"Americans Are Being Completely Unrealistic About Everything!"

Full screen recommended.

Snyder Reports, 9/25/26

"Americans Are Being Completely 

Unrealistic About Everything!"

"Millions of Americans are refusing to face reality about jobs, housing, and the American Dream in 2026. If you're waiting for your dream job, you're making a huge mistake. In this Snyder Reports update, we break down why so many Americans have unrealistic expectations in today's job market and housing market. From 7+ months applying for mortgage lender jobs with no offers, to truck sales crashing and bank branches turning into ATMs, to 7%+ mortgage rates and soaring home repair costs - times have changed since 2019. We also cover why young adults waiting for a dream job that may not exist for 6, 12, or 18 months, AI job loss, and unaffordable home prices mean you need to adapt and delay, not quit."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Something Is Going To Break, You've Been Warned; This Is A Perfect Storm And It Will Be Brutal"

Jeremiah Babe, 9/25/26

"Something Is Going To Break, You've Been Warned;

 This Is A Perfect Storm And It Will Be Brutal"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Donald Trump and the Age of Evil"

"Donald Trump and the Age of Evil"

by Chris Hedges

"Donald Trump exhibits the classic traits of psychopaths - superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance, a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation and incapacity for remorse or guilt. But is he evil?

If, as the philosopher Susan Nieman writes, evil is not simply the opposite of good but inimical to it, if the aim of evil is to destroy all moral distinctions, then Trump qualifies as evil. Morality, for Trump, is for losers. All life is transactional. Self-interest and self-enrichment usurp all other considerations. No one else matters. In her new book, “Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era,” Neiman argues that evil “isn’t cruelty but something much worse: the ideas that allow cruelty to become ordinary.” She continues:

"There’s a difference between calling one action evil and calling another a crime. Crimes are things for which we have procedures - at least for punishing, if not for preventing. This means that a crime can be fit in some way into the rest of our experience. To call an action evil is to suggest it cannot - and that it thereby threatens the trust in the world that we need to navigate it. There’s no signpost on the border between evil and awful. Evil is what you say when your jaw begins to drop if you sense that a line has been crossed.

Trump crosses line after line. He declares wars on a whim. He enriches himself and his family in crypto schemes, from which he has made over a billion dollars. He orders assassinations and the kidnapping of heads of state. He uses billions of taxpayer dollars to sustain genocide in Palestine and since January 2025 has provided over $20 billion in new arms sales to Israel. He guts government departments designed to lift up the vulnerable and bloats the war budget. He builds rogue paramilitary forces to terrorize citizens and immigrants. He attacks and attempts to censor the news industry.

In short, he does what all who commit evil do. He fosters a world where nothing is sacred and where democracy and civic virtues do not exist.

Concepts of fairness, decorum, justice and empathy are imploded by the Trump administration. His threat to annihilate Iran – i.e. carry out genocide – announced of all places at the United Nations, is greeted with indifference by a public rendered numb by his moral vacuity.

“Once the supremacy of self-interest is enshrined as commonsense realism rather than a philosophical idea, moral capacities like empathy and shame become not just naïve but suspect,” Neiman writes. “Sadists exist and cause no end of pain. But the most common forms of evil arise from the view that only fools believe in anything but their own advantage.”

The institutions designed to protect democracy, to safeguard civic virtues, to foster equality - including the courts, law firms, universities and the media, all of which have been captured by the billionaire class - swiftly fell to their knees to curry favor with the Trump White House. The titans in Silicon Valley showered him and his campaign with millions of dollars. The supposed virtues these institutions and individuals claimed they championed were jettisoned. These virtues, they illustrated, were nothing more than branding, performance art, a sham.

To an enraged public Trump’s transparent greed and cruelty is preferable to the slick hypocrisy of the politicians, Republican and Democrat, who preceded him. He does not engage in their faux empathy. In fact, he seems incapable of empathy. Once morality is for fools, virtue makes no sense. Once we believe we should grab what we can, even at the expense of those around us, we surrender to evil.

“Unlike the rest of us, he permanently exhibits the combination of motives we are told are the true forces driving human behavior,” Neiman writes of Trump: "Nor does he appear to understand any other. Though he recognizes that other people, aka losers, have norms, he has no idea of how norms work, moving people to override self-interest in order to honor them. In acting on the international stage like Richard Dawkins’s ruthless genes, he has attracted millions of followers who tell us they admire his authenticity. This doesn’t mean his followers are deplorable. They may not be evil at all, but in a world where implacable self-interest is usually camouflaged in soft colors, they find his candor refreshing. They have so often heard that people conceal the raw self-interest that really moves things, they’re relieved to watch a man who never hides it."

The worst evil, Neiman argues, “may be the denial of evil – as well as disdain for any goodness that might oppose it. When self-interest becomes the basis of reason, evil no longer needs to justify itself. It’s already been mistaken for rationality.”

This evil leads us down the familiar road to fascism. It was Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s first term, who warned us, calling Trump “fascist to the core.” The media — too spineless to label Trump a fascist - prefers the word “authoritarian,’ which Neiman notes may be a more bearable word, but “will not make fascism more bearable.”

Authoritarianism, she notes: "Is a word that can be useful for describing certain German professors, and the softer sort of Latin American military regime. But a country where masked men deport people to wastelands they’ve never seen? Combat troops occupy major cities and shoot peacefully protesting citizens? A government that coerces media, universities, and other countries to suit its will? A military that blows fishermen to bits with the meagerest of justifications, then begins the kind of wars the International Military Court at Nuremberg condemned? As it wrote in 1946, ‘To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.’ It would be easy to go on, but counting crimes is pointless. Before these words are printed, the administration will have found countless new ways to flout the rule of law.

We are in deep trouble. The moral rot in our society preceded Trump. He is its logical conclusion. He is the apotheosis of a culture where greed, exploitation and self-interest, the core tenets of neoliberalism, are held up as the defining forces of human existence.

We must fight back while we can. But to do so requires that we recapture the language of good and evil. It requires us to make moral choices and to accept self-sacrifice. It requires us to name the bleakness before us, not turn our faces from the fascist monolith being cemented into place. Denying these truths and refusing to defy evil will ensure our enslavement. Speaking these truths and standing with the oppressed and the marginalized, even at the cost of our own financial and physical security, will set us free."

- https://chrishedges.substack.com/

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"

Full screen recommended.

Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Why does this galaxy have such a long tail? In this stunning vista, based on image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive, distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The cosmic tadpole is a mere 420 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation of the Dragon (Draco). Its eye-catching tail is about 280 thousand light-years long and features massive, bright blue star clusters.

One story goes that a more compact intruder galaxy crossed in front of Arp 188 - from right to left in this view - and was slung around behind the Tadpole by their gravitational attraction. During the close encounter, tidal forces drew out the spiral galaxy's stars, gas, and dust forming the spectacular tail. The intruder galaxy itself, estimated to lie about 300 thousand light-years behind the Tadpole, can be seen through foreground spiral arms at the upper right. Following its terrestrial namesake, the Tadpole Galaxy will likely lose its tail as it grows older, the tail's star clusters forming smaller satellites of the large spiral galaxy."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210621.html

Myrasor, "Grains Of Sand"; "Ocean of Home"

Full screen recommended.

Myrasor, "Grains Of Sand"

"Days slip through our fingers softer than we realize. This song is a gentle reminder to dance a little in the light, to seek the magic close at hand, to love this life before it becomes memory. Let it play once - without trying to make sense of it. The visuals are dreams I had with my eyes open: hourglasses pouring through floating islands, a wise old man drinking the universe from a cup, a woman dancing on a spiral of sand while waves rise behind her. Some scenes feel like memories. Others feel like dreams someone else had. Best with headphones, in a quiet moment."

o

Full screen recommended.

Myrasor, 

"Ocean of Home, A Journey to Finding Home"

"'Ocean of Home' is an original cinematic music story about the search for the place where the heart finally feels at peace. Some people find home in a city. Some find it in another person. Some discover it beneath an open sky, surrounded by the endless sea. Through quiet mornings, distant horizons, and an unforgettable voyage across impossible oceans, Ocean of Home tells a story about freedom, hope, love, and the journey back to yourself. Thank you for listening and becoming part of this journey."

"What the Old Ones Knew About the Worry That Steals Your Peace"

Full screen recommended.

Native American Elder,

"What the Old Ones Knew About

 the Worry That Steals Your Peace"

"A Fool Gets Older Just Like Everybody Else"

Full screen recommended.

Blues Masterpiece,

"A Fool Gets Older Just Like Everybody Else" 

“A Fool Gets Older Just Like Everybody Else” is a sharp, humorous blues about the simple truth that getting older doesn't automatically make a person wiser. Years pass, hair turns gray, knees start complaining - but some folks keep making the same foolish choices they made when they were young. Driven by gritty blues guitar and the soulful cry of the harmonica, this old-school blues mixes sarcasm, life experience, and a little Southern humor. The weathered voice knows that age can teach you a lot - but only if you're willing to learn. Getting older is guaranteed… Growing wiser is apparently optional."

"When the Soul Realizes There Is No Going Back"

The Silent Grace,

"When the Soul Realizes There Is No Going Back"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"On Apples and Armageddon"

"On Apples and Armageddon"

Reports of mankind’s extinction are greatly exaggerated...

by Joel Bowman

“If I knew that tomorrow the world would end, 

I would plant an apple tree today.”

~ Martin Luther (attributed)

Buenos Aires, Argentina - "Where were we, dear reader? Ah, yes... the end of life on Earth as we know it. The absolute annihilation of our species. Simultaneously fascinating and terrifying, exhilarating and humbling, it is at least modestly reassuring to consider that the extinction of the human race is also the least common event in all known history. Sure, we’ve had our brushes with the great beyond... our eleventh-hour escapes... our flirtations with collective fate... but by hook or by crook, mankind has always managed to wiggle his way into the future. (Not individually, of course... on that count history is unequivocally not in our favor. As the late, great Jim Morrison famously said, “No one here gets out alive.”)

And yet, our morbid fixation with the end times makes a certain amount of sense. If we conceive of time as a kind of arrow (as opposed to, say, a circular formation, as favored by some of the Ancients, or as a sort of Nietzschean “eternal recurrence”), then we really are standing on the edge of history, the past at our backs and nothing but the unrealized future before us. Is it any wonder that, staring over the precipice, we might be prone to the occasional bout of apocalyptic vertigo, in spite of the overwhelming statistical improbability that we would be the first (and necessarily last) generation ever to read history’s final sentence? Some might even say that would be making a bit much of ourselves. All of which is not to suggest our forebears didn’t have a few close calls...

Apocalypse, Never! A genetic study conducted in 2023 suggests our distant ancestors went through a serious population bottleneck about 900,000 years ago, during which period our headcount whittled to just 1,280 “breeding individuals.” (That’s the number of specimens capable of reproducing, mind you, not a term for confused cavemen who identified as cavewomen or gender fluid “cavethems.” One doubts we would have made it this far had they been that lacking in basic intelligence.)

According to the study, published in Nature magazine, “The population didn’t expand for more than 100,000 years, after which it bloomed again and the progenitors of our species and of our extinct relatives, the Denisovans and the Neanderthals, emerged.” Phew!

But our forefathers weren’t out of the proverbial woods just yet. Fast-forward to “just” 70,000 years ago and the Sumatran volcano, Toba, threw forth fire and brimstone from the depths of the planet, ushering in a volcanic winter of the kind that would frighten Cormac McCarthy himself. Although researchers no longer consider it a “near extinction” event, our primitive progenitors probably dwindled in number to between 100,000 and 150,000. Uncomfortably close to celebrating Cousins Day on Valentine’s Day, in other words.

Speaking of close relatives, it was around 40,000 to 50,000 years ago that scientists reckon our remaining rival in the Last Man Standing competition was eliminated... or rather, absorbed. It was around this time that Homo floresiensis made his exit from the Indonesian island of Flores... and Homo luzonensis checked out from the Philippine island of Luzon... leaving Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis and the mysterious Denisovans (from whom, we assume, people named Dennis hail) to duke it out for top spot.

Being Human: Like these distinct “breeds” of humans, theories compete to explain how the smaller, weaker sapiens were able to better their Neanderthal relatives who, despite their name having since fallen into the pejorative “knuckle-dragger” realm, had already tamed fire, made sophisticated tools, hunted large animals, used pigments and fashioned decorative ornaments, and even buried their dead, at least in some circumstances. Researchers reckon climate, random demographic fluctuations, difficulty finding mates, inbreeding, and local catastrophes probably contributed to their end days. And yet, even our closest competitors didn’t disappear entirely.

Recent studies suggest something like 2–3% of the genome of most people with predominantly non-African ancestry is Neanderthal-derived. And it’s widely distributed among existing “gene machines.” The Max Planck Institute estimates that about 40% of the Neanderthal genome is represented somewhere among living humans today, even though any one person carries only a tiny percent. That’s approximately 20,000 consecutive human generations without a single extinction event, oftentimes despite our political overlords’ best efforts. Yes, yes, past performance doesn’t guarantee future results... but it’s not such a lamentable track record, is it?

“Ah,” we hear the crepehangers moan, “but what if you’re wrong, Joel?” Indeed. What if all of history, the tens of thousands of generations spanning hundreds of thousands of years, through ages of great wars and hard-won peace, times of plenty and times of want, of plague and blight, flood and drought, of fire and hail and common heartache... what if they’ve all led to this, the final denouement for mankind?

Leaving aside the breathtaking egocentrism required to place us, the present-day cohort, atop the incomparably vast expanse of human existence heretofore, the question remains: What if we knew that tomorrow the world would end? Then we plant an apple tree, dear reader. Not because we expect to enjoy its fruit, but because there is hope in the seed. Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World..."

- https://joelbowman.substack.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Homedale, Idaho, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Free Download: Howard Zinn, “A People’s History of the United States”

"Since its original landmark publication in 1980, “A People’s History of the United States” has been chronicling American history from the bottom up. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, “A People’s History” is the only volume to tell America’s story from the point of view of - and in the words of - America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles - the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality - were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus’s arrival through President Clinton’s first term, “A People’s History of the United States" features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history.

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s iconic “A People’s History of the United States” “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.” Packed with vivid details and telling quotations, Zinn’s award-winning classic continues to revolutionize the way American history is taught and remembered."

- https://zinnedproject.org/

Freely download “A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present”,

 by Howard Zinn, here: 
- https://mvlindsey.files.wordpress.com/

o

“A lot of the nonsense was the innocent result of playfulness on the part of the founding fathers of the nation of Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout. The founders were aristocrats, and they wished to show off their useless eduction, which consisted of the study of hocus-pocus from ancient times. They were bum poets as well.

But some of the nonsense was evil, since it concealed great crime. For example, teachers of children in the United States of America wrote this date on blackboards again and again, and asked the children to memorize it with pride and joy:

1492.

The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.



Here was another piece of nonsense which children were taught: that the sea pirates eventually created a government which became a beacon of freedom of human beings everywhere else. Actually, the sea pirates who had the most to do with the creation of the new government owned human slaves. They used human beings for machinery, and, even after slavery was eliminated, because it was so embarrassing, they and their descendants continued to think of ordinary human beings as machines.

The sea pirates were white. The people who were already on the continent when the pirates arrived were copper-colored. When slavery was introduced onto the continent, the slaves were black.
Color was everything.



Here is how the pirates were able to take whatever they wanted from anybody else: they had the best boats in the world, and they were meaner than anybody else, and they had gunpowder, which is a mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulphur. They touched the seemingly listless powder with fire, and it turned violently into gas. This gas blew projectiles out of metal tubes at terrific velocities. The projectiles cut through meat and bone very easily; so the pirates could wreck the wiring or the bellows or the plumbing of a stubborn human being, even when he was far, far away.

 The chief weapon of the sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was much too late, how heartless and greedy they were.”

- Kurt Vonnegut, "Breakfast of Champions"

Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable: Weekly Wrap 25-Sept."

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 9/25/26

"INTEL Roundtable: Weekly Wrap 25-Sept."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Farewell to my Faithful, Incomparable Dog Riley"

"Farewell to my Faithful, Incomparable Dog Riley"

There’s a new beauty in doggie heaven.

by Donald Jeffries

This has been a year of tremendous loss. Starting in January, with the deaths of my sister Janet and her special daughter Denise, four days apart. Then one of my dearest friends, John Barbour, passed away. My good friend and next door neighbor Dan died, too. And now perhaps the cruelest cut of all: my Golden Retriever Riley.

My parents wouldn’t allow me to have a dog when I was growing up. No one in my immediate family was a pet person. They consented to let me have a cat, who I named Lucky. They wouldn’t permit him in the house, but he used to meet me at the bus stop after school. One day he didn’t come. I saw him lying paws up on the side of our yard. He’d been run over by a car during the night. What a tragically ironic name. That was it for me, except for the tropical fish they let me have. But what I really wanted was a dog. I knew my first dog would have to be a collie, like Lassie. And would have to be named Dino, because I loved The Flintstones. Dino turned out to be a pure breed sheltie. He was a good dog. Always came when you called him. He used to go outside with me and the kids (they were very little), and I never had to put him on a leash. That was the ‘90s, the last gasp of America 1.0. I probably would be arrested if I tried that now. Perhaps shot by an aggressive cop, looking for a dangerous criminal like me.

Then came TJ, who was a mutt. But a really good-looking mutt. You could see the Lab and the cocker spaniel in him. He barked incessantly, perhaps even more than Dino, who really barked a lot. There must be something about me, because I always have loudmouth dogs. Well, I’m pretty loud myself. After we lost TJ, I was crushed. Sadder than I’d been with Dino. We waited a year or so, and then my daughter really wanted another dog. We searched and searched, hoping to find a rescue animal. But my shallow, superficial emphasis on physical appearance got in the way. Basically, every rescue dog we saw was full or part Pit Bull. I don’t find Pit Bulls attractive. In fact, there are only a few breeds of dogs that I find attractive. My desire at the time was to find a Golden Retriever, and my daughter liked that idea, too. So we wound up getting a pure breed puppy. The runt of the litter, as the breeder described her. My daughter named her Riley, because one of the Jonas Brothers had a dog with that name.

Riley was beautiful enough to turn my head a million times a day. I loved looking at her. She was a gorgeous puppy who grew into a gorgeous full sized (but small for a Golden Retriever) dog. I had more names for her than I ever came up with for the kids. Golden Girl. My Super Model. Pretty Girl. Little Girl. Rye. Riley-Piley Poo. Riles. Fluffy Butt. I loved to say that she put the gold in Golden Retriever. Unlike our previous dogs, she really had the run of the house. She ran the place. We gave up trying to keep her off of the furniture. She slept in my daughter’s bed. When my daughter moved out, it essentially became Riley’s bedroom. But you never knew where she was going to sleep. For the past year or so, she had been coming up and laying next to our bed. We really spoiled her, like so many pet owners spoil their pets. She loved human food, especially chicken. We had to watch even saying the word. She loved to lay on the sofa, and she didn’t particularly want you to sit next to her.

That was the thing about Riley; she was needy, and clingy, but in a very unconventional way. She liked to be petted, but would always kind of distance herself, so that you had to lean forward to do it. She wouldn’t cuddle up next to you, although sometimes she would jump up and lick your face. But not very often. She had, in fact, a lot of feline characteristics. She could be aloof, and territorial. I used to say that I hadn’t wanted a cat, I wanted a dog. One who would jump up on me, and rest her head on my lap. That wasn’t Riley. And she certainly didn’t live up to her breed’s name; you couldn’t get her to fetch anything. She might go retrieve a ball one time, but after that, she’d look at you as if to say, “What, do you think I’m that stupid?” When she was young, she spent everyday running around our good sized backyard. She would even sometimes slide down the slide on our playground. She probably got more use out of that playground than the kids ever did. It was a lot of fun to watch her.

But Riley eventually yearned for bigger pastures, and started jumping the backyard fence, and disappearing into the neighborhood. It wasn’t easy to find her, and when you did, she wouldn’t come to you. She never came when you called. She thought we were playing a game with her. Other neighbors would come out and help. It usually took a few hours, and then finally she’d come back with us. We hated to ban her from the backyard, but we didn’t want to lose her, or have her get run over by a car. So for about the last half of her life, she became an inside dog. That’s when we started walking her regularly. Very infrequently, she’d want to walk a good distance. Most often, however, we took what I called “Riley walks.” These would consist of lots of zig zagging, backtracking, sudden lunges towards a passing squirrel, and craziness when any of the other countless neighborhood dogs appeared on the scene. And, of course, lots of sniffing. Rolling in the grass. But I’d give anything to have one more Riley walk.

After I was fired unfairly in 2018, I was around Riley constantly. I stopped traveling, so I was always the one left with her. Riley and me. I’ve become probably too much of a homebody. More radical and controversial than your average homebody, but a homebody nonetheless. Riley became a homebody, too. I built my days around her. When I went outside, she was almost always with me. She’d get upset if I took my neighborhood walk without her. So I’d have to come back, and bring her. So we could have a Riley walk. Which meant very few steps for me. Riley was less destructive than many dogs, but if she was angry, I’d come home to find my slippers moved around. She didn’t really chew them up, just moved them to let me know that she could. When she was anxious, which was often, she’d keep trying to get under my desk, and tangle herself in my computer wires. She disconnected me more than once. I tried to get her on camera for my podcast, and one time I was able to get her to cooperate briefly.

Riley had two speeds. Maximum overdrive and park. If she was parked, usually on the couch, it was hard to get her going. If she was in overdrive, it was hard to stop her from pacing about, often panting as she did so. This was most often in response to the weather. Especially the wind. Riley was obsessed with the wind. I know I’ll probably tear up again on the next really windy day. She would want to go outside and stand in it. Just stay motionless and feel it. If she was inside, she’d be inconsolable. She’d hide in a closet, or one of the bathrooms, panting all the time. You couldn’t calm her down. She wouldn’t stay still to pet or hug her. The vet said she had doggie autism. In her final days, she was panting and pacing about more often, even in nice weather. I relive her last night, and feel tremendous guilt, because she was pacing about our bedroom, scratching at the carpet, and I lost my cool. I had to shut the door on her. I didn’t consider that this was something different from her regular neurosis.

I dreamed of her last night. She came up to my side of the bed, and I exclaimed, “Look, honey, Riley’s here!” I held her up, but my wife couldn’t see her. I’m sure I’ll have more dreams about her. I dreamed about her a lot when she was alive. One recent one involved her barking at the hippos who’d invaded our house. Have I mentioned how fascinated I am by hippos? I really tried to figure out Riley, but she was an incredibly complex character. I wanted so much to talk to her, for just a few minutes. To find out what made her so high strung. To ask her what I could do to be a better master. Her tail was always wagging, even when she was anxious. Even on that last day at the vet’s office. I had to leave. I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t say goodbye. My wife is a lot stronger emotionally than me. I just hugged and kissed her, told her I was sorry for being impatient with her, and how much I loved her. Then I paced back and forth outside, sobbing, maybe panting like her, until my wife texted me, “she’s gone.”

Riley would sometimes “sit” and “stay.” Even “lay down.” But it wasn’t automatic. I’ve read that Golden Retrievers are very smart, with an IQ that translates to about 90. In other words, higher than too many humans. Maybe most ‘Murricans at this point. So she probably knew what we wanted, but didn’t feel like performing like a trained seal. Riley was pretty well behaved, but she wasn’t trained. I’m not sure she could have been trained. Maybe the Dog Whisperer could have done it. I don’t know how to train dogs. I talk to them like they’re human, which I know is ridiculous. Riley and I had constant one-sided conversations about everything. She was my silent, golden sounding board. We got her before my first nonfiction book was published. I called her a super model, which she was. And like most super models, she was a diva. If she could have, she probably would have made some Smoking Gun-type backstage demands. No brown M&Ms or something. But we always aimed to please her.

I’ve always had trouble with endings. Anything ending, or anyone leaving, makes me very sad. I get sad when a restaurant closes. I hate goodbyes. I fear change. My life is full of routines, and for more than a decade, most of those routines revolved around my beautiful Golden Retriever. When I went outside today, I realized how much everything reminds me of her. Every blade of grass or flower that she took excessively long to smell. The gate that doesn’t close all the way, leading us into what my wife called “the backyard tour.” Riley loved backyard tours. It probably reminded her of when she was young, footloose and fancy free. When we trusted her not to jump the fence and keep running away when we called her. Sometimes we’d see a fox, and Riley would want to chase it. Other than my increasingly rare time using the grill, I only visited the backyard with Riley. We used to have a lot more cookouts and family gatherings at our house. But now so many have died or moved away.

Dogs have kind of a raw deal. One of their years equals seven human years. A human life is far too short; what must a dog’s life seem? Riley lived a pretty long life; she was over 91 years old in human years. It strikes me that the lifespan of a dog is basically what the lifespan of childhood is. Our children are kids for 10-12 years, and then the eye rolling starts. Then you suddenly go from being their hero to the stupidest person in the world. It’s hard to take. Just like losing one of these precious creatures is. They become one of the family. Loud, demanding, but irresistible. Riley was a fixture in the house. She was always there, in some part of it. She used to come down to the basement when I did my podcast, and lie there calmly. I like to think she was listening. She stopped doing that a while ago, however. Maybe she got tired of all the non-Irish talk. She used to sit there while we were listening to Alex Jones, many years ago, when he was doing good work. So she was steeped in the conspiracy world.

Writing this is cathartic for me. As I’ve said before, it helps me cope with loss. Losing my favorite dog in the world is not something I’ll recover from quickly or easily. I keep expecting to hear her walking around, or her distinctive bark. I keep expecting her to appear around every corner. I don’t think we’ll get another dog. We’re old now, too, and it’s just too painful to let them go. I knew she was 14, and I could do the math. But the house seems empty now. And much quieter. I’ll probably still be finding her clumps of fur everywhere when I vacuum, for a long time. I had them shave off a bit of her golden coat, which I plan to put in a keychain or something. That way, I’ll carry a piece of her with me everywhere, just as I carry a bit of my niece Denise, as they made her thumbprint into a silver medallion I have on my keychain. I will think about her every time I pass a spot outside that she used to particularly like. I’m having withdrawal pains, knowing that we’ll never again have those little outdoor rituals.

Please forgive me for writing another eulogy. I don’t enjoy writing them. I feel like Jackson Browne; no one ever wrote about losing someone better than he did. Warren Zevon specifically demanded that Browne not write a song about him when he died. Browne didn’t, to his credit. Riley’s presence is everywhere, in the house, in the yard. I can’t look at the sofa without picturing her there, raising her head to stare back. The spot where her food and water used to be. The leftover food and treats we’ll give to the neighbors. And now, when I see another dog outside- and seemingly everyone in my neighborhood has a dog- I’ll miss her even more. Because now I’m walking alone. Without her leash. Without her. I’ll move on. We have to, don’t we? I brood about lost loved ones all the time. And I’m brooding up a storm about Riley. Will I see Riley in heaven? Do all dogs go to heaven, like the movie suggests? I’d like to think so. I want her to tell me that she understands that I did my best. I tell myself that we must have made her happy, because that fluffy golden tail was always wagging.

Jimmy Stewart was not only my favorite actor, he was a talented poet, who wrote the best tribute to a dog every written in my view. Fittingly, his dog Beau was also a Golden Retriever. He read it on the Tonight Show in 1981, and it brought me to tears then. Even though I had yet to own my first dog. I somehow sensed that it might become personally meaningful one day. And now it has. Stewart wrote that, “He never came to see me when I would call…but mostly he never came at all.” He closed with: “And there are nights when I think I feel that stare And I reach out my hand to stroke his hair And he’s not there. Oh how I wish that wasn’t so I’ll always love a dog named Beau.” Oh how I wish it wasn’t so. That Riley was still here. Still not listening to me. Still not letting me cuddle with her. At the center of my life. I’ll always love a dog name Riley."

- https://donaldjeffries.substack.com/

The Poet: e e cummings, "Humanity I Love You"

"Humanity i love you because when you’re hard 

up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink..."

"Humanity I Love You"

"Humanity i love you

because you would rather black the boots of

success than enquire whose soul dangles from his

watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you

unflinchingly applaud all

songs containing the words country home and

mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because

when you’re hard up you pawn your

intelligence to buy a drink and when

you’re flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shop and

because you are continually committing

nuisances but more

especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you

are perpetually putting the secret of

life in your pants and forgetting

it’s there and sitting down on it

and because you are

forever making poems in the lap

of death 

Humanity, i hate you"

- e. e. cummings

o

"All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there. Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home."

- Rumi, "The Tavern," Ch. 1:, p. 2, from "The Essential Rumi"

Freely download "The Essential Rumi" here:
- https://littlethingsaboutmeeh.files.wordpress.com/

"Being Poor Ain't Cheap"

"Being Poor Ain't Cheap"

by Joshua Wilkey

"Poor people are cash cows. It makes no sense, really. One would think that poor people, by virtue of being poor, would not be profitable customers. However, for many large corporations that target the poor and working poor, there's big money to be made on the backs of those who have no money.

At Dollar General Store locations, customers can get cash back on their purchases. This is not novel. In fact, most all retailers these days offer this option. Soccer moms get cash back so they can have lunch money for their children. Restaurant patrons can get money back to leave a cash tip for their servers. I sometimes get cash back at the grocery store so I can buy Girl Scouts cookies on the way out. It's a simple process. Click "yes" when the little screen asks for cash back, tap the $20 icon, and the cashier hands you some bucks along with your receipt. We've all done it. For those who are poor and those of us who are not but who have limited retail options, however, there's often a sinister catch.

I noticed this a few years ago, first at Dollar Tree, then at Dollar General. There's a little asterisk after the standard "would you like cash back?" prompt. The footnote indicates that "a transaction fee may apply." The transaction fee is usually $1 no matter the amount of cash back. If one opts to get $10 cash back, one is charged a dollar. That's a ten percent fee, for a service that costs the retailer nothing. It's just another way for retailers like Dollar General to make a profit off of their customers, many of whom are very often living below the poverty line.

If an organic grocer or movie theater were charging a fee of this sort, I would likely be annoyed by it, but I wouldn't be so annoyed that I would write about it. However, the poorest members of our communities do not shop at Whole Foods, and they do not often get a chance to go see the latest blockbuster at the theater. They can afford neither. In fact, they likely do not have either organic grocers or first-run theaters in their neighborhoods. Instead, they have Dollar General. Dollar General's stores grow like kudzo in rural America. Even if there isn't a real grocery store in most tiny communities, there's probably a DG.

These ridiculous transaction fees are but one example of how corporations make billions of dollars by taking advantage of socioeconomically disadvantaged customers with few options. There are many other examples, though, and politicians continue to allow it at the expense of their poorest and most marginalized constituents.

Payday lending is one of the most sinister ways that large corporations exploit poor people. For those who are not familiar, payday lending goes something like this: People who are running short on money but who have a verified record of regular income (whether it be Social Security, SSI, payroll, etc.) are able to go to payday lenders and receive a cash loan to be repaid on payday. Often, borrowers are unable to repay their full loan balances and simply “roll over” their loan until a future payday, accruing all sorts of fees and additional interest. The annualized interest rate on these loans is often in the triple digits. Yes, that’s right. Sometimes the annual interest rate is over one hundred percent.

In defense of this practice, many payday lenders and their high-dollar lobbyists argue that they are simply offering a service to poor borrowers that said borrowers cannot obtain anywhere else. This is partially true. The poorest members of society have no access to traditional forms of credit. Some even lack access to checking accounts because of low credit scores or a history of financial missteps.

I know some people who make occasional use of payday lending because they genuinely have emergencies arise that they could not address without a short-term infusion of cash. I also know people, including members of my own family, who have been riding the high-interest payday loan merry-go-round for years, and who have paid thousands more back than they have borrowed yet still owe more. In debating the role of payday lending in our communities, it is essential that we take a nuanced approach. Some form of short-term credit is necessary for those mired in poverty. However, it is flat-out immoral that we regulate payday lending so loosely in many places that people end up feeling crushed under the weight of small high-interest loans that they have no hope of ever repaying. Taking out a $1,000 payday loan should not mean a person becomes tied to tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Another egregious example of corporations exploiting the poor is rent-to-own retailing. Companies like Aaron’s and Rent-a-Center purport to offer a valuable service for the poor. Because those at the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum are seldom able to save for big-ticket items like appliances or furniture, these retailers offer a pay-by-the-month scheme that often requires no credit check and no money down. The result is that customers pay as much as three times the retail price of the item, assuming they are able to make payments until the item is paid for. When they are not able to maintain the payments, the retailers simply show up to repossess the items.

Like payday lenders, rent-to-own retailers argue that they provide a valuable service to poor consumers. However, many observers, myself included, conclude that some rent-to-own practices are ethically questionable and tend to target vulnerable consumers who need immediate access to essentials like appliances and bedding. In many states, companies are not required to disclose the final price of the items. Instead, they simply tell customers the amount of the monthly or weekly payments. Because companies call the arrangement "rent-to-own," in many places they are not required to disclose the amount of "interest" customers will pay because it technically isn't interest. When consumers can no longer afford the payments and have to return the item, they often get no credit for payments they have made even if they have paid substantially more than the item is worth. Many customers never realize that they are paying as much as three times the retail price for their items. Those who do realize it likely have no choice apart from going without a bed or refrigerator.

In some instances, state attorneys general have successfully sued major rent-to-own retailers for violating usury and consumer protection laws. However, because these retailers are covered generally by state laws rather than by federal laws, there exists a hit-and-miss patchwork of regulations. Some consumers enjoy greater protections than others. The only determining factor is their location. Those states with more corporation-friendly attorneys general are unlikely to see any activity that might force retailers to behave more ethically toward their customers, because such enforcements will result in a drop in profitability for the retailers. Many major corporations spend good money to be sure that politicians protect their interests rather than the interests of consumers. Rent-to-own retailers and payday lenders are no exception. The poor, of course, can’t afford lobbyists or political contributions.

There are some who will argue that the free market, not the federal government, is the best solution to corporations that exploit the poor. However, those at the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum, especially the rural poor, do not live in anything resembling a free market. Also, it is important that we label the behavior of rent-to-own companies and payday lenders as what it is: exploitation.

In the hills of Appalachia, poverty is often the rule rather than the exception. One of the most poverty-stricken ZIP codes in the United States is Manchester, Kentucky. Manchester is located in Clay County, which has a population of just over 20,000 people. According to the most recent US Census data available, the per-capita income average between 2011 and 2015 was just $13,802 (less than half the national average) and 46% of the population lives below the poverty line. In Manchester, Rent-a-Center is often the go-to option for poor people looking to buy appliances or furniture. The county has a Walmart, but the nearest discount appliance and furniture dealers are miles away, too far for many to drive. There are some locally-owned options, but few in Clay County are able to pay cash for major purchases given the high rate of poverty and the low rate of employment.

In addition to the rent-to-own retailers, Clay County also has no less than five payday lenders, but only two traditional banks. Conveniently, the primary shopping center in Manchester currently houses a Dollar General, a Rent-a-Center, and two payday lending branches, all within feet of one another.

In places like Manchester, rent-to-own and payday lending outfits thrive. They do so often to the detriment of the poor folks who frequent their businesses. Those promoting the so-called free market approach might argue that customers are not forced to do business with these types of companies. However, given their dire financial circumstances and lack of available options, poor people in Manchester have little choice. They are excluded from participating in the wider world of commerce, often because of forces beyond their own control.

Manchester is not a rare exception. Particularly in central Appalachia, rent-to-own retailers are often the only option for poor people, and payday lenders outnumber banks by large measure. In addition to being food deserts, many poverty-stricken communities are retail deserts. In the most isolated rural areas in Appalachia, Dollar General is one of the only available retail options. Within ten miles of our house in rural Jackson County, NC, there are four Dollar General stores, and our community isn't even particularly isolated. Dollar General is the closest store to our home, and my wife and I tend to shop there by default because it is either that or a ten minute drive to the closest grocery store, or worse, a twenty minute drive into town. While we have the resources to go to town any time we want, many of our neighbors do not. The folks in the trailer park down the road often walk to Dollar General because they have few other options. This does not seem much like a free market driven by competition. Therefore, "free market" solutions simply do not work here.

Dollar General is, I believe, fully aware of the demographics of their shoppers. They know that there are often few ATMs near their locations, and their customers often lack access to traditional banking anyway and end up paying fees of three or four dollars to access their money at ATMs. Especially for people who depend on Social Security or SSI for their income, access to money is an important issue. Dollar General and similar retailers, it seems, understand this. Their solution is not to offer a resource for their customers but to profit from their customers’ limited access to funds. It's cheaper than an ATM, but it's a fee more affluent shoppers never have to think about. While there is nothing illegal about this, it is certainly morally questionable.

That’s the thing about the so-called free market. It makes no accounting for moral right or wrong. That, free market proponents allege, is up to the consumers. Poor consumers, however, still need to eat. They still need ovens and beds. Consumer choice and self-advocacy is often, like so many forms of social or political action, a full-stomach endeavor. When one is hungry, one’s ability to be an activist is diminished. When poor people have no choice but to do business with the greedy companies who reap a hefty profit from their customers' lack of options, those drawing the short straw simply do what they must to survive. Surviving is what poor people do best, and it makes for a miserable life. I know, because I have been there.

When poor people have little option but to do business with discount retailers who charge cash-back fees, rent-to-own retailers who charge inflated prices, and payday lenders who mire their customers neck-deep in impossible-to-pay-back high-interest loans, they are even less likely to ever escape poverty. The stark reality is that poor people often pay substantially more for essentials – bedding, appliances, housing – than would those of us with means. If my wife and I needed a new washer, we'd shop around for the best deal and go buy it. In fact, we might even buy it from Amazon Prime and get free two-day shipping. When my mother, who lived her entire life in poverty, needed a new washer, she was forced to buy one from a rent-to-own outfit that charged her an outrageous delivery fee and hassled her every time she was even a few hours late on a payment. She probably ended up paying $2,000 for a $450 washer. The poor do not have access to Amazon Prime like the rest of us because they can't afford a hundred bucks a year to subscribe. They do not get free delivery and obscenely low prices. They get fleeced.

The limited options available to those in poverty are rarely considered by the political ideologues who are so prone to victim-blaming. These retailers, who are all too often protected by state and federal lawmakers from both parties, package their predatory tactics as opportunities. What they are really selling are tickets on yet another segment of the poverty train. The politicians who protect them should be deprived of options and see just how much more expensive it is to survive. They should be ashamed for protecting those who profit from poverty, and those of us who know about it and have the resources to fight back should be ashamed for letting it happen to our neighbors."

- https://www.thisappalachialife.com/

"If You Want To See..."

"If you want to see how far we have not come from the cave and the woods, from the lonely and dangerous days of the prairie or the plain, witness the reaction of a modern suburban family, nearly ready for bed, when the doorbell rings or the door is rattled. They will stop where they stand, or sit bolt upright in their beds, as if a streak of pure lightning has passed through the house. Eyes wide, voices fearful, they will whisper to each other, "There's someone at the door," in a way that might make you believe they have always feared and anticipated this moment - that they have spent their lives being stalked."

- Alice McDermott

Dan, I Allegedly, "No Plan, No Chance"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 9/25/26

"No Plan, No Chance"

"The economy is changing, businesses are struggling, and consumers are demanding more value. In this video, Dan looks at what successful companies are doing differently - and why having a real plan matters more than ever. From restaurant chains and changing consumer spending to business failures, bankruptcies, careers, money, health, and retirement, the same lesson keeps coming up: hoping things get better is not a strategy. This is a conversation about personal finance, business, the economy, and preparing for what comes next. Companies that adapt and execute a plan can find opportunities even in difficult times, while people and businesses without a strategy can quickly find themselves in trouble. The question is simple: What is your plan? Like and subscribe for Business News You Can Use."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"The Permission Grid: A Blueprint for a Permanent Slave Class"

"The Permission Grid:

 A Blueprint for a Permanent Slave Class"

by Chris MacIntosh

"Shoe-horned into the permission grid. It’s what they want and you know what? I think it’s what they’ll get. They’ll get it because there is a loss of agency amongst the populace. The pushback to this Orwellian nightmare is… in a word, pathetic.

The EU wants a passport for the peasants to access the internet. The justification. Why, of course. The kids. Who wouldn’t want to protect children? Only a psychopath or a pedophile. You’re not a psychopath or a pedophile, are you?

A digital identity system, tied to age verification, with a specific carve-out written into the design: "The new age verification system cannot be bypassed via VPN." They’re not just building a verification layer. They’re closing the one exit that lets the peasants opt out of it. VPNs exist for exactly one reason that matters here - they let you decide who gets to know where you are and who you are.

Blocking VPN circumvention isn’t a technical footnote. That’s the point. Now, I’m not a tech nerd, so I’ve no idea if this is mere posturing by these psychopaths, and if it is actually possible for them to achieve this… technically. The truth is, most of the peasants will simply comply. The cage is compliance of the mind, and most are already slaves.

The above isn’t happening in isolation. Look at where Europe has been walking, one regulation at a time: Cash transactions banned above €10,000. Bitcoin purchases require an ID above €1,000. Privacy coins banned outright. MiCA compliance costs pushing an estimated 90% of crypto firms out of the market.

Each of these, taken alone, gets defended in the same way these parasitic pedophile satanists always defend their actions: as consumer protection, anti-money-laundering policy, or tax compliance. Taken together, they form something else entirely: a system where every transaction, every wallet, every website you visit resolves back to a verified identity, and where the tools that let you route around that - cash, privacy coins, VPNs - are being systematically removed. This is the architecture of permission-based participation. Not "here’s what’s illegal." Instead: "Here’s what you’re allowed to do, and here’s how we confirm it’s you doing it."

Manufacturing the Consensus First: No population accepts such a totalitarian enslavement permission system voluntarily. It has to be made to feel inevitable first. That’s what the fraudulent climate narrative has done - and the people building the tracking infrastructure have told you so, in their own documents. The World Economic Forum presents three levers as a roadmap on its own website:"Economic behavior." Raise costs until compliance becomes cheaper than resistance.

"Cognitive Awareness." Raise the visibility of personal emissions until people believe a limit is normal.

"Social Norms." Redefine what a "fair share" of emissions looks like, and set the acceptable levels for you.

And BAM, you’re a slave begging permission to take a hot shower, turn on air conditioning, heck even have air conditioning… or heating for that matter. Any activity, permissioned.

This is no longer some mere scientific proposal. It’s a behavioral engineering framework. And its authors are explicit that public compliance is a prerequisite that has to be manufactured before the system can be deployed. The same WEF material cites Pew Research: "Nineteen-point jumps in "intense concern" in Germany about the personal effects of climate change. Eighteen points in the UK. A steady climb across every major economy in six years.

The WEF piece doesn’t present this as an interesting cultural shift. It presents it as the leading indicator that the public is now primed to accept personal carbon tracking - the exact language used is that this rising concern, layered on top of pandemic-era compliance with contact tracing and movement restrictions, demonstrates the "core of individual social responsibility" needed to make personal carbon allowances work."

Translate that: two years of manufactured urgency, a manufactured "global health crisis" used as a dry run for mass behavioural compliance, and now rising anxiety held up as proof the public is not only ready to be tracked, but it is the logical conclusion. That’s not consensus. That’s consensus manufactured on an industrial scale and by schedule.

It’s worth being precise about what this WEF document is: a thought piece describing an aspiration and a set of enabling technologies, not an adopted EU law. No government has passed a binding personal carbon allowance program yet. But the intent is stated plainly, the levers are named plainly, and the mechanism - AI-driven tracking, blockchain-verified records, tied to individual behavior - requires exactly the kind of persistent digital identity the EU’s age-verification system now being established (what the UK has just launched).

Identity verification without behaviour tracking is just a login page. Behavior tracking without identity verification is anonymous and useless to whoever wants to act on it. Put them together and you have a system that knows who you are and what you did, by design, with the anonymising tools removed by regulation.

We Have Seen This Before: Strip away the branding - carbon ledgers instead of ration books, an app instead of a commissar with a clipboard - and the underlying architecture is not new. It is the oldest failed idea in modern history, wearing a sustainability badge.

The Bolsheviks centralized decision-making in the name of fairness and collective survival. Mao’s China centralised agricultural and industrial output in the name of the greater good, with local compliance enforced through social pressure and quota systems. The USSR centralised production and consumption in the name of a planned, rational economy that would eliminate waste and want.

In every case, the pattern was identical. A small group of planners decides what a "fair share" of a resource looks like, builds the enforcement apparatus to track individual compliance, and removes the tools individuals would otherwise use to opt out.

In every case, the enforcement apparatus outlived the stated justification. And in every case, the death toll from top-down control of food, energy, and production ran into the tens of millions — not as a bug, but as the mathematically predictable result of removing distributed decision-making from a system as complex as a national economy.

A personal carbon allowance is a ration book. A digital identity tied to internet access with the circumvention tools blocked is the enforcement layer that a ration book never had. The technology is new. The instinct to centralize control over what people are permitted to consume, say, and access - and to justify it as being for the collective good - is not.

Total Control: Europe is building a system where every click, every transaction, and every website visit ties back to a digital passport, and where the tools you’d use to preserve any distance between yourself and that record are being closed off one by one.

Call the EU program consumer protection if you want. Call the WEF carbon proposal citizen engagement if you want. But look at what’s actually being built: identity-linked internet access, with circumvention blocked, arriving at the same moment as active proposals to track and score individual behavior using that same identity layer - built on top of a public mood that was, by the planners’ own account, deliberately cultivated to make it possible.

They’re not hiding it. It’s published on their own websites, in their own words. This is where regulatory arbitrage in a non-compliant society matters most. Consider the difference between a spoon-fed, indoctrinated, compliant, fearful and lazy Western mindset and their emerging market counterparts.

While I’m not here to propose that emerging markets are the panacea of free markets, some utopian free-wheeling society or anything of that nature. The very ability of inefficient bureaucracies (found in emerging markets) to effectively enact disastrous policies such as these mentioned, coupled with a populace far more resistant to compliance, layered with wide disparities in valuations, bodes relatively well for emerging markets over developed markets. The architecture of control described in this article is not theoretical."

- https://internationalman.com/