"Are There Any Questions?"

"Are There Any Questions?"

by Robert Fulghum

"Are there any questions?" An offer that comes at the end of college lectures and long meetings. Said when an audience is not only overdosed with information, but when there is no time left anyhow. At times like that you sure do have questions. Like, "Can we leave now?" and "What the hell was this meeting for?" and "Where can I get a drink?"

The gesture is supposed to indicate openness on the part of the speaker, I suppose, but if in fact you do ask a question, both the speaker and the audience will give you drop-dead looks. And some fool - some earnest idiot - always asks. And the speaker always answers. By repeating most of what he has already said. But if there is a little time left and there is a little silence left in response to the invitation, I usually ask the most important question of all: "What is the Meaning of Life?" You never know, somebody may have the answer, and I'd really hate to miss it because I was too socially inhibited to ask. But when I ask, it is usually taken as a kind of absurdist move - people laugh and nod and gather up their stuff and the meeting is dismissed on that ridiculous note. Once, and only once, I asked that question and got a serious answer…

Papaderos rose from his chair at the back of the room and walked to the front, where he stood in the bright Greek sunlight of an open window and looked out… he turned. And made the ritual gesture: "Are there any questions?" Quiet quilted the room. These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now there was only silence.

"No questions?" Papaderos swept the room with his eyes.
So. I asked.
"Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?"

The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go. Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was.

"I will answer your question."

Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter. And what he said went like this: "When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place. I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine - in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.

I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light - truth, understanding, knowledge - is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it. I am a fragment of a mirror whose design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world - into the black places in the hearts of men - and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life."

And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk."

- Robert Fulghum, 

"It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It"

The Daily "Near You?"

Irwin, Pennsylvania, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: Stephen Levine, "Half Life"

"Half Life"

 "We walk through half our life

as if it were a fever dream,

barely touching the ground,

our eyes half open,

our heart half closed.

Not half knowing who we are,

we watch the ghost of us drift

from room to room,

through friends and lovers

never quite as real as advertised.

Not saying half we mean

or meaning half we say,

we dream ourselves

from birth to birth

seeking some true self.

Until the fever breaks

and the heart can not abide

a moment longer

as the rest of us awakens,

summoned from the dream,

not half caring for anything but love."

~ Stephen Levine

"The Only Time..."

"If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call

 you could make, who would you call and what would you say? 

And why are you waiting?"

- Stephen Levine

"Idiocracy - Federal Government Actively Seeking Workers With 'Severe Intellectual Disabilities' To Run Key Agencies"

"Idiocracy - Federal Government Actively Seeking 

Workers With 'Severe Intellectual Disabilities' To Run Key Agencies"

by Mike Adams

"In the latest shocking reveal, the federal government is actively recruiting people who are cognitively retarded to work at key agencies such as the FAA. Idiocracy is becoming the government's actual hiring policy, all while white people are displaced because they don't offer any "virtue signaling" points to federal agencies. We are watching the insanity on full display now as the US empire accelerates its final chapter of systemic collapse."

View video here:

- https://www.brighteon.com/

As the Mogambo Guru said, "We're so freakin' doomed!"

"How It Really Is"

"Anyone Who Isn't Confused..."

"Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation."

- Edward R. Murrow

"When We Can No Longer Tell the Truth "

"When We Can No Longer Tell the Truth"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"When we can no longer tell the truth because the truth will bring the whole rotten, fragile status quo down in a heap of broken promises and lies, we've reached the perfection of dysfunction. You know the one essential guideline to leadership in a doomed dysfunctional system: when it gets serious, you have to lie. In other words, the status quo's secular goddess is TINA - there is no alternative to lying, because the truth will bring the whole corrupt structure tumbling down.

This core dynamic of dysfunction is scale-invariant, meaning that hiding the truth is the core dynamic in dysfunctional relationships, households, communities, enterprises, cities, corporations, states, alliances, nations and empires: when the truth cannot be told because it threatens the power structure of the status quo, that status quo is doomed.

Lies, half-truths and cover-ups are all manifestations of fatal weakness. What lies, half-truths and cover-ups communicate is: we can no longer fix our real problems, and rather than let this truth out, we must mask it behind lies and phony reassurances.

Truth is power, lies are weakness. All we get now are lies, statistics designed to mislead and phony reassurances that the status quo is stable and permanent. The truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems. Lies, gamed statistics and false reassurances are fatal because they doom any sincere efforts to fix what's broken before the system reaches the point of no return.

We are already past the point of no return. The expediency of lies has already doomed us.

Honest accounts of hugely successful corporations that implode share one key trait: in every case, managers were pressured to hide the truth from top management, which then hid the truth from investors and clients. is the key dynamic in failed oligarchies as well: if telling the truth gets you sent to Siberia (or worse), then nobody with any instinct for self-preservation will tell the truth. If obscuring the truth saves one's job, then that's what people do. That this dooms the organization is secondary to immediate self-preservation.

A distorted sense of loyalty to the family, community, company, institution, agency or nation furthers lying as the  solution to unsavory problems. Daddy a drunk? Hide the bottle. Church a hotbed of adultery and thieving? Maintain the facade of holiness at all costs. Company products are failing? Put some lipstick on the pig. The statistical truth doesn't support the party's happy story? Distort the stats until they do what's needed. The agency failed to fulfill its prime directive? Blame the managerial failure on a scapegoat.

Pathological liars and cheats rely on self-preservation and misplaced loyalty to mask their own failure and corruption. A hint here, a comment there, and voila, a culture of lying is created and incentivized.

Obscuring the truth is the ultimate short-term expediency. Now that it's serious, we have to lie. We'll start telling the truth later, we say, after everything's stabilized, we hope. But lying insures nothing can ever be truly stabilized, so there will never be a point at which the system is strong enough and stable enough to survive the truth.

We are now an empire of lies. The status quo,politically, socially and economically, depends on lies, half-truths, scapegoats and cover-ups for its very survival. Any truth that escapes the prison of lies endangers the entire rotten edifice.

In an empire of lies, leaders say what people want to hear. This wins the support of the masses, who would rather hear false reassurances that require no sacrifices, no difficult trade-offs, no hard choices, no discipline. The empire of lies is doomed. Lies are weakness, and they prohibit any real solutions. Truth is power, but we can no longer tolerate the truth because it frightens us. Our weakness is systemic and fatal."

- http://www.oftwominds.com

Dan, I Allegedly, "There is a New Dire Warning"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly 1/14/24

"There is a New Dire Warning"

"Bill Gross, the esteemed bond billionaire, is sounding the alarm bells, urging everyone to shield their finances from the waves of layoffs and the worst inflation we've seen in years. This isn't just another investment tip; it's a red alert for anyone looking to navigate these rocky economic waters."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Bill Bonner, "Gunning for America"

"Gunning for America"

In a blaze of war and inflation,

 the empire leads the world to conflict...

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - “For the first time in 20 years, the US is not at war…we’ve turned the page,” said the commander in chief on the 21st of September, 2021. But last week, Biden turned another page: Dem, GOP Lawmakers say Biden had no authority to launch Yemen strikes, fears of escalation to a regional war are running high

Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle Thursday night were lambasting the Biden administration for not getting congressional approval before moving ahead with military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. “Only Congress has the power to declare war,” posted Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie. “I have to give credit to @RepRoKhanna here for sticking to his principles, as very few are willing to make this statement while their party is in the White House.”

“Why don’t you stick to finance,” is a question that comes from readers from time to time. The answer: we’d love to. But two great questions hang in the balance. The first is whether international conflicts can be resolved by a ‘rules-based order?’ The second is like unto it; can an extraordinary debt pile be managed – by a rich, advanced nation – without resorting to inflation? Both questions put in doubt the competence and goodwill of our leaders.

“Peak America”: Deep down in the megapolitical mulch, the roots of finance and politics intertwine, competing for nutrients. Politicians rely on finance for Big Money. Big Money relies on politicians for wars and special favors.

Our guess is that we’ve already seen “Peak America” in the late ‘90s. That was the best time – ever – to sell US equities. The Dow was trading at over 40 ounces of gold. So, if you had $100,000 in stocks…and you traded them for gold, you would have gotten 357 ounces. If you’d left your money in stocks, it would have grown from $100,000 to over $370,000 over the next 23 years. Not bad. But your gold coins would have gone from $280 per ounce in 1999 to over $2,000 an ounce today, turning your $100,000 into $714,000.

The Soviet Union had ended the Cold War by dissolving itself. The US should have enjoyed a ‘peace dividend’…and should have used it to pay down debt, fix problems at home, and increase the value of its industries and the earnings of their employees.

But no…it was too late. By then, Americans had begun to think like the citizens of a late, degenerate empire; they sought protection from the outside world, not access to its markets. And they believed problems could be solved not by diplomacy and honest bargaining, but with firepower. Their movies signaled the glory of the Pentagon. Their sports events saluted the uniforms. And the ‘defense industry’ had so many members of Congress in its pocket that it could barely find its car keys. Threats to America went down, but military spending went up, and the opportunity was lost. Debt grew by $29 trillion so far this century.

And during that time, in the real-est terms possible, the value of America’s equity – the crème de la crème of its public businesses – fell by half. The US squandered its ‘peace dividend’ by starting a pointless war against ‘terrorism.’ It bungled up its economy with fake money and fake interest rates. It added more ‘stimulus’ to its economy than the world had ever seen, but it didn’t stimulate; it sedated. Growth rates fell from an average around 2.5% in the 1990s to only about 1.5% now. And the US also wasted its position as the leader of the ‘free world,’ by imposing sanctions, sponsoring nonsensical wars, and putting whistleblowers in jail and scoundrels in public office.

An Inglorious Blaze: In other words, it did what major empires tend to do…it headed down in a blaze of war and inflation. To the typical American, the US bombing of the Houthis is another battle of good vs. evil…right vs. wrong…the rule of law vs. terrorism. But nature is much too mischievous to deliver up her gifts so neatly wrapped.

More or less at the same time the US and Britain were hammering the Houthis, the International Court of Justice was taking up a claim, by South Africa, that the Israelis were committing genocide, aided and abetted by the USA. If the charge sticks, the government of Yemen – according the Genocide Convention – has not only the right, but the duty, to interdict shipping to Israeli ports.

Right? Wrong? Good? Bad? It might be easy to see world events in those terms. That’s the way, for example, that the Houthis see things:

God is the Greatest

Death to America

Death to Israel

A Curse Upon the Jews

Victory to Islam

Gunning Up: But everyone has his own simpleminded fantasies and prejudices. And there’s always more to the story. More importantly, what we see is the whole world ‘gunning up’ – led…or prompted…by the US. And there are more people gunning for the USA than ever before. America is providing firepower on a scale not seen since WWII. The rest of the world believes it needs firepower of its own. People do not believe they can trust the US or the ‘rules-based order’ to protect them. They guard their homes with Smith and Wesson…and their countries with missiles and tanks.

It has been two generations since the bloodbath of the 1940s. People now see violence as a reasonable…perhaps necessary…way to get what they want. Where this leads, we don’t know. But it could very well result in more violence, not less, and a further mark-down in the real value of US equities. In the meantime, let’s keep our eyes open...and the ammo near-to-hand."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Jim Kunstler, "Cheers to You, WEFers of Davos!"

"Cheers to You, WEFers of Davos!"

by Jim Kunstler

“I have decided to unilaterally rebrand Disease X! 

It is now Disease DIC! Debt Implosion Cover-up” 

- Edward Dowd

"The nabobs and panjandrums of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meet up at Davos, Switzerland, the next several days to lay plans for their next assault on humanity. This year’s theme is “Rebuilding Trust.” Did you just blow your coffee through your nose? The outfit that coordinated the world-wide Covid-19 response (that perhaps birthed the very concept of Covid-19 itself), and especially pushed mRNA vaccines on the credulous global public - this gang of super-wealthy, super-connected, super-important celebrity punks, poohbahs, pricks, and predators wants a cuddle.

This Davos crowd - moiling around the opening soirée amid drool-worthy trays of crab puffs, asparagus gougères, lobster crostini, waygu morsels, Prosciutto-Fig bites, chickpea panisse, stuffed castelvetrano olives, wild boar and quinoa dolmas, fava bean puree toasts, pigeon pea fritters, and Nürnberger rostbratwurst pigs-in-a-blanket, all washed down by bottomless flutes of Roederer Cristal Millésime Brut - could not stop chattering about the debut of the latest viral confection, “Disease X”, said to be twenty times deadlier than Covid-19.

Imagine the opportunities this one will provide for the WEF’s Davos prom date, the World Health Organization (WHO). And just in time to create enough hysteria for the May vote on the new WHO treaty binding the world’s governments to its pandemic diktats. In that new disposition of things, whatever Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says, goes! Lockdowns. Quarantine camps. Mandatory (improved) safe-and-effective vaccines. Nevermind what the actual citizens of Countries A, B, or C might otherwise decide for themselves under the obsolete system of national sovereignty. Follow the science, useless eaters of the world! (And please quit carping about it!)

Any resemblance of “Disease X” to the remaining global free speech platform (Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter), is just another bothersome conspiracy theory. Of course, theories imply the discovery of proofs, and it so happens that the unelected European Commission, under its Digital Services Act (passed in Nov., 2022), has already threatened Mr. Musk’s X to remove so-called hate speech, illegal content, and disinformation or face a fine amounting to 6-percent of its annual global revenue. Hate speech and disinfo are whatever the EU says it is, including information that is true but disagreeable to the agenda of all supranational orgs such as the EU, the WEF, and the WHO. Reminds us of something Pete Hogwallop once said to Ulysses E, McGill:

Last time around, those mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna proved to be super-effective at one thing: disordering all the cells and organs in the human body so as to produce a severe auto-immune reaction resulting in death and disability. The artificial spike protein replication induced by the vaxxes has a special yen for heart tissue, the linings of blood vessels, and the reproductive organs - thus, all those world-class soccer players dropping dead in mid-kick, all the massive clots the size of shipworms discovered by the morticians, and all the spontaneously aborted babies over the past three years.

By the way, having seen all this, the CDC Director, Mandy Cohen, is still pushing “updated” mRNA shots, down to six-month-old babies. No, I’m not making this up. Read the CDC’s latest recommendations, released five days ago:

Click image for larger size.

It happens that Dutch virologist Geert Vanden Bossche warned a month ago that - per his earlier warnings about the dangers of vaccinating into the teeth of a pandemic - the world can expect a soon-to-come crisis of 30-to-40 percent mortality in highly vaccinated countries with the emergence of a new Covid variant that won’t be stopped by vaxx-damaged immune systems. Let that sink in. It means not just a bone-chilling, unprecedented mega-wave of deaths, but the likely disfunction of every complex system that advanced nations depend on for normal operation as the people who know how to run them succumb. That is, farewell to normal modern life as we have known it. Geert’s just sayin’.

It’s even possible that some of the things that cease operation will include the WEF, the WHO, the EU, and the CDC, considering their presumably multi-vaxxed and boosted members. Enjoy the scrumptious canapés while you can, ladies and gentlemen of Davos. We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when."

- https://kunstler.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Credit Card Companies Are Cutting Credit Lines; Shipping Costs Soaring 300%; Inflation Will Soar"

Jeremiah Babe, 1/14/24

"Credit Card Companies Are Cutting Credit Lines; 

Shipping Costs Soaring 300%; Inflation Will Soar"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Vangelis, "Space, Time Continuum"

Full screen recommended.

Vangelis, "Space, Time Continuum"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Here in the Milky Way galaxy we have astronomical front row seats as M81 and M82 face-off, a mere 12 million light-years away. Locked in a gravitational struggle for the past billion years or so, the two bright galaxies are captured in this deep telescopic snapshot, constructed from 25 hours of image data.

Their most recent close encounter likely resulted in the enhanced spiral arms of M81 (left) and violent star forming regions in M82 so energetic the galaxy glows in X-rays. After repeated passes, in a few billion years only one galaxy will remain. From our perspective, this cosmic moment is seen through a foreground veil of the Milky Way's stars and clouds of dust. Faintly reflecting the foreground starlight, the pervasive dust clouds are relatively unexplored galactic cirrus, or integrated flux nebulae, only a few hundred light-years above the plane of the Milky Way.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130925.html

"The Gods Laugh At Your Plans"

"The Gods Laugh At Your Plans:

Chekhov, Jaspers, And Life-changing Moments"

The most momentous and significant events in our lives are the 

ones we do not see coming. Life is defined by the unforeseen.

by Jonny Thomson

"You’re in the shower one day, and you feel a lump that wasn’t there before. You’re having lunch when your phone rings with an unknown number: there’s been a crash. You come home and your husband is holding a suitcase. “I’m leaving,” he says.

Life is inevitably punctuated by sudden changes. At one moment, we might have everything laid out before us, and then an invisible wall stops us in our tracks. It might be an illness, a bereavement, an accident or some bad news, but life has a habit of mocking those who make plans. We can have our eyes on some distant shore, some faraway horizon, only to find everything come crashing down by the most unseen of events. As the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men. Gang aft agley” (often go wrong).

In Anton Chekhov’s remarkable play, "The Seagull," we meet a cast of characters who are all, in some way, in love with something. The young, idealistic artist Konstantin is in love with the idea of pure art. Arkadin, his mother, is in love with her fans and her celebrity. Konstantin’s girlfriend, Nina, is in love with becoming rich and famous. Everyone in the play has some kind of ambition and plan, or they live in regret over the life they chose. They rail against how misguided or mistaken their life has been, while longing for something else.

They are each like a seagull, flying over the sea or a great lake, and aiming purposefully for the shore. The view up there is wonderful. But the longer the seagull flies, the more oblivious they are to how they tire or weaken. They’re so fixated on some distant horizon that they’re at the mercy to life’s sudden changes. They’re blinkered and distracted, and the gods love nothing more than the hopeful hubris of mankind.

At one point in the play, Chekov has the character Trigorin recount a short story about a gull flying over a lake who’s, “happy and free.” But in the next moment, “a man sees her who happens to come that way, and he destroys her out of idleness.” The seagull is killed, its flight and plans annihilated, in one instant of random thoughtlessness.

Boundary Situations: While so much of our lives are spent in planning and preparation, the most transformative and significant moments are those which come at us out of the blue. These are what the psychiatrist Karl Jaspers called “boundary situations” - the ones we cannot initiate, plan, or avoid. We can only “encounter” them. These are not the mundane, everyday parts of our life - what Jaspers calls “situation being” - but rather they are things which thunder down to shake the foundations of our being. They change who we are. Although these “boundary situations” (sometimes called “limit situations”) change a bit in Jaspers’ works, he broadly sorted them into four categories:

Death: Death is the source of all our fear. We fear our loved ones dying, and we fear the moment and fact of our own death. When we know grief and despair, or when we reflect on mortality, we are transformed. We always know about death, but when it’s a boundary situation, it comes crashing into our lives like some grim scythe; an unforeseen curtain call. The awareness and subjective encounter with death transforms us.

Struggle: Life is a struggle. We work for food, compete for resources, and vie with each other for power, prestige, and status in almost every context there is. As such, there are moments when we are inevitably overcome and defeated, but also when we are victorious and champion. The final outcomes of struggle are often sudden and great, and they make us who we are.

Guilt: Hopefully, there comes a moment for each of us when we finally accept responsibility for things. For many, it comes with adulthood, but for others it comes much later still. It’s the awareness that our actions impact all around us, and our decisions echo into the world. It’s seeing the damage or tears we’ve caused. It’s to recognize that, however small or big, we’ve hurt and upset someone. It’s a profound pull of the heart that changes how we live, and it often comes on unexpectedly.

Chance: No matter how neat and ordered we might want our world to be, there will always be a messy, chaotic, and unpredictable exception. We can hope for the best, and make the plans we want, but we can never take a steering handle on the facts that will affect our existence. According to Jaspers, we each prefer, “assembling functional and explanatory structures… whose central axis lies in sufficient reason” and yet, “despite this, it is not possible for man to control and explain everything. In fact, day by day he faces events that he cannot call anything else other than coincidences or hazards.” We want order, and regularity. What we get is the mercurial and capricious throes of chance.

The best laid plans: What Chekhov’s Seagull and Jaspers’ “boundary situations” get right is that we are each much more vulnerable than we might want to allow. A wedding, three years and a fortune to plan, is ruined by a stomach bug. An hour-long journey home for Christmas winds up getting you stuck in the traffic of a freak snowstorm. A lifetime achievement is overshadowed by a national disaster. Our lives are defined by the unforeseen. We have our dreams, hopes and are flying to some faraway shore. Yet life doesn’t care. Around every corner, at every flap of our wings, everything can change."

- https://bigthink.com/

○

If you caught a glimpse of your own death,

would that knowledge change the way you live the rest of your life?"

- Paco Ahlgren, "Discipline"

"Decide..."

“We're all going to die. We don't get much say over how or when, but we do get to decide how we're gonna live. So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out and decide.”

- “Richard”, “Grey’s Anatomy”

o

"Passion doesn't count the cost. Pascal said that the heart has its reasons that reason takes no account of. If he meant what I think, he meant that when passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honor is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive. It destroyed Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Parnell and Kitty O'Shea. And if it doesn't destroy it dies. It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, that one's expended all one's tenderness, poured out all the riches of one's soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg on which one hung one's dreams, who wasn't worth a stick of chewing gum."

- W. Somerset Maugham

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;

it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."

- Sydney J. Harris

"Banks Are Closing Thousands Of Branches And Retailers Are Shutting Down Thousands Of Stores"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 1/14/24

 "Banks Are Closing Thousands Of Branches 

And Retailers Are Shutting Down Thousands Of Stores"

"As we enter 2024, once thriving US high streets are starting to resemble desolate ghost towns as America is taunted by the ever-looming threat of yet another financial crash. If the economy is thriving then why are we seeing more bank closures than ever before and why are retailers being forced to shutter many of their branches?

Many banks and retailers are being forced to close locations in an effort to reduce expenses and stem the problems caused by an impending economic crisis. In the past two decades, the number of brick-and-mortar banks in the US has almost halved, a trend which shows little sign of slowing down. Data from the S&P Global Market Intelligence tells us that between 2022 and 2023 almost 5000 bank locations in America were closed permanently. In 2023 alone, two superpowers of the banking industry, PNC Financial Services Group and U.S. Bancorp, shuttered one in ten of their branches. This means that for the fourteenth year in a row, there has been a significant decrease in the amount of banks on our high streets.

In the past few years, the increase in branch closures has also been driven by a shift in the banking industry towards prioritizing online services over traditional locations. While this transition is evident across the board, it is particularly affecting low-income neighborhoods and rural areas. The depressing truth is that the high street banking network is disappearing before our eyes.

Many of these areas are experiencing what is commonly referred to as "banking deserts." The consequence of this trend is a growing disparity in access to essential banking services, posing challenges for individuals in these communities who may face difficulties in accessing financial resources and support. Many financial institutions are embracing digital platforms and reducing their physical presence to survive. However, this comes at a high cost, not only for their customers but for their employees too. Less high street banks mean fewer jobs."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Bristol, Connecticut, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"A Strange Honey..."

"Bad things will happen and good things too. Your life will be full of surprises. Miracles happen only where there has been suffering. So taste your grief to the fullest. Don't try and press it down. Don't hide from it. Don't escape. It is life too. It is truth. But it will pass and time will put a strange honey in the bitterness. That's the way life goes."

- Ben Okri

Paulo Coelho, "Killing Our Dreams"

"Killing Our Dreams"

by Paulo Coelho

"The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the Good Fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don’t want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those who are engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what’s important is only that they are fighting the Good Fight.

And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams – we have refused to fight the Good Fight.

When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That’s when illnesses and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat – disappointment and defeat – come upon us because of our cowardice. And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death. It’s death that frees us from our certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of our Sunday afternoons."

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

"Get Your Stuff Together..."

“We all got problems. But there’s a great book out called “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart.” Did you see that? That book says the statute of limitations has expired on all childhood traumas. Get your stuff together and get on with your life, man. Stop whinin’ about what’s wrong, because everybody’s had a rough time, in one way or another.”

- Quincy Jones

"A Kind Of Stubborn, Unrecognized Courage..."

"For many great deeds are accomplished in times of squalid struggle. There is a kind of stubborn, unrecognized courage which in the lowest depths tenaciously resists the pressures of necessity and ill-doing; there are noble and obscure triumphs observed by no one, unacclaimed by any fanfare. Hardship, loneliness, and penury are a battlefield which has its own heroes, sometimes greater than those lauded in history. Strong and rare characters are thus created; poverty nearly always a foster-mother, may become a true mother, distress may be the nursemaid of pride, and misfortune the milk that nourishes great spirits."

- Victor Hugo

"How It Really Is"

Dan, I Allegedly, "Insurance Nightmare - Who Can Afford This?"

Dan, I Allegedly 1/14/24

"Insurance Nightmare - Who Can Afford This?"

Could you imagine your insurance bill going up $30,000 in one year? 

Who can? Even if you live in a high-risk area this is an outrageous figure."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Israel’s Campaign in Gaza Fits the Legal Definition of Genocide"

"Israel’s Campaign in Gaza Fits 

the Legal Definition of Genocide"

by Mitchell Zimmerman

An old legal adage states: “Men are presumed to intend the natural consequences of their acts.” The natural, indeed inescapable, consequence of Israel’s cutting off life-sustaining supplies of food and water to over 2 million people in Gaza is famine and mass death by starvation and dehydration. As 90% of the people of Gaza have become refugees, 93% of the population is facing crisis levels of hunger.

Epidemics of cholera, typhoid, and dysentery are also the natural consequence as sanitation systems collapse and there’s only contaminated water to drink. Deaths from disease and hunger are predicted to be several times that from fighting and bombing.

Who are most likely to die first? Children, the elderly, and pregnant women. Who are least likely to be affected? Hamas’ soldiers, who stockpiled food and water before the war.

Israel’s indiscriminate bombing has killed over 23,000 Palestinians, 40% of them children. The pace of killing has been “exceptionally high,” reports TheNew York Times. “It’s beyond anything that I’ve seen in my career,” says a former Pentagon senior intelligence analyst.

Israelis assert casualties are high because Hamas uses civilians as “human shields.” But Hamas fighters are intermixed with civilians because they live crammed together in densely populated Gaza. Even on its own terms, the excuse fails. If a killer tries to escape capture by forcing an innocent family to stand between himself and the police, the cops can’t mow them all down to get the killer. If Hamas terrorists are surrounded by the people of Gaza, that doesn’t justify eliminating the entire population. “Israel’s liberal use of very large weapons in dense urban areas, including U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs that can flatten an apartment tower, is surprising,” the Times report continued.

But it’s not a surprise if Israel in fact intends the mass deaths it has inflicted. Calls for “erasing” the people of Gaza and claims that “there are no innocents in Gaza” have become widespread among Israeli officials. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has likened the war in Gaza to a biblical call to “totally destroy” the Amalekites, a rival nation to the ancient Israelites. “Do not spare them,” the prophet Samuel tells King Saul: God commands you to “put to death men and women, children and infants.” The idea of treating Palestinians this way is now widespread among Israeli leaders.

Why deliberately target civilians? Many Israelis consider all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean to be the God-given “Land of Israel.” Butchering and starving Palestinian noncombatants forces the survivors to flee this land.

“There will be no electricity and no water,” decreed Israeli Major General Ghassan Alain at the outset of the war. “There will only be destruction.” General Giora Eiland added: “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.” Eiland said Palestinians should be told, “They have two choices: to stay and to starve, or to leave.”

Last September at the United Nations, Netanyahu himself displayed a map showing “The New Middle East.” The map had no West Bank and no Gaza - only Israel incorporating both. Members of Israel’s cabinet openly call for removing 90% of Palestinians from Gaza and resettling the land with Israelis. And Netanyahu recently told a meeting of his party that he is “looking for countries that are willing to absorb Gazans… we are working on it.”

Israel’s campaign in Gaza fits the legal definition of genocide: Israel is killing or inflicting conditions intended to bring about the destruction of Gazans as a group. But whatever you call it, genocide or ethnic cleansing, deliberate mass murder is part of the project. The Biden administration should reconsider its support for Israel."

- https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/israel-gaza-genocide

"Horror After Horror Laid Bare: Remember Us"

A young girl is treated after being hit in an Israeli air strike in Rafah.

"Horror After Horror Laid Bare: Remember Us"

by Abby Zimet

"In their historic case against "the ongoing slaughter of the people of Gaza,” South Africa opened its presentation at the Hague with what rights experts deemed "chilling" and "devastating" evidence of Israel's genocidal intent in "an exceptionally brutal military campaign" - from vast civilian deaths of mostly women and children to massive infrastructure destruction to looming starvation. A grim reminder: As they spoke, and today, and tomorrow, the atrocities - bolstered by U.S. funds - fester unchecked.

In "compellingly argued and powerfully presented" arguments, South African jurists at the International Court of Justice laid out what the U.K.'s Jeremy Corbyn called "horror after horror, laid out in plain sight for all to see," in their case accusing Israel of violating the landmark Genocide Convention - incongruously enacted the same year Israel was born through the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Seeking an emergency order to halt Israel's savage three-month assault on Gaza, South Africa's 84-page filing offered a comprehensive account of "textbook genocide," by definition acts intended "to destroy (a) national, ethnic, racial or religious group." In such a case, intent is critical; fortuitously, the chutzpah of Israeli leaders bent on revenge was on full, damning display. "Let the Prime Minister's words speak for themselves," said attorney Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, who cited nine pages of genocidal statements by Israeli officials, from a Knesset member's vow to "burn Gaza to the ground" to Netanyahu's, "Remember what Amalek has done to you - spare no one." As a result, "The evidence of genocidal intent (is) overwhelming and incontrovertible."

Lawyers also noted that, once Israeli officials "systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent," their goals were inevitably taken up by soldiers on the ground; evidence of that murderous cycle included unsettling video of IDF soldiers in Gaza dancing and chanting there are "no uninvolved civilians." "What state would admit to genocidal intent?" rhetorically asked one jurist. "Yet the distinctive feature of this case is not silence, but the reiteration and repetition of genocidal speech." At least part of Israel's shameless, bloody audacity, notes Jeremy Scahill, stems from a sense of invincibility born of decades of well-funded complicity by a United States they know will shield them from accountability. "South Africa laid out a meticulous case detailing Israel’s genocidal intent," he writes. "The U.S. supported it all." Given the U.S. role as "ultimate overlord" of Israeli abuses - and its "macabre ritual" of feigning sorrow for the deaths of children while circumventing Congress to expedite them - it was unsurprising, if still shocking, to hear fucking Anthony Blinken blithely dismiss the exhaustively documented charge of Israeli genocide as "meritless." Color us speechless with rage.

Oxfam estimates Israel kills 250 Palestinians a day, including 48 mothers and 118 children, many blown to pieces; Gaza's 90,000-plus dead, wounded, missing make it the deadliest conflict of the century. In wrenching, closing arguments at the Hague, Irish lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh offered more grievous facts: "Entire multigenerational families obliterated," "huge swaths of Gaza wiped from the map," the daily death of at least 3 medics, 2 teachers, one journalist and UN worker and, every other day, a first responder who's spent months digging dead or wounded from the rubble with bare hands. Each day, 10 children will have one or both legs amputated, often without anaesthetic; more will earn the acronym WCNSF - Wounded Child, No Surviving Family. She ended her speech with two photos of a Gazan hospital whiteboard that health workers, inundated by casualties early in the war, had wiped clean of previously scheduled surgeries. The first image shows a messag written by MSF Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila: "We did what we could. Remember Us"; the second shows the board shattered in an Israeli strike that killed Abu Nujaila and two other doctors.

And still it goes on. CAIR regularly documents Israel's "war crimes of the day": the summary executions of unarmed Palestinians in front of their families,.the shelling of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital that killed or wounded 40 people, the bulldozing of bodies in cemeteries and medical tents with injured Palestinians inside, the killing of four members of a Red Crescent ambulance crew in Deir al-Balah, the targeted executions of at least 77 journalists including Hamza Al-Dahdouh, 27, son of Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, who's now lost five family members. Mourned Wael of Hamza, "He was the soul of my soul." Hundreds more Gazan civilians have been detained at Israeli "torture camps" for the "crime" of not leaving their homes, which soldiers then burned. In interviews, those released say they were beaten, punched, spat on, electric shocked, burned with cigarettes, tied handcuffed and blindfolded to fences, denied food, water and bathrooms, "treated like chickens or sheep," and "tortured all day." Pleading with IDF soldiers they are innocent civilians, they are told, "You are Hamas. Everyone who remains in Gaza is Hamas."

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, mass arrests, military raids and killings have also soared in the occupied West Bank, where at least 340 Palestinians have died. This week, Israeli forces stormed Tulkarem refugee camp, blasting so indiscriminately into residential areas even a Palestinian fighter called the heavy gunfire "delusional - they assassinate innocents." After IDF soldiers surrounded the al-Kholi family home, video shows a long, loud barrage as six young men try to flee; three are caught and shot dead - Yousef Ali Al-Kholi, 22, Ahed Mousa, 23, and Tareq Shahin, 24. One soldier keeps firing into a still-moving body; then a jeep runs over another body. Relatives called the deaths "assassinations." "The soldiers could have just surrounded and arrested them," said Al-Kholi’s aunt. "The Occupation, they always kill." Al-Kholi’s 12-year-old cousin Ahmad said he hid nearby; he could hear Yousef screaming but "soldiers were everywhere." Once they left, Ahmad went to his body, took off the headband Yousef had given him, and dipped it in his blood "because he is my cousin. I love him. I love him as much as the sea." And yes, he will remember him."

Ahmed al-Kholi wears the bloodied headband of his 

cousin Yousef, 22, killed by Israeli forces in Tulkarem.

- https://www.commondreams.org/

o

"The World Should Be Ashamed"

Irish lawyer's stunning speech at The Hague 

accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

o

The monsters doing this slaughter aren't even human, they're a psychopathically degenerate, murderously genocidal sub-species of mankind who, like the viciously rabid animals they are, deserve what's coming for them. Look at what they've done, and continue doing! How could anyone possibly deny this? Stipendium peccati mors est, Israel... God damn you to Hell! And YOU, Americans, don't you dare look away from what you, and I and all of us paid for, allowed and supported. That blood's all over our hands, too, to our eternal shame and disgrace. That's my opinion and I don't give a damn who doesn't like it! - CP

Adventures With Danno, "We Have A Massive Problem!"

Adventures With Danno, 1/14/24

"We Have A Massive Problem!"

"We have a massive problem as many food items continue to be recalled 

due to contamination and foreign objects being found in these products."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Greg Hunter, "0% Interest Rates Coming Back When System Implodes "

"0% Interest Rates Coming Back When System Implodes "

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Financial writer, market analyst and precious metals expert Craig Hemke says the variables are so numerous it is nearly impossible to predict exactly what is going to happen in 2024. One thing is for sure, the variables are all bad. There is the exploding federal debt, now at $34 trillion. The federal government is on track to increase the debt by a whopping $2 trillion in one year! There are growing global war possibilities in the Middle East, Tiawan and Ukraine. Low unemployment numbers coming out of the BLS are lies hiding a sick economy. Commercial real estate is a tanking mess. Unrealized losses are in the hundreds of billions of dollars sitting at the banks. There is a growing liquidity crisis brewing. CV19 deaths and injuries are exploding with no end in sight. The Southern border is wide open to terrorists wanting to harm America, according to the FBI. This is just the short list of very real potential disasters that could easily strike. Keep in mind, every single one of these could all happen during 2024. Hemke says, “It’s not fixable. It’s just not fixable. It’s such a joke to hear from the politicians that you are going to get this election year. They will say, ‘We have to have a balanced budget. We have to get the federal budget deficit back to pre-Covid levels.’ Yeah, right. Good luck. That’s not going to happen.”

When does it all crash to the ground? Hemke says, “I don’t know. It’s arbitrary. Remember the Jenga game where you stack those cubes and you start pulling them out? You don’t know what will be the last cube you pull out that will topple the whole thing. It’s the same thing. What will be the last trillion dollars that will topple the whole thing. There also may be a confluence of things, like nations saying to the US, ‘the heck with you and your dollar.’ Then we have all these dollars that come home, and we have all these dollars swimming around, and the whole thing implodes so quickly. The parallels in the US in the 2020’s compared to Weimar, Germany in the 1920’s are remarkable, and not just monetarily, also societal and political. The similarities are incredible.”

Hemke has a dark prediction if we get a full-blown war, which is looking like it’s on the way now. Hemke predicts, “The Fed cuts rates to 0% again. If we have a full-blown war and we have terror attacks all over the country that is grinding the US economy to a halt, they will have emergency action. Remember when things were going down in Covid and in March 2020, here comes the Fed with all these programs. They lowered the Fed Funds Rate to 0%. They started all this new QE, and the markets just shot up. Gold was up $100 a day for two days in a row. That’s exactly what they will do. The economy will be seizing up, and we will be back to where we were at the beginning of Covid." There is much more in the 47-minute interview.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with 

Craig Hemke of the popular website TFMetalsReport.com.

- https://rumble.com/