“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”

“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”

by 
Robert Fulghum  

“In the summer of 1959, at the Feather River Inn near the town of Blairsden in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of northern California. A resort environment. And I, just out of college, have a job that combines being the night desk clerk in the lodge and helping out with the horse-wrangling at the stables. The owner/manager is Italian-Swiss, with European notions about conditions of employment. He and I do not get along. I think he’s a fascist who wants pleasant employees who know their place, and he thinks I’m a good example of how democracy can be carried too far. I’m twenty-two and pretty free with my opinions, and he’s fifty-two and has a few opinions of his own. One week the employees had been served the same thing for lunch every single day. Two wieners, a mound of sauerkraut, and stale rolls. To compound insult with injury, the cost of meals was deducted from our check. I was outraged.

 On Friday night of that awful week, I was at my desk job around 11:00 P.M., and the night auditor had just come on duty. I went into the kitchen to get a bite to eat and saw notes to the chef to the effect that wieners and sauerkraut are on the employee menu for two more days.

That tears it. I quit! For lack of a better audience, I unloaded on the night auditor, Sigmund Wollman.

I declared that I have had it up to here; that I am going to get a plate of wieners and sauerkraut and go and wake up the owner and throw it on him. I am sick and tired of this crap and insulted and nobody is going to make me eat wieners and sauerkraut for a whole week and make me pay for it and who does he think he is anyhow and how can life be sustained on wieners and sauerkraut and this is un-American and I don’t like wieners and sauerkraut enough to eat it one day for God’s sake and the whole hotel stinks anyhow and the horses are all nags and the guests are all idiots and I’m packing my bags and heading for Montana where they never even heard of wieners and sauerkraut and wouldn’t feed that stuff to the pigs. Something like that. I’m still mad about it.

I raved on this way for twenty minutes, and needn’t repeat it all here. You get the drift. My monologue was delivered at the top of my lungs, punctuated by blows on the front desk with a fly-swatter, the kicking of chairs, and much profanity. A call to arms, freedom, unions, uprisings, and the breaking of chains for the working masses.

As I pitched my fit, Sigmund Wollman, the night auditor, sat quietly on his stool, smoking a cigarette, watching me with sorrowful eyes. Put a bloodhound in a suit and tie and you have Sigmund Wollman. He’s got good reason to look sorrowful. Survivor of Auschwitz. Three years. German Jew. Thin, coughed a lot. He liked being alone at the night job – gave him intellectual space, gave him peace and quiet, and, even more, he could go into the kitchen and have a snack whenever he wanted to – all the wieners and sauerkraut he wanted. To him, a feast. More than that, there’s nobody around at night to tell him what to do. In Auschwitz he dreamed of such a time. The only person he sees at work is me, the nightly disturber of his dream. Our shifts overlap for an hour. And here I am again. A one-man war party at full cry.

“Fulchum, are you finished?”

“No. Why?”

Lissen, Fulchum. Lissen me, lissen me. You know what’s wrong with you? It’s not wieners and kraut and it’s not the boss and it’s not the chef and it’s not this job.”

“So what’s wrong with me?”

“Fulchum, you think you know everything, but you don’t know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems. You will live longer. And will not annoy people like me so much. Good night.” In a gesture combining dismissal and blessing, he waved me off to bed.

Seldom in my life have I been hit between the eyes with a truth so hard. Years later I heard a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest describe what the moment of enlightenment was like and I knew exactly what he meant. There in that late-night darkness of the Feather River Inn, Sigmund Wollman simultaneously kicked my butt and opened a window in my mind.

For thirty years now, in times of stress and strain, when something has me backed against the wall and I’m ready to do something really stupid with my anger, a sorrowful face appears in my mind and asks: “Fulchum. Problem or inconvenience?”

I think of this as the Wollman Test of Reality. Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference. Good night, Sig.”

- http://www.livinglifefully.com/

The Daily 'Near You?"

Salem, West Virginia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"We Are About to Lose It All"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly 7/6/23

"We Are About to Lose It All"

"It’s crazy. Retail theft is at an all time high. When you apply for a job, they want you to have all your personal information. Website, history, social media, history, and now you’re biometric data. It’s over, Johnny."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Poet: Maya Angelou, "When You Know Better, Do Better"

Full screen recommended.

Maya Angelou,

 "When You Know Better, Do Better"

 

"Sometime In Your Life..."

"Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even."

- Daniel Berrigan

"How It Really Is"

 

"Our Alleged President Is a Corrupt Scumbag and the Ruling Class Is OK With That"

"Our Alleged President Is a Corrupt Scumbag

 and the Ruling Class Is OK With That"

by Kurt Schlichter

"It’s undeniable that PINO – President-In-Name-Only – Joe Biden is massively corrupt in every possible way. From leveraging his position as vice-president for cash to covering up for his meth-addled, stripper-banging, scumbag son – who is currently spilling his Bolivian party powder all over the White House – this senile pervert is a one-man crimewave. And the ruling class simply doesn’t care. If anything, its members are happy about it. This is not something they merely excuse. This is something that they find a positive good. Grandpa Badfinger reset the corruption bar for all of them. Now they too can now freely line their own pockets without fear of shame or prosecution while sending us proles an unequivocal message – we can do whatever we want.

As the gang at the Ruthless podcast (who I’m scheduled to visit next month) observe, this is not about hypocrisy. We’re so far past “Imagine the scandal if Trump did that!” This is about hierarchy. This is to show you that they have power and there is nothing you can do about it. But I’m unconvinced they are thinking this through.

Granted, it’s bad now and will likely get worse before it gets worse – for them. Let’s understand something. Nothing is ever going to happen to Joe Biden regarding his massive criminal enterprise. Nada. Zip. Asa Hutchinson’s chances in the primaries.

Sure, Crusty is probably going to get impeached somewhere down the road, once the Republicans gather all the evidence they can, and there’s a lot of evidence. It’s damning. And it does not matter because Democrats support the PINO’s graft. While the impeachment will barely squeak through the House on a pure party line vote, it’ll go over and die in the Senate. Not a single Democrat – well, maybe election-year Manchin – will vote for it. Understand that to the Democrat Party, power is more important than any of our norms, rules and/or customs. We constantly hear about “Our Democracy,” despite us being a Republic. Well, Our Democracy, Our Butt. It doesn’t mean a nation run by citizens to them. It means the nation run by them.

So, Joe Biden will skate on being impeached, as will that loathsome Stasi clerk Merrick Garland, and whatever that idiot’s name is who runs Homeland Security and left the border wide open. There will be no accountability because there is no accountability. The ruling class figured out that if they just refuse to abide by the rules that used to exist, there’s no cosmic referee out there who will descend from the sky and enforce them. The regime media certainly isn’t going to do it. You just bullSchiff your way through, you commit a bunch of crimes, and you keep your position and your prestige. That’s great for the elite in the short-term. It’s not so great for Our Democracy in the long term. But the elite does not want citizens to have a say in our government. It does not want us to have a saying in anything. It wants us to be disenfranchised, disarmed, defeated, and sometimes deceased.

Look at all the norms and the rules and the guardrails that have been bulldozed away and you might well wonder what the bottom of this slippery slope is going look like. But those of us with a glancing familiarity with history don’t wonder. We know the answer, and the answer is not particularly nice. In the short-term, America will stumble along under the New Corruption for a while, but over time this is unsustainable. These guys are running our country on the fumes of the empty gas tank of American democracy.

They keep going because of inertia, running on the power of default. Normal people want to think everything‘s just going along as it always has, but they can sense that something is wrong. They are troubled when they see the persecution of Donald Trump and other dissidents, of pandemic shenanigans, of Wall Street bailouts and endless wars, but it’s comforting for them to assume that everything is working, that the system is fair and just, and that we aren’t living in a dictatorship of the Whole Foods bourgeoise.

Those of us who are based see the reality and accept it, and that’s why we’re not freaking out when we see Hunter using daddy’s name in vain to shake down Chinese crooks for cash. It’s not a shock. We understand the inherent corruption of the ruling class. We understand that the idea that we live under the rule of law is baloney. We understand that the only thing that matters is power. But the normal people are going to figure that out too. How do I know? Because I know history, and this kind of crap cannot go on forever.

The advantage that patriots have over the people running the institutions is that our garbage ruling class is not composed of impressive people. They didn’t build the institutions they are destroying. They inherited them via their Ivy League credentials – often as legacies, which the left will cry about but not actually change because that is how the ruling class perpetuates itself. These are not accomplished people. These are not smart people. These are not brave people, and these are not tough people. They are cruel and ruthless people, willing to use the existing systems of power to defend their societal sinecure, but their problem and their weaknesses that they rely on the proles to do their dirty work.

Can the elite really rely on them? As I’ve discussed before, they can certainly rely on the leadership of the institutions, like the military, to do whatever they were told to do in order to maintain the power of our garbage ruling class. But an institution is not just its leaders. An institution is also its members. The members are largely normals. And remember that the enemy – and you are the enemy – always gets a vote. Crushing us would be no simple task no matter what F-16 advocates like our PINO say.

How is this trend going to turn out? It’s too early to say. But it very likely will get much, much worse. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that Republicans are going to nominate a man for president who the Democrats will throw in jail on trumped up charges – figuratively and literally – before the 2024 election. And then it’s going to occur to even the most unbased people that the rules don’t necessarily apply anymore. Oh, we’re not going to break into some sort of civil war because Trump gets hauled off to Leavenworth. That’s not likely for a number of reasons. But it is going to destroy the illusions of norms for the normals, and the illusion of norms matters. Norms are, in fact, the only real protection those currently engaged in eliminating the norms have.

I’ve often said that Trump is not our last chance but their last chance, and that remains accurate. A backlash is coming. It’s inevitable. Just look at history, which is a giant timeline of rebellions and reformations and revolutions. The idea that the mass of Americans is going to spend the rest of eternity being bullied by a bunch of people with the politics of a divorced Santa Monica wine mom simply goes against everything history teaches us. The question is not if they are stopped but how, and how hard.

Are we going to re-embrace the Constitution? Are we looking at an American Cesar, or an American Franco? These are questions that our ruling class will never ask because they are uninformed of history and uninterested in it. But they’re going to get interested, very interested, in history because history is very interested in them."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.

Bill Bonner, "Less to Save, Less to Spend"

The Greek theatre with Mount Etna volcano smoking 

ominously in the background, Taormina, Sicily, Italy.

"Less to Save, Less to Spend"

Plus "free" Italian villas, out of whack tech, Swedish Gelato and plenty more...

by Bill Bonner

Taormina, Sicily - "Sicily is warm. Dry. Sunny. The drive from Catania to Taormina was pretty with rose laurel in bloom along the highway and the sparkling Ionian sea on our right. The countryside is beautiful, if a bit stark. It is a fashionable place, with large yachts anchored offshore…and fancy hotels on the steep hillsides.

But inland, houses are free. Apparently, there are some available now in nearby Castiglione di Sicilia. The birthrate in Italy (as in much of the rest of the developed world) is so low, many towns are being abandoned. Houses – their owners in old-age homes or already under the ground – find no buyers. Instead, they are left empty…with fading paint and windblown shutters. Towns die along with their residents.

Swedish Gelato? A few years ago, an enterprising mayor had the idea of giving away the houses just to attract new residents. There was a catch, you had to spend some money to fix up the place…and live in it, at least for some minimal time. Since then, many places have followed the example, adding to the inducement with cash to pay for the renovations. Most recently, islands off the west coast of Ireland are offering houses and as much as $100,000 to anyone who will move in.

Many people have taken these offers. There are towns here in Sicily, for example, whose inhabitants are almost entirely American, Dutch, German or Scandinavian. They spend full or part time in their sunny new digs. And with the internet, many continue to work at their old jobs without interruption.

The only trouble is that one of the things that makes a place nice to live is the people who live in it. Take the Sicilians out of a Sicilian town and it’s no longer a Sicilian town. Where is the local bar? Where are the neighbors, speaking their distinct form of Italian? Where’s the panna cotta…the gelato...the ravioli neri? Foreigners can do a pretty good job of imitating these things…but it is not the same. More about Sicily…as we discover it.

Today, we turn back to what a great economy the US has…but only to say it ain’t so. Recall that the Fed funds rate was approximately zero for the 14 years, 2009-2022, with the after-inflation rate substantially negative. Now, the nominal rate is over 5%...approximately even with inflation.

Our hypothesis is that there is no way you can go from sustained interest rate falsification (setting lending rates far too low for far too long) back toward ‘normal’ without a serious rerating of capital values. By that we mean, if a stock was worth $100 when interest rates were sub-zero, it may be worth only half as much when they are near to 5%.

Back Into Whack: Why? Because an investor can now get a 5% return – with virtually no risk. Buying Nvidia, on the other hand, is practically an invitation to lose money. Real estate…bonds, same story. The Primary Trend in interest rates turned in 2020 (or so we believe). Now, the higher they go, the less stocks, bonds, and real estate are worth.

But wait…the financial media tells us that all is hunky dory. As Tom put it yesterday, we’ve gone from ‘hard landing’ to ‘soft landing’ to no landing at all. Take the stock market, for example. There is great excitement about the “Magnificent Seven.” These are the Big Techs. Together, they are supposedly worth $10 trillion. The most magnificent of them is probably Nvidia. It makes the silicon chips that investors believe will power the new AI advances. But the AI-inspired super-boom will almost certainly fizzle…just like the crypto bubble…and the dot.com bubble before it.

A form of artificial intelligence already powers things like ChatGPT and delivers blah blah on any subject you want. But like the breakthrough techs that preceded it, AI probably won’t contribute much to real, broad GDP growth. Most likely, at least one or two AI firms will turn into money makers…but Nvidia may not be one of them.

The Big Techs are very expensive. Unless something truly extraordinary has happened, they’ll almost surely be less expensive in the future. And when they go down, they will most likely drag the non-big, non-techs down with them.

Meanwhile, consumers are running out of money. Real incomes went down for more than two years. They’ve shown positive growth only recently…and the last revisions suggest that they may soon turn down again. Mortgage payments are back to over 40% of median income – right where they were in 2007, when the last real estate bubble popped.

Less to Save, Less to Spend: And now that the stimmies, giveaway loans, ultra-cheap interest rates, and tax cuts are visible only in the rear view mirror, the road ahead looks rocky. Consumers have less money to save. Newsweek reports: "The rate of savings among American households is rapidly falling. In February, the U.S. personal savings rate was estimated to be around 4.6 percent - much below the decades-long average of about 8.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis."

And they have less to spend. Here’s Stephanie Pomboy: “How is this not the ONLY thing people are talking about today? The trend in weekly same store sales is F-ugly! And remember, this is NOMINAL. (The picture is even f-uglier in the context of soaring credit card borrowing.)”

Charlie Bilello has more: "The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index declined in May for the 14th month in a row. They are now calling for a US recession from Q3 2023 to Q1 2014, driven by tight monetary policy and lower government spending. The two components in the Leading Index that are not currently portending economic weakness: the stock market (S&P 500) and Building Permits (increase in residential homebuilding activity). The other areas (inverted yield curve, credit, consumer expectations, new orders, etc.) continue to suggest a downturn is coming."

And here’s the conclusion of macro-strategist Gerard Minack: "In short, while several factors have delayed a prospective recession, most of them are temporary and will fade in the second half. Real GDI has fallen for two consecutive quarters, which is a strong signal that a second half recession is likely."

Recession coming? Stocks…real estate…bonds – all falling? We don’t know. But after seeing our hotel bill here in Taormina, we’re going to check out those free houses in Castiglione de Sicilia. We may need one."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

"Outrageous Prices At Kroger! This Is Unaffordable! What's Next?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 7/6/23

"Outrageous Prices At Kroger! 

This Is Unaffordable! What's Next?"

"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger and are noticing unaffordable price increases on groceries! This is not good as grocery prices are reaching an all-time high! It's getting rough out here as more and more families struggle to put food on the table."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Meanwhile...

Full screen recommended.

Travelling with Russell, 7/6/23

"Kyrgyzstan Supermarket Tour: Moscow vs. Bishkek"

"Come along on a walk through a Kyrgyzstan Supermarket together with a Russian friend, as we compared a supermarket in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan with supermarkets in Moscow, Russia. What will we find? How are they different?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Why?! How could this be?! Oh, there's a reason...

Full screen recommended.

Kimgary, 7/6/23

"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"How many times do you need to get hit over 

the head before you realize who's hitting you?"

- Harry S. Truman

"You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life, and I've

 been quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country.” 

- Gore Vidal 

So, while you desperately try to pay the bills and put food on the table...

Article from 2020, much worse since the hoax pandemic:

"The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%,

 And That's Made the U.S. Less Secure"

"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

Comments?

Musical Interlude: Runrig, "Running to the Light"

Full screen recommended.

Runrig, "Running to the Light"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"To some, it looks like a giant chicken running across the sky. To others, it looks like a gaseous nebula where star formation takes place. Cataloged as IC 2944, the Running Chicken Nebula spans about 100 light years and lies about 6,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Centaur (Centaurus).

The featured image, shown in scientifically assigned colors, was captured recently in a 12-hour exposure. The star cluster Collinder 249 is visible embedded in the nebula's glowing gas. Although difficult to discern here, several dark molecular clouds with distinct shapes can be found inside the nebula."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200420.html

"A Tale Told By An Idiot..."

"A Tale Told By An Idiot..."

○

Freely download "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare" here:

- https://www.holybooks.com/

"Never Ever Forget..."

"Never, ever forget that nothing in this life is free. Life demands payment in some form for your "right" to express yourself, to condemn and abuse the evil surrounding us. Expect to pay... it will come for you, they will come for you, regardless. Knowing that, give them Hell itself every chance you can. Expect no mercy, and give none. That's how life works. Be ready to pay for what you do, or be a coward, pretend you don't see, don't know, and cry bitter tears over how terrible things are, over how you let them become."

- Ernest Hemingway, "For Whom the Bell Tolls "

Gerald Celente, "Ready For War? The Preachers Have Lockjaw"

Very strong language alert!!

Gerald Celente, Trends Journal 7/5/23

"Ready For War? The Preachers Have Lockjaw"

"In today's episode Gerald dives into the never ending escalation of the war in Ukraine. The chance of nuclear exchange has never been higher as it is today. Gerald combats the lack of moral courage that is plaguing the world. The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XORYnd-dR4

"Weak Friends Are A Liability, Strong Friends An Asset; Consumers Struggle To Pay Bills?

Jeremiah Babe, 7/5/23

"Weak Friends Are A Liability, Strong Friends An Asset; 

Consumers Struggle To Pay Bills?

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Costco Food Items Are 70% More Expensive As Basic Grocery Items Become Impossible To Find"

Full screen recommended.

"Costco Food Items Are 70% More Expensive As 

Basic Grocery Items Become Impossible To Find"

by Epic Economist

"Costco Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti is warning about exceedingly difficult times for U.S. consumers as food inflation is expected to continue to worsen all over the country. At the warehouse chain, shoppers are noticing explosive prices across a series of everyday items right now, and that will continue to be the norm for the rest of the year and into 2024. New reports reveal price hikes of up to 70% in some key categories. Meanwhile, some shelves remain empty at the retailer’s stores, That’s why, in today’s video, we decided to track the grocery products facing the steepest price increases in recent weeks and months, and which ones are still in short supply at Costco so you can prepare for the challenging environment that lies ahead

Over the past year, it has been hard to overlook the fact that the cost of everything from produce to baked goods to dairy products increased at Costco warehouses. But new reports show that this trend has intensified in recent months, and analysts at GoBankingRates say that a new round of price hikes was just introduced in the company’s system, that’s why staying aware and prepared is key.

Since April, price tag changes of 30% up to 70% were observed at the chain’s warehouses, according to Julie Ramhold, an industry expert with DealNews.com. That was also true in May, and June, with a flood of consumer reports confirming the trend. The report also notes that the most shocking price hikes occurred in the meat category, which includes beef, pork, poultry, and fish. Right now, four-pound packs of Costco's Kirkland Signature Sliced Bacon are selling for $21.99, up from $16.99 just a couple of months ago, Ramhold points out. Another user noted in May that ground beef prices soared to $25.99 at Costco, while the same product was selling for $19.49 at Aldi. The steepest price increase was observed on King Crab prices, which shoot up from $22.99/lb to $38.99/lb, a whopping 70% surge.

At the same time, dairy products and eggs continue to face empty shelves at Costco warehouses, and prices are rising faster than at other big-box stores. For lots of people out there, these higher prices mean they can no longer afford to shop at Costco. Although you can still find deals for certain products, the cost of basic staples is reaching record levels.

Data shared by Bloomberg reveals that those price hikes are already hurting Costco’s bottom line. In May, the company’s sales declined for the third straight month as US consumers fled to cheaper stores.In June, the company’s Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti warned about exceedingly difficult times for US consumers. He said he has seen a significant share of customers switching from purchases of beef products to less expensive choices, like pork and chicken. He highlighted that typically observes this trend historically during times when the US entered a recession in the past.

Galanti’s cautious tone scared investors, who were already concerned about the company’s rising prices, supply chain problems, and slowing sales. That pushed Costco stock down 20% from March levels. With crazy-high prices turning more and more customers away, turbulence is coming for the warehouse chain. But before things start spiraling out of control, don’t forget to check for deals and get ready for the inflationary crisis at major grocery stores in the months ahead."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"Food Inflation Skyrockets. 

The Entire Yield Curve Inverts Even More. Prepare!"

Gregory Mannarino PM 7/5/23

"None Of Us Care"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 7/5/23

"None Of Us Care"

"People don’t seem to care about inflation anymore. No one is losing any sleep as prices stay high. We are seeing the effects in the real estate market and in retail."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

 

Bristol, Vermont, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"If We have No Idea..."

“If we have no idea what we believe in, we’ll go along with anything. Truth takes courage. Courage to stand up for what we believe in. Not necessarily in a confrontational way, but in a gentle yet firm way. Like an oak tree, able to sway gently in the wind, but strongly rooted to the ground.”

- A.C. Ping

"The Fatal Error Of Sheep"

"The Fatal Error Of Sheep"

by Todd Hayen

"I will start this article with an apology to those readers who lack a sense of humor similar to mine, as well as to those lovely big hearted folks who don’t like labeling of any sort (sheep and/or shrew).

Regarding the term “sheep” - I have tried (and am certain I have failed occasionally) to refrain from calling an individual person as “sheep.” It is rather a term I have applied to a group of people with a similar “mindset.” If you feel you fit that mindset, you may, if you wish, call yourself a “sheep.” If you find it offensive, and do not feel you “fit,” then that is fine by me. Do not include yourself in the sheep group.

As for shrews. Well, that’s where the sense of humor comes in. I needed a term other than “those of us on the other side of the divide who believe in freedom and do not believe in the agenda or the power hungry globalists trying to take over the world”…whew…”shrew” is an easier way to get the same point across once the term is defined. Why shrew? That’s a long story. But it is a term as good as any, and is complimentary to “sheep” as it starts with the same first two letters, and it too is an animal. Turns out shrews can be ferocious, even though very small. So that fits too. So there you have it. Read this article with these things in mind, as it is full of reference to sheep and shrew.

The fatal error of sheep is not realizing that the people they call “conspiracy theorists” and “science deniers” are not some small fringe group of weirdos and hillbillies as they might imagine. The fact is we are large in number and include many brilliant minds and formidable members in our individual fields of expertise. This is no ragtag band of ne’er do wells.

Although I have no question we are on the RIGHT side of things, I will say that to the people who have to deal with us - that fact is of no real consequence (being right seems to have to affect on them). It seems the sheep love to ignore us, and act as if we don’t exist, regardless of the fact we are right. They can’t be bothered with us; we are only a nuisance to them. That attitude is going to one day bite them really hard in the you know where.

Many sheep have asked me, “How can you be sure you are right and we are wrong?” I have often asked myself the same question. There are many answers, my favorite is simply to say, “we are right because we are right” - which of course is rather flippant. This, however, seems to be a more prudent answer: Shrews are curious and look hard for answers.

Even if the prevailing consensus seems correct, we always seem to want more. We want to actually understand why things are like they are. Maybe we don’t do this with everything we encounter; we certainly do it when facing big sweeping pronouncements and when the powers that be tell us we all have to “do” this or that, like take a vaccine no one has really studied for a virus that no one really knows that much about. We typically go “huh?”

We then dive into it. We go down every rabbit hole we can find. Many of those holes lead to dead ends, but we discover those dead ends for ourselves. We don’t let anyone bar us from access and say, “you don’t want to go down there.” We say, “huh? Why not?” Once we start to feel that our usual sources for information, generally what they call “Main Stream Media,” is not giving us the whole story, we quickly move into some uncharted territory and start digging there. Yes, again, more dead ends but we become accustomed to “dead ends” being par for the course of truly uninhibited discovery.

We create conclusions, assumptions, speculations built on all the information we have gathered, and begin to come up with something we can make a tenable statement of truth about. But it takes a ton of work. And is usually never final, never ironclad. We don’t seem to like things that “appear” ironclad.

Sheep do not do this. I have not yet met one that does. They often THINK they do, and throw back to me lines they have heard on NPR, or the WP or NYT, or of course the big “authorities” such as the retired Tsar of Science Fauci, POTUS, heads of major hospitals or pharmaceutical companies, et al. They don’t seem to realize their insistence on these sources being accurate is akin to looking to Goebbels to verify the accuracy of a Hitler speech, or referring to Der Stürmer for the truth about Jews. You need, today, to go to a variety of sources before you will come upon an accurate portrayal of social or scientific reality. Sheep refuse to accept this.

What is odd about this is that we have never been in a culture where the mainstream news is 100% reliable. Sources have always been biased, and to really get a true picture of something, we have always needed to access several sources.

The problem is that as Americans (or Canadians for that matter) it has been drilled into us that freedom, truth, mom and apple pie are the hallmarks of our American culture. Although most of us have been brought up to believe that, it really never has been the truth. Maybe for a millisecond it was back in 1776, but I doubt it. (The tenets here are true, but being told that these are the hallmarks and intentions of the American or Canadian government is not the truth.)

That doesn’t necessarily mean that this culture has been 100% deprived of any integrity for 200 years (well, right now you might be able to say that) it means we have always been independently responsible for seeing through this wall of subterfuge. Unfortunately I think they finally managed to chop off the chicken’s head. Most people out there seem to have lost the capacity to use their brains.

It didn’t used to take all that much to reveal the boll weevils hiding in the cotton. We had competing newspapers that reveled in revealing untruths in a competitor’s pages. This tended to work well with all but the biggest players (Rockefellers, Carnegies, Morgans, etc.), now it doesn’t work at all because all the big news sources are bought. This is pretty obvious, but most sheep-types seem to think an owner of a news source has no power over what they print. Duh.

Many imagine some cigar smoking workaholic editor holding onto his anchor of truth uttering with disgust, “they’re not going to stop ME from printing THAT.” I don’t think that ever really existed. I think if anything kept older news sources more honest than today, it was stumbling onto “truth” as a marketable commodity. This no longer seems to be the case.

So what does this have to do with a sheep fatal error? Well, just that, truth is no longer a marketable commodity with major news sources, so we must all look to sources where it still is. Sheep don’t realize that shrews have truth on their side. And they align with truth. They also do not believe we have integrity, or that there are quite a few of us, and that we are very SMART, resourceful, and persistent. Eventually that is going to get them, and in a very hard way.

Truth is like rain water on a roof. It will find its way through if there is a way through. Where that analogy fails is when a roof becomes watertight. Culture and human society can never become “truthtight.” Don’t ask me why, it is just a given. Eventually truth finds its way in, no matter what. It may take a while, but truth will get through. It will prevail.

Shrews may not all know all the truth at any given moment, but they look for it, no matter where it might be hiding, and they find it. When they find it, and show other people where it is, they are widening the hole for more of it to come through, just like the leak in the roof, or the hole in the dam. Eventually the dam will break and the roof will cave in."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"The Trouble With Most People"

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

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

“If you believe the American dream is dead in this country, why are you sitting in a college classroom?” he asked. The class was silent. Students looked shocked, and one said he hadn’t thought about that."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

o

"According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 57% of Americans have a reading grade below 9th level, and 13% have a reading grade below 5th level. Only 13% can understand the Declaration or Patrick Henry’s speech, and virtually none can understand the Constitution. And that includes all Americans. Among Generation Z, it’s far worse. They are the least literate generation in American history.

Spend a few minutes on YouTube watching our young people be interviewed on the most basic matters of our history and values. They do not know anything of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and even if they wanted to, they could not learn it because the texts are inaccessible to them. Far too many have been cognitively crippled."

- "Independence Day 2023"

○

"Back when I taught at UCLA, I was constantly amazed at how little so many students knew. Finally, I could no longer restrain myself from asking a student the question that had long puzzled me: ''What were you doing for the last 12 years before you got here?''

- Thomas Sowell

○

"The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling."

- Thomas Sowell

○

"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds." - Will Durant

○

"It takes considerable knowledge just to  realize the extent of your own ignorance."

- Thomas Sowell

"How It Really Is"

 

"Truth is weirder than any fiction I've seen."

- Hunter S. Thompson

"4th of July, Streets of Philadelphia"

Full screen recommended.

kimgary, 7/5/23

"4th of July, Streets of Philadelphia"

"Problems with drugs and crime on Kensington Ave, Philadelphia's most dangerous street. In Philadelphia as a whole, violent crime and drug abuse are major issues. The city has a higher rate of violent crime than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. The drug overdose rate in Philadelphia is also concerning. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50%, with more than twice as many deaths from overdoses as homicides. Kensington's high crime rate and drug abuse contribute significantly to Philadelphia's problems.

Because of the high number of drugs in the neighborhood, Kensington has the third-highest drug crime rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia, at 3.57. The opioid epidemic has played a significant role in this problem, as it has in much of the rest of the country. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed in the United States over the last two decades, and Philadelphia is no exception. In addition to having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% of Philadelphia's overdose deaths involved opioids, and Kensington is a significant contributor to this figure. This Philadelphia neighborhood is said to have the largest open-air heroin market on the East Coast, with many neighbors migrating to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high concentration of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have focused on the neighborhood in an attempt to address Philadelphia's problem."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

A comment: Before you unthinkingly respond, "Oh, that could never happen here!", you'd better wake up and be aware that our society and economy is totally collapsing in every way, and it's doing it right now, and life as we knew it is already gone forever. This is only the beginning. You'd better thank God this hasn't happened where YOU live...yet.

o

Full screen recommended.

Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia"

Bill Bonner, "Avoiding the Big Loss"

"Avoiding the Big Loss"

Never mind the FOMO... here's our real MO...

By Bill Bonner

Catania, Sicily - "We just arrived in Sicily. We’re going to a wedding in Taormina, site of the TV show ‘The White Lotus.’ We’ve never seen the show (we don’t have a TV)…but we’ll give you the low-down later. Meanwhile, this is probably a good time to explain why we’re so gloomy and doomy…

Where’s the recession? Where’s the stock market crash? Has the bear market turned into a bull market? Has the coming recession been upstaged by an approaching boom? What’s the problem? Why spoil a good party by mentioning that the curtains are on fire and the police are at the door? If you listen to the popular press, you might think America’s finances are delightfully robust. Here’s Dan: "The NASDAQ just closed out its best first half of a year ever, with $QQQ up nearly 40%."

Bidenomics Inaction: The latest ‘data,’ says the press, is positive. Employment…inflation…sales – it’s ‘all good,’ or so they say. And Joe Biden tells audiences what a great job he’s done; here’s a recent speech: "Bidenomics is working…Today, the U.S. has had the highest economic growth rate, leading the world economies since the pandemic. The highest in the world. (Applause.) We created 13.4 million new jobs. More jobs in two years than any president has ever - (applause) - made in four - in two. And, folks, it’s no accident. That’s Bidenomics in action…"

Really? Is the economy really so good? Are stocks such good investments? Is there no reason for darkness and worry? We’ll look more closely tomorrow. In preview, gloom makes a comeback! By way of further explanation, here at Bonner Private Research, we tend to look on the dark side. Perhaps it is because of those many years we spent in a Baltimore ghetto. We hear corks popping; we duck to avoid the cross-fire. We smell lilies; we look for the open casket.

The “Big Loss”: Or maybe it is just our sorry métier. You work all your life. You save your money. You invest it. After the age of 55, the worst thing you can do is to take the ‘big loss.’ It’s like a bad fall in the bathroom. Because, it’s almost impossible to recover. You can still make profits. But you won’t have time to compound them substantially.

So, for most readers, missing a boom is much less of a problem than not missing a crash. Missing a boom is like taking a vacation; you can get back to work later. But get hit by a crash…wiping out half your money…and you may have to downsize faster and further than you intended.

Our #1 goal, here at Bonner Private Research, is to try to understand what is going on. Washington promises to build a better world for you. Wall Street promises to make you rich. Our job is to make sure you’re not devastated when those promises don’t turn out. We don’t mind being “too early.” And we forgive ourselves for being wrong sometimes. But we damned sure don’t want to be blindsided by a crash we didn’t see coming."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

"12 Big Restaurant Chains That Will Be Gone By The End Of 2023"

Full screen recommended.

The Atlantis Report, 7/5/23

"12 Big Restaurant Chains That Will 

Be Gone By The End Of 2023"

"From foodborne outbreaks to changing tastes, these 12 restaurant chains may vanish by the end of 2023, leaving a void in the dining landscape."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Alert! Edge Of Another Meltdown! Bond Market Selling Off"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/5/23

"Alert! Edge Of Another Meltdown! Bond Market Selling Off"

- https://traderschoice.net

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"A Well-packaged Web Of Lies..."

“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed… When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.”

- Dresden James

"As a people, Americans are coming to the realization that they are the most lied-to people on the face of the Earth, and that while our schools may propagandize us to assume everyone is truthful, the reality is that only the workers are predisposed to tell the truth, and everyone else, corporate leadership, politicians, academics, TV newscasters, lie to us so much and so constantly that Americans are just as much in the dark as to the true nature of their society as were Medieval serfs or Roman slaves." 

- Michael Rivero

Greg Hunter, "Biden Blocking Sun & Destroying Earth"

"Biden Blocking Sun & Destroying Earth"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Climate engineering researcher Dane Wigington has dedicated his life to warning about the increasing dangers to the planet of climate engineering. So, when the Biden Administration came out this week and said it was considering “blocking the sun to limit global warming,” it was a total lie to cover up the fact blocking the sun has been going on for decades because of the well-established science called geoengineering. The technology used to block the sun is, in fact, destroying the Earth. The signs include increasingly weird weather events such as oversized hail to toxic wildfires you are seeing in the news right now. 

 So, why is the Biden Administration wanting to get geoengineering in the news when the Lying Legacy Media (LLM) lied about this climate destroyer by omission for years? Wigington explains, “Certainly this elephant in the sky is becoming all but impossible to hide. Perhaps in their mind they can paint some picture that this is a benevolent planetary saving act. Perhaps they think they can program populations into accepting it. I don’t think that is going to happen. I think populations are finally starting to realize that those in power are not here to help them. 

We have forever chemicals in every single drop of rain that falls anywhere on the planet at this point, and that is peer-reviewed science. There is an additional 40 million to 60 million tons of known highly toxic particles being sprayed in the skies all over the world for various agendas and objectives and it’s not being disclosed by anyone. There is an illegal federal gag order for all National Weather Service and NOAA employees. There is an unbelievably massive elephant in this equation that nobody is willing to acknowledge. 

All of us have extremely high levels of contaminates in us that Geoengineeringwatch.org has done with hair, blood and urine and that are packed with these metals they are spraying in the sky. This is a fight for life right here and right now. All other concerns and problems are moot if we don’t deal with this. The elite have been saying they want the global population cut down to 500 million people. That means 7.5 billion have to go away. It should be very clear that what is happening in our skies is NOT benevolent. It’s malevolent - period.”

In closing, Wigington says, “The unfolding damage that climate engineering is a huge part of climate engineering has derailed the planet’s ability to respond to the damage done. Climate engineering destroys the ozone layer. That single component is an extinction level event. If there is no ozone layer, there is no terrestrial life on earth. We are perilously close to that right now. If we can stop geoengineering, we can buy time for the planet. The atmosphere is being used as a physics lab with no consideration for the consequences.” There is much more in the 37-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with climate researcher Dane Wigington, founder of GeoEngineeringWatch.org, with an update on the calamity geoengineering is causing."

- https://rumble.com/

o

"10 Million-Year-Old Tree Fossil Explains Natural Climate Change"

MUST VIEW! Scott Ritter, "Russian Artillery, Air Defense, and Electronic Warfare"

Scott Ritter, 7/4/23

"Russian Artillery, Air Defense, and Electronic Warfare"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Alert! 24 Hours, Nuclear Crisis Imminent? They Are Preparing Bad Things"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper 7/4/23

"Alert! 24 Hours, Nuclear Crisis Imminent? 

They Are Preparing Bad Things"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Hindustan Times, 7/4/23

"NATO To Strike Russia's St. Petersburg With Rockets?"

"An Estonian politician, Oleg Ivanov, has reportedly made claims about NATO's alleged plans to provoke Russia amid the ongoing Ukraine war. Ivanov, the leader of Estonia's opposition party Koos ("Together"), said Estonia is actively constructing NATO military bases, particularly in the city of Narva. The city is located just 100 kilometres from Russia's St. Petersburg, close enough for rockets from this base to be fired at the northern capital of Russia within minutes. Ivanov has warned that Russia should anticipate a military provocation from Estonia in the coming years. "

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"There are a multitude of fuses affixed to dozens of powder-kegs and little kids with matches are on the loose. I don’t know which of the fuses will be lit and which powder-keg will blow, but someone is bound to do something stupid, and then all hell will break loose. It could happen at any time. One military miscue. One assassination. One violent act that stirs the world. And the dominoes will topple, setting off fireworks not seen on this planet since 1939 – 1945. I can see it all very clearly."

- Jim Quinn

- https://austincountynewsonline.com/

"A Very Dangerous July 4th; The Chicago War Zone; Living In Very Disturbing Times"

Jeremiah Babe, 7/4/23

"A Very Dangerous July 4th; The Chicago War Zone; 

Living In Very Disturbing Times"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Chrysalis"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Chrysalis"

“Oceans of strings and choirs, flutes and keyboards lift us 

out of the trials and tribulations of our daily lives as though 

we were on a ship with gossamer sails, sailing on the moonlight.” 

– Steve Ryals

"A Look to the Heavens"

“How many arches can you count in the below image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the above image was taken during a clear dark night, it caught a photogenic third arch far in the distance- that of the overreaching Milky Way Galaxy. Because we are situated in the midst of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, the band of the central disk appears all around us.

The sandstone arches of the Double Arch were formed from the erosion of falling water. The larger arch rises over 30 meters above the surrounding salt bed and spans close to 50 meters across. The dark silhouettes across the image bottom are sandstone monoliths left over from silt-filled crevices in an evaporated 300 million year old salty sea. A dim flow created by light pollution from Moab, Utah can also be seen in the distance.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110524.html

"Twitter Is Falling Apart As Massive Failures Break The System"

Full screen recommended.

"Twitter Is Falling Apart As 

Massive Failures Break The System"

by Epic Economist

"If you have any social media, you probably already heard by now that something is really wrong with the Twitter system. Over the weekend, users started noticing that their timeline wasn’t loading. The only message they could read was “Rate limit exceeded”. At first, many people didn’t think too much of it. After billionaire Elon Musk took over the company last October, outages became all too common on the platform. But then, Musk revealed that Twitter was introducing a limit on how many tweets users can view per day. The move was met with a chorus of disapproval, and many experts in the financial and tech world suggested that the company is being destroyed, and these actions are proof that the app is falling apart at the seams. With a billionaire debt and poor performance, bankruptcy is a real possibility, new data exposes. In today’s video, we investigate what is behind Twitter’s downfall, and how Musk’s moves are leading the company to its ruin.

With over 240 million users worldwide, social media giant Twitter has been on a rollercoaster ride since tech billionaire Elon Musk became the head of the company late last year. Thousands of jobs were eliminated, parts of the social network just stopped working, with users constantly reporting that replies to tweets are showing up out of order, the notifications tab isn’t updating as frequently as it should, and the two-factor authentication tool has also been facing extensive failures.

The situation only seems to be getting worse as Musk announced yet another controversial change in the platform that is seriously upsetting users.. The Twitter owner said he introduced a limit on how many tweets users can view every day. He first said that verified accounts could read 6,000 posts a day, while unverified accounts could only see 600, and new unverified users would have access to only 200 tweets. Hours later, he said the cap was raised to 10,000 posts per day for verified users, 1,000 per day for unverified and 500 posts per day for new unverified users.

The action sparked outrage amongst former Twitter employees. Yoel Roth, who worked in the user trust and site integrity team for seven years, said this “isn’t even the first time they’ve completely broken the site by bumbling around in the rate limiter”. “Futzing with rate limits is probably the easiest way to break Twitter,” he wrote on Bluesky, an alternative to Twitter.

Since the beginning of 2023, the company suffered twelve service disruptions, according to Internet watchdog NetBlocks, compared to nine tracked throughout all of 2022. These glitches are proof that the company is scrambling. For months now, Elon Musk is not paying rent for the Twitter HQ building. He also held out on paying Amazon Web Services which led the company to threaten to withdraw advertising money from Twitter. And now, he’s trying to avoid paying Google Could without having the infrastructure in place to deal with the aftermath

The numbers reveal that bankruptcy is still a very real possibility. Given the tremendous amount of debt that Musk took on to purchase Twitter, whose annual payments on the debt will far outstrip the annual profits for years and the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars that will need to be reinvested into the company to rebuild it with new hires, these events are a clear demonstration that the company is not standing on solid financial footing."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Let’s All Give Thanks"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly 7/4/23

"Let’s All Give Thanks"

"It’s Independence Day. We are seeing so much happen with the economy right now. Manufacturing is falling off a cliff. Film industry is having a terrible start to the summer movie season."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Arlington, Washington, USA. Thanks for stopping by!