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Sunday, February 1, 2026

"A Volcano Of Fury Erupts In The Streets Of Los Angeles, Portland And Minnesota As Trump Converts 23 Giant Warehouses Into ICE Detention Centers"

"A Volcano Of Fury Erupts In The Streets Of Los Angeles, Portland And 
Minnesota As Trump Converts 23 Giant Warehouses Into ICE Detention Centers"
by Michael Snyder

"The violent clashes that are causing so much chaos in the streets of our major cities aren’t going to stop. Tens of thousands of anti-ICE activists have already been recruited, and more are joining their ranks with each passing day. At this stage, the only thing that could put a lid on the volcano of fury that we are witnessing would be if President Trump decided to pull ICE out of all of our cities and stop deportations. Of course there is no way that is going to happen. In fact, as you will see below, Trump is now converting 23 enormous warehouses around the country into giant ICE detention centers. The goal is to deport a million immigrants per year, and that means that the war between ICE and anti-ICE protesters is just getting started.

I have always warned that civil unrest would be one of the key elements of “the perfect storm” that our society would be forced to endure, and now we have reached a stage where the civil unrest never seems to stop. On Friday, law enforcement authorities used pepper balls and tear gas to disperse “a mob of violent agitators” that had gathered in front of the federal detention center in Los Angeles…

"Los Angeles police arrested multiple violent agitators after issuing dispersal orders as protests erupted across the city Friday evening. Thousands of protesters met in front of City Hall in the afternoon, before many marched to the federal detention center, where a mob of violent agitators swarmed the area, pushing a large construction dumpster and blocking the entrance to the building’s loading dock. LAPD shared video on social media of the unrest, adding in a separate post that authorities had deployed pepper balls and tear gas to disperse the crowd."

Even after pepper balls and tear gas had been used, some of the protesters continue to throw bottles, rocks and “other objects” at the police… While some protesters dispersed, others remained and continued to throw bottles and rocks at officers, according to the LAPD. In addition, the department said that federal authorities were being hit with “debris, bottles and other objects,” resulting in authorities declaring an unlawful assembly at the detention center. Footage of the violence that took place on Friday evening is extremely disturbing.

Of course this wasn’t the first anti-ICE violence that we have seen in L.A., and it most certainly won’t be the last. On Saturday, a crowd of thousands of anti-ICE protesters marched on an ICE facility in Portland. When they arrived, federal agents “deployed several rounds of tear gas, pepper balls, and flash-bang munitions”…"By the late afternoon, there were thousands of people participating in a protest in South Portland that began at Elizabeth Caruthers Park, according to the Portland Police Bureau, who monitored the activity. Local labor unions organized the demonstration.

The crowd later marched to the ICE facility a few blocks away, closing down South Bancroft Street. Around 5 p.m., federal agents deployed several rounds of tear gas, pepper balls, and flash-bang munitions into the crowd, including children, as observed by KOIN 6 News Reporter Ariel Salk in the field. The crowd dwindled to less than 1,000 people after that."

The reason why this didn’t make headline news all over the nation is because this sort of thing has become quite common in Portland. Shockingly, one protester says that someone actually brought a “kid in a stroller” to the event… “There were so many people who came out, there were parents, kids. I saw one kid in a stroller with a little helmet on. And we were all marching down the street towards the building to protest. And there was - it was like fog had rolled in - it was coming down the street,” one protester said. Why would you bring a “kid in a stroller” to a protest where tear gas and pepper balls are almost certainly going to be used? That is insanity.

A lot of the protesters did not disperse after the first wave of non-lethal munitions, and so about 6 PM there was a “second wave of tear gas, as well as pepper balls and flash-bang munitions”…"A second wave of tear gas, as well as pepper balls and flash-bang munitions, was deployed into the crowd by federal agents around 6 p.m. After that, only a few hundred people remained. KOIN 6 also saw people move a dumpster into the vehicle entryway of the ICE building just before the second round of tear gas was deployed. By the time the smoke cleared, the dumpster was gone." Portland has been a war zone for much of the past year. Sadly, it appears that the violence in the city is now escalating.

Meanwhile, the craziness in Minnesota never seems to end. Over the weekend, protesters decided to stage events inside quite a few Target stores…"Multiple Target stores across Minnesota and in other states were targeted by protesters with demands for Target’s corporate leadership to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from being allowed in Target stores to arrest criminals.

Video from a Target location in Richfield, Minnesota, shows reportedly over 100 protesters illegally marching through the store, chanting, “The people united will never be defeated,” while holding a Socialist Alternative banner that read, “National Strike Shut Down Trump & ICE.” Local police were at the scene but refused to do anything as the anti-ICE protesters berated them and called for Target to be shut down.

At one location in West St. Paul, a police officer made it abundantly clear that his heart was very much with the protesters… "At a West St. Paul, Minnesota Target protest, a police officer lauded the protesters, saying, “I appreciate what you guys are doing. I understand what you guys are doing. Unfortunately, the store has the right to do what they need to do,” after threatening to arrest them for trespassing. “I have a hard job. As much as I want to come over here, and you know what I mean, and do what I need to do, I still have a job to do, unfortunately. And so, I appreciate you guys,” he continued."

The entire state has been thrown into an uproar thanks to what has transpired over the last couple of months. The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti have just added fuel to the fire, and now we are being told that over 34,000 people in the state of Minnesota have signed up to be part of Minnesota’s anti-ICE army… More than 34,000 Minnesotans have signed up to be trained as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement observers with various activist groups in recent weeks, many of them since Jan. 7, when a federal agent shot and killed RenĂ©e Good, a poet and mother of three, after an encounter with an ICE convoy in South Minneapolis.

The killings of Good and, on Saturday, ICU nurse Alex Pretti underscore the dangers for the city’s widespread resistance movement, a loosely connected network of neighborhood volunteers who communicate on Signal, the private messaging app, as they play cat and mouse with heavily armed and masked federal agents on snowy streets. This week these ICE observers vowed to continue their work despite signs of a political thaw on the national stage, after Trump removed controversial border patrol head Greg Bovino from Minneapolis and renewed talks with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), a frequent critic. The anti-ICE forces outnumber the ICE agents that have been deployed to the state by a more than 10 to 1 margin. That is crazy.

But ICE agents continue to try to follow orders. In fact, they just arrested an immigrant that actually rammed one of their vehicles as he attempted to escape…"ICE has arrested a criminal illegal alien from Mexico after the alien rammed into an ICE vehicle this morning in St. Paul, Minnesota. Tranquilino Sixto-Anorve had a criminal record of multiple charges for driving under the influence. Sixto-Anorve was taken into ICE detention at the Whipple federal building in Minneapolis, where anti-ICE demonstrators were seen earlier on Saturday parading in the streets in animal costumes, singing, “Kristi Noem is a bird-legged hoe.”

One thing has become very clear. No matter what happens, the Trump administration is not going to stop deporting people. In fact, there are plans to convert 23 giant warehouses throughout the country into “a large-scale network of immigration detention centers”
 "The Trump administration is moving ahead with plans to convert 23 e-commerce warehouses across the country, primarily in the eastern U.S., into a large-scale network of immigration detention centers aimed at expanding capacity to fulfill the mandate the American people gave President Trump to deport more than one million illegal aliens per year and restore national security. This comes after the Biden-Harris globalist regime collapsed borders and allowed a nation-killing invasion of ten million or more third-worlders.

Bloomberg reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s rapid move to build out a network of warehouses is being fueled by $45 billion from the signature “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” This includes the most recent purchases of a warehouse in Hagerstown, Maryland, and another in Surprise, Arizona, totaling $172 million. A third in El Paso, Texas, will be one of the largest of its kind, with 8,500 beds.

Wow. I don’t even know what to say about that. The warehouse that is being converted in Arizona has over 400,000 square feet of detention space…"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has purchased a massive warehouse in the West Valley, according to Maricopa County property records. Filings showed the federal government purchased the more than 400,000 square-foot facility near Sweetwater Avenue and Dysart Road for $70 million in cash from RG Surprise, LLC last Friday. According to an archived listing, the warehouse completed by Rockefeller Group was previously called the Surprise Pointe Commerce Center and was primarily set up to accommodate one to four tenants."

The Trump administration has no intention of backing down. Neither do the anti-ICE protesters. I believe that we will see things happen in the streets of America this year that we have never seen before. Needless to say, that is not good news for any of us."

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Dream Ten"

Liquid Mind, "Dream Ten"
"Is the beauty of the Whole really enhanced by our agony? And is the Whole really beautiful? And what is beauty? Throughout all his existence man has been striving to hear the music of the spheres, and has seemed to himself once and again to catch some phrase of it, or even a hint of the whole form of it. Yet he can never be sure that he has truly heard it, nor even that there is any such perfect music at all to be heard. Inevitably so, for if it exists, it is not for him in his littleness. But one thing is certain. Man himself, at the very least, is music, a brave theme that makes music also of its vast accompaniment, its matrix of storms and stars. Man himself in his degree is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things. It is very good to have been man. And so we may go forward together with laughter in our hearts, and peace, thankful for the past, and for our own courage. For we shall make after all a fair conclusion to this brief music that is man." 
- Olaf Stapledon, "Last and First Men"
Freely download "Last and First Men", by Olaf Stapledon, here:

"A Look to the Heavens"

“What makes this spiral galaxy so long? Measuring over 700,000 light years across from top to bottom, NGC 6872, also known as the Condor galaxy, is one of the most elongated barred spiral galaxies known.
The galaxy's protracted shape likely results from its continuing collision with the smaller galaxy IC 4970, visible just above center. Of particular interest is NGC 6872's spiral arm on the upper left, as pictured here, which exhibits an unusually high amount of blue star forming regions. The light we see today left these colliding giants before the days of the dinosaurs, about 300 million years ago. NGC 6872 is visible with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Peacock (Pavo).”

Carl Sagan, “Humility”

Full screen recommended.
Carl Sagan, “Humility”

The Poet: Mary Oliver, “The Journey”

“The Journey”

“One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.”

- Mary Oliver

The Daily "Near You?"

Halfweg, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. Thanks for stopping by!

"Be Kind..."

"Angel: Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters... then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. I fought for so long, for redemption, for a reward, and finally just to beat the other guy, but I never got it.
Kate Lockley: And now you do?
Angel: Not all of it. All I wanna do is help. I wanna help because, I don't think people should suffer as they do. Because, if there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.
Kate Lockley: Yikes. It sounds like you've had an epiphany.
Angel: I keep saying that, but nobody's listening."

Khalil Gibran, "A Tear and A Smile"

Khalil Gibran, "A Tear and A Smile"
Read by Shane Morris

"I Have Two Months Left to Live... These Are My 5 Worst Mistakes"

Life Is Fleeting,
"I Have Two Months Left to Live... 
These Are My 5 Worst Mistakes"

"This man has been told that he has only two months left to live. Facing the end has given him a clarity that most people never reach until it is too late. Looking back on his life, he shares the five mistakes that haunt him the most, lessons engraved in pain, time, and lost love. He talks about the years wasted chasing success, the apologies he never gave, the moments with loved ones he will never get back, and how fear stopped him from truly living. Through his story, he hopes that others can see what he could not: that happiness cannot wait, forgiveness cannot be delayed, and the meaning of life is found in the simplest moments. This is a reminder to start living now."
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"Yet Now..."

“Yet now, as he roared across the night sky toward an unknown destiny, he found himself facing that bleak and ultimate question which so few men can answer to their satisfaction. What have I done with my life, he asked himself, that the world will be poorer if I leave it?”
- Arthur C. Clarke, “Glide Path”
Full screen recommended.
Alan Parsons Project, "Old and Wise"

"How It Really Is"

VERY strong language alert!
George Carlin, "The American Dream"

"I Can Choose..."

“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself.” 
- Walter Anderson 

"This Winter Is About To Change In A Big Way"

Full screen recommended.
Max Velocity - Severe Weather Center, 2/1/26
"This Winter Is About To Change In A Big Way"
"In today’s forecast, we are breaking down a HUGE weather pattern change that will completely change the winter weather across the United States. More heavy snow and arctic blasts are on the way to kick off February, with some record-breaking temperatures possible in some areas. All the details are in today's forecast!"
Comments here:

"America Is Entering a Dangerous Few Weeks - Millions Are at Risk"

Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 2/1/26
"America Is Entering a Dangerous Few Weeks -
 Millions Are at Risk"
Comments here:

Dan, I Allegedly, "The First Bank Failure of 2026!"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 2/1/26
"The First Bank Failure of 2026!"
Comments here:

"North America and Europe Face Endless Freeze Starting February 10th, Coldest Winter Threat Ever!"

Full screen recommended.
The Science Studio, 1/31/26
"North America and Europe Face Endless Freeze 
Starting February 10th, Coldest Winter Threat Ever!"

"A major polar vortex collapse is forecast for mid-February 2026, potentially bringing one of the most significant cold outbreaks in recent years to both North America and Europe simultaneously. Weather agencies including NOAA and ECMWF have confirmed a stratospheric warming event that is disrupting the protective atmospheric barrier that normally keeps Arctic air locked over the North Pole, allowing waves of extreme cold to move hundreds of miles farther south than typical. This documentary explains the atmospheric science behind this rare weather pattern, why it affects two continents at once, and most importantly provides practical preparation steps families can take before mid-February to ensure safety during potential extended cold periods and infrastructure strain. Research-based analysis combining meteorological data, historical winter storm impacts, and community preparedness strategies for 45-65+ viewers."
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Saturday, January 31, 2026

"Heavy Snow Just Shifted Catastrophic, 80 City Blizzard Emergency"

Full screen recommended.
USA Weather Pulse, 1/31/26 6:42 PM EST
"Heavy Snow Just Shifted Catastrophic,
80 City Blizzard Emergency"
"The HEAVY SNOW forecast just made a CATASTROPHIC shift in the last 6 hours that completely rewrote everything we thought we knew about this storm, and 80 major cities are now under blizzard emergencies as the heaviest snow zone SHIFTED directly over the most populated areas! What was supposed to be a moderate snowfall event for most cities has suddenly turned CATASTROPHIC with the latest model runs showing the heavy snow band SHIFTING inland and expanding dramatically - we're talking about snow totals JUMPING from 6-12 inches to 24-36+ inches overnight in cities that were expecting a manageable storm just yesterday! This CATASTROPHIC shift in the heavy snow track happened because of explosive phasing between two jet stream energy sources that meteorologists didn't predict, creating a deformation zone right over the I-95 corridor that's gonna lock in place and produce relentless snowfall rates of 3-5 inches per hour for 12-18 hours straight! The 80 cities now under blizzard emergencies include every major metro from Washington DC to Boston, and the HEAVY SNOW totals are so extreme that NWS is using words like "crippling" and "paralyzing" in their official forecast discussions! I'm breaking down all 80 cities showing you the OLD forecast versus the NEW catastrophic forecast so you can see exactly how your snow total just changed!"
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"Something Is Very Wrong With January 2026: Another Major Storm Is Here"

Full screen recommended.
The Sleepy Explorer, 1/31/26
"Something Is Very Wrong With January 2026:
 Another Major Storm Is Here"

"The polar vortex was supposed to heal itself weeks ago. It didn’t. Instead, it stayed broken - locked in a state meteorologists didn’t expect and can’t seem to explain. Now, as January comes to a close, another major storm is forming in real time. Winter Storm Gianna is rapidly intensifying off the Carolina coast, threatening blizzard conditions in regions that almost never see them. Snow totals measured in feet. Winds strong enough to shut down entire states. Emergencies already declared.

This isn’t the first storm. It’s the second. And it’s happening inside a month that refuses to return to normal. Twenty days earlier, Earth was struck by the strongest solar storm in more than two decades. Almost immediately, the polar vortex collapsed. Scientists said it would reset within two weeks. Nearly thirty days later, it hasn’t. In between the storms, the planet released a strange, globally distributed burst of seismic energy - an event that doesn’t fit neatly into existing models.

Individually, each of these events has an explanation. Together, they form a pattern that no one is connecting out loud. This video is a deep dive into what’s happening to our atmosphere, our planet, and the systems we rely on - and why January twenty twenty six may be remembered as the moment something fundamental stopped behaving the way it always had. Watch closely. The story isn’t over yet."
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"Deadly Virus Detected: 70% Fatality Rate Has Officials Concerned"

Full screen recommended.
Snyder Report, 1/31/26
"Deadly Virus Detected: 
70% Fatality Rate Has Officials Concerned"
Comments here:

Jeremiah Babe, "Chicago Bank Collapse Friday, All Banks Are In Big Trouble"

Jeremiah Babe, 1/31/26
"Chicago Bank Collapse Friday,
 All Banks Are In Big Trouble"
Comments here:

"The Rotting Cadaver of Europe: Letter to a Borning Backwater"

"The Rotting Cadaver of Europe:
 Letter to a Borning Backwater"
by Fred Reed

"Dear Europeans,

In the international prints I see that you are outraged and upset and have your innards in an uproar because, in that Davos meeting where billionaires decide how to mismanage the world, Mr. Trump was all contemptuous of you and you can’t figure out why. Let me help you. He was contemptuous of you because you are contemptible. Embarrassingly so. Amusingly so. There. Is that better?

Yes, you who once ruled the world, since 1914 have been burrowing into minimal relevance with such success that you are now little more than a football fought over by Asia and the United States. This is an astonishment. You have a massive population by Western standards, though small potatoes by the reckoning of the big Asian powers. You are a major market, have considerable if fading technological strength, and superlative wines and cheeses. You have a major country, Germany, and, well, those noisy little northern ones, whose names I can never remember. Latisha, Lithography, and Epstein, or something like that. How can so much amount to so little?

Perhaps your most comic humiliation, among many candidates, was Ursula Borderline’s grotesque obeisance to President Trump a while back. Trump, sitting comfortably in his golf course in Scotland, whistles. Ursula, headmistress of the European nursery, comes running to lick Donald’s boots, galumphing along like an eager if dimwitted puppy. Yes, master, yes she says, I’ll do anything, sounding like a submissive in an S-and-M bar. She then hands over the European economy, not actually kneeling and proffering it on a silver tray, but close. Reports that she said “Arf arf” and waited for Trump to give her a doggy treat are probably exaggerated, though witnesses disagree on this.

I have wondered, Ursula, whether Mr. Trump shouldn’t invest in a line of flavored boot polish for European’s who visit the White House. It would be a form of hospitality. Plain old Shinola must have an unpleasant industrial taste. Perhaps the State Department could offer a menu, Roquefort for Macron, tomato sauce for the Italians, haggis for the Scottish, wrapped in disposable but comfortable knee pads. You Europeans after all are our valued allies, and deserving of comfort while groveling.

Europeasants are nothing if not entertaining. Your most profound lunge into subservience followed Biden’s blowing up of the Nordstream pipelines. It was a brilliant move by Washington and no doubt delicious for Uncle Joe, watching you squirming and gurgling, looking for someone, anyone to blame other than the Americans, whom you knew perfectly well to have done it. But…you didn’t dare say “Washington” as then you would have had to do something about it.

This was out of the question because you have feathers for balls. So you flapped your hands and made plaintive little squeaking noises while looking for a villain, any villain. But your proposed villains: First, the Russians did it. Sure, blew up their own pipeline that was earning them carloads of money. That was too silly even for the EU, which is saying something. Next it was the Ukrainians,. That didn’t work either. You would have had to punish them, send them to their room without dinner or something, instead of breastfeeding Kiev to keep the Ukies in your idiotic war. Finally it was three rogue freelance Ukrainians in a canoe!. Perfect! This amounted to no one did it. But don’t, for God’s sake, don’t ever say “the Americans.” Perish forbid.

Now, sovereignty. You don’t have any. No country can be sovereign when it has foreign military bases on its territory, one about every three feet. To keep the natives from getting restless, America calls you “allies” and avoids saying “occupation troops,” or “sepoys, “ but you know the truth, don’t you? Your armed forces depend on American weaponry, and spare parts and software updates and spy satellites and I don’t know what all, and a gringo general commands NATO. Your countries have the sovereignty of parking lots.

Why are you in this mess? Because Europe, except for Germany, is a collection of piddling little countries with delusions of relevance, disunited, led by feckless mediocrities better suited to managing shopping centers, and utterly dependent on the Great Father in Washington and with the aforementioned unusually placed feathers.

Yes, yes, I know it is embarrassing to be the wholly-owned subsidiary of a former colony, so you understandably pretend that America is your ally and not your owner. But it is. suppose that almost unimaginably, you grew a pair and told Washington to close its military bases …and it said, “No.” What then? Sovereignty. Oh yes. Sovereignty, Sovreignty to the left, sovereignty to the right, and not a drop to drink.

Face it: You have been snookered, played, suckered by experts. The world has three important powers, America, Russia, and China. The US has adroitly maneuvered you into regarding two of them as enemies so that, when Washington treats you like cheap hired help, you have nowhere to turn. By using NATO to goad Russia into a war, it cut you off, Germany most importantly, from trade with Russia, a major source of cheap energy, raw materials and market for industrial goods. Blowing up the Nordstreams crashed the German economy and made Berlin ever more dependent on expensive American natural gas. It was slick.

Now the US has you gabbling about “deterring China.” Deterring it from what? From selling you stuff at good prices? How many military bases does China have in Europe? Anywhere? You are so easy.

You have been Reverse Imperialized. America, once the property of European powers, now regards European countries as the geopolitical equivalents of charwomen, gardeners, and casual labor, doubtless meritorious in the eyes of God but needing to be kept in their place. China, also a former colony, could buy most of your countries to use as doorstops and your approximations of leaders don’t know whether to hiss and fizz at Beijing or hold out the begging bowl. India, formerly owned by England, begins to loom large as England declines. Oops. Before planting seeds, maybe it is a good idea to read the envelope they come in.

I hope this letter answers your questions. Fredon Everything is a column both benevolent and beneficent, overflowing with wisdom like a burst water-main, and replete with good will for all.

Sincerely,
Fred"

Musical Interlude: Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"

Full screen recommended.
Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the dark indentation to the orange emission nebula at the far right of the featured picture. The horse-head feature is dark because it is really an opaque dust cloud that lies in front of the bright emission nebula. Like clouds in Earth's atmosphere, this cosmic cloud has assumed a recognizable shape by chance. After many thousands of years, the internal motions of the cloud will surely alter its appearance. 
The emission nebula's orange color is caused by electrons recombining with protons to form hydrogen atoms. Toward the lower left of the image is the Flame Nebula, an orange-tinged nebula that also contains intricate filaments of dark dust. Two prominent reflection nebulas are visible: round IC 432 on the far left, and blue NGC 2023 just to the lower left of the Horsehead nebula. Each glows primarily by reflecting the light of their central star."

Chet Raymo, “Try To Remember…”

“Try To Remember…”
by Chet Raymo

“In a sleepless hour of the night, I was trying to remember the last name of a person I have known well for more than forty years. When my spouse stirred in her sleep, I asked her. She couldn’t remember either. One again I started mentally through the alphabet. “I think it starts with B,” I said. Ten minutes later she rolled over and said, “The next letter is R.” Bingo! The name popped into my head. Or I should say, “popped out of my head.” Because it was in there somewhere, recorded in a tangle of neurons as materially as if it were written on a piece of paper.

There was a time, back when I was a young man, when some scientists thought memory might be molecular – stored as proteins or RNA molecules that have somehow been modified by experience. The molecule theory of memory rested on experiments with worms (I remember the cover illustration on Scientific American). The worms were taught to navigate a simple maze. Then they were ground up and fed to untrained worms, which seemed to navigate the maze without training. Only molecules, it was thought, could have survived the transfer. Those experiments have been discredited. Scientists now overwhelmingly believe that memories are stored as webs of connections between spider-shaped brain cells called neurons. Each neuron is connected through electrochemical connections to thousands of others. According to the current view, experience fine-tunes the connections, strengthening some, weakening others, creating a different “trace” of interconnected cells for each memory.

But truth be told, memory is still deeply mysterious. How exactly are a lifetime of memories stored and retrieved at will? We know how it works for computers, but how for the human brain? What is self-consciousness? What are dreams? This is the primary scientific agenda for the 21st century. In the middle of the night I go fishing, in that sea of potentiated synapses that are the human soul, for a name that becomes ever more difficult to extract as I get older. I troll the alphabet: A, B, C, D… The name is in there, along with a face and more that forty years of interactions. The Nobel Prizes are waiting.”
Graphic: Salvador Dali, “The Persistence of Memory”

"Could Be Worse..."

"I'd been in hairier situations than this one. Actually, it's sort of depressing, thinking how many times I'd been in them. But if experience had taught me anything, it was this: No matter how screwed up things are, they can get a whole lot worse."
- Jim Butcher
"Dig your way out..." they said.

"Get Ready for Free Money - They’re About to Pay You Not to Work"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 1/31/26
"Get Ready for Free Money - 
They’re About to Pay You Not to Work"
"Universal Basic Income is no longer a theory - it’s being tested around the world and openly discussed by politicians and tech elites as AI replaces jobs. They call it “free money.” I call it a massive shift in control, motivation, and freedom. In this video, I break down why Universal Basic Income is essentially a welfare program for everyone, why it risks creating a lazy society, and how history has already shown what happens when people are paid to do nothing. We’ve seen this before when free money kept people out of the workforce and crushed motivation."
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The Daily "Near You?"

Pearland, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"What Is Hope?"

"What Is Hope?"

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

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

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

"I'm Rightly Tired..."

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

“Gods dream of empires, but devils build them.”
- Jessica Cluess, "House of Dragons"

"Why Memento Mori Is The Ultimate Life Hack"

"Why Memento Mori Is The Ultimate Life Hack"
by Danny Kenny

"The plane lurched violently upward. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re making an emergency climb due to traffic in our flight path.” In other words: There’s a plane where it’s not supposed to be, so we’re getting the hell out of here. The captain’s voice was steady, but the g-forces pressing me into my seat and the fast climb told a different story. It was the kind of airplane experience where your mind races to conclusions you’d rather not reach.

As turbulence shook the cabin, I noticed something strange happening in my body. While others gripped armrests and exchanged terrified glances, I found myself focusing on my breath to see how low I could bring my heart rate. Like a psychopath. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Hold for four. Facing the possibility of death, I needed to know: Am I ready?

My grandfather used to say, “Make sure to have your bags packed.” Not to literally have your luggage by the door, but to be ready to leave life without regrets, unfinished business, and words left unsaid. As Flight 447 to Orlando climbed through that storm, I did my check: Am I good with all my people? The answer surprised me. Despite all my achievement-chasing and productivity-hacking, despite the endless striving I’ve documented in these pages…I was good. I’d added warmth, humor, and joy to the lives I’d touched. My relationships were in a good spot. The world was, perhaps, a slightly brighter place for my existence.

It honestly wasn’t the answer I was expecting, but it was a grounding one. A few minutes later, the plane leveled off. Thirty minutes later, we were safely on the ground in Orlando. But something had shifted. The rest of that trip felt clearer, less anxious, and more grounded. The obnoxious emails waiting in my inbox had lost their sting. The “urgent” meeting that wasn’t really urgent revealed itself to be something not worth spending any additional energy on. Death, it turns out, is an excellent BS detector, and we could be thinking about it way more often in our daily lives.

The ancient practice modern high-achievers need most: Memento mori, which literally means “remember you will die,” sounds like the kind of thing that would send modern optimizers running for longevity protocols (such as infrared light, collagen, and definitely some kind of algae) and the promise of immortality. But as Tim Ferriss observed: “I think about death all the time and it’s not a morbid, sullen exercise for me … I find it to be, and this might sound strange, but greatly encouraging because it drives a sense of urgency, or at least time sensitivity, to a lot of my decisions.”

He goes on to describe looking at stars and contemplating that the light hitting your eye might be from a star that no longer exists. That realization isn’t an excuse for nihilism; it instead provides perspective, clarifies, and empowers. Suddenly, that workplace drama or Twitter beef reveals itself as the cosmic irrelevance it always was. “It’s all dust,” Ferriss said. “Nobody gives a f*ck.”

Ryan Holiday put it even more directly in his exploration of Stoic practices: “Meditating on your mortality is only depressing if you miss the point. It is in fact a tool to create priority and meaning.” The ancients knew this. Emperor Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

But here’s what Ferriss, Holiday, and the Stoics are really pointing to, and what that moment on Flight 447 made visceral for me: Death isn’t the enemy. It’s the life coach you desperately need but never, ever, ever wanted to hire.

Befriending your mortality: Ernst Becker won a Pulitzer for "The Denial of Death" by arguing that human civilization is essentially an elaborate defense mechanism against our awareness of our own mortality. We build monuments, chase achievements, create legacies to somehow convince ourselves we’ll find a way to overcome the one thing guaranteed by our biology. This denial drives what Becker calls our “immortality projects,” the ways we try to ensure that our existence will echo beyond our inevitable end.

For me, it was the 4.0 GPA, the PhD, the six-figure consulting gig. For you, it might be the IPO, the bestseller, the perfect family photo that gets 500 likes. We’re all running toward some imagined future, achievement, or trophy that grants us immunity from dying. We’re scrambling to find the thing, and we’re scrambling to get the thing, and we’re scrambling to hold onto it forever.

We don’t have to do that. This shift from seeing death as the enemy to recognizing it as a clarifying force has been gradual for me: years of Stoic practice, meditation, and simply observing life unfold around me. People in my life dying, some way too soon. People diagnosed with long-term illnesses. These are consistent, regular reminders that life is a finite, non-renewable resource.

The irony is that befriending death doesn’t make life feel shorter or scarier. It makes it feel more vivid, more precious, more worth living authentically rather than performatively. When you truly internalize that you could leave life right now - not as some abstract philosophy but as lived reality - several things happen:Your real values emerge from the noise. Suddenly, being seen as successful matters less than actually connecting with people you love.

Fake urgencies reveal themselves. That ASAP email? Unless someone’s actually dying, it can wait. Your tolerance for BS approaches zero. Life’s too short for meetings that should have been emails or relationships that drain more than they give. What actually matters becomes blindingly clear. Hint: It’s usually much simpler than your brain wants to believe.

The 90-year-old test: Here’s an exercise I give to every coaching client as we start our work together. It never fails to cut through the complexity we create around our lives: Close your eyes. Fast-forward to age 90. It’s a Tuesday, and you’re sitting on a porch (because apparently all 90-year-olds have moved south and have porches in our imagination). What’s true about the best version of this moment? When I do this exercise, the picture that emerges is remarkably simple: I’m healthy enough to move around and be active. I’m surrounded by people and family I love. I’m still sharp enough to write, teach, and serve others. That’s it. That’s the whole list.

Notice what’s not there? The size of my bank account. The prestige of my job title, the number of LinkedIn followers, whether I ever gave a TED talk. None of it makes the cut when you’re staring down the barrel of your own mortality. This isn’t about having low ambitions - it’s about having accurate ambitions. When you know how your story ends, you can work backward to figure out what actually matters now.

The 90-year-old test is where I start my values work because it’s the only perspective that can’t be fooled by short-term thinking or social pressure. Your 90-year-old self doesn’t care about inbox zero or Q3 targets. They care about whether you were present for the people who mattered. They care about doing work you find meaningful. And they care about not dying with a life unlived.

Practical memento mori: Here are a few more concrete practices that bring death’s clarity into daily life:Write your own eulogy. Many people have heard of this, but I recommend writing two versions: 

Write the eulogy for if you died today, and then write the one for if you lived a life aligned with what truly matters to you. The gap between them is the work for you to do and the places for you to focus.

The deathbed story filter. Before any major decision, ask: “On my deathbed, will I regret not doing this, or will I regret the things I sacrificed to do it? What’s the story I wish to be able to tell about this when I’m dying?” This question has helped me see through superficial achievement traps and, on the other side, has helped me choose the short-term painful thing that benefits me in the long term.

Study the stars and get outside. Adapting Ferriss’s advice, go outside at night and look up. Find a star. Consider that its light traveled years to reach you, meaning the star itself might already be gone. Find ways to be in grand scenes in nature. Find places that bring you awe. Let that cosmic perspective shrink your problems to their actual size.

Here’s what nobody tells you about memento mori: It’s the ultimate productivity system. Not productivity in the mercenary sense of cramming more into less time. But productivity in the truest sense: producing what matters, eliminating what doesn’t.

When you truly grasp your mortality: You stop procrastinating essential conversations.
You quit optimizing systems that optimize nothing meaningful.
You delegate or delete those many trivial tasks to focus on the vital few.
You stop trading time for money once you have “enough.”
You start creating things that might outlive you in valuable ways.

After that flight to Orlando, I noticed immediate changes. Emails that would have sent me into an hour-long response spiral got two sentences or silence. Arguments that would have escalated got met with a, “You might be right” or “This isn’t worth our energy.”

I began to understand what Becker was really saying: We’re all going to die, and no amount of achievement can change that. Instead of this being depressing, I found it liberating. But the biggest shift? I started prioritizing shared meals with loved ones as if they were board meetings with God because, from the perspective of mortality, they basically are.

When you stop trying to outrun death through achievement, you can start using your limited time to contribute something meaningful. The question shifts from “How can I matter forever?” (an absurd exercise likely to lead to shallow, inauthentic answers) to “How can I matter right now?” (a powerful question for finding compassionate action to make the world a little bit better around you, in this moment).

Your mortality, your mentor: As I write this, I’m thinking of my uncle Ward. A kind, lovable, and humble man, he was an example to all who met him. He passed, far too soon, in August 2023, after a horrific battle with throat cancer and Crohn’s disease that meant he could not eat and barely speak for months. He was far too gentle, too kind, too good to have deserved a fight I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. And yet, even as he lost weight and even when words became too painful to form, my uncle still showed up for his family, managed to communicate love through presence alone, and found ways to express care even as his body betrayed him.

I remember how he’d text me about the latest Cubs game or to share the latest news on my one friend who made it to the MLB. For anyone he knew driving to or from Chicago, he would be checking the weather for them, letting them know the forecast and the ideal driving windows to avoid the worst of it. And there was nothing any of his many nieces or nephews could accomplish without my uncle Ward being one of the first to congratulate them for it.

By remembering him, I remember to live. I remember how he loved his family and his friends. I remember the generosity of his spirit, being the first to serve charity, to leave behind a bigger tip, to congratulate someone on their latest accomplishment.

My uncle can no longer do those things on this earthly plane. But I can. This is the paradox of memento mori: The more we remember death, the more fully we live. The more we befriend mortality (our own or the people in our lives), the less it controls us. Admittedly, this embrace feels weird. But death is the feature of our existence that makes life meaningful. Without scarcity, there’s no value. Without endings, there’s no urgency to begin. And without mortality, there’s no reason to choose what matters over what’s merely urgent.

So I’ll ask you what I asked myself on that turbulent flight: Are you ready? Are you good with your people? Have you said what needs saying, done what needs doing, loved who needs loving? If not, what are you waiting for? Death is waiting to help you figure out what actually matters. All you have to do is listen."

"At 81, I Finally Understand What Life Is Actually About"

"At 81, I Finally Understand What Life Is Actually About"
"In this video, I am opening my heart about the lessons that most people realize far too late. We spend our lives chasing shadows, convinced they are treasures, while the real beauty of life quietly slips through our fingers. This is my legacy to you—a raw and honest reflection on time, regret, and what it truly means to live before the hourglass runs out. If you feel like you're constantly waiting for the "perfect time" to be happy or to forgive, please listen closely to these words. Tomorrow is not a guarantee; it is a high-risk loan."
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"How It Really Is"

 

Free Download: Dante Alighieri, “The Divine Comedy”

Dante Alighieri, “The Divine Comedy”

“The Divine Comedy (Italian: Divina Commedia) is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between c. 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative and allegorical vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan dialect, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

On the surface, the poem describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven; but at a deeper level, it represents allegorically the soul's journey towards God. At this deeper level, Dante draws on medieval Christian theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Consequently, the Divine Comedy has been called "the Summa in verse".

The work was originally simply titled Commedìa and was later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio. The first printed edition to add the word divina to the title was that of the Venetian humanist Lodovico Dolce, published in 1555 by Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari."

Free download links:
Dante Alighieri’s "Divine Comedy – Inferno" (6.57MB)
Dante Alighieri’s "Purgatorio" (3.74MB)
Dante Alighieri’s "Divine Comedy – Paradiso" (1.89MB)

“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”

“Thucydides in the Underworld”
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.”

Stipendium peccati mors est...