"Thurber's Tail: How My Dog Brought Joy To My Elderly Dad"

"Thurber's Tail: 

How My Dog Brought Joy To My Elderly Dad"

by Tom Purcell

"My Lab puppy, Thurber, was born on Christmas Day, 2020 - the best Christmas blessing I ever received. But he bestowed even greater blessings on my mother and father. In his 87th year, my father was facing a series of health challenges. Waiting for the other shoe to drop - waiting for a middle-of-the night call to help pick him up from a fall - had become the norm. Visits to my parents’ house were becoming less joyful and more stressful as my dad, with limited mobility, needed help getting in and out of his chair and had to ask his kids to assist with the many daily tasks he used to do himself so effortlessly.

We gave my father endless support as his needs grew but his decline brought sadness, and the sadness began permeating my parents’ home, hitting us hard every time we entered the front door. That all changed the day I brought my puppy Thurber home.

Thurber's first visit: The day I picked Thurber up in Punxsutawney, Pa., my plan was to drive directly to my mom and dad’s house. I slipped into their house quietly through the garage and sneaked up the back steps. I knew they’d be in the family room watching an old movie. That’s what they often did in the afternoons - and, sure enough, that is what they were doing.

In I walked, a soft cuddly puppy in my arms - and the room lit up like a Christmas tree. The joy was immediate and, just like that, my mom and dad were transformed from their late 80s into giddy, 10-year-old children. I set Thurber on my father’s lap and the puppy was in his glory, his tail wagging wildly. Dogs always loved my father and sensed instantly, and correctly, that he was the alpha male in the room. The two played and cuddled a good long while as Thurber climbed all over my dad and found an especially comfortable spot between him and the arm of his recliner.

I brought Thurber over to my mom and she too was thrust into instant joy and affection. We never think of our parents as being children, but with a puppy in her arms my mother became a happy little girl. It was as if her father, who died when she was only 19, was watching over her again - providing her with the warmth and security he did so well in her childhood.

After a time, my mother set Thurber on the floor, where I lay enticing him to play with me. I laughed aloud as he jumped on me and showered me with his affection, but it was more than just puppy affection that brought me so much joy. It was wonderful to feel the undivided love and playfulness my puppy directed solely at me. Better yet, it made my mother and father happy to see their middle-aged son being made so happy by the puppy who would now be an integral part of his world.

An angel of joy: I stayed a few hours that Friday afternoon, the first time in months we were able to forget about my dad’s health woes - the first time we laughed in I don’t recall how long. The power of a puppy is transformative, and my transformation was just beginning then, and continues still.

There is a saying I came across in which God is talking to a puppy and he says, “I removed your wings so they won’t know you are an angel.” Well, on the day I brought Thurber home, he became an angel of joy to my father and mother.

I didn’t know that for the next year and a half I’d be able to bring him to my parents’ house for multiple visits that inevitably resulted in childlike happiness for us all - sadness left their home instantly every time Thurber visited. And when Thurber celebrated his first birthday on Christmas Day of 2021, we had the celebration in my parents’ home, and it was a grand event full of laughter and joy.

I didn’t know last Christmas that my father would leave us nine months later - he’d leave us a few days after we’d celebrated his 89th birthday. But I will treasure forever the many joyful visits Thurber and I made to my parents’ home, in which their difficult days were made so much brighter by a furry angel with hidden wings!"

- https://www.cagle.com/

Editor's note: This column is an excerpt from Tom Purcell’s new book, “Tips from a New Dog Dad.” Read more chapters at ThurbersTail.com.

The Daily "Near You?"

Tours, Centre, France. Thanks for stopping by!

"Peak Focus for Complex Tasks, With Beta Isochronic Tones"

"Peak Focus for Complex Tasks, 

 With Beta Isochronic Tones"

by Jason Lewis - Mind Amend

"This is a high-intensity audio brainwave entrainment session, using isochronic tones. Listen to this when you need a strong burst of intense focus to concentrate and study things like advanced mathematics, scientific formulas, financial analysis or any other complex mental activity. Listen to this track with your eyes open while doing the task/activity you want to focus on. Use this session in the morning, afternoon or early evening, to train your brain for better cognition, focus and thought processing. You can either sit somewhere quiet and comfortable with your eyes closed and give your brain a nice workout, or you can also listen to this while doing an activity that requires a boost in concentration.

Headphones are NOT REQUIRED for this video.

Although headphones are not required you may find they produce a more intense effect, because they help to block out distracting external sounds.

Isochronic tones are a fast and effective audio-based way to stimulate your brain. Among many of the benefits, they can help improve focus, relaxation, energy levels, sleep and more, without taking drugs or needing any special equipment. What isochronic tones essentially do is guide your dominant brainwave activity to a different frequency while you are listening to them, allowing you to influence and change your mental state and how you feel."

I strongly suggest you read Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

○

"Isochronic Tones –

How They Work, the Benefits and the Research"

This is a brainwave entrainment audio session using isochronic tones combined with music. The isochronic tones are the repetitive beats you can hear on top of the music throughout the track. If you are new to this type of audio brainwave entrainment, find out how isochronic tones work and how they compare to binaural beats here: 

- https://www.mindamend.com

○

Listen folks, we're out of time! Whether you want to know it or not we're literally in the fight of our lives, for our lives right now, and it's going to get much, much worse. This isn't melodrama, this is reality. Some of you reading this will not survive, and I may not either, so I'll take any edge I can get, and you should too... This works for me. Prepare yourself, brace for impact...

- CP

"Let Us Begin"

 

Mark Twain, "The War Prayer"

"The War Prayer"

By TDB

"My curmudgeonly grandpappy, who reveres Mark Twain and George Carlin and H.L. Mencken and people of that lovable cynic variety – or however you would characterize their philosophical disposition – put me onto "The War Prayer" back in the day. This was in the days of innocence before 9/11 and the subsequent War of Terror, and so whatever lack of an impression it made on me at the time was remedied shortly thereafter by apropos events in the real world.

Twain, in his later years when his family had died and the cynicism became more malignant, would often write fiction in which a cynical protagonist would serve as a proxy for himself. This is one such story; the “aged stranger” is Twain. Via Virginia Commonwealth University:

"It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism… on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun… nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. 

Sunday morning came - next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams - visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said …

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work…

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness… he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. 

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside - which the startled minister did - and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said: “I come from the Throne - bearing a message from Almighty God! 

God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two - one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this - keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

You have heard your servant’s prayer - the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it - that part which the pastor - and also you in your hearts - fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle - be Thou near them! With them - in spirit - we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it - for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!” It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said."

- Mark Twain, "The War Prayer"

Twain reportedly caved to pressure not to publish the short story, as it was regarded by his family and publisher as too inflammatory for public consumption. Asked if he had plans to publish it, Twain answered: "No, I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after I am dead." At any rate, for whatever reason, it remained unpublished until after his death.

War is an ugly business, fraught with moral pitfalls – not to mention existential implications in the nuclear age. It might be necessary at times, but so are limb amputations. Both should be undertaken with all due discretion. I’ll choose my own wars, not the ones the government or MSNBC or the ADL tells me to."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Washington’s Freaks, Goobers, and Diversity Retards Prep Another Disastrous War"

"Washington’s Freaks, Goobers, and 

Diversity Retards Prep Another Disastrous War"

by Fred Reed

"From military illiterates in Congress and political generals in the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel of the Potomac we hear noises about an upcoming war with China. This war, it is thought, will be chiefly naval with America’s carrier battle groups doing the heavy lifting. The carriers, it is further thought, will strike terror into the Chinese. Perhaps better thinking would help.

A bit of history: Wikipedia: In 1967aboard the carrier USS Forrestal, an anomaly caused a Zuni rocket on an F-4B Phantom to fire accidentally, striking an external fuel tank of an A-4 Skyhawk. The flammable jet fuel spilled across the flight deck, ignited, and triggered a chain reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. At the time, Forrestal was engaged in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, during the Vietnam War. The ship survived, but with damage exceeding US$72 million, not including the damage to aircraft.

The Zuni is a small five-inch ground-attack rocket suitable for such things as destroying trucks. This trivial weapon, all by itself, caused damage that rendered the carrier useless for over a year in the repair yards. The warhead was roughly the size of the suicide-drone warheads used in the Ukraine. That’s all it took.

Washington, looking to start a war with China, which has vast numbers of antiship missiles, many of them hypersonic, might reflect on this. We could say that the disaster on the Forrestal was a freak accident. It was. An “anomaly” means that the circuitry was badly designed, badly maintained, or badly employed. It is not likely to recur. However, almost any missile,or naval gunfire, can burst an aircraft’s fuel tanks. An aircraft carrier is a large bladder of jet fuel wrapped around high explosives. This is worth remembering.

The provincial lawyers in Congress who want a war with a country about which they know little might bear in mind a few things about China. It is not a primitive country of goatherds of the sort the American military likes to fight. It is a huge technological and industrial power with massive financial resources, universities of high quality, large numbers of excellent engineers, and an efficient government. It sent an automated sample-return mission to the Moon and a combination orbiter, lander, and rover to Mars, successful on its first try. It has a space station. America tries desperately to crush its AI program. Chinese students dominate America’s best tech universities. It isn’t Guatemala. It very, very isn’t.

For decades China has been designing its military for almost the sole purpose of fighting America in the waters off its coast. It has developed hypersonic antiship missiles. America has not. It has a larger navy than the US, in hulls if not in tonnage. It has a formidable air force. Many of China’s large and varied missiles are specifically designed as carrier killers. Military enthusiasts can argue whether the Chengdu J-20 is a better plane than the aging FA-18 or the F-35, a notorious dog. It doesn’t matter. The Chinese air force is right there, a hundred miles from Taiwan

Americans have an almost mystical faith in the superiority of their technology. What they seem not to have is the almost mystical technology. America suffers both from complacency and a tendency to regard weapons programs chiefly as a means of funneling money to the arms industry. Washington talks of sending F-16s to the Ukraine as if this were a fearsome bird. No. While it is not actually a biplane, it first flew in 1976. The Russian Su-57 is new and intended actually to fight. Kiev has 31 M1 Abrams tanks, touted as irresistible. The Pentagon, presumably noticing that Russia has destroyed the best tanks that England and Germany could sent, has kept the Abrams off the battlefield.

Unknowns come into play. Would the Russians side with Beijing and send their fleet? Mysteriously the Russian general staff has not communicated with me on this matter, but the Kremlin would have strong geopolitical incentives to do so. Then what? How much war does Washington really think it wants? The Pentagon might send strategic bombers to attack the Chinese mainland. Two can play this game. Russia and China have submarine-launched cruise missiles, of which several, hitting the Pentagon, would be something of a shock. What then?

The greatest unknown arises because no one has ever seen a battle involving a carrier-based navy on the WWII model versus satellite-guided weapons and antiship missiles, and so on. The American fleet hasn’t been in a war since 1945, the Air Force since 1973. Nobody knows what would happen. How would Washington respond to several carriers irreparably in flames Forrestal-style, with several thousand dead per each?

Times change and, often, militaries don’t. Unused forces become mired in outdated doctrine and suffer grave astonishment come war. In the Russo-Japanese conflict of 1904-05 Europe was shocked when those funny little yellow people with the squinty eyes destroyed the Russian fleet. In World War One, there were army officers who sincerely thought that cavalry would matter, utterly misunderstanding the effects of machine guns, and the armies had no idea that the conflict would consist of long years of murderous attrition war. Over and over and over, wars do not happen as expected. Few had any idea that Vietnam would go as it did. Those funny little yellow people didn’t even have supersonic fighter planes.

The American fleet of today is just an up-weaponed version of the fleet of 1945, carriers surrounded by escort vessels. These latter are fragile, unarmored. The battleships of the Second World War had sixteen-inch belt armor and were designed to take multiple hits and keep fighting. Today’s Tico class cruisers and Arleigh Burke destroyers have thin hulls and rely heavily on delicate phased-array radars.

Military history buffs will remember what a couple of French Exocet missiles, fired from Iraqui Mirages, did to the USS Stark, or what a missile did to the Israeli Eilat, or what a speedboat of explosives did to the USS Cole. Wrecked them. This bodes not well for a naval war in Asia. Check Wikipedia.

Never underestimate the effect of ravening vanity on international affairs. Biden suffered humiliation in his botched rretreat from Afghanistan. More humiliation threatens in the Ukraine. “”Losing China” is something he cannot relish having hung around his neck. Washington is on the raw edge of losing its international supremacy, and is likely to do anything at all to avoid this. China delenda est.

Further, a military is a state of mind as much as a practical organization. In my years of covering the armed forces those within them often seemed to me to be testosteronal twelve-year olds in the grip of pathological optimism. Officers tell themselves and, particularly, the enlisted men that all is well, that they are the best armed, best trained, etc., when they are not. Today’s military, unable to meet recruiting goals, rotted by social engineering, not meeting physical or mental standards, poorly led by an affirmative-action officer corps, is unlikely to fare well in a real war. Then what?

And of course if the war goes badly the United States will just go home and leave Taiwan, a hundred miles from the mainland, at war with China and with nowhere to go, as happens in all of America’s wars."

- https://fredoneverything.org/

"How It Really Is"

 
"Now what?!!" indeed...

Bill Bonner, "In the Beginning..."

"In the Beginning..."

What words can tell us about the future of progress.

by Bill Bonner

‘In the beginning was the word.’

~ John 1:1

Baltimore, Maryland - "We all have to play our roles. Citizens of a late, degenerate empire have to act like citizens of a late, degenerate empire. And talk like them. For one thing, they have to stop using words such as “progress” and “future.”

That, at any rate, is the gist of John Burn-Murdoch’s piece in the Financial Times. He studied the use of words and found that people on the way up use different words than they do on the way down. England industrialized long before Spain, for example. Just looking at the word counts, he found that the English used many more words that suggested optimism – such as “progress” and “future” – than the Spanish. He believes the words show a mindset…which may lead or even cause actual material progress.

But words do not come out of nowhere. They reflect what people see…and hear…and what they think about. Yesterday, came this story from the Wall Street Journal: "Congressional Negotiators Reach Agreement on $1.6 Trillion Government Spending Level for 2024. Deal paves the way toward full-year package averting a shutdown, but much work still needed."

Where the Desert Ends: Good news? Shutdown averted…spend, spend, spend. And here is our old friend, John Mauldin, writing in Forbes: "We have no good choices left. It is as if we are on a trip through a desert and know for certain we don’t have enough water to go back. We have to go forward, not knowing where the desert ends.

That’s the reality. Unless you want to cut Social Security and Medicare, ignore military pensions, sell the national parks, abolish departments like State and Treasury, cut the defense budget in half along with Homeland Security, Education, Labor, the Justice Department and the FBI, etc., we are going to have to live with the $2 trillion deficits. And the debt will go to $50 trillion by 2030. That’s the reality too."

The rest of the news is not exactly uplifting either. CNN: "One in every 100 people in Gaza has been killed since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7, according to Palestinian statistics. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah announced in its daily update on Monday that at least 22,835 people have been killed in the besieged enclave since the beginning of the war."

A Gloomy Shade: So, what do the word counts show today? Just what you’d expect. Comparing the optimistic words to words the negative words - those that suggest “caution, worry or risk” – in books in English, French and German, Burn-Murdoch found ‘The West’ turned gloomy in the late 20th century and continues to walk on the shady side of the street ever since. The author may believe that the choice of words – illustrating a widespread belief that the future could be improved – actually led to improvements. More likely, people came to think what they must think when they had to think it…or when it paid to think it.

Markets make opinions, say the old timers. When tech stocks are soaring…and people are getting rich on Apple, Meta, or Nvidia…what do people think? They think they can get rich with tech stocks!

We take it for granted that reality changes opinions. What we don’t know is how much opinions change reality. There must be some power in ‘thinking positive.’ And if you’re going to lead the world in technological, manufacturing, and military power…like the English in the 18th century…it’s probably a good thing to believe that there’s a bright future ahead.

But as James Nielson, columnist at the Buenos Aires Herald, reports, people in The West are no longer optimistic: "Of late, there has been much talk about the rapid decline of the West which, in addition having to deal with a league of “autocracies” convinced that their moment has come, is being undermined from within by influential individuals who insist it is, in large measure, a criminal enterprise which owes its existence to the vile behaviour of slave-traders, white-supremacist racist bigots, imperialists, colonialists and other equally despicable beings. For those who think this way, and there are millions of them entrenched in academia, the media and national bureaucracies, the West and its indigenous inhabitants thoroughly deserve the unhappy fate they see fast approaching."

Wracked and Wrecked: Many in ancient Rome believed the empire was doomed because the people stopped believing in the old gods and stopped respecting the old customs. Gibbon, too, thought that Christianity was partly to blame. Its praise of ‘the meek’ and turning the other cheek, were not compatible with running a great empire, he thought.

But a lot of water had run under the Ponte Sant’Angelo by the time Romans had been Christianized. Many bodies had been tossed into the Tiber - victims of civil wars and political purges. The economy, too, had been wracked and wrecked, from inflation and overspending. If more words of the Romans were available on an electronic database we would probably discover that they too had, by the 5th century, lost their upbeat tone.

Just like printing paper money doesn’t make you rich, believing in a bright future doesn’t make the sun shine. And now, if the sun sets on the Great Western Empire, it’s probably not because the positive word count has gone down."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Credit Card Crisis Hits Hard"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly 1/9/24

"Credit Card Crisis Hits Hard"

"Just when you think the people are tapped out, they spend more money. We just got the economic numbers back for credit card and personal loan usage through November and the number is through the roof."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Scott Ritter, "Geopolitical Analysis 1/9/24"

Full screen recommended.

Scott Ritter, 1/9/24

"Assassination of Hamas Leaders 

Demonstrates Israel's Deadlock And Stupidity"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Hindustan Times, 1/9/24

"'Ask Zelensky For Money': 

UAE President's Savage Reply To Netanyahu Over Help Request"

"UAE rejected Israel's request to pay "unemployed" stipends to Palestinian workers. Since Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack, Israel barred Palestinian workers, who were working in Israel, from entering its territory. Israel has now cited security concerns for the restrictions imposed on the workers."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

A psychopathically degenerate, genocidal sub-species of Mankind...

23,385 Palestinian old people, men, women and over 11,000 children killed!

What would you call it?

Adventures With Danno, "'One Dollar' Food Items Everyone Should Be Buying At Meijer Right Now!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 1/9/24

"'One Dollar' Food Items Everyone 

Should Be Buying At Meijer Right Now!"

"In today's vlog, we are at Meijer and are noticing a massive amount of food items on sale for one dollar. With grocery prices being the highest they have ever been, you don't want to miss this epic sale! Get your notepad pad ready as I take you shopping with me to show off these amazing deals!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Canadian Prepper, "'We're Watching The Breakdown Of Society', One Man's Urgent Warning"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 1/8/24

"'We're Watching The Breakdown Of Society', 

One Man's Urgent Warning"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "You're House Poor With No Savings And You're Financing Groceries"

Jeremiah Babe, 1/8/24

"You're House Poor With No Savings And You're

 Financing Groceries; American Homeowner End Game"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Shadows of White"

Liquid Mind, "Shadows of White"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“The beautiful Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, is easy to find with a small telescope in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. About 5,000 light-years away, the colorful study in cosmic contrasts shares this well-composed, nearly 1 degree wide field with open star cluster Messier 21 (top right).

Trisected by dust lanes the Trifid itself is about 40 light-years across and a mere 300,000 years old. That makes it one of the youngest star forming regions in our sky, with newborn and embryonic stars embedded in its natal dust and gas clouds. Estimates of the distance to open star cluster M21 are similar to M20's, but though they share this gorgeous telescopic skyscape there is no apparent connection between the two. In fact, M21's stars are much older, about 8 million years old.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140828.html

Chet Raymo, “Living In The Little World”

“Living In The Little World”

by Chet Raymo

"My wisdom is simple," begins Gustav Adolph Ekdahl, at the final celebratory family gathering of Ingmar Bergman's crowning epic “Fanny and Alexander.” I saw the movie in the early 1980s when it had its U.S. theater release. Now I have just watched the five-hour-long original version made for Swedish television. Whew!

But back to that speech by the gaily philandering Gustav, now the patriarch of the Ekdahl clan and uncle to Fanny and Alexander. The family has gathered for the double christening of Fanny and Alexander's new half-sister and Gustav's child by his mistress Maj. A dark chapter of family history has come to an end, involving a clash between two world views, one- the Ekdahl's- focussed on the pleasures of the here and now, and the other- that of Lutheran Bishop Edvard Vergerus, Fanny and Alexander's stepfather- a stern and joyless anticipation of the hereafter.

It is not the habit of Ekdahls to concern themselves with matters of grand consequence, Gustav tells the assembled guests. "We must live in the little world. We will be content with that and cultivate it and make the best of it."

The little world. I love that phrase. This world, here, now. This world of family and friends and newborn infants and trees and flowers and rainstorms and- oh yes, cognac and stolen kisses and tumbles in the hay. The Ekdahl's are a theatrical family; we will leave it to the actors and actresses to give us our supernatural shivers, says Gustav. "So it shall be," he says. "Let us be kind, and generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world."

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"Crabs in a Bucket"

"Crabs in a Bucket"

by Sarah Robinson

"When I was a little girl, I lived very close (an hour and fifteen minutes) to the Florida panhandle beaches. Which meant we spent a TON of time there. Early evening was one of my favorite times to walk the beach with my mom and my older brothers. We were all clean and fed and slightly sun weary but still desperate to be outside. So, we would grab flashlights, dip nets and a bucket and search the ocean’s edge for crabs. We would catch a bucket full in an evening and drag them back home where my mom or my grandmother would cook them up into something delicious. (Yes, I was traumatized by the crabs being put into boiling water, but that story is for another day.)

The problem was that as we made that long walk home carrying crabs, there were always one or two who figured out how to climb up to the edge of the bucket in an attempt to escape. Every now and then we would have to tap the edge of the bucket to knock them back down. Because I was too little to carry the bucket very far, I got the job of watching for potential escapees. And I noticed something... well… odd. More often than not, as a crab would begin to inch its way higher to the edge of the bucket, the other crabs would latch on to him and pull him back down. I watched this scenario play out again and again, year after year.

Fast forward to this morning. As I was drinking my coffee and perusing my twitter stream, and up pops this gem from @paulocoelho (He wrote "The Alchemist", one of my all time favorite books): “Only mediocrity is safe. Get ready to be attacked, and be the best.” Maybe it was the early hour. Maybe it was my post-event mushy brain. I don’t know. But the minute I read Paulo’s tweet, I thought of those crabs in a bucket. So I sent him this tweet: “I’m thinking of crabs in a bucket. They always try to pull down the one who’s figured out how to escape.”

Paulo liked my analogy so much that he retweeted it and I’ve spent my morning connecting with people all over the world who liked it, too. It resonated deeply for a lot of people. I did a quick Google search and discovered that “Crab Mentality” is actually an official phrase that roughly means “if I can’t have it, neither can you.” And it is talked about. A lot.

There will always be people who will subtly or not so subtly try to keep us from escaping. Why? Because our escape threatens their mediocre existence. Pulling us down, sabotaging our efforts, picking apart our brilliant ideas – all of that keeps them feeling safe. And living undisturbed mediocre lives.

So what if we added a new piece to the crab mentality picture? Imagine a crab, or a group of crabs on the other side of the bucket building a ladder to aid your escape. They managed to crawl out of the bucket in spite of all the energetic attempts to pull them backwards. Because they’ve tasted freedom and they know your struggle, they are putting energy into aiding and abetting your escape.

I believe that for those of us determined to get out of the bucket, such a group exists. It may take some time to find them, but they are there, ready to throw a safety rope over the edge and pull us out. Start listening for them. Start looking for them. They are there. Reach just a little further and they’ll meet you at the edge of the bucket."

- http://www.escaping-mediocrity.com/

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

"What Is Hope?"

"What Is Hope?"

"What is hope? It is the pre-sentiment that imagination is more real and reality is less real than it looks. It is the hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress us is not the last word. It is the suspicion that reality is more complex than the realists want us to believe.

That the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual; and in a miraculous and unexplained way, life is opening creative events which will light the way to freedom and resurrection. But the two - suffering and hope - must live from each other. Suffering without hope produces resentment and despair. But hope without suffering creates illusions, naïveté and drunkenness.

So let us plant dates even though we who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see. That is the secret discipline. It is the refusal to let our creative act be dissolved away by our need for immediate sense experience, and it is a struggled commitment to the future of our grandchildren. Such disciplined hope is what has given prophets, revolutionaries and saints the courage to die for the future they envisage. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope."

- Rubin Alves

"I'm Rightly Tired..."

“I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin' no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin' from or goin' to or why. I'm tired of people bein' ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein' in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't.”

- Stephen King, "The Green Mile"

“Gods dream of empires, but devils build them.”

- Jessica Cluess, "House of Dragons"

The Daily "Near You?"

Pretoria, South Africa. Thanks for stopping by!

"Palestine - Israel War Update 1/8/24"

Full screen recommended.

Scott Ritter, 1/8/24

"Israel Is Provoking Hezbollah And Iran, 

This Clearly Is A Trap For US To Join Gaza War"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Lure us into the Gaza war?

Nice and large so there's no misunderstanding what he said...

o

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 1/8/24

"Ray McGovern: Will CIA Help BiBi?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Future Drive, 1/8/24

"Yemen Houthi Shocking Move Using Iran's Secret 

Weapons Against Israeli Ships in the Red Sea!"

"In the strategic waters of the Red Sea, an ominous shadow has emerged. A new weapons system, deadlier than anything seen before, has placed the global shipping industry on edge and sparked fears of a wider conflict engulfing the region. At the tip of these missiles lies a sinister partnership that threatens to tear open old wounds and change the balance of power for years to come.

In the tumultuous waters of the Red Sea, a sinister force has emerged, as the Houthi group wages an unprecedented assault on vessels, singling out Israeli and allied ships since April 2023. The gravity of these attacks became glaringly apparent in early December when both an American warship and a commercial vessel succumbed to the wrath of these strikes. What sets these maritime onslaughts apart is not just their audacity, but the utilization of weaponry so advanced that its origins cannot be concealed - it unmistakably traces back to the heart of Iran."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Hindustan Times, 1/8/24

"Hezbollah's Back-To-Back Five Attacks On Israel; 

War Fears Mount After Commander's Killing"

"Hezbollah carried out five back-to-back attacks on Israel as tensions spike over the killing of group's elite force commander in an Israeli strike in Southern Lebanon on Monday. There is a fear of an all-out war between Israel and Iran-backed Lebanese group as clashes escalate since weekend over the killing of Hamas' deputy in Beirut." 

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Police State in Slo-Mo"

"Police State in Slo-Mo"

by Jeff Thomas

"For many years, I’ve forecasted that the US will evolve into a police state; that it will begin slowly; then as more and more freedoms are removed, the creation of the police state will accelerate. We’re now seeing that acceleration, as more and more Americans are detained, questioned, and having their property confiscated than ever before.

As an example, recently, some 20,000 travellers in and out of the US were stopped, often at random. Typically, their baggage was searched, their documents photocopied, access codes to their electronic devices demanded and their files copied. In most cases, no explanation was given, but they were advised that if the search was refused, they would be detained indefinitely. The following year, the numbers of people detained rose by 50%, to 30,000.

It’s important to note that the travellers were not threatened with arrest, which suggests that the authorities were working on the basis that the Patriot Act of 2001 allows all of the above activities - without cause being given, without a warrant being obtained, without access to a phone call or legal representation being allowed, and that the individuals in question may be detained, indefinitely. This, of course, is in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which states that people have the right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."

However, when people travel, they are particularly vulnerable, so the travellers in question are extremely unlikely to refuse. They understand that, "indefinitely" means, "until a Supreme Court ruling is passed, overturning the Patriot Act as unconstitutional." If it hasn’t happened yet and isn’t under consideration, it’s safe to say that the level of police state allowed under the Patriot Act is permanent.

Police States have been implemented countless times throughout history. They tend to be most prominent where collectivism has already been instituted. Wherever collectivism is already firmly established, new crackdowns are generally introduced suddenly. In Germany, in 1938, under existing Nazi rule, Kristallnacht took people by complete surprise. Later, in 1961, under existing Soviet rule, the Berlin Wall went up with no previous announcement. In both cases, the collectivist tyranny was already in place and the people had already successfully been subjugated. These events were merely further losses of freedom.

But what of a country that still enjoys a few of its former freedoms and is in the process of being transformed into a full-blown collectivist state? Well, in such cases, the loss of freedoms is often done in slo-mo. Another way of describing this is the old adage of boiling a frog. Since a frog will jump out of a pot of hot water, place him in a pot of lukewarm water and slowly turn up the heat. Before he knows it, he’s being boiled to death.

Likewise, when the intention is to convert a country to collectivism, make the early changes in stages. Get the people to accept that the losses of freedom are for the benefit of their safety. Then, the further along you go, the more you can accelerate the process.

At present, a majority of Americans appear to now understand that they’ve experienced a significant loss of their "guaranteed" freedoms. They’re now worried and, at each new stage of oppression they tend to say, "I’m not happy about this, but I can probably live with it… and, besides, they say that they’re doing it for my own safety." However, I think that it’s safe to say that a family returning from a holiday that’s just been isolated from each other, interrogated separately, frisked, had all their belongings pored through and copies of their papers and electronic files taken, without even being told the reason, does not feel as though it’s been done for their safety.

Remember, the 30,000 above were just hoping to reach their destination with no trouble from anyone. A generation ago, they never would have tolerated such a violation to their rights. But now, they submit and accept whatever they’re told to do. But, upon release, they most likely assumed that the authorities had been looking for something specific. They were not. In recent years, there have been very few actual prosecutions from such Gestapo-like shakedowns, in spite of the copying of documents and confiscation of minor items. The object here is not to prosecute anyone; it is to teach people to submit.

This will be important later on. What we’re witnessing is a loss of freedom in slo-mo. Just as Germans stood by and accepted Kristallnacht; just as they stood by and watched the Berlin Wall be built that would close off their freedom of migration, the great majority of Americans ultimately will stand by and watch the last of their freedoms be removed, because they’ve already been trained to submit to whatever indignities and restrictions are placed upon them.

After World War II, Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller was questioned as to how he and other Germans could possibly have simply stood by and watched as freedoms were removed, resulting eventually in total domination of the German people. He said,

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me."

Pastor Niemöller was able to make the above statement in 1976, as he was one of the few survivors of the concentration camps.

But, in addition to the above insight, there’s another very significant lesson to be learned here. Historically, whenever a government is instituting the transition into a collectivist state, one of the early warnings is a limitation on travel outside the country (getting the people used to the idea that they don’t have a right to leave). The US has now reached that point. The next development will be to teach them that, by travelling outside of the country, they are automatically suspect. The implication will be money laundering, drug trafficking, or terrorist activities.

Whether it’s accomplished through the use of a physical barrier, such as a wall, or through the intimidation of random searches and interrogations, as is presently underway in the US, or whether it’s simply the appearance of armed guards in ports of exit (like the armed guard in the photo above), the objective is not to obtain copies of your emails to your friends, or to go through socks in your luggage. It’s to teach you that your rights have been lost and you are expected to submit to any and all indignities and restrictions imposed on you.

Historically, the end-product is always the same. The final acceptance that you’ve waited too long to leave the increasingly oppressive country - and that you’ve been successfully locked in."

- https://internationalman.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "The Real Numbers Exposed!"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly AM 1/8/24

"The Real Numbers Exposed!"

"Let's focus on what's truly happening—between inflated job numbers and electric cars not living up to their mileage promises, it's clear we're being sold a narrative far from reality. And let's not ignore the looming threat of collapsing pensions and the challenges facing local businesses. Is this the economic utopia we're led to believe? Not by a long shot."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

Jim Kunstler, "Let the Games Begin"

"Let the Games Begin"

by Jim Kunstler

"The ordeal of the holidays, and the void of action that attends it, is over. Now, history resumes its awesome out-spooling. Will it be tyranny, collapse, war, civil war, renewal? Probably some wicked combo of all that. The players are taking the field again. The great engine of the game comes back to life with a cough and a rumble.

Did you notice that “Joe Biden” ceremonially kicked off his “reelection campaign” with that speech at Valley Forge, blaring the “insurrection” klaxon? Is it not astounding that half the people in our country have no idea that the joke is on them? “Joe Biden” is marking time in the oval office until the moment he must use his unique legal prerogative to pardon himself and all the members of his family for their roles in the influence-peddling racket he fronted as veep... and then he’ll gallantly step aside.

The optimum play would be to hold off on that until just before the Democratic Party’s convention, where a claque of super-delegates can pick somebody else in a back room filled with estrogen vapors. It kind of depends on whether a faction of corruption-resistant Republicans will ante up for that impeachment inquiry we keep hearing about. Despite the obvious bullshit on CNN about “no evidence,” there is actually a garbage barge of evidence steaming up the Potomac to prove that “Joe Biden” sold out his country. It simply needs to be laid out with brutal decorum in the proper setting.

The catch is that a House committee can report out a bill of impeachment - as we’ve seen before - but a trial in a Democrat-majority Senate would probably fail to bring a conviction. The additional catch is that even so, the whole country will have watched the sordid spectacle and seen enough proof of malfeasance to foul the waters for the Party of Chaos in the November election, no matter who heads the ticket.

It must also be obvious that the party is running out of lawfare tricks for shackling Mr. Trump. Jack Smith’s J-6 case is a dog’s breakfast of erroneous supposition, misprision, and persecutorial misconduct, soon to be wrecked by the Supreme Court; the Mar-a-Lago raid case is a patent fraud; the Fulton County, GA, RICO case is a Fani Willis masturbation fantasy, and the two New York raps under DA Alvin Bragg and AG Letitia James will be laughed out of appeals courts. Anyway, Mr. Trump seems to thrive on the noxious vapors thrown off by these rancid actions. If all these genius moves fail, how else can they stop the Golden Golem of Greatness... and his promise of keen retribution for the serial hoaxes run on him and all the fiendish trips laid on the nation since 2016?

They can try to kill him. Can you put it past our “intel community”? It is exactly that nucleus of the DC blob that has the most to fear from a second Trump term. Dozens of them will be charged with sedition and even treason, a hanging crime. And if they succeed in whacking Mr. Trump, that would only leave a huge opening for Bobby Kennedy, who has an even bigger axe to grind against the agency that rubbed-out his father and his uncle.

We held a meet-up here this weekend in my little upstate New York town to make plans for the petition drive in April-May to get RFKJr on the New York ballot. I told the group that much as I would relish seeing Donald Trump mop up the floor with the people who perverted the rule of law and just about spatchcocked our country, I believe Bobby Kennedy would be a better choice to lead us through the dark defile of history that circumstance has jammed us in. He is just as determined to expunge the horrific blob corruption, but without Mr. Trump’s exasperating artifice and grandiosity. If anything, RFKJr appears unpretentiously authentic, respectful, resolute, and reverent about history’s tragic arc. You can imagine him persuading that deranged half of the country that the blob is not on their side, either.

So far, this scenario has left out several of the other dispiriting plays that could get our country into even deeper trouble than mere domestic politics offer. The “Joe Biden” regime, its NeoCon fellow travelers, and its mysterious globalist taskmasters, appear avid to start a big war, most likely by going after Iran - only to suck in Russia, Turkey, and a host of miscellaneous Islamic maniacs against us, and not in a way that radiates a great outcome.

The invasion of stateless mutts across the Mexican border looks like an accessory to that play, since it includes countless thousands of potential saboteurs who can wreak havoc in the homeland while our obsolete aircraft carrier groups get blown up in the Mediterranean. Even registered Democrats might finally notice that the open border is a problem.

And, black swans aside - because they are aside and unknowable by definition - there’s the excellent prospect of a financial fiasco in the works that would wipe the smiles off the smug faces of all the remaining elite Wokesters, blob handmaidens, and news media myrmidons who depend on Wall Street to pay their mortgages. The national debt is zooming at a trillion dollars every month or so now. You know that can’t go on, don’t you? If all else fails in this era of mass formation mind-f*ckery, the disappearance of a whole lot of money might finally get people’s attention."

- https://kunstler.com/

"A Nation Of Non-Compliers"

"A Nation Of Non-Compliers"

by Jeffrey A. Tucker

"The train wasn’t scheduled for another 20 minutes, so I had a chance to contemplate the official sign on the door of the huge elevator leading to the platform. It said that only four people are allowed in because we must all practice social distancing. There was a helpful map of the interior of the elevator with stick figures telling people exactly where to stand.

Yes, these stickers are still everywhere. I recall when they first went up, sometime in April 2020. They seemed oddly uniform and appeared even permanent. At the time I thought, oh, this is a huge error because within a few weeks, the error of the whole of this idiocy is going to be known by all. Sadly, my worst fears came true: it was designed to be a permanent feature of our lives.

Same with the strange arrows on the ground telling us which way to walk. They are still everywhere, stuck on the floor, an integral part of the linoleum. If you walk this way, you will infect people, which is why you have to walk that way, which is safe. As for masks, the mandates keep popping up in strange places and strange ways. My inbox fills with pleas for how people can fight this stuff.

The essential message of all these edicts: you are pathogenic, a carrier, poisonous, dangerous, and so is everyone else. Every human person is a disease vector. While it’s fine you are out and about, you must always create a little isolation zone around you such that you have no contact with other human beings.

It’s so odd that no dystopian book or novel ever imagined a plot centered on such a stupid and evil concept. Not even in 1984 or The Hunger Games, or The Matrix or Equilibrium, or Brave New World or Anthem, was it ever imagined that a government would institute a rule that all people in public spaces must stand six feet away in all directions from any other person.

That some government would insist on this was too crazy for even the darkest imaginings of the most pessimistic prognosticator. That 200 governments in the world, at roughly the same time, would go there was unimaginable. And yet here we are, years after the supposed emergency, and while governments are not enforcing it, for the most part, many are still pushing the practice as the ideal form of human engagement.

Except that we are not doing it. In this train station, no one paid any attention to any of the signage. The exhortations were entirely ignored, even by those who are still masked up (and, one presumes, boosted seven times).

When the moment arrived for people to get into the elevator, a crowd began to pour in, quickly beyond four, then eight, then 12. I stood there shoulder to shoulder with fully 25 other people in one elevator with a sign that demanded only four people get in at any one time.

I sort of wanted to ask the crowd if they saw the sign and what did they think. But that would have been absurd, because, actually, no one even cares. In any case, one guy asking a crowded elevator such a question would have raised suspicions that I was deep state or something.

It was never clear in any case who was enforcing this. Who issued the rule? What are the penalties for not complying? No one ever said. Sure, there was in the past usually some flunky bureaucrat or Karen who yelled at people and said do this and don’t do that. But those people seem long ago to have given up. It’s not even a thing anymore. And yet the signs still exist. Probably they will stay forever.

There is an enormous disjunction that still persists between what we are told to do and what we actually do. It’s as if incredulity toward official diktat is now baked into our daily lives. My first thought is that it doesn’t make much sense at all, even from the point of view of those who aspire to control our lives, to issue commands to which no one listens or obeys. On the other hand, there might be some meta-rationale for this, as if to say, “We are nuts, you know we are nuts, we know you know we are nuts, but we are in charge and can continue to do this anyway.”

In other words, edicts to which no one complies serve a certain purpose. They are a visual reminder of who is in charge, what those people believe, and the presence of a Sword of Damocles hanging above the whole population: at any point, anyone can be snatched away from normal life, made a criminal, and be forced to pay a price.

The nuttier the edicts, the more effective the message. Thus do we live in insane times. There seems to be a huge and widening gulf separating the rulers from the ruled, and this gulf pertains to values, aims, methods, and even vision for the future. Whereas most of the population aspires to live a better life, we cannot shake the sense that someone out there who has more power than the rest of us aspires for us to be poorer, more miserable, more afraid, more dependent, and more compliant.

After all, we are just barely shaking off the most grandiose experiment in universal human control in the historical record, the attempt to micromanage the whole of everyone belonging to the human race in the name of gaining control over the microbial kingdom. The effort petered out over time but how in the heck does anyone with ruling-class power expect to maintain any credibility after such a destructive experiment?

And yet there is a reason we have heard precious few concessions that it was all bogus and unworkable, and why there is still a dripping sound of papers telling us that the whole scheme worked pretty well and that people who say otherwise are disseminators of disinformation. There are still publishing opportunities out there to trash repurposed generics and praise the shots and boosters. The power is still with the crazy people, not with those who question them.

And the people who threw themselves into Covid controls as the greatest years of their lives are still at it. Hardly a day goes by when there is not a freshly written hit piece on the resistance and efforts to trash those with enough sagacity to see through all the baloney. Far from being rewarded, those who protested and opposed are still living under a cloud that comes with being an enemy of the state.

We all know that it is not just about these dumb stickers and these virus controls. There is more going on. Coincident with the pandemic restrictions came the triumph of woke ideology, the intense push for EVs, and wild ramp-up in weather paranoia with the discovery that climates change, a rampant gender dysphoria and denial of chromosomal reality, an unprecedented refugee flood that no one in power is willing to mitigate, a continued attack on gas including even stoves, and a host of other inane things that are driving rational people to the brink of despair.

We long ago gave up the hope that all of this is random and coincidental, any more than it so happened that nearly every government in the world decided to plaster social distancing signs everywhere at the same time. Something is going on, something malevolent. The battle of the future really is between them and us but who or what “them” is remains opaque and too many of “us” are still confused about what the alternative is to what is happening all around us.

Noncompliance is an essential start regardless. That crowded elevator, assembling spontaneously in open defiance to the blasting signage, is a sign that something in the human longing to be free to make our own decisions, still survives. There are cracks in the great edifice of control."

- https://brownstone.org/

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Massive Shortages At Dollar Tree! Empty Shelves Everywhere! What's Going On?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 1/8/24

"Massive Shortages At Dollar Tree! 

Empty Shelves Everywhere! What's Going On?"

"In today's vlog, we are at Dollar Tree and are noticing a massive amount of food shortages and shortages on other products as well. This is not good as we continue to see items dissappear off the shelves in many stores!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/