Monday, August 12, 2024

Travelling with Russell, What is the Future of Russian Transport: Moscow 2030"

Meanwhile, in a sane, civilized society...
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 8/12/24
"What is the Future of Russian Transport: 
Moscow 2030"
"What does the future of Russian Transport look like? Join me at Moscow2030 to discover what Transport will be like in Russia. This expo is part of a larger event detailing future exploits of the Russian Transport industry. From trains to buses and from cars to trams."
Comments here:

"Disaster and Opportunity"

"Disaster and Opportunity"
by Jeff Thomas

"The Mandarin word for "crisis" is weiqi. But weiqi is actually two words – the first, "wei," meaning disaster and the second, "qi," meaning opportunity. For thousands of years, the Chinese people have understood that disaster and opportunity come in the same package. Whenever a period of dramatic change is unfolding, the Chinese people recognise that change, in addition to potentially bringing disaster, also presents opportunity.

To the western mind, crisis is a negative condition only, and as people wish to escape negativity as quickly as possible, westerners tend to support whatever leaders promise to make the problem go away quickly. Of course, what this really leads to is a society in which those leaders who are the most trusted will be those who promise the easiest solution, regardless of how unrealistic it may be. So we have a culture of people who support the papering-over of problems. The catch is that, whilst we can get away with papering-over as a temporary fix, when systemic problems have developed, papering-over only puts off the inevitable, as well as ensuring that, when the problem is finally addressed, it will be far greater.

For decades, westerners, particularly in the US, have voted for those candidates who promise "Hope and Change" and "Make America Great Again." Of course, these are paper-thin slogans that do not in any way bear scrutiny. In them, there is not even a suggestion of an actual plan. All that’s really being provided is a new face on the government, whilst the same people remain in charge behind the scenes.

Somehow, American voters seem to be more interested in the latest cardboard-cutout of a leader than in those who actually rule, and whether there is an actual plan. But once the election party is over and all the bunting has been taken down, it would be hoped that the leaders would dedicate themselves to problem-solving. However, in the West, this is rarely the case. What we tend to see instead is endless posturing, which accompanies four years of continued papering-over.

Of course, this can’t continue forever. At some point, the flimsy structure topples and the crisis must be dealt with. We have recently entered one such crisis. And so, in the West, we can count on the political class to do the one thing they know how to do: keep papering. They will create far greater deficits, debt and entitlements, and on the other side of the leger, far greater taxation and, eventually, confiscation.

Until now, what we have been seeing is a fragile edifice that has been papered-over countless times and will soon collapse. Once the dust has settled on that collapse, we can expect the political class to busy themselves applying paper to the rubble that remains. Historically, this is the way empires die.

And to be fair to the US, they are not the only structure that will topple. The EU, UK, Canada and quite a few others that have, until now, been regarded as the First World have, over the last seventy-five years, thrown in their lot with the US. They too have used the same philosophy as to crisis and will experience the same outcome.

So, is that it? The whole world will collapse? Well, no, not at all. Historically, whenever one empire has hit the skids, there have always been others in the wings, ready to rise, and that is just as true today. The political world abhors a vacuum, and whenever one country falls, there is always another ready to fill the gap.

And of course, westerners do fear the rise of China, which has achieved perhaps the greatest growth of any country in history. From impoverished nation to world leader in just a few decades. But then, the Chinese do live by the principle that, in crisis, both disaster and opportunity are equally possible.

And in discussions with Chinese businesspeople, this is evident. Many are eager to get on with the crisis, as it means the opportunity to create new businesses and new markets and a whole new approach to prosperity. But in focusing on China as the great threat to Western hegemony, westerners almost invariably fail to understand that weiqi is not solely a Chinese concept; it’s a guiding principle for Asians in general.

In Korea, the concept is called "gihoe" and in Japan, it’s "kikai." But the underlying principle is the same. And in one Asian country after another, we can see the effects of this perception of opportunity as an integral part of any crisis.

In each country in Asia, we can take a drive and see hundreds of large, completed apartment blocks, as yet unused. If we ask our Asian companions why this anomaly exists, they seem surprised. They explain that, over the next five to ten years, even these won’t be enough to house the many people who will be moving to the city to handle the increase in production that’s anticipated, as Asia takes over the supply of goods to other parts of the world. Surely, westerners understand that such preparation is necessary if progress is to be swift?

Even those Asian locales that westerners tend to regard as war-torn casualties are in preparation mode. If we sit down for dinner with an industrialist in Viet Nam, he may talk of his present small portion of the market as perhaps being $100,000,000 per annum, but he is presently reinvesting his profits into expansion programmes so that, in the next decade, his company will cease to be such a small player.

Even the DMZ – the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, a location that the West remembers as an impenetrable minefield – is presently being carpeted with countless pre-engineered steel warehouses – a free-trade zone in which the two countries can expand their respective prospects in preparation for reunification in 2045.

It’s been said that the twenty-first century will be the Asian century, and that is quite so. If we examine an IQ map of the world, we find that the Asian IQ tends to be higher than on any of the other continents. Whilst we may not like to admit it, they have an intellectual edge, and more to the point, they are clearly using it. Whilst those in the West are seeing the wei – the disaster – Asians are also seeing the qi. They understand that they are entering a period of great opportunity. And the future will be primarily theirs to command."

Gregory Mannarino, "The U.S. Economic Meltdown Is Worsening Much Faster Than We Thought"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 8/12/24
"The U.S. Economic Meltdown Is Worsening 
Much Faster Than We Thought"
Comments here:

"How It Really Disgracefully Is"

 
41,000 homeless veterans in August, 2024

"Although national tracking of veteran suicide rates is unreliable at best, the VA 
estimates that 22 veterans commit suicide each day. This means approximately 
8,030 veterans kill themselves every year, more than 5,540 of whom are 50 or older."

o
Oh, but $150 BILLION For Ukraine...
And don't get me started on those Israeli monsters...

A Comment: On October 8,1968, I enlisted at 17 years old, with parental consent, into the United States Marine Corps, becoming an MOS 0311 Infantry Rifleman. I said these words..."I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." - Oath of Enlistment. We took that oath because we believed in America, believed that it was good and decent and honorable, with freedom, that it really was the best place for everyone from everywhere to live your life. I was lucky and made it back; many of my buddies didn't. This is not the country I and they swore allegiance to then. I look now and have no pride or hope anymore, only anger and disgust with the shameful disgrace we've allowed our country and ourselves to become, and am glad I'm 72 years old and don't have to watch this horror unfold for too long. God help the young people for the future we've given them. I'd never say that oath now. I'm ashamed to be an American... - CP

Bill Bonner, "Ad Blues"

"Ad Blues"
The Fed has a huge bias in favor of errors that benefit powerful, moneyed groups... leading us to guess that its next error will be, once again, to under-price credit for privileged borrowers.
by Bill Bonner

"Тhey [Romans] were forced to debase the currency. Debasing the currency for them was the same as borrowing is for us. It basically shifts the cost of solving your problems on to the future. Now, you can do that if the future doesn’t have any problems of its own. And we know that never happens, right? So the future has to deal with its own problems plus the cost of the past problems that you’ve deferred the cost of. "
- Joseph Tainter

Poitou, France - "After our car blew up, we rented a Citroen van. All was well until a light flashed on, telling us to put in something called ‘AdBlue.’ It further informed us that if we didn't do so within thirty kilometers, the car would not start. Oh my... another thing to deal with.

Adblue? A French website told us that it is an “additive required by Europe intended to reduce harmful emissions from diesel engines. The additive goes into the exhaust system and converts toxic gas into water vapor.” Jeepers creepers. We were out in the country. Where could we get this ‘AdBlue?’ We hunted on the internet and found it at a filling station not too far away. But the exercise took time and attention away from other things.

“Tainter was right,” we said to Elizabeth. “Tainter who?” “Joseph Tainter. He explained why societies always go into decline. Each challenge brings a response. And each response takes energy. Rules and regulations are put in place... but rarely removed. So, people end up using energy for things that no longer matter. And rather than pay the full costs of the response, they borrow or print the money... so as to push the costs onto the future. Then, as the future happens, it is burdened by debts, rules, laws, and regulations that are relics of previous problem solving.”

Central Financial Planning: Last week, we saw that every Fed policy choice is an error. There are an infinite number of possibilities for the Fed Funds rate. Choosing just the right one at just the right time is very unlikely. The Fed is trying to do something that never works - central financial planning.

Each and every choice made by the Fed is an error; it cannot help but misprice credit. A rate that is too high prevents borrowers from getting the credit they need. A rate that is too low encourages them to borrow too much. Either way, the economy is distorted and enfeebled.

Each policy decision is an attempt to deal with a current problem. But the error causes problems downstream that then must be addressed with more policy choices, causing even more problems. The decade-plus of ‘zero’ interest rates, for example, 2009-2021, led to today’s inflation and $35 trillion in debt. So, the Fed is now trapped between ‘inflate or die’ - fighting inflation while also trying to prevent a debt meltdown.

We also saw that the Fed’s errors were not random. If they were sometimes too high and sometimes too low, they would average out to somewhere close to where they ought to be. Instead, the Fed chooses rates that are almost always too low, thus encouraging too much credit and setting the country up for a credit crisis.

In 1968, economists advising the Johnson administration thought they saw a problem. The nation needed more credit. It would be a simple and painless move, they believed, to cut the domestic dollar off from gold. Problem... solution! Since then, the amount of credit outstanding in the US has gone from $1.4 trillion to $94.5 trillion today. That’s a 66-times increase. US GDP, meanwhile, was around $1 trillion in 1968. Now, it’s $28 trillion. (We may have previously gotten these numbers wrong...)

In other words, credit has expanded three times faster than output. Corporate debt too has risen thirty-five times since the dollar became a ‘credit money.’ The cheap credit was what made possible the ‘financialization’ of the US economy - with much higher levels of capitalization, deal flow, debt and M&A activity.

So, imagine your family. In 1968, you owed $100,000. Now you owe $6.7 million. Imagine the good times you could have had - spending that extra $6.6 million that you never earned. Houses... cars... vacations... granite countertops... air-conditioned garages and in-ground pools - they may have exceeded your earnings... but not your credit.

You can imagine too how the local economy would have gotten a boost. Typically, people spend money from wages. So, in order to go into the local economy... money must first come out of the local economy. But this was not a real money boom, this was a credit money faux-boom. It is as if the money came like manna from Heaven... it gave your family and the whole community around you a big ‘stimulus.’

Making it Worse: But wait. Say your own income rose in step with GDP. You earned $10,000 in 1968. Now, you earn $280,000. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you are broke, busted... no bread... nuthin.’ You wouldn’t be able to keep up with the debt service, even if you devoted 100% of your pre-tax earnings (at 5% interest). But instead of recognizing the problem and correcting it, US authorities are making it worse... by pushing even more of today’s problems into the future (with $2 trillion annual deficits) and preparing to cut interest rates, (thereby making it easier to borrow more money).

Problems are sometimes real and important. And sometimes phony and convenient. AdBlue? We don’t know. But the Fed has a huge bias in favor of errors that benefit powerful, moneyed groups... leading us to guess that its next error will be, once again, to under-price credit for privileged borrowers. This will help solve the problems of recession/job slowdown/bear market on Wall Street/funding federal deficits... and so forth. It will also give rise to even bigger debt and inflation problems in the future. Like the Romans, the feds will be ‘forced to debase the currency.’ Let us hope that the future has no problems of its own."
o
Download "The Collapse of Complex Societies", 
by Joseph A. Tainter, here:

Free Download: George Orwell, "1984"

“I’ve never heard her [Kamala Harris] say anything original or observant; at her best,
she simply recites the party line. At her worst, she’s too lazy to memorize the party line.”
- Lionel Shriver
o
“Talking to her, he realized how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.”
-George Orwell, "1984"
o
“What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold,
is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be
granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect.”

“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word “doublethink” involved the use of doublethink.”
– George Orwell, “1984” (1949)
o
Freely download “1984″, by George Orwell here:

Jim Kunstler, "The Party Line Is a Mighty Squishy Line"

"The Party Line Is a Mighty Squishy Line"
by Jim Kunstler

“I’ve never heard her [Kamala Harris] say anything original or observant; at her best, 
she simply recites the party line. At her worst, she’s too lazy to memorize the party line.”
- Lionel Shriver

"Does anybody know what this shape-shifting chimera passed off as “our democracy” actually is? I will tell you. Like everything else in the Democratic Party’s tool-bag these days, it’s the opposite of what it appears to mean, namely: You, the demos, give us, officialdom, the power to take whatever we like from you: your savings, your liberty, your stuff, your identity, and your posterity - because we are the boss-of-you, and don’t you forget it...and, by the way, the beatings will continue until morale improves.

It’s really that simple, though the deceptions cooked up to hide it are convoluted to the max. Like: engineering the illegal entrance to the US of millions from other lands and then using procedural hocus-pocus such as motor-voter registration and public assistance applications (free money + automatic voter registration) to stuff the election drop-boxes with the ballots of non-citizens - who, get this, don’t even have to be the ones casting those ballots, which can just be harvested, like so many oven-ready pullets, by lowly hired shills. If you catch onto the ruse, you’ll be instructed that borders are arbitrary roadblocks to social justice thrown up by the old white male patriarchy, and that these are “free and fair elections.” And if you object loudly enough, you lose your job, your livelihood, your Facebook account, and maybe get thrown into solitary confinement for a year. Our democracy.

Meanwhile, we’re enjoying the spectacle of this evil party’s candidate selection tour with their joyful warriors/avatars, Harris and Walz - joyful because they laugh and laugh in the absence of articulating any actual views on the particulars of governance, and it’s infectious to witness all that mirth. There is, of course, an artificially strenuous air about all this hoopla. It rolls out in an alternative reality like one of those summer techno-pop raves where everyone is stoned on MDMA. The dream girl gets launched into center-stage by invisible forces and is joined by her prom king, and it’s just so heartwarming to get waved at by the grinning, hand-holding couple nobody voted for. This is your demos-free ticket!

Will anybody at the imminent Democratic National Convention notice how this all mysteriously came to be? And might there be any active consternation over it? Perhaps even a welling movement to pull the plug on this rave? You may be apt to wonder what is going on in the Chappaqua redoubt of She-Whose-Turn-Has-Been-(so far)-Thwarted, HRC, boss-of-all-girl-bosses, putatively retired from public life. She’s been awfully quiet since that night over a week ago when she was obliged on-stage somewhere to hug and air-kiss Ms. Harris, and made a face seconds after as if she had thrown up in her mouth.

Is she stewing in the broth of grievance but still and nonetheless tirelessly working her phone to canvas the delegates of that looming party meet-up? She might remind them that the DNC (that is, the Democratic National Committee, Inc), went broke in 2016 and got bailed out by the Clinton Foundation checkbook, and, Jeez, we can’t seem to find any repayment check from all’y’all. It seems maybe you owe us...something.

And, by the way, HRC could remind said delegates: you have allowed a laughing hyena who drinks her lunch to land at the head of the ticket for the worst reasons (viz., DEI) minus any votes from the party membership, and then managed to duct-tape a China-owned, Cluster-B head-case to her as the veep sidekick...and maybe when all the hee-hawing and hooting dies down, you’ll discover what a pair of losers you’ve allowed to be undemocratically implanted to (ha!) represent you. And also, by the way, I happen to be available as her capable-and-experienced replacement...whom you can actually vote for on the convention floor, if you manage to get your shit together...you know...our democracy, and all. Just sayin’.

That is, I’m just sayin’ what She might be thinkin’ (and sayin’). I am in no position to predict any actual outcome, but it’s hard to imagine any winning moves by the Harris & Walz team in actual play-by-play. In case you have forgotten amid all the week-long laughter and euphoria, there are important national issues to discuss about how to manage the malevolent leviathan the federal government has become, and many dilemmas and threats the people face. And there are very different records of each team’s views on these things, party by party.

Some of that discussion could happen in the (so far) one scheduled September 10 debate. If Mr. Trump can manage to be polite, he can press Kamala Harris to explain herself on things like the wide-open border, failure to negotiate with the Russians to end the Ukraine War, her party’s antipathy to public safety, her party’s promotion of gender identity insanity, its Gestapo-style lawfare operations, its endless hoaxes, and its disgraceful documented efforts to censor free speech. The record is pretty clear on all of that, and there’s a fair chance that Ms. Harris can’t possibly explain it away. Or laugh it off.

Mr. Trump has requested two more head-to-head debates, which Ms. Harris apparently wants to forego. Mr. Trump has come up with an excellent alternative: two “town hall” format appearances in which he fields questions from citizens, or from news reporters, or some combo of both. That would be much to his advantage, without Ms. Harris on stage to defend her positions - or, more likely, to dodge any coherent reply by repeating “racist racist racist,” and laughing her head off.

That is, if she even remains the nominee. Let’s see how it goes this week leading to the convention. For instance, if she and Mr. Walz can still weasel out of taking any questions from the news media. Or whether the White House (remember “Joe Biden” still lives there) and his blob compadres can engineer a major escalation into world war, to take everybody’s mind off the election race. Or if any tremors of apprehension emanate from the delegate corps packing their rolly-bags for the dreaded party confab in Chicago. You have to kind of wonder if they’re bringing any riot gear."

Dan, I Allegedly, "Banks are Now Warning Us - Is Your Money Safe?"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 8/12/24
"Banks are Now Warning Us - Is Your Money Safe?"
"Are bank runs imminent? What are they not telling you? In this eye-opening video, I dive deep into the current banking crisis, discussing the alarming increase in stories about uninsured bank deposits and the potential for catastrophic bank runs. With $7 trillion in uninsured deposits at stake, even a small percentage of people withdrawing their money could trigger unprecedented financial chaos. Why are they now warning us about this? Are the banks worried about bank runs?"
Comments here:

Adventures With Danno, "Aldi Saver Deals Everywhere!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 8/12/24
"Aldi Saver Deals Everywhere!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Aldi and are finding all kinds of their Aldi Saver Deals! As grocery prices continue to rise in most of our main supermarkets, Aldi has put together some pretty amazing sales that we should definitely take advantage of! We show you all of the savings, so get your notepad ready!"
Comments here:

"Economic Market Snapshot 8/12/24"

"Economic Market Snapshot 8/12/24"
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
o
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
Comprehensive, essential truth.
Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Job cuts and much more.
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
And now... The End Game...
o

Sunday, August 11, 2024

"This Is What The Final Stages Of A Bubble Economy Look Like Just Before A Collapse Happens"

Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 8/11/24
"This Is What The Final Stages Of A Bubble Economy 
Look Like Just Before A Collapse Happens"
"How does it feel to be living on the edge of a bubble just before it bursts? Ever since the days of the Great Recession, our leaders have been going to extremes that we have never seen before as they attempt to keep our failing economy propped up. The Federal Reserve has created trillions upon trillions of dollars out of thin air and pumped it into the financial system. Our politicians in Washington have been on the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and as a result our national debt has soared to truly horrifying levels. Our national debt reached 35 trillion dollars, and it is growing “more quickly than many economists had predicted."
Comments here:

Jeremiah Babe, "Watch Out - An Economic Depression Is Forming, America Can't Stop Spending"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/11/24
"Watch Out - An Economic Depression Is Forming, 
America Can't Stop Spending"
Comments here:

"In The Long Run..."

“In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea… gain their instant acceptance and applause. On the other hand whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive with disdain or with hot rage – if indeed it does not make them ill. Beside themselves with passion, some of them would not be backward even about scheming to suppress and silence their adversaries. I have had some experience of this myself. No good can come of dealing with such people, especially to the extent that their company may be not only unpleasant but dangerous.”
- Galileo Galilei,
“Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems,” (1632)

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Inner Light"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "Inner Light"
"This song is from our album, "The Emerald Way". The Emerald Way refers to that moment in life when a pivotal choice must be made – to choose the way that is customary and expected of us – or to head down the overgrown hidden path leading to the unknown." 

"A Look to the Heavens"

The Crab Nebula from Visible to X-Ray
Image Credit: NASAESAASIHubbleChandraIXPE

"Explanation: What powers the Crab Nebula? A city-sized magnetized neutron star spinning around 30 times a second. Known as the Crab Pulsar, it is the bright spot in the center of the gaseous swirl at the nebula's core. About 10 light-years across, the spectacular picture of the Crab Nebula (M1) frames a swirling central disk and complex filaments of surrounding and expanding glowing gas. The picture combines visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope in red and blue with X-ray light from the Chandra X-ray Observatory shown in white, and diffuse X-ray emission detected by Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) in diffuse purple. The central pulsar powers the Crab Nebula's emission and expansion by slightly slowing its spin rate, which drives out a wind of energetic electrons. The featured image released today, the 25th Anniversary of the launch of NASA's flagship-class X-ray Observatory: Chandra."
o
Full screen recommended.
2002, "1054 A.D."
"This song and video by 2002 depict the great supernova of July 4, 1054 A.D., the remnants of which became the famous Crab Nebula. What must the civilizations of that time thought and felt when they saw this great star suddenly appear in the sky, visible even in broad daylight for 23 days?"
Comments here:

Chet Raymo, “Into The Night”

“Into The Night”
by Chet Raymo

“I first became intimate with the night sky on the sleeping porch of my grandmother’s house on Ninth Street in Chattanooga, Tennessee, during the early 1940s. A screened sleeping porch might be found attached to any southern home of a certain vintage and substance, usually on the second story at the back. On sultry summer nights you could move a cot or daybed onto the porch and take advantage of whatever breezes stirred the air. I slept there when I visited because it was the only place to find a spare bed. I was usually alone in that big spooky space, with only a thin wire mesh separating me from the many mysteries of the night.

Far off in the house I could hear the muffled voice of the big Stromberg-Carlson radio in the parlor, where grown-ups listened to news of the war or the boogie-woogie tunes of the Hit Parade. Outside was another kind of music, nearer, louder, pressing against the screen, which seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, a million scratchy fiddles, out-of-key woodwinds, discordant timpani. These were the cicadas, crickets and tree frogs of the southern summer night, but to me at that time they were the sounds of the night itself, as if darkness had an audible element.

Some nights the distant horizon would be lit with a silent, winking illumination called “heat lightnin’.” And closer, against the dark grass of the badminton court, the scintillations of fireflies- “lightnin’ bugs”- splashed into brightness.

The constellations of fireflies were answered in the sky by stars, which on those evenings when the city’s lights were blacked out for air-raid drills, multiplied alarmingly. I would lie in my cot, eyes glued to the spangled darkness, waiting to hear the drone of enemy aircraft or see the flash of ack-ack. No aircraft appeared, no ack-ack tracers pierced the night, but soon the stars took on their own fierce reality, like vast squadrons of alien rocket ships moving against the inky dark of Flash Gordon space.

In time I came to recognize patterns, although I did not yet know their names: the Scorpion creeping westward, dragging its stinger along the horizon; the teapot of Sagittarius afloat in the white river of the Milky Way; Vega at the zenith; the kite of Cygnus. As the hours passed, the Big Dipper clocked around the Pole. And sometimes, in late summer, I would wake in the predawn hour to find Orion sneaking into the eastern sky, pursuing the teacup of the Pleiades.

One memorable Christmas of my childhood, my father received a star book as a gift: “A Primer for Star-Gazers” by Henry Neely. As he used the book to learn the stars and constellations, he included me in his activities. The book was Santa’s gift to him. The night sky was his gift to me.

That book, now long out of print, is still in my possession. A glance takes me back half a century to evenings on the badminton court in the back yard of our own new home in the Chattanooga suburbs, gazing upwards with my father to a drapery of brilliant stars flung across the gap between tall dark pines. He told me stories of the constellations as he learned them. Of Orion and the Scorpion. Of the lovers Andromeda and Perseus, and the monster Cetus. Of the wood nymph Callisto and her son Arcas, placed by Zeus in the heavens as the Big and Little Bears. No child ever had a better storybook than the ever-changing page of night above our badminton court. My father also taught me the names of stars: Sirius, Arcturus, Polaris, Betelgeuse, and other, stranger names, Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali, the claws of the Scorpion. The words on his tongue were like incantations that opened the enchanted cave of night.

He was a man of insatiable curiosity. His stories of the stars were more than “connect the dots.” He wove into his lessons what he knew of history, science, poetry and myth. And, of course, religion. For my father, the stars were infused with unfathomable mystery, their contemplation a sort of prayer.

That Christmas book of long ago was a satisfactory guide to star lore, but as I look at it today I see that it conveyed little of the intimacy I felt as I stood with my father under the bright canopy of stars. Nor do any of the other more recent star guides that I have seen quite capture the feeling I had as a child of standing at the door of an enchanted universe, speaking incantations. What made the childhood experience so memorable was a total immersion in the mystery of the night- the singing of cicadas, the whisper of the wind in the pines, and, of course, my father’s storehouse of knowledge with which he embellished the stars. He taught me what to see; he also taught me what to imagine.”

The Poet: David Whyte, "Sweet Darkness"

"Sweet Darkness"

"When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb tonight.
The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.

You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness
to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you."

- David Whyte,
"House of Belonging"

"We Do Choose..."

"All men and women are born, live suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live."
- Joseph Epstein

“Thucydides in the Underworld”

“Master, what gnaws at them so hideously 
their lamentation stuns the very air?” 
“They have no hope of death,” he answered me…” 
- Dante Alighieri, “The Inferno”


by J. R. Nyquist

“The shade of Thucydides, formerly an Athenian general and historian, languished in Hades for 24 centuries; and having intercourse with other spirits, was perturbed by an influx into the underworld of self-described historians professing to admire his History of the Peloponnesian War. They burdened him with their writings, priding themselves on the imitation of his method, tracing the various patterns of human nature in politics and war. He was, they said, the greatest historian; and his approval of their works held the promise that their purgatory was no prologue to oblivion.

As the centuries rolled on, the flow of historians into Hades became a torrent. The later historians were no longer imitators, but most were admirers. It seemed to Thucydides that these were a miserable crowd, unable to discern between the significant and the trivial, being obsessed with tedious doctrines. Unembarrassed by their inward poverty, they ascribed an opposite meaning to things: thinking themselves more “evolved” than the spirits of antiquity. Some even imagined that the universe was creating God. They supposed that the “most evolved” among men would assume God’s office; and further, that they themselves were among the “most evolved.”

Thucydides longed for the peace of his grave, which posthumous fame had deprived him. As with many souls at rest, he took no further interest in history. He had passed through existence and was done. He had seen everything. What was bound to follow, he knew, would be more of the same; but after more than 23 centuries of growing enthusiasm for his work, there occurred a sudden falling off. Of the newly deceased, fewer broke in upon him. Quite clearly, something had happened. He began to realize that the character of man had changed because of the rottenness of modern ideas. Among the worst of these, for Thucydides, was that barbarians and civilized peoples were considered equal; that art could transmit sacrilege; that paper could be money; that sexual and cultural differences were of no account; that meanness was rated noble, and nobility mean.

Awakened from the sleep of death, Thucydides remembered what he had written about his own time. The watchwords then, as now, were “revolution” and “democracy.” There had been upheaval on all sides. “As the result of these revolutions,” he had written, “there was a general deterioration of character throughout the Greek world. The simple way of looking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist. Society had become divided into two ideologically hostile camps, and each side viewed the other with suspicion.”

Thucydides saw that democracy, once again, imagined itself victorious. Once again traditions were questioned as men became enamored of their own prowess. It was no wonder they were deluded. They landed men on the moon. They had harnessed the power of the atom. It was no wonder that the arrogance of man had grown so monstrous, that expectations of the future were so unrealistic. Deluded by recent successes, they could not see that dangers were multiplying in plain view. Men built new engines of war, capable of wiping out entire cities, but few took this danger seriously. Why were men so determined to build such weapons? The leading country, of course, was willing to put its weapons aside. Other countries pretended to put their weapons aside. Still others said they weren’t building weapons at all, even though they were.

Would the new engines of destruction be used? Would cities and nations be wiped off the face of the earth? Thucydides knew the answer. In his own day, during an interval of unstable peace, the Athenians had exterminated the male population of the island of Melos. Before doing this the Athenian commanders had came to Melos and said, “We on our side will use no fine phrases saying, for example, that we have a right to our empire because we defeated the Persians, or that we have come against you now because of the injuries you have done us – a great mass of words that nobody would believe.” The Athenians demanded the submission of Melos, without regard to right or wrong. As the Athenian representative explained, “the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.” 

The Melians were shocked by this brazen admission. They could not believe that anyone would dare to destroy them without just cause. In the first place, the Melians threatened no one. In the second place, they imagined that the world would be shocked and would avenge any atrocity committed against them. And so the Melians told the Athenians: “in our view it is useful that you should not destroy a principle that is to the general good of all men – namely, that in the case of all who fall into danger there should be such a thing as fair play and just dealing. And this is a principle which affects you as much as anybody, since your own fall would be visited by the most terrible vengeance and would be an example to the world.”

The Athenians were not moved by the argument of Melos; for they knew that the Spartans generally treated defeated foes with magnanimity. “Even assuming that our empire does come to an end,” the Athenians chuckled, “we are not despondent about what would happen next. One is not so much frightened of being conquered by a power like Sparta.” And so the Athenians destroyed Melos, believing themselves safe – which they were. The Melians refused to submit, praying for the protection of gods and men. But these availed them nothing, neither immediate relief nor future vengeance. The Melians were wiped off the earth. They were not the first or the last to die in this manner.

There was one more trend that Thucydides noted. In every free and prosperous country he found a parade of monsters: human beings with oversized egos, with ambitions out of proportion to their ability, whose ideas rather belied their understanding than affirmed it. Whereas, there was one Alcibiades in his own day, there were now hundreds of the like: self-serving, cunning and profane; only they did not possess the skills, or the mental acuity, or beauty of Alcibiades. Instead of being exiled, they pushed men of good sense from the center of affairs. Instead of being right about strategy and tactics, they were always wrong. And they were weak, he thought, because they had learned to be bad by the example of others. There was nothing novel about them, although they believed themselves to be original in all things.

Thucydides reflected that human beings are subject to certain behavioral patterns. Again and again they repeat the same actions, unable to stop themselves. Society is slowly built up, then wars come and put all to ruin. Those who promise a solution to this are charlatans, only adding to the destruction, because the only solution to man is the eradication of man. In the final analysis the philanthropist and the misanthrope are two sides of the same coin. While man exists he follows his nature. Thucydides taught this truth, and went to his grave. His history was written, as he said, “for all time.” And it is a kind of law of history that the generations most like his own are bound to ignore the significance of what he wrote; for otherwise they would not re-enact the history of Thucydides. But as they become ignorant of his teaching, they fall into disaster spontaneously and without thinking. Seeing that time was short, and realizing that a massive number of new souls would soon be entering the underworld, the shade of Thucydides fell back to rest.”

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