Native Elder,
"5 Things You Must Never
Share No Matter Who Asks"
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Friday, June 5, 2026
Delta Blues Brother, "Not My Life Anymore"
Full screen recommended.
Delta Blues Brother, "Not My Life Anymore"
"One of the hardest lessons in life is realizing how many years we spend living for other people's expectations. Trying to fit in. Trying to be approved. Trying to become the version of ourselves that makes everybody else comfortable. And somewhere along the way... we forget to ask what we actually want. "Not My Life Anymore" is a reflective Delta blues meditation about freedom, identity, boundaries, self-respect, and the quiet courage it takes to stop performing for the world. The resonator guitar moves with calm confidence, like someone finally walking their own road without asking permission. The harmonica answers with the kind of wisdom that only arrives after decades of trying to please people who were never satisfied anyway. The groove stays grounded, liberating, deeply human... like a soul finally setting down a weight it was never meant to carry. This is the blues of freedom. Not rebellion. Freedom."
"How It Really Is"
Aware and fully informed of current crises by their never-lying
Government and media, alarmed Americans react accordingly...
"We're so freakin' doomed!"
- The Mogambo Guru
"Knowing..."
“Knowing can be a curse on a person’s life. I’d traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn’t know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can’t ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.”
- Sue Monk Kidd
"I Can't Convince Myself..."
“I can’t convince myself that it does much good to try to challenge the everyday political delusions and dementias of Americans at large. Their contained and confined mentalities by far prefer the petty and parochial prisons of the kind of sense they have been trained and rewarded for making out of their lives (and are punished for deviating from them). What it costs them ultimately to be such slaves and infants and ideological zombies is a thought too monstrous and rending and spiky for them even to want to glance at.”
- Kenneth Smith
“If you want to tell people the truth,
make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”
- Oscar Wilde
John Wilder, "What Do You Value?"
"What Do You Value?"
by John Wilder
“I have been in the service of the Vorlons for centuries, looking for you. Diogenes, with his lamp, looking for an honest man, willing to die for all the wrong reasons. At last, my job is finished. Yours is just beginning. When the darkness comes, know this; you are the right people, in the right place, at the right time.” – "Babylon 5"
"What is the most common question asked by philosophers nowadays? “Do you want fries with that?” Diogenes is dead. When he was up and kicking around, he lived in a wine barrel at the end of town, and often was caught on the streets stark naked. Sometimes he was, um, enjoying himself. Oddly, he was also thought of as a respected philosopher. When I try to emulate him, though, all I get is a restraining order and some embarrassing YouTube® videos.
The reason we remember Diogenes is for two reasons: First, he invented the chicken nugget, but sadly was unable to invent any tasty dipping sauces. Second, he walked around making pithy little statements like this: “We sell things of great value for things of very little, and vice versa." It’s a very short, and very wickedly to the point piece of advice. Frankly, it points out many of the problems we are facing as a society today.
Let’s take consooming for today’s topic. Billions of dollars are spent attempting to convince people to purchase one product or another. These advertisements are hard to avoid – and they have one thing in common – a desire to get the consoomer to spend money. In some cases, the ads provide the ability to match a need with a product. If I’m cutting down trees using axes and handsaws, knowing that a thing called a chainsaw exists is providing me a real value. So, ads inform.
But ads also are used to create desire in customers, playing on emotions to drive purchase decisions for things that aren’t needs, but frivolities. I have plenty of those! I’m a sucker for some things in particular. In the sitting room (where I’m typing this now) I look around and see a map I bought as artwork a few years ago. It shows all the undersea telegraph cables in around 1871. So very cool! I walked into the store, saw it, and bought it. I consoomed. I can’t cut down a tree with it. I can’t drive it to work. It’s just... there, stuck to my wall.
Is the map of great value? No. It’s a print. It doesn’t make me better, more complete, important, or accomplished. We can look in terms of multiple ways to value things. Dollars are only one. In this case, the picture cost about what I made in about an hour or two. Was it worth an hour of my life to own that map? Yeah, I guess so. But when I start to value objects that I own, and look at how much of my life I traded for them, my equation starts to change.
If I didn’t spend that hour at work, what could I have spent that hour on? How could I have changed my life? Could I have spent more time brushing my teeth, so they were 2.3% brighter? Should I have spent that time waxing my dog? What did I overlook or not spend time on? And which of those things might have been more valuable?
I understand that money is important – those who say that money isn’t important haven’t gone without it. But money isn’t the goal, it’s what can be done with it that’s important. The true currency of our lives isn’t gold, silver, or even PEZ™. It’s time. Each of us on this planet have a finite number of hours left on this rock, and that number goes down by one each hour that we spend. It goes down by one if I spend it at a job I don’t like. It goes down if I spend it writing the best post I’ve ever written. It goes down by one if I’m sleeping. It goes down by one every hour.
Yes, I know, exercising and other positive things might extend that life, but I’m still going to die. In the endless summer of a life when I was, say, 12, I didn’t think much about time and how I spent it. Even then, though, I didn’t try to just “pass the time” since there was so much to do and see and learn in the world. Now as I’m on the back side of life, I can see that those hours I have left cannot be wasted.
They’re all I have. And learning is great, but now it has to have purpose. Will it help me write? Will it help me crack a puzzle that I can share? Will it help me with some project I’m working on? Can it help me change the world?
Again, as I get older, it ceases to be about me. It’s now about what I can do to help others, how I can help make the world a better place. Thankfully, during my career I’ve been able to do work on things that matter, and have made the world a slightly better place. If I’m trading my life for my work, I’m glad that it’s work that matters.
Diogenes? He’s still dead, but he changed the world, just a little bit. And I can, too. And so can you. Time is still all we have, but it’s up to us to make the most of it, each and every day, just like Diogenes showed us. But, I don’t recommend you do it naked. Now, I wonder how Diogenes dealt with the restraining orders?"
"A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow is Upon Us"
"A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow is Upon Us"
by Mike K.
"It was a nice cool sunny morning with some blue birds soaking up the sun, all in a row on the high wire. It took some time to figure out what happened. There were a few low rumbles, they seemed to be coming from north of here. We live on a farm out in the wooded hills of southern Missouri, and north would be up towards St Louis. Soon as the booming sounds started the power went off. At first, I didn’t pay much attention, but with all the military stirrings going on in the world these days, you just don’t know what to expect.
I went inside the house, but with the power off there’s no internet, so no way to find out what’s going on. At least until the power comes back on, or until I get the generator started up. More distant thunderous booms that echo now less like thunder and more like tremendous explosions – and I’m starting to get worried. My kids are at work and the grandkids are in school. I swear I‘m seeing sparks and smoke coming from under the hood of my car, but it’s not running. Now the power line where those bluebirds were singing looks like it’s getting really hot and smoke is coming from the bucket transformer on the poles. Wow! The transformer just blew up sending a shower of sparks and molten metal flying all around the pole! I can hear blasts all over the countryside from more pole transformers exploding. All the fences are sparking and smoking. The woods around the power lines and transformers are starting to go up in extremely violent flames. And the cars are now on fire – all of them! Even the old broken-down ones out in people’s pastures. Our emergency generators are smoking – I’ve got to get them away from the houses before they burn up.
Now I’ve got an idea of what’s happening, because I’ve heard of what an EMP event could do to electrical circuits. Electromagnetic Pulse. That’s what happens when a nuclear weapon explodes. The only other thing I can think of that would do this is a coronal mass ejection from a solar flare. It happened back in 1859 and it was named the Carrington Event. Fortunately, the world did not have much electrical infrastructure back then, just telegraphs, and the induced currents caused the wires to catch fire – sort of like what’s happening to the power lines out here right now. I don’t think it’s a solar event either, because the warmongers in Washington have been beating the nuclear drums for a while, and I’ve been afraid the Russians were going to get spooked and do a first strike. I guess this is it.
A big problem for those of us who might survive a while because we live in areas that aren’t targets is that we lose all sources of information. We don’t have any way of knowing what’s happening. Don’t know if it’s a first strike or a retaliatory strike. Does Washington DC even exist anymore, or is it just a huge radioactive smoking crater? Are those beautiful, magnificient buildings of the Kremlin still standing?
How many of our big cities are destroyed? I remember seeing pictures of the devastation that was Nagasaki and Hiroshima when that monster Truman murdered all those Japanese civilians, and thinking that those bombs were tiny compared to what the psychopaths have in their arsenals today – the Russians have bombs that could literally flatten New York City and/or Houston. I cannot, nor can anyone else, begin to fathom the destruction of a 10 or 20 megaton thermonuclear weapon could wreak on a major city.
Lights go off and then nothing. No TV; no internet. No football – the treasury department that writes all the government checks is gone. Fear-crazed citizens make runs on WalMarts and grocery stores and take everything they can. No one tries to stop them; the store employees are in a panic to get home. Problem is, with no operable vehicles, the only things people can take are what they can carry by hand. Everyone has to walk, even the police are stranded out on the highways. All troopers, city cops, and sheriff deputies are trying desperately to get home to their loved ones. No cops on duty anymore. No traffic moving anymore. Just lots of people running, screaming, hoping they can just get home, and that there still is a home.
Fires are blazing everywhere from the power lines and transformers exploding. All electrical substations in the country are smoldering and blazing chaos. Forest fires are rampant and out of control all over the nation and there are no operable fire trucks. No firefighting planes or helicopters are available to fight the fires. Houses hundreds of miles away from the many ground zeros are burning both from the unchecked wildfires, and from EMP induced electrical shorts in home wiring. Almost every building in every town is on fire with no way to put them out. And these towns are far away from the targeted places where the bombs actually hit.
This is truly a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, the like of which has never been witnessed in all of human history. There will never be electricity in this country again. Let that sink in. Freezers will thaw out and food will ruin. Untold thousands of people will perish, starting with those vaporized, then those being burned up in their homes, and there are no fire departments available to help anyone. No hospitals; doctors and nurses are gone, understandably abandoning useless smoldering medical facilities. No industry, no UPS deliveries, no more dog food for the pups. If your house didn’t burn to the ground, at least you may (for a while) have a (dark) shelter from the elements.
Huge blasts of radioactive winds blow hundreds of miles from the explosions, of which there have been many. The first wave was intended to take out the military establishment. No way of knowing, but there’s no reason to believe that anything remains of the Pentagon, DC or Langley, Norfolk, San Diego, Chicago, Houston, or any of the coastal cities where there are refineries. All cities with military infrastructure of any kind will be destroyed. The joke that has been for years a missile defense system has been exposed. The sick joke that a nuclear war could be “winnable” has also been exposed. The numbers of people succumbing to radiation sickness is beyond belief. There will be no schools, no stores, no food, and no government services; no disaster relief will be forthcoming. All banks will have ceased to function, so even if there is any money left, it won’t be worth anything. The bankers never were.
If you take medications to stay alive, you’d best have a good supply, because there won’t be any more. All livestock will either be dead from radiation, burned to a crisp in the fires, or promptly slaughtered by starving survivors, and it doesn’t matter to whom they belonged. Same with property. People will no longer obey private property signs, they will go anywhere they think there might be resources, food, water, at the risk of their lives, which aren’t worth much right now anyway. There will be no law!
Every military ship on and under the ocean, with the likely exception of a few submarines, will be sunk. All of the nuclear-powered ships will go to the bottom with reactors likely damaged, spewing radioactive contamination. Like dozens, maybe hundreds, of Fukushimas. Even the reactors that aren’t damaged will undergo meltdowns with no controls. The bible says that something will kill all of the fishes in the oceans, maybe this is how that happens.
The USSR detonated a bomb of around 50-megaton yield back in 1961. It was called the Tsar Bomba. The weapon had a 100-megaton capacity, but for safety they modified the yield. Awe inspiring is just too mild of a description of what that looked like. Since the bomb was so powerful, they calculated that the plane that dropped it had only a 50 percent chance of surviving – that is even after the plane released the weapon several thousand feet up in the air with a parachute to slow it down while the plane flew away from the scene at full speed. It did almost destroy the plane – they said the blast wave overtook the plane some 45 miles from the explosion and it lost over a kilometer of altitude before the pilot, Andrey Durnovtsev, could regain control and keep it from crashing. That thing made a mushroom cloud 37, yes 37 miles, (60 km) high! An uninhabited village, Severny, 34 miles (55 km) from ground zero was obliterated, and buildings 100 miles away were damaged! The blast would have caused third degree burns 62 miles (100 km) from the explosion. I would expect if they still have these in their arsenal, they would use one on Cheyenne Mountain. It would probably take out Denver and Amarillo, TX and certainly everything in between. Instantly vaporized. What are our “leaders” thinking?
It sounds crazy, but if this happens, I want to be at one of the ground zeros. As bad as being vaporized sounds, it would be infinitely better than surviving into the nightmarish existence that would ensue. There will be marauding gangs of survivors, undoubtedly armed, in various stages of hunger, disease, emaciation, and injury. It will probably be a situation where anyone you encounter will be apt to kill you. For one thing, they won’t know whether you are out to kill them too, or maybe you have something they want/need to survive. A can of tuna or a bowl of beans might cost your life.
The landscape will be nightmarish. Imagine a few days or weeks after the event. There will be burned out stumps on land that was beautiful forest, now riddled with stagnant pools of black muddy radioactive slime, full of human and animal bones, charred flesh, and entrails. Few buildings will exist intact, and many will perish fighting over them. There will be no light at night. Light would attract unwanted guests. No music. No one will have any idea what’s going on. There may be a few survivors in places like subway tunnels, abandoned train cars, or in remote wilderness areas, but such people will have resorted to the basest of behavior, including cannibalism, in short order. Imagine! Human beings who once inhabited a civilized nation and lived decent lives will have to worry about being killed and eaten by other human beings! Zombie apocalypse, just with regular people, not zombies, although with burns and wounds, hair falling out and all out of sorts with radiation poisoning, they probably will look the part.
I have heard people talking like they plan to survive and stay healthy by hunting and foraging. Well, if a nuclear winter follows a nuclear apocalypse, foraging is going to be slim pickings. And the deer won’t last long if they manage to survive the bombs, radiation, and fires, there’ll probably only be a few very unhealthy specimens left, but if a gunshot rings out, I’m pretty sure it will attract whatever starving people hear it, so there might be more to deal with than just dressing a deer.
Bedraggled survivors will wander in shock around former cities in hopes of disaster relief which will never come. Desperate people will offer anything – gold, jewelry, ammunition, their own bodies, for sustenance. Helpless parents will watch in horror as their children starve, hoping against hope that they will awaken from this nightmare, but when this all comes down, it’ll be too late for them.
And we still won’t know what happened. Who decided that a nuclear war would be a good idea? Who “won” the war? Did any of our leaders survive to sign a surrender, and to whom? Or did Russia or China surrender? Will there be hordes of soldiers from some faraway land invading our country after the radiation dies down?
And what of the wealthy folk who built the magnificent bunkers filled with the necessities of life in which to wait out the nuclear winter? Do they actually believe they will emerge into a second garden of Eden complete with succulent fruit trees and minstrels singing their praises? First of all, the bible speaks of a great earthquake, such as has not occurred since people have been on earth, so I think a big part of those individuals will be entombed in those lavish bunkers. So maybe a few do survive, and after some months, maybe a few years tucked away, they stumble blindly onto the surface, a hardly recognizable landscape littered with human skulls, burned out cars and buildings, and destroyed terrain. When they went into the holes, they were wealthy, but after what has transpired, of the few commoners left, no one will be interested in their gold – and those old bank accounts? Well the digital age has completely and utterly vanished, and all those millions or billions they had on their ledgers is now squat.
Even by this time, there will undoubtedly still be a few scroungy survivors, but instead of the fawning proles these rich folks were used to in the old world, those survivors will undoubtedly have a taste for some well-fed and plump upper crust brisket, so thanks for preserving some. It won’t help their situation any when they discover that some of the survivors actually know they caused, or at least played a part in causing the disaster. The scenario described does not take into account the likelihood that hapless survivors will undoubtedly spend their time searching for air vents to the bunkers in which to pour gasoline or whatever else they can find to upset living conditions in said refuges down below. Any who survive this carnage will be on a mission and will not easily be placated!
Who knows what the final outcome will be. How many millions, or hundreds of millions of people will be counted among the slain? When this calamity happens, it will obviously involve the deaths of millions. This destruction, I believe is prophesied as the destruction of the modern Babylon in Revelation 18, and most people I’ve heard seem to think (as I do) that the place named as Babylon is the United States, and it is utterly destroyed in the space of one hour, by fire! Completely devastated to the point that (verse 22) “the music of harpists and musicians, pipers and trumpeters, will never be heard in you again,” and “no worker of any trade will ever be found in you again,” this decadent place will cease to be! According to scripture, it’s not a bad thing that this evil place is destroyed. “Rejoice over her, you heavens! Rejoice, you people of God! Rejoice apostles and prophets! For God has judged her with the judgement she imposed on you.” Time will tell, but I’m afraid we don’t have much."
o
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
- Albert Einstein
Bill Bonner, "The White Table Cloth And The Plastic Tub"
"The White Table Cloth And The Plastic Tub"
by Bill Bonner
Youghal, Ireland - "We took our leave from our daughter and son-in-law on Wednesday. The long trip took us northeast from Buenos Aires to Amsterdam, where we are now writing. The next flight will take us home to Ireland. If we had one useful quality in our 40-year business career it was that we could sleep on airplanes. So, with that training on our resume, we dozed as soundly as an innocent puppy.
While in Argentina, we spent a lot of time at our house in the Calchaqui Valley. “During the day, the sun bleaches out the colors,” Maria explained. “But mornings and evenings are spectacular...and not necessarily in a show-off way. The colors of the evening are subtle...and the last night we watched the full moon rise over the Apacheta Mountains. It was marvelous. The air is so clear. And the moon is so bright.”
It is late autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Nights are hard and cold. We made a fire in the living room chimney each evening. In the morning, the fire was already burning in the office when we got to work. And Maria spoiled us by bringing us a cup of coffee, first thing.
On Sunday, after our coffee, we set out to Molinos — a dust-blown burg of adobe and cement houses with a very old church. The Conquistadores who brought sword and cross down from Peru were here only a few years after Columbus washed up in Hispaniola. The leading families of the area today are their descendants. They may have been murderous, but they were faithful murderers and built a church here in 1557 - one of the oldest in the New World - a monument to the curious human ability to butcher the heathen on Saturday and then preach the gospel of peace to them on Sunday.
On this Sunday, the church celebrated an anniversary. What anniversary, exactly, we never found out. But Salta province is older, and much more pious and moss-backed than the rest of the country. Almost every community, no matter how backward or remote, sent a delegation. Natalio, one of the farmhands on the job when we got here and recently retired, gave us a warm embrace. Coca leaves in his mouth, sandals on his feet, he walked all night in the company of dozens of other pilgrims, to get to the celebration.
The priests - including the bishop from Cafayate - had set up in front of the church. To the right, left, behind and in front were flags representing the national government, the local government, the parish, the town...along with several banners that defied interpretation. Also present were representatives of the Gauchos - duded up in high boots, billowy bombachos, tight vests, wide leather belts with and a knife - the cuchillo - tucked in behind their backs. They sported neckerchiefs, and wide Salta hats. The firefighters were there too, in full regalia, including shiny gold helmets. And there were junior groups too, in school uniforms, or insignia that notified us which seat of power they aimed to sit down in. There were young police-in-training...teachers-in-training...even the gauchos-to-be.
In this part of the world - unlike most of Argentina - rank and privilege are still respected and resented. They are taken seriously, in other words. Thus it was that we were planted, literally - shoulder to shoulder with the grandees - Senators, Deputies, Mayors, Priests, the Police, the Military...and a very small group of large landowners. And there we cooked, in the second row, in the unrelenting sunshine, for two hours.
All of the notables were recognized in a long ceremony. Each was given a framed certificate attesting to his contributions, whatever they may have been. Eventually we heard our name called, unexpectedly, and greeted it with the same solemn cynicism that we accepted the ‘Good Citizenship’ award at our high school in 1966. Even the Unabomber was a better citizen. At least he meant well. And he was good at math.
We stepped to the front of the assembly - about 600 people - removed our hat, and received an award for supporting the community for the last 20 years. Our support for the anniversary celebration was limited to one ‘novillo’ - a young bull, who was, at the very moment roasting over hot coals. But over the years we have covered the losses on our valley farms...putting up with sabotage, insubordination and open rebellion...while we paid salaries and brought in new machinery intended to make the local people more productive and less quarrelsome. “That award cost me a lot of money,” we remarked later to a European friend.
The stage thus set, the drums rolled and the Mass began. Public-address systems are seldom to be trusted; this one was a triumph of unreliability, and much of the liturgy came across as a kind of sacred static. But the Mass runs on rails worn smooth by use - Catholic or Episcopalian, European or South American, it is everywhere much the same —-and the story it tells has altered scarcely a syllable in two thousand years. One may follow it deaf.
Once the Peace had been passed and the wafer consumed, we were ready to withdraw into the shade for the feast. The aforementioned ‘novillo’ was ready...along with two others, given by other large ranchers.
But here again, rank has its privileges. There must have been 30 tables. But only two were adorned with white table cloths, glass cups, metal forks and spoons. The others - where hoi and polloi were seated - had no such luxury. They received their meals in plastic containers to be eaten with plastic cutlery. We also had bottles of wine - which we had brought to the fiesta- to irrigate the luncheon. Everybody else had Coca Cola.
The upper ranks are not completely impermeable. The doors - stiff as they are - swing both ways. While most of the people at our table were white, elsewhere we were far outnumbered by those of mixed blood, referred to locally as ‘indio’ or ‘indigenes’ or ‘mestizos.’ The large landowners were pure white. So were the priests. But the politicians, dignitaries and merchants were of every shade. Seated near us, for example, was a young woman we’ve known since childhood; she is the daughter of our former ranch foreman, who is one of the most intelligent, dignified and honest people we have ever met. He grew up in the mountains, in a house with a dirt floor and no running water. His daughter was sent to the city for her high school...and then went on to a university. She is now in charge of the tourist office - and sits at the table with the white tablecloth next to her father’s former employer.
It has been more than 400 years since the locals were introduced to the Europeans’ yoke and lash. But they still live in ways we can scarcely fathom. Most striking is their indifference to cold. It can be freezing outside and not much warmer inside. Still, they make no attempt to heat interior spaces, instead going about their business, smothered in coats, sweaters and thick wool blankets.
Almost ten years ago, we ‘invented’ the cheapest, simplest hot water heater on the planet, fully expecting that all the locals would want one. It is nothing more than a thin stainless-steel tank, painted black...covered in glass, with internal baffles, forcing the water through a maze to heat it up (from the sun) before it comes out the other end. No power required. No moving parts. It provides enough warm water to take a bath or wash dishes in the evening. But so far, none of the families on the ranch has imitated it.
The other thing we introduced was passive solar heat to the living space. Here, with almost uninterrupted sunshine, it is easy to put a glass wall on the northern side (the sun arcs through the northern sky) and you will have so much heat you’ll have to open the windows to let it out. It will give you too much heat in the summertime, but that is easily managed by planting a grape vine or a tree in front of it.
The heat costs nothing and involves no machinery, switches, or electronics. We built a small house out of adobe, stone, mud, and glass to prove our point and expected a rush of adoption by the locals. The little house is sublimely simple, elegant and ingenious...if we say so ourselves. But, so far, both Architectural Digest and the locals are unanimous. They want nothing to do with it.
People have their own ideas about comfort and culture. Out at the furthest reaches of our farm - high in the mountains about an 8-hour ride on horseback - is a house lived in by an intelligent woman with a gimpy leg. They locals, with brutal frankness, call her ‘the cripple.’ It is freezing cold up there. But her kitchen has no door...it is as open to the weather as an eagle’s nest. Go figure.
The meat came to the table soon after we had sat down. Our neighbor tried to explain the cooking technique. “There was too much meat to cook and serve in a normal asado (grill). They wrapped it in a wire cage and put it in the ground on top of hot coals. It slow cooks overnight and comes out very tender.”
Argentina is known for its good beef. We’ve tucked in at the finest temples of the culinary arts in Buenos Aires, as well as the humblest local dives. Generally, the neighborhood favorites give the most satisfaction; they don’t bury the taste in sauces or disguise it with complex confections. But we never had a tastier ‘bife’ than the meat that come up out of the ground on Sunday.
“Santiago!” One of the oldest and biggest of the landowners boomed out. He, too, was a member in good standing of the gauchos’ league, dressed in a traditional gaucho get-up. Santiago had been one of his own workers, now similarly costumed and helping to serve the multitude. “Bring us some bread,” he commanded. Santiago smiled and went on his mission, coming back with a woven basket with freshly sliced ‘French’ bread. “We need some more knives, too” continued the man, clearly accustomed to giving the orders. Again, Santiago politely complied. Four hundred years of practice, on both sides of the exchange, give such a transaction a seamless grace.
The feast completed, the small tribe of white people crossed the plaza to the ancient hotel nearby for a coffee. It used to be the residence of the ruling family...the Isasmendi...lords of a vast domain of lakes, mountains, rivers and (mostly) deserts. Except for modern conveniences, the large house has little changed from the 1700s.
There were hundreds of people outside, going hither and yon as the party broke up, but few entered the hotel. At one table there was a family group that appeared to be German. Another city couple came in dressed in hiking gear. Otherwise, no one. “Not many clients,” we said to the manager whom we’ve known for many years. “No...poco.” Turning to another landowner, “I wonder why more people don’t come in...at least to have coffee.” “Different people,” came the answer. And there, in two words, was the whole of it - four centuries of distance between the white tablecloth and the plastic tub."
Thursday, June 4, 2026
"Alert! 24 Hours of Lies! No Ceasefire, No Deal, Oil Shut Down in Oman! Iran Nuclear Tests?"
Canadian Prepper, 6/4/26
"Alert! 24 Hours of Lies! No Ceasefire, No Deal,
Oil Shut Down in Oman! Iran Nuclear Tests?"
Comments here:
"Iran Deal or No Deal? Markets Manipulated. Bitcoin Crisis Coming?"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 6/4/26
"Iran Deal or No Deal? Markets Manipulated.
Bitcoin Crisis Coming?"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What's Next in these increasingly turbulent times. As tensions rise over a potential Iran deal, global markets are sending mixed signals. Are we witnessing strategic moves behind the scenes… or outright manipulation in plain sight? In this episode, we break down the high-stakes geopolitics driving financial volatility, why investors should be paying close attention, and what it all means for gold, stocks - and especially Bitcoin."
Comments here:
"The World Is Approaching “Tank Bottoms” As Experts Warn That Very Painful Oil Shortages Are Ahead This Summer"
"The World Is Approaching “Tank Bottoms” As Experts
Warn That Very Painful Oil Shortages Are Ahead This Summer"
by Michael Snyder
"Without sufficient quantities of oil, the global economy will not be able to operate normally. So the fact that the global economy is running a massive “oil deficit” right now should deeply alarm all of us. Even since the war with Iran began, the world has been consuming far more oil than it has been producing. We have been running down commercial oil inventories and strategic oil reserves all over the planet, and now those supplies are starting to run dry. In the not too distant future, global demand for oil will substantially exceed what is available, and that will mean much higher prices and very painful shortages. Asia will be hit the hardest because they are more dependent on oil from the Middle East than anyone else, but we will certainly feel this crisis very keenly as well.
According to the International Energy Agency, global oil stocks are being depleted at a record pace and they could reach “critical levels” by the middle of the summer… Global oil inventories could hit critically low levels ahead of the peak July-August fuel demand period if drawdowns continue at their current pace, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday. Global oil stocks fell by more than 250M barrels between March and May, with on-land commercial and strategic stockpiles draining at a record pace, the IEA reported. “We’re seeing stock draws continuing into the summer, and with the possibility or the likelihood that we reach critical levels or historical low levels just ahead of the peak summer demand,” said Toril Bosoni, the head of the IEA’s oil industry and markets division.
This isn’t a crisis that may or may not happen someday. This is a crisis that is very real and that is rapidly approaching. One expert is warning that we are headed for a “disaster” and that rationing could start to happen in some areas of the globe during the months ahead…The supply situation is manageable for now, but higher summer demand in July and August likely would lead to rationing, Baron Lamarre, former head of trading at Petronas, told Dow Jones. “The cry is that they want a deal right now because if they don’t have it three months from now, there will be a disaster,” Lamarre said.
A lot of people out there seem to think that the U.S. will be immune because we produce so much of the oil that we use. But the truth is that U.S. oil stocks just fell “to their lowest level in two decades”…Donald Trump’s Iran war has driven US oil stocks to their lowest level in two decades as his administration drains stockpiles to contain surging prices and exporters capitalise on the drop in Middle Eastern supply. US government data published on Wednesday showed total stocks of crude and petroleum products such as petrol fell by 10.6mn barrels last week to 1.57bn barrels - the lowest level since 2004. The sharp fall triggered new warnings from industry analysts that oil prices are poised to move sharply higher again within weeks.
We are running an “oil deficit” too. It isn’t as severe as what we are witnessing in other industrialized nations, but it is significant. Withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve have helped keep things running fairly smoothly, but the fact that in recent weeks we have seen “the largest weekly withdrawals in history” is not a good sign at all… The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is also part of the backdrop. The EIA reported that SPR inventories fell by 9.1 million barrels during the week and were 36.2 million barrels below year-ago levels. The recent drawdowns in the SPR have been the largest weekly withdrawals in history.
Gasoline inventories in the U.S. are falling too. In fact, we just witnessed the largest February to May gasoline drawdown ever recorded… In early February, U.S. gasoline inventories reached 259.1 million barrels. By late May, they had fallen by 47.5 million barrels in roughly 15 weeks. In weekly EIA data going back to 1990, there is not another February-to-May gasoline drawdown that comes close. The next-largest drawdowns were clustered around 30 million barrels, and that was 15 years ago. This year’s decline is far larger.
That does not mean gasoline shortages are imminent. It does mean the market has burned through a remarkable amount of inventory before the summer driving season has even fully arrived. If the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened, shortages are inevitable. The only debate is about when they will hit. One industry insider just told Politico that his company has warned “the highest levels of government about what’s coming in mid-to-late June”…
“We’re at dangerously low levels already,” said one industry executive who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations with the administration. “We have shared those concerns at the highest levels of government about what’s coming in mid-to-late June. I hope they are paying attention to inventories right now. You’re hitting tank bottom.” He isn’t talking about June 2027. He is talking about this month.
Another expert is warning that we could be “looking at industrial shortages” if the situation in the Strait of Hormuz does not change by September or October… Drained storage tanks are an “iceberg under the water,” Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said during a Council on Foreign Relations event Wednesday. You may not see immediately on the horizon the actual economic challenges that will be coming, because you look at the flat price and you say, ‘OK, we can muddle through this and Iran will come to terms eventually,’” Croft said. “But if we get in a situation where we have this strait effectively closed, or the strait status quo, and we’re sitting in September or October, then you’re going to be looking at industrial shortages.”
Needless to say, an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is not going to happen right away. If the U.S. and Iran are able to eventually reach an agreement, we are being told that it could take six to eight months to fully restore traffic to pre-war levels… A full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz could take 6-8 months in the best-case scenario if an agreement was reached today, Bosoni said at the S&P Global Energy Middle East Petroleum and Gas Conference in London.
What this means is that global energy supplies are going to get tighter every single day for an extended period of time no matter what occurs now. Gasoline prices will continue to rise, and shortages and rationing are looming. We desperately need the war to end and the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened as soon as possible. But I don’t think that is going to happen. Instead, I think that the Great Middle East War will soon go to an entirely new level, and that won’t be good for the global economy at all."
Musical Interlude: The Traveling Wilburys, "End Of The Line"
Full screen recommended.
The Traveling Wilburys, "End Of The Line"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“How many arches can you count in the below image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the below image was taken during a clear dark night, it caught a photogenic third arch far in the distance- that of the overreaching Milky Way Galaxy. Because we are situated in the midst of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, the band of the central disk appears all around us.
The sandstone arches of the Double Arch were formed from the erosion of falling water. The larger arch rises over 30 meters above the surrounding salt bed and spans close to 50 meters across. The dark silhouettes across the image bottom are sandstone monoliths left over from silt-filled crevices in an evaporated 300 million year old salty sea. A dim flow created by light pollution from Moab, Utah can also be seen in the distance.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110524.html
"Briefly..."
“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence – briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing – cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity.” - Erich Fromm
“I often question my sanity. Occasionally, it replies.”
- Darynda Jones
Free Download: Erich Fromm, “The Fear of Freedom”
“Automaton Conformity”
by Erich Fromm
“In the mechanisms we have been discussing, the individual overcomes the feeling of insignificance in comparison with the overwhelming power of the world outside himself either by renouncing his individual integrity, or by destroying others so that the world ceases to be threatening. Other mechanisms of escape are the withdrawal from the world so completely that it loses its threat (the picture we find in certain psychotic states), and the inflation of oneself psychologically to such an extent that the world outside becomes small in comparison. Although these mechanisms of escape are important for individual psychology, they are only of minor relevance culturally. I shall not, therefore, discuss them further here, but instead will turn to another mechanism of escape which is of the greatest social significance.
This particular mechanism is the solution that the majority of normal individuals find in modern society. To put it briefly, the individual ceases to be himself; he adopts entirely the kind of personality offered to him by cultural patterns; and he therefore becomes exactly as all others are and as they expect him to be. The discrepancy between “I” and the world disappears and with it the conscious fear of aloneness and powerlessness. This mechanism can be compared with the protective coloring some animals assume. They look so similar to their surroundings that they are hardly distinguishable from them. The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self.”
- Erich Fromm, “The Fear of Freedom”
Freely download “The Fear of Freedom”, by Erich Fromm, here:
The Poet: Carl Sandburg, "Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"
"Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"
“The past is a bucket of ashes.”
1
"The woman named Tomorrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let the dead be dead.
2
The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.
3
It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got
a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women
to warble: We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.
And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
there were rats and lizards who listened...
and the only listeners left now...
are…the rats…and the lizards.
And there are black crows
crying, “Caw, caw,”
bringing mud and sticks
building a nest
over the words carved
on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,”
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
And the only listeners now are…the rats…and the lizards.
4
The feet of the rats
scribble on the door sills;
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigrees of the rats
and babble of the blood
and gabble of the breed
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers
of the rats.
And the wind shifts
and the dust on a door sill shifts
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was."
- Carl Sandburg
"Information, Please"
"Information, Please"
By nkit
"When I was a young boy, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember the polished, old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked to it. Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person. Her name was “Information Please” and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anyone’s number and the correct time.
My personal experience with the genie-in-a-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer, the pain was terrible, but there seemed no point in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway.
The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. “Information, please,” I said into the mouthpiece just above my head. A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. “Information.”
“I hurt my finger…” I wailed into the phone, the tears came readily enough now that I had an audience. “Isn’t your mother home?” came the question “Nobody’s home but me,” I blubbered. “Are you bleeding?” the voice asked “No, “I replied. “I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.” “Can you open the icebox?” she asked. I said I could. “Then chip off a little bit of ice and hold it to your finger,” said the voice.
After that, I called “Information Please” for everything. I asked her for help with my geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and nuts.
Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary, died. I called, “Information Please,” and told her the sad story. She listened, and then said things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was not consoled. I asked her, “Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?” She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, “Wayne, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.” Somehow, I felt better.
Another day I was on the telephone, “Information Please.” “Information,” said in the now familiar voice. “How do I spell fix?” I asked
All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. When I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. “Information Please” belonged in that old wooden box back home and I somehow never thought of trying the shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about a half-hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, “Information Please.” Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well. “Information.”
I hadn’t planned this, but I heard myself saying, “Could you please tell me how to spell fix?” There was a long pause. Then came the soft-spoken answer, “I guess your finger must have healed by now.” I laughed, “So it’s really you,” I said. “I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time?” “I wonder,” she said, “if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls.” I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister. “Please do,” she said. “Just ask for Sally.”
Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered, “Information.” I asked for Sally. “Are you a friend?” she said. “Yes, a very old friend,” I answered. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” she said. “Sally had been working part time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago.”
Before I could hang up, she said, “Wait a minute, did you say your name was Wayne?” “Yes.” I answered. "Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you." The note said, “Tell Wayne that there are other worlds to sing in. He’ll know what I mean.” I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant."
"You Gotta Be Tough To Grow Old"
Delta King's Blues
"You Gotta Be Tough To Grow Old"
"Wrinkles ain’t weakness - they’re proof you survived. “You Gotta Be Tough To Grow Old” is a gritty, soul-deep Delta King’s Blues anthem about resilience, scar tissue, and standing tall through the years. A strong, steady acoustic guitar drives the rhythm like boots planted firm in red dirt. The harmonica blows bold and weathered, carrying the sound of hard winters and hotter summers. The groove stays slow but unbreakable -built for endurance, not speed. This is survival blues. For people who took their hits, buried their losses, and kept waking up anyway. Growing old ain’t for the soft - it’s for the stubborn."
Native Elder, "How to Find Peace With the Life You Actually Lived"
Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"How to Find Peace With the Life You Actually Lived"
Comments here:
Here's my book: https://theoldway.site/
"Old Hands, Slow Work: A Quiet Village Story"
Full screen recommended.
"Old Hands, Slow Work: A Quiet Village Story"
"In Cozy Town, some stories are not told with words. They are told by hands. Hands that mend, sweep, knead, knit, wash, carve, repair, water, fold, sew, and keep doing the small things they have done for a lifetime. This quiet village story is a tribute to old hands, slow work, and the simple dignity of knowing how to make a day useful. Everything here is small. Everything here matters. Cozy Town"
"Madness! Alert! U.S. Putting Nukes In Latvia?! Iran Nuclear Standoff!
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 6/4/26
"Madness! Alert! U.S. Putting Nukes In Latvia?!
Iran Nuclear Standoff!"
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"Judge Napolitano, Judging Freedom, 6/4/26"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/4/26
"Col. Lawrence Wilkerson:
Did Pakistan Offer Iran Nukes?"
Comments here:
o
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/4/26
"Col. Douglas Macgregor:
"Does the US Have a Military Option in Iran?"
Comments here:
Prof Jiang Xueqin, 6/4/26
Prof Jiang Xueqin, 6/4/26
"I Predicted This Crisis -
Now I’m Predicting the Endgame"
Comments here:
o
Prof Jiang Xueqin, 6/4/26
"My Biggest Prediction:
What Happens Next In This War?"
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o
Prof Jiang Xueqin, 6/4/26
"Iran Took the North Korea Playbook Step by Step -
America Has No Counter-Move"
"This video examine the North Korea Model - the four-step strategic framework that turned one of the world's poorest nations into a country the United States cannot touch - and what Iran's real-time adoption of that exact same playbook, confirmed by the events of June 3rd, 2026, reveals about the true limits of American military power in this century. We trace each of Iran's four strategic conditions, break down the petrodollar economics that explain why this conflict is about far more than missiles and drones, and ask the question no analyst on cable television is willing to put on the table: if Iran is as broken as Washington claims - no navy, no air force, no leadership, 250 percent inflation - why has the most powerful military in history spent months and fifty percent of its Patriot interceptor reserve and still cannot reopen a thirty-three-kilometer strait?"
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