"Burnout"

"Burnout"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"At least once a year, I completely burn out: exhausted, I no longer have the energy or will to care about anything but the bare minimum for survival. Everything not essential for survival gets jettisoned or set aside. This goes with the territory if you're trying to accomplish a lot of things that are intrinsically complex and open-ended - for example, running a business, being a parent, juggling college, work, family, community commitments, etc. 

I am confident many if not most of you have experienced burnout due to being overwhelmed by open-ended, inherently complex commitments.

I don't think burnout is limited to individuals. I think entire organizations and institutions can experience burnout, especially organizations devoted to caring for others or those facing long odds of fulfilling their core purpose. I even think entire nations can become exhausted by the effort of keeping up appearances or navigating endless crises. At that point, the individuals and institutions of the nation just go through the motions of coping rather than continue the struggle. Perhaps Venezuela is a current example.

I have long suspected that in many ways America is just going through the motions.  John Michael Greer (the Archdruid) has brilliantly described a process he calls catabolic collapse, which I would characterize as the stairstep-down of overly complex, costly systems as participants react to crises by resetting to a lower level of complexity and consumption.

Just as ecosystems have intrinsic carrying capacities, so too do individual humans and human systems. When our reach exceeds our grasp, and the costs of complexity exceed the carrying capacity of the underlying systems, then we have to move down to a lower level of complexity and lower cost-structure/energy consumption.

This sounds straightforward enough, but it isn't that easy in real life. We can't offload our kids and downsize to part-time parenting or magically reduce the complexities of operating a small business (or two). These tasks are intrinsically open-ended. Reductions in stress and complexity such as quitting a demanding job (and earning one-third of our former salary) require long years of trimming and planning.

So what can we do to work through burnout? Since I'm designed to over-commit myself, burnout is something I've dealt with since my late teens. I like to think I'm getting better at managing it, but this is probably illusory. (It may be one of those cases where the illusion is useful because it's positive and hopeful.) I find these responses helpful:

1. Reduce whatever complexity can be reduced. Even something as simple as making a pot of chili or soup to eat for a few days (minimizing daily meal prep) helps. Reduce interactions and transactions.

2. Daily walks - two a day if possible. If there is any taken-for-granted magic in daily life (other than sleep, dreaming and playing music), it's probably walking - especially if you let your mind wander rather than keep working.

3. More naps, more sleep.

4. Avoid the temptations of overly fatty/sweet/carbo comfort food, digital distractions, etc.

5. Keep to positive routines (stretching, walking, etc.), no matter how tired and down you feel.

6. Set aside time to play your musical instrument of choice, preferably improvisation rather than practice.

7. Do whatever calms your mind, even if it requires effort.

8. Do stuff you enjoy and set aside as much of the stuff you actively dislike doing as possible.

9. Set aside solitary time to "do nothing." Lowering the barriers raised by conscious effort, focus and thought may well be critical to our well-being.

This is one conclusion from research cited by Sherry Turkel in "Scientific American": "For the first time in the history of our species, we are never alone and never bored. Have we lost something fundamental about being human?"

I think the answer is an unequivocal yes. Our minds need periods of solitude, aimless wandering (i.e. boredom), time to integrate thoughts and feelings, time to question things and time for introspection. Without these restorative periods, we end up just going through the motions, on an autopilot setting of keeping overly complex lives and systems duct-taped together. This leads to burnout, and eventually to some measure of catabolic collapse/system reset.”

- http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/

Related:

“How to Recognize and Recover From Burnout and Depression”

"A Reason To Stop Worrying - Watch This Whenever You're Stressed Or Anxious"

Full screen recommended.

"A Reason To Stop Worrying - 

Watch This Whenever You're Stressed Or Anxious"

John Wilder, "Live Life Without Fear, The Dune Way"

"Live Life Without Fear, The Dune Way"

by John Wilder

“An animal caught in a trap will gnaw off its

 own leg to escape. What will you do?” 

- "Dune"

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." – Frank Herbert, "Dune"

"In 2026, fear is not just a personal demon. Fear is now a cultural plague, especially for the kids. We have raised a generation terrified of their own shadows, and it shows in every therapy session, pill bottle, riot, and Antifa® meeting.

The number of kids in therapy or pumped full of psychoactive drugs by the quacks who call themselves psychologists seems to be 8 or 9 out of 10. In perspective, this is the era of civilization that has the greatest level of material wealth in history, and the lowest hunger rate in the world. World hunger? It’s a solved problem outside of war and intentional starvation for political reasons.

The drugs and therapy are not making the kids better. At all. The way society is treating kids is like prescribing a hammer to the knees for a headache. The good news is the pain from the hammer will distract you from the headache, but eventually you’ll only be able to walk in circles. And no, these drugs are not good for you like whiskey, whisky, wine or beer. That’s a joke, but if therapy worked as well as a couple of brews after a long day, Antifa® wouldn’t exist.

Kids today are not allowed to figure anything out on their own. Failure? That is a dirty word, banished like fiscal responsibility is banished from Congress. As a proud Gen X kid, my family left me alone for the entire weekend when I was in third grade. No note, no nanny, no neighbor looking in on me from time to time. Nope. Just a key and a fridge full of questionable leftovers. I survived on frozen pizzas and three channels (no one counted PBS®), but I learned to entertain myself without burning the house down. Barely.

By eighth grade, Ma and Pa Wilder upped the ante. They drove off to Florida. For a month, leaving me to fend for myself. I even dealt with a thumb wound that probably should have had stitches from when I was using very poor form to whittle. Did I call for help? No. I fixed it with duct tape, determination, and a healthy glop of Neosporin™. That is what you do when the stakes are low and the lessons are free.

High school? That is when freedom hit near-adult levels. I had my own apartment over an hour from Wilder Mountain (long story). I managed my own schedule, and got home whenever I damn well pleased since Pa Wilder visited only three nights a week (Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday) and he left all the fun nights for me. Sometimes I was home just after practice. Sometimes, I was home at 3am after doing, well, other things. No curfew, no check-ins, just me against the world.

Was I unusual in having my (mostly) own place? Sure. But the freedom? That was standard issue for Gen X. Even before I could drive, I would bolt out the door at sunrise and not return until the streetlights flickered on. No helicopter parents hovering like drones, tracking every move with an app or scheduling athletic events. Nope.

Contrast that with the childhood scripted for kids today. It is structured from dawn to dusk, every moment scheduled like a corporate meeting. Playdates? Organized by committee. Sports? Leagues with participation trophies for showing up. Even recess is micromanaged, with rubberized playgrounds that cushion every tumble. And do not get me started on the deprivation of schoolyard fights and bullying, which back in the day were ritualized tests of mettle to place yourself in the hierarchy.

Freshman initiation in high school was a rite of passage, not a crime. Upperclassmen would haze the newbies with pranks: carrying books, silly chants, maybe a wedgie or two. No gross abuse, just enough strain to test character to see how you’d take it. If you performed well under pressure? Instant respect.

Fold like a cheap suit? Okay, it was tougher. They had to learn resilience the hard way. And fights? They happened. Teachers often let them play out just as long as they had to go as long as no real damage was being done. A bloody nose or a black eye, then it was over. Often, the combatants were friends afterwards, hierarchy established, testosterone balanced, respect earned: male bonding at its rawest.

These rituals, in moderation, built toughness. They taught that pain passes, conflicts resolve, and life demands honor. Bruises faded, but the lessons stuck. Parents? They never heard about it. A fistfight? So what? Boys will be boys.

Today? Heaven forbid a scuffle breaks out in a school (at least a middle-class white majority school). It is not a learning moment; it is a federal case. Suspension, counseling, parental conferences, maybe even charges. Zero tolerance turns into zero growth, however, since kids are shielded from every scrape, every failure, every real consequence.

The world they inherit is virtual, endless screens feeding dopamine hits without risk. Social media wars replace playground brawls, but the scars are deeper: anxiety, isolation, fear of the unknown. Many of these kids have never cold approached a woman and asked for a date.

Part of the point is learning to fail when the stakes are low. A lost fight in fifth grade? Big deal, you dust off and try again. A botched initiation? You toughen up for next time. She said, “No, you’re not my type, I prefer men with two eyebrows?” Fine. There are more girls.

These situations, however, build the muscle to handle adult life without crumbling. Fear becomes a tool, not a tyrant. But cloister kids too long, and they enter the world paralyzed. The Mrs. nailed it when we were talking yesterday: ”If they (kids) cannot handle solving teenage problems, they will commit atrocities as adults.” I liked that line so much I made her text it to me.

Unresolved fears fester into rage, leading kids to lash out at a world they never learned to navigate. Look around at the twisted landscape of 2025:

• Riots over nothing,

• Entitlement epidemics,

• Adults throwing tantrums like toddlers.

Weakness is a result raising children in bubbles. No free-range exploration, no unsupervised adventures, no low-stakes failures to forge resilience and enough scar tissue to toughen the kid up. Instead, society offers them therapy and pills paper over the cracks and pay for the therapist’s BMW® payment.

The solution is simple. Face the fear, let it pass, emerge stronger. Let kids roam, fight, fail, and fix their own messes. Strip away the structure, the screens, the safety nets. Teach them that bruises heal, but cowardice cripples. Otherwise, we breed a nation of mind-killed adults, obliterated by the little-deaths of unchecked terror who will do anything because they have faith in absolutely nothing. One way or another, courage will return, if not because we shatter the bubble, it will because it collapses under the weight of fear. And then? We’ll have to face our fears."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

"The Greatest Loss..."

"Children of Hope, to life we fondly cling,

Though woe on woe bitter hour may bring;

the spirit shrinks, and Nature dreads to brave,

The doubt, the gloom, the stillness of the grave.

But what is death? – a wing from earth to fee –

a bridge o’er time into eternity."

- Michelle, in “The Fear of Death Considered”

"How It Really Is"

God help you, kids...

"Virtue And Justice"

"Virtue And Justice"

by The ZMan

"In the Western world, concepts like justice and virtue are thought about as objective things, as if they have been handed to us by God. You cannot have personal justice as it is a thing that exists independent of you. You can have personal virtue, but that just means you voluntarily abide by a set of objective rules. The modifier in that phrase is for emphasis rather than to shift the meaning of the word. To be a virtuous person is to live by a set of rules that apply to all individuals individually.

This is most obvious in the way we use the word justice. It is often treated like a god that must be made happy or bad things will happen. The internet is full of videos where an idiot is breaking the law in a flagrant and gratuitous way only to come to a bad end by his own hand. The popularity of these videos is due to the notion that this proves justice will always be served. Justice is like a ledger and in the end, both sides of the ledger must sum to zero or else.

Justice is the great balance between right and wrong. There are things that are right and things that are wrong. If you do something wrong, like break the law, then the needs of justice say you must be punished. It is not the cops or the prosecutor or the judge punishing you because they are upset by your actions. They are punishing you because justice demands it. They may even have sympathy for you, but justice is justice and criminals have to be punished.

Something similar exists with virtue. The virtuous person abides by the rules of society and maybe the tenets of his religion. Our sense of virtue in the West is a very republican one in that it is based on your relationship with the social systems, not how you serve your family, your community, or your people. The virtuous person adheres to the rules and defends the institutions without regard to personal consideration. It is why every politician claims to be a public servant.

Of course, the word “public” is entirely impersonal. The reason you never hear a politician say he serves his people is there is no sense of a people. There is the public, this abstract collection of individual economic units, who have nothing more than a transactional relationship with one another. In this way, the public servant is not serving real flesh and blood people, but an implementation of them. The public is the interface for whatever lies behind it.

This was not always the case in the West. Justice, for example, was a personal matter for pre-Christian people. If a guy in the next village killed one of your people, justice required you to kill him or one of his people. On the other hand, your people might decide that it is not in their interest to exact revenge this way. Instead, they decide to kill the cattle of the other village. Justice was both a personal and collective concept that was only loosely tied to universal concepts.

In Germanic societies, they had trial by combat. In a dispute between two people, justice would be determined by the two parties fighting it out. The idea was not that the gods would pick the winner in the name of justice, but that justice was a personal thing to be imposed on others. It was not the duty of the ruler to sort this out for the two parties in a dispute. His job and that of society was to set the conditions for the two sides to figure this out for themselves.

When it comes to virtue, the reverse was the case. The measure of you as a person was not against an objective set of rules for individuals, but wholly in the context of you as the member of a people. You see this in Homer where the heroes perform great deeds on behalf of their people. The Norse legends have similar tales. Virtue was all about your service to your people. It was simply impossible to be a virtuous man without contributing to the defense and prosperity of your people.

This is why exile loomed so large. Death was a terrible end because you were forever exiled from your people, so you could no longer serve them. Exile was the next worst for the same reason. It also brought the torment of living with the fact that you are denied the opportunity to serve your people. Virtue was defined by you fulfilling your potential in service to your people, so it was simply impossible to be virtuous outside the context of you as a member of a people.

There are still some flickers of this sense of virtue in the modern age. Men who volunteer for the army are thanked for their service. Military honors are often tied to selfless commitment to fellow soldiers under duress. We have parades for cops who get killed chasing criminals. Again, politicians call themselves public servants so they can pretend to be virtuous. All of this, however, is limited to a narrow space of life and measured against a universal standard of justice.

This contrast in the old views on virtue and justice with the modern views is obvious when you look at the current war between the Jews and Arabs. Hamas committed an attack against the Jews because their justice demanded it. The Jews are the enemy of their people and justice demands they strike at their enemies. The men who no doubt volunteered for the mission will be celebrated, because they accomplished a great feat in the war against the enemy of their people.

For their part, the Jews are following the same path. Twitter was full of Jewish commentators demanding vengeance. They were not demanding justice in the way in which modern Western people think of it. Look at how Washington reacted after the 9/11 attacks. The promise was to go after the people responsible. George Bush did not promise to carpet bomb Kabul. Jews around the world and the Jewish government promised to exact vengeance on the people of Gaza.

The contrasting views on virtue are also obvious on the Jewish side. Diaspora Jews conflate their sense of virtue, which is service to their people, with the Western sense of virtue and demand you give over everything to their fight with one of their ancient enemies in the Levant. A similar mindset drives the neocon demand that the West risk nuclear war in the Ukraine. Note that they speak of Russians as the enemy, not the Russian state or the current form of government.

That last bit is vital to grasping the differences. The sanctions regime was specifically aimed at the Russian people. The hope was that sanctions would collapse the economy and throw the population into starvation. We see the same thing happening with Gaza, as the IDF bombs residential areas. In both cases, the point is to harm the people, holding them responsible, not specifically their leaders. In both cases, it is assumed the leaders are acting in service to their people.

It is tempting to think that modern Western views on virtue and justice are superior to these older forms, but there is much to favor in what we see in the Levant. If the Palestinians adhered to Western views, they would no longer exist as a people, at least not in the Levant. Most would have fled to new lands and lost their identity. The Jewish people would have gone away a long time ago. Their old school views of virtue and justice have allowed them to exist in the most hostile places.

The test of these two outlooks is happening within the West. As non-European people flood into the West, bringing their Bronze Age mindset on virtue and justice, they are challenging Europeans and their universalist and individualist mindset. Will the former naturally give way to the latter or will the latter have to be imposed by force on the former and is this even possible within the framework of the latter? Will Europeans just have to return to their old ways to preserve themselves?"

- https://thezman.com/

"With The Ceasefire Dead, The Mad Max Scenario is Now the Most Likely Outcome"

"With The Ceasefire Dead, The Mad Max 

Scenario is Now the Most Likely Outcome"

by Mike Adams

"Introduction: The Flicker of Hope, Extinguished: I watched the so-called ceasefire announcement with a sense of exhausted disbelief, a feeling I suspect many of you shared. Here we are, in April 2026, and the charade continues. President Donald Trump, fresh from his 2024 victory, declared a ‘two-way ceasefire’ with Iran, a move breathlessly reported by the corporate press as a diplomatic triumph. I knew better. It was a strategic surrender, a desperate act of market manipulation by a regime that has long since abandoned any pretense of statesmanship. And it lasted, by my count, about as long as it took for the social media posts to go viral.

By the time I sat down to write something thoughtful, Israel was already striking again. The off-ramp we were offered was a mirage, a twelve-hour illusion. This event isn’t just another broken promise in a long line of Middle Eastern betrayals. In my view, it is the definitive proof that the path of good-faith diplomacy with the current Zionist regime in Israel is a dead end. Its shattering reactivates the most dire global survival scenario I have long warned about: the descent into a resource-starved, hyper-violent, ‘Mad Max’ future. The dystopian military vehicles described in reports from other war zones, looking “straight out of Mad Max,” are no longer a cinematic metaphor. They are the preview of our coming reality.

We Tried The Off-Ramp. It Lasted Twelve Hours: The ceasefire was dead before the ink was dry. Reports confirm that even as Trump was framing his announcement, Israeli forces were resuming bombing campaigns in Lebanon, blatantly violating the fleeting peace. This isn’t an anomaly; it’s a pattern. For months, Israel has escalated attacks across Lebanon, assassinating commanders and killing civilians, all while paying lip service to agreements. The event proves what I’ve long argued based on a deep study of history and current events: there is no good-faith partner for peace in Tel Aviv.

The regime’s nature is one of perpetual, expansionist war. As historian Ilan Pappe meticulously documents, Israeli strategy has long been based on a doctrine of incremental conquest and control, treating occupied territories as a “prison” and populations as subjects to be managed through terror. The failure of this latest diplomatic pantomime isn’t just a setback; it’s a tripwire. It signals that the last restraints are off. The global supply chains for energy, fertilizer, and food, already teetering from Houthi disruptions in the Red Sea, cannot be secured as long as this malevolent actor exists in its current, metastasizing form. The failure reactivates the survival scenario where the Strait of Hormuz closes, oil hits $300, and global civilization begins its violent, fragmented collapse.

The Core Obstacle Is Not Iran. It Is Israel: Let’s be brutally clear: this entire escalating crisis, which threatens to drag the world into a third world war, is driven by a single, malevolent actor committed to perpetual conflict. It is not Iran, despite the relentless propaganda. It is the Zionist regime in Israel. Its publicly stated refusal to honor ceasefires reveals its true goal: regional destabilization and territorial conquest, not security. Its military actions are not defensive but are acts of state terrorism, designed to provoke wider war.

This is not a conflict between equals. It is a genocidal campaign by a nuclear-armed apartheid state. Israel’s bombing of over 60 hospitals in Gaza and Lebanon is a deliberate strategy of targeting medical infrastructure and civilians. Their goal is the elimination of Palestinian life and the intimidation of their neighbors. Our world’s fragile systems cannot endure this. As I have discussed in interviews, Israel functions as a proxy nation for controlling energy resources, and its actions are designed to create the very volatility that could strangle global trade. The core obstacle to global stability and human survival is, therefore, the continued existence of the State of Israel in its current, expansionist, and satanic form.

The ‘Agreement’ Is A Charade. Trump’s Only Function Is Market Manipulation: The White House’s contradictory statements in the wake of the ‘deal’ expose the entire exercise as pure financial theater. One moment there’s a ceasefire, the next Iran is denying it, and strikes continue. This isn’t diplomacy; it’s a volatility engine for financial markets. Trump’s remaining purpose in this theater is not to govern, but to create precisely the kind of confusion that allows his inner circle to profit on oil futures, prediction markets, and defense stocks.

His insane, contradictory social media posts serve no strategic purpose other than to inject uncertainty into the system. As noted in analysis of his administration’s trends, Trump believes being a ‘tough guy’ and throwing around threats is a strategy in itself. The ‘ceasefire’ was likely a maneuver to temporarily calm oil markets after weeks of bombing Iranian infrastructure. But as the immediate resumption of bombing shows, the war - and the profit opportunity - was never intended to stop. The entire U.S. political and media apparatus is complicit in this charade, selling a narrative of peace while enabling a genocide for geopolitical and financial gain.

Only One Path Remains To Avert Global Collapse: Dismantling Israel: I have reached a conclusion that may shock some, but it is borne of relentless observation: peaceful coexistence with the current Zionist regime is impossible. Its foundational ideology is genocidal and rooted in a satanic disregard for human life, as evidenced by its leaders’ own statements and the gruesome reality on the ground in Gaza. Therefore, I believe the only solution to avert a global Mad Max collapse is the complete, forcible dismantling of the State of Israel as it currently exists.

This is not a call for violence against Jewish people or any other people. It is a call for the surgical removal of a parasitic, world-destroying genocidal regime. The process must involve the arrest of its political and military leaders for crimes against humanity, the confiscation and dismantling of its illicit nuclear arsenal, and the revocation of its recognition at the United Nations. Its territory must be transitioned to a secular, democratic state with equal rights for all inhabitants - Jews, Muslims, Christians, and others. As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter outlined, the cycle of violence is perpetuated by Israel’s refusal to negotiate in good faith and its policy of overwhelming retaliation. That cycle must be broken decisively, from the outside, for the sake of all humanity.

Why Neither Party Will Act  - And Why We Must: Do not look to Washington for salvation. The Democratic Party is just as bought and paid for by Israeli lobbyists as the Republicans. They have funded every step of this genocide and will not meaningfully denounce it. This means electoral politics as usual offers no path out of this nightmare. Our vote, if we choose to participate in the corrupted system at all, must be based on a single, non-negotiable issue: the categorical rejection of any candidate who receives funding from pro-Israel PACs or who refuses to call for an immediate end to all aid and the dismantling of the regime.

Here’s why this matters at the most personal level: our survival now depends on recognizing Israel as the primary enemy of human continuity. As global systems fracture, self-reliance becomes paramount. This means decentralizing your life. Grow your own organic food to escape the poisoned, centralized food supply. Detox your body from the pollutants of this dying civilization. Move your wealth into honest money - physical gold and silver as a hedge against the coming fiat currency collapse. Use decentralized platforms like Brighteon.social for communication and BrightAnswers.ai for uncensored research. Your personal preparedness is the only politics that matters now.

The ceasefire is dead. The path of pleading with our corrupt institutions is dead. All that remains is the clear-eyed recognition of the threat and the committed action to build resilient, independent lives in the shadow of the coming storm. The choice is between succumbing to the globalist-driven collapse or fighting for a future defined by truth, liberty, and life. I know which side I’m on. I’m on the side of humanity. Israel, on the other hand, is on the side of death and destruction."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"Nobody's 'Obsessed' with Israel - It's Just A Uniquely Horrible Country"

Full screen recommended.

"Nobody's 'Obsessed' with Israel -

 It's Just A Uniquely Horrible Country"

by Caitlin Johnstone

"Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has accused Spain of an “anti-Israel obsession” for its criticisms of the US-Israeli war on Iran and its refusal to allow its airspace to be used in the onslaught, a perceived slight to which Israel has responded by banning Madrid from participation in a coordination center for the oversight of the so-called “ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip.

We’ve been hearing this “obsession” talking point from Israel and its apologists a lot lately. A recent article from the Jewish News Syndicate carries the headline “Why is the media obsessed with violent Israelis?”, bizarrely trying to argue that the western press likes to “smear Israelis” in order “to distract attention from Palestinian terror.” The other day right-wing pundit Meghan Murphy had a strange conversation with Tablet Magazine editor Jacob Siegel about our society’s “recent insane obsession with Israel,” speaking as though everyone just randomly began fixating on this genocidal apartheid state out of nowhere a short while ago, for no valid reason.

The argument, as I understand it, is that Israel is just a normal small country like any other small country, and any special focus on it suggests a sinister desire to single out Jews for discrimination. But have you ever noticed how the same people who accuse Israel’s critics of “obsession” with a tiny insignificant country will also fall all over themselves to tell you that Israel is an indispensable ally whose interests are inextricably intertwined with the interests of western civilization?

When Israel is being criticized they try to frame it as unworthy of special attention; when alliances and military aid for Israel are being criticized they frame it as worthy of all our resources and energy. When Israel’s evil actions are making headlines, its apologists try to frame it as an itty bitty country the size of New Jersey trying to mind its own business while being victimized by obsessive hatred from the entire world because its inhabitants happen to be Jewish. When people question why their tax dollars and military resources need to support that small nation in west Asia, suddenly the argument pivots in the exact opposite direction: Israel is massively important, and is absolutely central to the wellbeing of the west.

You can claim Israel is a crucial ally in the middle east, OR you can claim it’s discriminatory to focus more on Israel’s crimes than the abuses of other countries. You can’t claim both are true, because they’re contradictory. Israel can’t be (A) immensely significant and intimately involved in the fate of our own society, and also (B) insignificant and unworthy of special attention. It’s either A or B. It can’t be simultaneously deserving AND undeserving of special treatment.

In reality, everyone in the world has every right to focus their attention on Israel  -  especially right now while its efforts to sabotage the ceasefire with Iran threaten to cause a global fuel crisis. You don’t get to cause a global fuel crisis and then act like you’re just an uwu smol bean who’s being singled out because of your religion.

But really Israel has always been worthy of critical attention in the west, exactly because it is so intimately intertwined with western power structures. Its genocide in Gaza is our genocide. Its abuses are our abuses. Its wars directly impact us. The aggressive push from its lobbyists to stomp out free speech throughout our society is taking away our rights.

Israel is our business, and it always has been. We are right to spotlight its criminality, and the complicity of our own western governments in those crimes. Israel supporters will tell me “Oh yeah well how come you don’t criticize Egypt’s humanitarian abuses, huh? How come you’re not tweeting every day about the human rights violations of Iran? Something in particular about this one specific middle eastern country that draws your attention, is there? Perhaps you just HATE JEWS??”

But the reason I criticize Israel more than Egypt or Iran has nothing to do with religion. Egyptian aggressions aren’t starting wars of immense consequence which directly affect me. Nobody’s trying to make it illegal to criticize Iran in my country. My government is providing material and diplomatic cover for wars and genocides for this one country in particular, and eroding my free speech rights in order to protect its information interests. This would be true regardless of what religion or ethnicity happens to be favored in this one particular nation.

I’m not “obsessed” with Israel. Does it look like I’m having a great time talking about this horrible apartheid state every day? Does it look fun having people call me a Nazi in my replies all the time?

I wish I could ignore Israel completely. If it were up to me, I would. But because my own society is so complicit in its abuses, and because its abuses affect my society directly, I have an obligation to call out its wrongdoing. And so does every other westerner."

- https://www.unz.com/cjohnstone/

"Iran Just Struck Tel Aviv's Last Water Plant, And Eight Million People Have No Backup"

Full screen recommended.

WW3 Global Watch, 4/12/26

"Iran Just Struck Tel Aviv's Last Water Plant, 

And Eight Million People Have No Backup"

"At 10:23 tonight Iranian missiles struck Tel Aviv's last remaining water treatment facility. The last functioning large-scale water treatment infrastructure serving the greater Tel Aviv metropolitan area after every other treatment and distribution node in the region was degraded by previous strikes. Two Zolfaghar warheads. The pumping systems are destroyed. The electrical control systems are offline. The distribution pressure that keeps water flowing to eight million people is gone. And there is no backup. Not a partial backup. Not an emergency backup that will sustain reduced service while repairs happen. No backup. Because Iran's systematic campaign destroyed everything that would have compensated for losing the last water plant before it struck the last water plant tonight. The government has issued three sentences. No guidance. No plan. And eight million people are going to wake up tomorrow morning and turn on their taps."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Americans Are In Crisis Mode, It's Only Getting Worse"

Snyder Reports, 4/11/26

"Americans Are In Crisis Mode, 

It's Only Getting Worse"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"America Is In A Food Crisis And Nobody Wants To Admit It"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 4/11/26

"America Is In A Food Crisis 

And Nobody Wants To Admit It"

"Many Americans are saying that their weekly shop that used to cost $100 now costs $200. The cart looks the same, but the receipt doesn't. And no matter how carefully you plan, how many store brands you swap in, or how many coupons you clip, it never quite adds up the way it used to. In this video, we're looking at what everyday Americans are actually experiencing right now when they walk through those grocery store doors.

Real people are sharing what they're spending, and the numbers are striking. A thousand dollars a month for two people. Nearly $400 a week for a family of five that still runs out of food before the week ends. Forty dollars for a single dinner for three. The financial pressure that families are feeling right now at the grocery store is unlike anything most of us have seen in our lifetimes.

And it's not one or two items driving this. It's everything. Meat, eggs, cheese, fruit, even the small everyday things like a box of cereal or a pack of cookies have quietly crossed price points that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. What used to be a $1.50 treat is now pushing $10. What used to feed a family of six for a week now barely covers a few dinners. The people in these videos are just describing what going to the grocery store actually feels like right now.

What makes it even harder to swallow is that while prices keep climbing, portions keep shrinking. Shrinkflation has quietly changed the way products look on the shelf without changing the price tag. Bags that are half full of air. Cereal boxes you can hold in one hand. Recipes that don't turn out right anymore because the can sizes have changed without any announcement. People are noticing, and they're frustrated, because it feels like a quiet rearrangement happening without anyone being asked.

This video is really just a reflection on where things stand for a lot of ordinary Americans right now. No political agenda, no easy answers. Just real people talking about a real and growing pressure that is affecting families across the country."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Velvet Morning"

Full screen recommended.

Liquid Mind, "Velvet Morning"

Liquid Mind ® is the name used by Los Angeles composer and producer

Chuck Wild of the best-selling Liquid Mind relaxation music albums.

"A Look to the Heavens"

"What's happening at the center of the Trifid Nebula? Three prominent dust lanes that give the Trifid its name all come together. Mountains of opaque dust appear near the bottom, while other dark filaments of dust are visible threaded throughout the nebula. A single massive star visible near the center causes much of the Trifid's glow. The Trifid, cataloged as M20, is only about 300,000 years old, making it among the youngest emission nebulas known.

The star forming nebula lies about 9,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). The region pictured here spans about 10 light years. The featured image is a composite with luminance taken from an image by the 8.2-m ground-based Subaru Telescope, detail provided by the 2.4-m orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, color data provided by Martin Pugh and image assembly and processing provided by Robert Gendler."

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

"Each Must Decide..."

“Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country – hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

- Mark Twain

Chet Raymo, “Retreat From Reason”

“Retreat From Reason”

by Chet Raymo

“Is there a flight from reason in the United States? Everywhere we look, science is under attack. In government. In the schools. In the churches. We are offered faith-based substitutes. The “Left Behind” series of apocalyptic novels outsells everything else on the shelves. People are more interested in astrology than astronomy. Intelligent design is championed at the highest levels of government. Alternative medicine - faith healing, homeopathy, energy therapies, New Age healing, and the like - is more popular than ever. Scripture and revelation are embraced as more reliable sources of knowledge than anything we might learn empirically. We are entering, it seems, a new Dark Age. For a substantial number of our fellow citizens, it's as if the Enlightenment never happened.

Let me take you back to the Hellenistic city of Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile River in Egypt, in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. Alexandria was then the seat of a magnificent flowering of mathematical and scientific thought. The city welcomed all comers - Eratosthenes from Cyrene, Aristarchus from Samos, Archimedes from Sicily, Apollonius from Rhodes, Hipparchus from Nicaea, Galen from Pergamon, and so on - the only requirement being an inquisitive mind and a bent for explaining the world in terms that made no reference to the gods. Geography and astronomy became mathematical sciences. Eratosthenes measured the size of the Earth. Aristarchus deduced the sizes and distances of the Sun and Moon.

These spectacular achievements get no more than passing mention in textbooks of Western Civilization. We learn in school about the Golden Age of Greece and the glory that was Rome, Sophocles and Ovid, the Parthenon and the Pantheon, triremes and aqueducts, but very little of the invention of scientific thinking in the white city at the mouth of the Nile.

Alexandria was built on a ribbon of land between Lake Mareotis and the Mediterranean Sea. It was graced with forums, temples, marketplaces, palaces, a double harbor with a famous lighthouse, quays, warehouses, and, prominently, a museum ("place of the muses"), and the famous library over which Eratosthenes presided. The museum and library were together the equivalent of a great modern university. It was the dream of the first rulers of Alexandria - the Ptolemys - that the library would possess a copy of every book in the known world, and within a century hundreds of thousands of scrolls were collected within its walls. By the middle of the first century B.C. Diodorus of Sicily could say that Alexandria was "the first city of the civilized world, certainly far ahead of all the rest in elegance and extent and riches and luxury."

In his book "The Greeks and the Irrational", the scholar E. R. Dodds was thinking of the Greek culture of Alexandria when he wrote: "Despite its lack of political freedom, the society of the third century B.C. was in many ways the nearest approach to an 'open' society that the world had yet seen, and nearer than any that would be seen again until modern times." It was a society confident of its powers. Aristotle had asked his fellow citizens to recognize a divine spark within themselves: the intellect. Men and women who exercise reason can live like gods, he said. For Zeno, the human intellect was not merely akin to God, it is God, a portion of the divine substance. Temples are superfluous, he said; God's true temple is the human intellect.

Of this supreme confidence in rational thought, the Alexandrians created a new empirical, mathematical way of knowing. But the seeds of irrationality were also there, embedded in popular culture, or perhaps embedded in the human soul. Soon enough, supernaturalism returned. Astrology and magical healing replaced astronomy and medicine. Cults flourished, rationalists were scapegoated, and scientific culture began to decline.

The old dualisms - mind and matter, God and nature, soul and body - which the rationalists had striven to overcome, reasserted themselves with fresh vigor. Dodds calls it "the return of the irrational." He writes: "As the intellectuals withdrew further into a world of their own, the popular mind was left increasingly defenseless. . .and left without guidance, a growing number relapsed with a sigh of relief into the pleasures and comforts of the primitive. . . better the rigid determinism of the astrological Fate than the terrifying burden of daily responsibility."

Harvard historian of science Gerald Holton sees a similarity between Dodds' description of the decline of Greek culture and the resurgence of anti-science in our own time. Once again, astrology, magical healing, and other kinds of superstitious thinking are in ascendancy. Once again, cults flourish and rationalists are scapegoated.

The Greek experience shows that movements to delegitimize science are always present, says Holton, ready to bend civilization their way by the glorification of folk belief, violence, mystification, and the rabid ideologies of ethnic and nationalistic passions. Dodds calls it "the fear of freedom - the unconscious flight from the heavy burden of individual choice which an open society lays upon its members."

Science can only prosper in a free and open society, in an atmosphere of rational skepticism where traditional patterns of thought are challenged and subjected to critical scrutiny. Science will only flourish when a people have confidence in the power of the human intellect to make sense of the world."

- http://www.sciencemusings.com/

"How Are Things Going, Joe?"

“You go up to a man, and you say, “How are things going, Joe?” and he says, “Oh fine, fine… couldn’t be better.” And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn’t be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody’s having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

"I'd Still Swim..."

"If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told

the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim.

And I'd despise the one who gave up."

- Abraham Maslow

And don't you ever give up...

Full screen recommended.

Jason Mraz, "I Won't Give Up"

THe Daily "Near You?"

Crozet, Virginia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Insane..."

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be

insane by those who could not hear the music.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"American Life During The 1930s"

Full screen recommended.

Old Photos Channel, 10/18/24

"American Life During The 1930s"

"Welcome back to the Old Photos Channel! Today, we're taking a journey back to one of the most challenging and transformative decades in American history – the 1930s. Through these incredible old photos, we'll explore what life was when the spirit of resilience and community defined everyday life in the United States.

The 1930s were marked by the Great Depression, a time when millions of Americans faced severe economic hardships. Many lost their jobs, homes, and savings. In these photos, you can see the somber faces of people standing in breadlines, searching for work, or living in makeshift shantytowns called "Hoovervilles." Yet, amid these struggles, there was a deep sense of perseverance. Communities came together to support one another, and families made do with what little they had.

These photos also reveal the strength of family bonds during the 1930s. Despite the hardships, people found joy in simple things: children playing in the streets, families gathering for meals, and neighbors helping each other. This sense of community was a vital part of survival during the Great Depression, showing us that hope and connection can thrive even in the toughest of times.

Surprisingly, the 1930s was also a time of cultural creativity. As we look at these photos, we see jazz clubs thriving, movie theaters offering an escape from reality, and artists like Dorothea Lange capturing iconic images of the era. Despite the economic downturn, Americans found ways to express themselves and find joy through music, film, and art. The 1930s was a decade of both struggle and resilience. These photos give us a glimpse into the lives of those who lived through the hardships, reminding us of the strength of the human spirit in times of adversity.

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Gods Laugh At Your Plans"

"The Gods Laugh At Your Plans:

Chekhov, Jaspers, And Life-changing Moments"

The most momentous and significant events in our lives are the 

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

by Jonny Thomson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- https://bigthink.com/

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"If you caught a glimpse of your own death,

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

- Paco Ahlgren, "Discipline"