."
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
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“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for! To quote from Whitman, 'O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless- of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?' Answer: That you are here - that life exists, and that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”
- "Dead Poets Society"
Chet Raymo, “Caught In The Middle”
“Caught In The Middle”
by Chet Raymo
"It doesn't take a genius to recognize that human males have a propensity for intergroup violence, and that the killing is often accompanied by rape. One need only read the newspapers. The only question is to what extent these tendencies are innate or culturally inculcated. Nature or nurture? Or both? A new book, "Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World," by population biologist Malcolm Potts and science writer Thomas Hayden, dishes up a bit of both. The violence is in our (male) genes, they maintain, but it is susceptible to cultural control.
What the authors calls "behavioral propensity to engage in male coalitional violence" evolved as far back as the common ancestor of humans and chimps, they claim, although our other close relations, bonobos and gorillas, seem to have found more peaceful ways of living. Genes predispose, say Potts and Hayden, but cultural forces can alleviate the worst of male nastiness. By empowering women to be leaders in cultural, social and political spheres, the violent propensities of men can be restrained. Further, empowerment will give women control of their reproductive destinies, and will therefore result in fewer offspring. Less population pressure will reduce other factors fueling violence and conflict, the authors claim.
Anthropologist Hillard Kaplan reviews the book in the October 9, 2009, issue of "Science." He agrees that the available evidence suggests that male intergroup violence has a long evolutionary history. He believes this tendency was exacerbated into large scale warfare with the development of agriculture and the associated larger population groups and competition for fertile land. Kaplan believes that male group violence is stoked by poor economic prospect for young males. To the empowerment of women he would add education and jobs as a way to reduce antisocial behavior.
There is nothing particularly new or revolutionary about any of this. Progress? Yes, I suppose so, but we clearly have a long way to go before women exercise equal power in society, or before young men in the developing world, especially, have an economic stake in social stability. Meanwhile, as the painting above by Jacques-Louis David, "The Sabine Women," suggests, women and children will continue to be caught in the middle.”
Anthropologist Hillard Kaplan reviews the book in the October 9, 2009, issue of "Science." He agrees that the available evidence suggests that male intergroup violence has a long evolutionary history. He believes this tendency was exacerbated into large scale warfare with the development of agriculture and the associated larger population groups and competition for fertile land. Kaplan believes that male group violence is stoked by poor economic prospect for young males. To the empowerment of women he would add education and jobs as a way to reduce antisocial behavior.
There is nothing particularly new or revolutionary about any of this. Progress? Yes, I suppose so, but we clearly have a long way to go before women exercise equal power in society, or before young men in the developing world, especially, have an economic stake in social stability. Meanwhile, as the painting above by Jacques-Louis David, "The Sabine Women," suggests, women and children will continue to be caught in the middle.”
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
Bill Bonner, "Locked and Loaded"
"Locked and Loaded"
Russia's 'General Winter' looms large as Germany
faces down its own 'energy Stalingrad'
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - "Here’s the latest news from Ukraine: "Russia Orders Troops to Target Ukraine's Western-Supplied Weapons."
KYIV, Ukraine - "Russia ordered its forces to target the long-range missiles and artillery weapons that Western countries have recently supplied to Ukraine, a sign of how Kyiv’s additional firepower has begun to reshape the conflict."
We remind readers that our team spirit barely reaches up to the south bank of the South River in Maryland… or to the Blackwater River in Ireland… certainly not to the Dnieper. But with so much fawning coverage by the Western media – about how the valiant freedom fighters in Kyiy are kicking Russia’s butt – we’re beginning to wonder. There’s always more to the story; what is it? What if the Ukrainians are not winning the war, and never were? What if Russia were not a diddly-squat country; but one with a crucial part of the world’s economy? And what if Russia’s traditional ally – General Winter – comes to its aid?
What the World Needs: As we saw yesterday, Russia produces a lot of what the world needs – food, fertilizer and fuel. It also produces a lot of ammunition. And what we are seeing in the Ukraine/Russia combat is a real slugfest – involving a lot of ammunition. Every day comes fresh reports that the US and its allies are stepping up the flow of weaponry to the Ukraine. What happens to it? Well… it just doesn’t last very long. Alex Vershinin reports: "In short, US annual artillery production would at best only last for 10 days to two weeks of combat in Ukraine. If the initial estimate of Russian shells fired is over by 50%, it would only extend the artillery supplied for three weeks."
In previous issues, we’ve highlighted the collateral damage to the dollar-based international money system. Now, even the head of the Russian Orthodox Church is subject to sanctions. He ‘abused his position,’ says the British foreign minister. How? By supporting his own country, Russia. And who wants to keep his wealth where foreigners can seize it, or freeze it, with no due process of law? Russia is cozying up to its Chinese, Iranian, and Indian neighbors to bypass sanctions. They’ve already created a new money system of their own. How long before it rivals ours? The sanctions also mean that a lot of grain, fertilizer and fuel can’t be sold freely in the world market. Who is the real loser?
Germany’s “Energy Stalingrad”: Sanctions are like a synthetic scorched earth policy – in the West, not in Russia. They strip Europe of much of its food by stopping exports (or merely raising prices) from Russia. China, Iran and India may be able to avoid some of the cost increases. Others will need to reduce inputs of fertilizer, and suffer reduced yields. Yesterday’s news: "The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and Russian gas producer Gazprom signed on Tuesday a memorandum of understanding worth around $40 billion, Iran's oil ministry's news agency SHANA reported. The deal was signed during an online ceremony by the CEOs of both companies on the day Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Tehran for a summit with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts."
Meanwhile, the Nord Stream 1 pipeline has been shut down for maintenance. France’s Economy Minister says he thinks Europe should prepare for a ‘total cutoff’ of Russian gas. Germany’s Economic Minister says it will be a “political nightmare,” which could destabilize Western European governments. Already, Germans are being asked to take shorter showers… to turn off the streetlights… to stop heating public pools. In other words, they’re preparing for an attack by ‘General Winter,’ still saluting its Mother Russia! It’s going to be Germany’s ‘energy Stalingrad,’ warns colleague Byron King.
Over the Edge: According to the Wall Street Journal’s report on the World Food Program, “increases in the cost of food and fuel since March have pushed an additional 47 million people into acute food insecurity… taking the total to 345 million worldwide… some 50 million live on the edge of famine.”
The New York Times elaborates: "Soaring fertilizer prices, driven by sanctions on Russia and Belarus, along with high global energy prices, are broadening the scope of food shortages by making it more expensive to produce and transport food around the world." Maybe it will be ‘worth it?’
The Washington Post says it has talked to Biden officials who say they cannot allow Russia to “swallow up Ukraine - an outcome officials believe could embolden Putin to invade other neighbors or even strike out at NATO members - as so high that the administration is willing to countenance even a global recession and mounting hunger."
So let’s get this right. The country that can’t shoot straight… with an incompetent military… an economy about the size of the greater New York metropolitan area… run by a mentally-defective president…now threatens all of Europe! And the army that can’t take Kyiv is set to march on Berlin! Ya, whatever. But don’t worry. Here on the western slope of the Chesapeake Bay, we are locked and loaded… with firewood ricked up the eaves… and a copy of de Caulaincourt’s “With Napoleon in Russia,” on the kitchen table."
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Joel’s Note: “Stalingrad was the destruction of a German army that was encircled in the Soviet Union in the Second World War,” Byron King explained to us in yesterday’s Fatal Conceits podcast. “And there were so many ways in a tactical, operational, strategic sense to avoid marching your army to destruction. Obviously, the Soviets are very glad that they destroyed the German army. One side won the war, one side lost the war. Ok. But you would think the side that lost the war, the Germans, would learn something about not losing other wars, not doing stupid things.”
History may not repeat itself, quipped Mark Twain, but it often rhymes. Some 80 years have passed since that dreadful siege… and yet, here we are, the Germans are again facing energy shortages even before Russia’s ‘General Winter’ enters the fray.
What will this mean for the continent a few months from now, when the temperatures really begin to drop and German voters are starting to freeze? Over in France, too, electricity prices have shot up 9-fold - from around 50 to 450 euros per megawatt hour - in recent months. Where will they be when the snow begins to fall? And in the Netherlands, farmers are already sharpening their pitchforks as their leaders force new “green” policies on their output. What does this mean for political stability on the continent?
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Freely download
"With Napoleon In Russia: The Memoirs Of General De Caulaincourt" here:
"The Acceptance Of Near-indigency..."
"Hobbes had argued the need for a despot because men were like beasts; Townsend insisted that they (people) were actually beasts and that, precisely for that reason, only a minimum of government was required. From this novel point of view, a free society could be regarded as consisting of two races: property owners and laborers. The number of the latter (working class) was limited by the amount of food; and as long as property was safe, hunger would drive them to work. No magistrates were necessary, for hunger was a better disciplinarian than the magistrate.
To the politician and administrator laissez-faire was simply a principle of the insurance of law and order, with the minimum cost and effort. Let the market be given charge of the poor, and things will look after themselves.
The acceptance of near-indigency of the mass of the citizens as the price to be paid for the highest stage of prosperity was accompanied by very different human attitudes. Townsend righted his emotional balance by indulging in prejudice and sentimentalism. The improvidence of the poor was a law of nature, for servile, sordid, and ignoble work would otherwise not be done.
Also what would become of the fatherland unless we could rely on the poor? 'For what is it but distress and poverty which can prevail upon the lower classes of the people to encounter all the horrors which await them on the tempestuous ocean or on the field of battle?'"
- Karl Polanyi
Hat tip to Jesse's Cafe Americain for this material.
"Near-indigency..." Near? Look around...
"People Have No Money - Inflation Destroys Travel"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 7/20/22:
"People Have No Money - Inflation Destroys Travel"
"People should be traveling this summer and they are not. Airlines are off and people are not driving anywhere campgrounds are off as much as 60% and hotels are down as much as 30%. This is because of two things gas prices are exorbitant and people have no money."
Comments here:
"Saudi Arabia and Russia Taking Biden for a Ride"
Full screen recommended.
Firstpost, 7/20/22:
"Saudi Arabia and Russia Are Taking Biden for a Ride"
"Saudi Arabia is the second-largest oil producer in the world. Russia comes third on that chart. Ever since the war in Ukraine started, Saudi Arabia has been buying mind-boggling amounts of oil from Russia. Why is Riyadh doing so, and what game are President Vladimir Putin and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman playing together? Let’s find out."
Comments here:
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And why should you care about this?
You're paying for it, Good Citizen, that's why...
Any questions?
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