Live, "Overcome"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, November 26, 2020
"Ah, you miserable creatures!"
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great!
You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything!
Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough. "
- Frederic Bastiat
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Worthless, useless clowns and idiots...
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Stars are sometimes born in the midst of chaos. About 3 million years ago in the nearby galaxy M33, a large cloud of gas spawned dense internal knots which gravitationally collapsed to form stars. NGC 604 was so large, however, it could form enough stars to make a globular cluster.
Many young stars from this cloud are visible in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope, along with what is left of the initial gas cloud. Some stars were so massive they have already evolved and exploded in a supernova. The brightest stars that are left emit light so energetic that they create one of the largest clouds of ionized hydrogen gas known, comparable to the Tarantula Nebula in our Milky Way's close neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121211.html
"And It Was Pointless..."
"And it was pointless to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn't changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You're left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it's knowing you carry your scars with you. "
- Charles Frazier
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"Never be ashamed of a scar.
It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you."
- Unknown
"Freely Read “Shantaram” Online, by Gregory David Roberts"
“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope.
Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.
In the end that’s all we have – to hold on tight until dawn.”
- Gregory David Roberts, “Shantaram”
“Shantaram”
by Gregory David Roberts
“Crime and punishment, passion and loyalty, betrayal and redemption are only a few of the ingredients in “Shantaram,” a massive, over-the-top, mostly autobiographical novel. Shantaram is the name given Mr. Lindsay, or Linbaba, the larger-than-life hero. It means “man of God’s peace,” which is what the Indian people know of Lin. What they do not know is that prior to his arrival in Bombay he escaped from an Australian prison where he had begun serving a 19-year sentence. He served two years and leaped over the wall. He was imprisoned for a string of armed robberies peformed to support his heroin addiction, which started when his marriage fell apart and he lost custody of his daughter. All of that is enough for several lifetimes, but for Greg Roberts, that’s only the beginning.
He arrives in Bombay with little money, an assumed name, false papers, an untellable past, and no plans for the future. Fortunately, he meets Prabaker right away, a sweet, smiling man who is a street guide. He takes to Lin immediately, eventually introducing him to his home village, where they end up living for six months. When they return to Bombay, they take up residence in a sprawling illegal slum of 25,000 people and Linbaba becomes the resident “doctor.” With a prison knowledge of first aid and whatever medicines he can cadge from doing trades with the local Mafia, he sets up a practice and is regarded as heaven-sent by these poor people who have nothing but illness, rat bites, dysentery, and anemia. He also meets Karla, an enigmatic Swiss-American woman, with whom he falls in love. Theirs is a complicated relationship, and Karla’s connections are murky from the outset.
Roberts is not reluctant to wax poetic; in fact, some of his prose is downright embarrassing. Throughout the novel, however, all 944 pages of it, every single sentence rings true. He is a tough guy with a tender heart, one capable of what is judged criminal behavior, but a basically decent, intelligent man who would never intentionally hurt anyone, especially anyone he knew. He is a magnet for trouble, a soldier of fortune, a picaresque hero: the rascal who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. His story is irresistible. Stay tuned for the prequel and the sequel.”
– Valerie Ryan
Freely read “Shantaram” online, by Gregory David Roberts, here:
There is a download option for registered users.
"Your Only Choice..."
”There is a point of no return, unremarked at the time, in most lives.”
- Graham Greene
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“When swimming into a dark tunnel, there arrives a point of no
return when you no longer have enough breath to double back.
Your only choice is to swim forward into the unknown… and pray for an exit.”
- Dan Brown
"Horror Of America’s New Breadlines! We Haven’t Seen This Much Suffering Since The Great Depression"
"Horror Of America’s New Breadlines! We Haven’t
Seen This Much Suffering Since The Great Depression"
by Epic Economist
"Never before have we seen so much collective suffering on Thanksgiving. With our entire nation facing major hardships and, on top of everything, impeded to gather with their loved ones, this is a very difficult moment that makes it hard to feel grateful about anything. Facing so many meaningful losses and so much uncertainty, several American families are still having to cope with hunger in this holiday season. Over 70 million unemployment claims were filed so far, and numbers keep surging as businesses continue to break down.
This year has taken away people's jobs, cars, homes, family members, friends, businesses, and dreams, leading a lot of them to an economic desperation last witnessed during the Great Depression, and some might argue what we have experienced so far is just the start. Much like the 30s, people have been waiting in line for hours to receive some food to have what to eat during the holidays, and as we approach a very dark winter, things are bound to get even worse. That what we talk about in this video.
After losing their main sources of income, people have been waiting for hours in food bank lines to guarantee some basic food supplies they can no longer afford. Enormous food handouts are being organized all over the country to provide prepackaged boxes of Thanksgiving meals for U.S. residents. Their cars line for miles, and for many of them there is no other choice. “If it wasn’t for this place, we wouldn’t know where we would get our food,” a woman told CNN.
Food bank officials have noticed a staggering increase in demand for food assistance, more than eight times higher than normal. Many "fancy vehicles" are spotted in the lines, which indicates how a significant share of these individuals were probably accustomed to living comfortable middle-class lifestyles. But after the current economic downturn ravaged their “stable lives”, they suddenly found themselves having to rely on external assistance to get enough to eat.
While for some this was a new experience for others it was a monthly trip, and an essential part of their survival. A new Feeding America study estimates that 15 million more people will live in food-insecure homes in the U.S. by the end of the year. Food banks have consistently seen a 60 percent increase in demand compared to this time last year, and continue to require more food and resources to provide to people in need.
Every day it goes by, the food cliff seems to be looming for a multitude of U.S. families. That's what the executive director of a Californian food bank Nicole Celaya has recently outlined. "The food system hasn't done a very good job of meeting the increased need. As viral case numbers continue to rise, it's going to get worse".
What is even more concerning is that Feeding America has persistently warned that without further federal aid a massive meal shortage will happen in food banks. This means that a hunger calamity on the same scale seen in poorer countries isn't that far from becoming a reality in America. The deterioration of economic conditions is one of the main drivers behind increasing hunger rates, but other determinants are also influencing this situation to get progressively tougher.
This year, the convergence of a health crisis, an economic downturn, and the electoral run, has made Congress pass less-generous benefits for unemployment assistance programs that by now have already disappeared or soon will for millions of Americans.
Our leaders have been failing us and our governors cannot even be used as a reference of appropriate conduct. While they enacted multiple campaigns to ask people not to congregate with friends and family on Thanksgiving to allegedly help to curb cases - in some states even imposing strict rules that kept people from having social gatherings with over 6 members and threatening law enforcement and fines to those who didn't comply - many of them kept their plans to travel and spend the holidays with their families.
After people became understandably angry at their hypocrisy, government representatives dared to suggest that the public should "focus on being grateful" since that is "what the holidays are all about". Amid supply chain shortages, soaring prices, overwhelmed food banks, collapsing businesses, mounting food and housing insecurity, and the surge of a viral infection that compromises people's health and oftentimes, their lives - what exactly can we be grateful for."
"The Test..."
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Life Lessons From a Psychiatrist Who’s Been Listening to People’s Problems For Decades”
“Life Lessons From a Psychiatrist Who’s Been
Listening to People’s Problems For Decades”
by Thomas Oppong
“How you approach life says a lot about who you are. As I get deeper into my late 30s I have learned to focus more on experiences that bring meaning and fulfilment to my life. I try to consistently pursue life goals that will make me and my closest relations happy; a trait that many individuals search for their entire lives. Nothing gives a person inner wholeness and peace like a distinct understanding of where they are going, how they can get there, and a sense of control over their actions.
Seneca once said, “Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.” “No people can be truly happy if they do not feel that they are choosing the course of their own life,” stated the World Happiness Report 2012. The report also found that having this freedom of choice is one of the six factors that explain why some people are happier than others.
In his best-selling first book, “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now”, Dr Gordon Livingston, a psychiatrist who’s been listening to people’s problems for decades, revealed thirty bedrock truths about life, and how best to live it. In his capacity as a psychiatrist, Dr Livingston listened to people talk about their lives and the many ways people induced unhappiness on themselves. In his book, he brings his insight and wisdom to the subjects of happiness, fear and courage.
“Life’s two most important questions are “Why?” and “Why not?” The trick is knowing which one to ask.” Acquiring some understanding of why we do things is often a prerequisite to change. This is especially true when talking about repetitive patterns of behavior that do not serve us well. This is what Socrates meant when he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” That more of us do not take his advice is testimony to the hard work and potential embarrassment that self-examination implies.”
Most people operate on autopilot, doing the same things today that didn’t work yesterday. They rarely stop to measure the impact of their actions on themselves and others, and how those actions affect their total well-being. They are caught in a cycle. And once you get caught in the loop, it can be difficult to break free and do something meaningful. Past behavior is the most reliable predictor of future behavior.
If your daily actions and choices are making you unhappy, make a deliberate choice to change direction. No matter how bleak or desperate a situation may appear to look, you always have a choice. “People often come to me asking for medication. They are tired of their sad mood, fatigue, and loss of interest in things that previously gave them pleasure. ”…“Their days are routine: unsatisfying jobs, few friends, lots of boredom. They feel cut off from the pleasures enjoyed by others.
Here is what I tell them: The good news is that we have effective treatments for the symptoms of depression; the bad news is that medication will not make you happy. Happiness is not simply the absence of despair. It is an affirmative state in which our lives have both meaning and pleasure.” “In general we get, not what we deserve, but what we expect,” he says.
Most people know what is good for them, they know what will make them feel better. They don’t avoid meaningful life habits because of ignorance of their value, but because they are no longer “motivated” to do them, Dr Livingston found. They are waiting until they feel better. Frequently, it’s a long wait, he says. Life is too short to wait for a great day to invest in better life experiences.
Most unhappiness is self-induced, Dr Livingston found. “The three components of happiness are something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to. Think about it. If we have useful work, sustaining relationships, and the promise of pleasure, it is hard to be unhappy. I use the term “work” to encompass any activity, paid or unpaid, that gives us a feeling of personal significance. If we have a compelling avocation that lends meaning to our lives, that is our work, ” says Dr Livingston.
Many experiences in life that bring happiness are in your control. The more choices you are able to exercise, and control, the happier you are likely to be. “Happiness is an inside job. Don’t assign anyone else that much power over your life,” says Mandy Hale. Many people wait for something to happen or someone to help them live their best lives. They expect others to make them happy. They think they have lost the ability to improve their lives.
The thing that characterizes those who struggle emotionally is that they have lost, or believe they have lost, their ability to choose those behaviors that will make them happy, says Dr Livingston. You are responsible for your own life experiences, whether you are seeking a meaningful life or a happy life. If you expect others to make you happy, you will always be disappointed.
You can consistently choose actions that could become everyday habits. It takes time, but it’s an investment that will be worth your while. “Virtually all the happiness-producing processes in our lives take time, usually a long time: Learning new things, changing old behaviors, building new relationships, raising children. This is why patience and determination are among life’s primary virtues,”
Most people are stuck in life because of fear. Fear of everything outside their safe zones. Your mind has a way of rising to the occasion. Challenge it, and it will reward you. Your determination to overcome fear and discouragement constitutes the only effective antidote to that feeling on unhappiness you don’t want. Dr Livingston explains. “The most secure prisons are those we construct for ourselves. I frequently ask people who are risk-averse, “What is the biggest chance you have ever taken?” People begin to realize what “safe” lives they have chosen to lead.”
“Everything we are afraid to try, all our unfulfilled dreams, constitute a limitation on what we are and could become. Usually it is fear and its close cousin, anxiety, that keep us from doing those things that would make us happy. So much of our lives consists of broken promises to ourselves. The things we long to do — educate ourselves, become successful in our work, fall in love — are goals shared by all. Nor are the means to achieve these things obscure. And yet we often do not do what is necessary to become the people we want to be.”
As you increasingly install experiences of acceptance, gratitude, accomplishment, and feeling that there’s a fullness in your life rather than an emptiness or a scarcity, you will be able to deal with the issues of life better.
Closing thoughts: Dr Livingston’s words feel true and profound. The real secret to a happy life is selective attention, he says. If you choose to focus your awareness and energy on things and people that bring you pleasure and satisfaction, you have a very good chance of being happy in a world full of unhappiness, uncertainty, and fear."
Musical Interlude: Moody Blues, "Gypsy"
Moody Blues, "Gypsy"
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“Falling Stars"
"Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes - do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Do you recall?
The Poet: Wendell Berry, "The Circles Of Our Lives"
"The Circles Of Our Lives"
"Within the circles of our lives
we dance the circles of the years,
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon,
within the circles of the seasons,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.
Again, again we come and go,
changed, changing. Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear,
grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.
Only music keeps us here,
each by all the others held.
In the hold of hands and eyes
we turn in pairs, that joining
joining each to all again.
And then we turn aside, alone,
out of the sunlight gone
into the darker circles of return,
Within the circles of our lives."
- Wendell Berry
"Too Often..."
"The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt."
- Leo Buscaglia
"We Haven’t Seen This Much Suffering On Thanksgiving Since The Great Depression Of The 1930s"
"We Haven’t Seen This Much Suffering On Thanksgiving
Since The Great Depression Of The 1930s"
by Michael Snyder
"In my entire lifetime, there has never been a Thanksgiving like this. 39 million Americans don’t have enough to eat right now, more than 70 million claims for unemployment benefits have been filed so far during this calendar year, and people are waiting in line for hours at food banks all over the nation just for some Thanksgiving handouts. If you and your family have plenty of turkey to eat, you should be very thankful, because many Americans can no longer even take Thanksgiving dinner for granted these days. On Tuesday, vehicles were lined up for hours in New Jersey as people waited to receive prepackaged Thanksgiving meals at a local food bank:
"Video obtained by CNN on Tuesday from the Meadowlands entertainment complex in New Jersey showed residents waiting for several hours to obtain prepackaged boxes of meals for the Thanksgiving holiday. “If it wasn’t for this place, we wouldn’t know where we would get our food,” one distraught woman told CNN of the food bank in East Rutherford, N.J."
Of course we have been seeing similar wait times all over the nation. At one food bank in Texas, demand for Thanksgiving meals was more than eight times higher than normal: "Food bank officials in Dallas, Texas, have also noticed a staggering increase in demand for food assistance. North Texas Food Bank representatives told the Dallas Morning News that they handed out roughly 8,500 meals to local families during a giveaway on Saturday that in years past has seen fewer than 1,000 show up for donations."
You can see a stunning photograph of vehicles lined up for that food distribution event right here. There are a lot of really nice vehicles in that picture. Many of those individuals are probably accustomed to living comfortable middle class lifestyles, but just like I warned in my new book they are “suddenly” in need of food because this economic downturn has turned their worlds completely upside down.
Yes, there have always been hungry people in America, but what we are witnessing now is hard to fathom. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 12 percent of all Americans did not have enough food to eat between October 28th and November 9th: "As the coronavirus pandemic continues to surge, more Americans are reporting going hungry, a Washington Post analysis found.
In data collected by the Census Bureau between Oct. 28 and Nov. 9, around 12 percent of all American adults reported not having enough food to eat, a figure higher than at any other point since the pandemic began earlier this year. It is estimated that the current population of the United States is 328 million. If you take 12 percent of 328 million, you get more than 39 million Americans that are going hungry right now."
And this is just the beginning. Thanks to the new lockdowns that are being instituted all over the country, the number of Americans that are filing for unemployment benefits is starting to rise again: "The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week to 778,000, evidence that the U.S. economy and job market remain under strain as coronavirus cases surge and colder weather heighten the risks. The Labor Department’s report Wednesday said jobless claims climbed from 748,000 the week before. Before the virus struck hard in mid-March, weekly claims typically amounted to roughly 225,000."
Overall, more than 70 million new claims for unemployment benefits have been filed in 2020. As I discussed yesterday, we have never seen anything like this before in all of U.S. history.
At this point, even Hollywood is conducting mass layoffs. More job loss announcements just keep rolling in with each passing day, and I expect that to continue all throughout the very dark winter ahead.
Other economic numbers also tell us that the U.S. economy is definitely heading in the wrong direction: "The data firm Womply says that 21% of small businesses were shuttered at the start of this month, reflecting a steady increase from June’s 16% rate. Consumer spending at local businesses is down 27% this month from a year ago, marking a deterioration from a 20% year-over-year drop in October, Womply found."
If you think that anyone is going to be able to wave a magic wand and fix this mess, you are just being delusional.
There are millions upon millions of Americans that have already been pushed to the breaking point by this pandemic. One of those individuals is a 38-year-old California resident named Andrew Lee: “I’ve exhausted all of my unemployment benefits. I’ve had to resort to food stamps and [California’s Medicaid program] for the first time in my life. I’m backdated on my rent and my credit has been ruined,” said 38-year-old Andrew Lee, who lives in a suburb of Los Angeles with his wife and two children."
Lee lost his job as a business development director several months before the pandemic. But once it hit, it became that much harder to find work. And he didn’t initially qualify for any pandemic-related unemployment benefits. His car has been repossessed and his wife’s car has also been repossessed. So even if they could find jobs, how are they supposed to get to work?
Lee is just like so many other hurting Americans. First he ran through all of his savings, and then he started relying on his credit cards. Now that his unemployment benefits have been exhausted, he is out of options, and his family is a step or two from becoming homeless.
In the months ahead, tens of millions of others will find themselves facing similar scenarios. This is what an economic collapse looks like. The United States hasn’t had to face anything like this since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and what we have experienced so far is just the start.
In 2019, I received quite a bit of criticism because the economy was relatively stable and to many people it seemed like an “economic collapse” was not even remotely a possibility. But now an economic collapse has officially arrived, and all of the things that I have been warning about are starting to happen one right after the other. The “perfect storm” is upon us, and most Americans still do not understand the horrors that lie ahead."
"The Most Precious Gift I Have..."
"Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself. "
- Walter Anderson
“Here’s The Real Story About Thanksgiving You’ve Never Heard”
“Here’s The Real Story About Thanksgiving You’ve Never Heard”
Especially the parts about Squanto the “friendly Indian.”
by Nick Bauman
“The Thanksgiving story you know probably goes a bit like this: English Pilgrims, seeking religious freedom, landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they found a rich land full of animals and were greeted by a friendly Indian named Squanto, who taught them how to plant corn. The true story is more complicated. Once you learn about the real Squanto- also known as Tisquantum- you’ll have a great yarn to tell your family over the Thanksgiving table.
I asked historian Charles Mann, the author of “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus”, and Paula Peters, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and an expert on Wampanoag history, to tell me the real story. “This is not revisionist history,” Peters promised. “This is history that’s just been overlooked because people have become very, very comfortable with the story of happy Pilgrims and friendly Indians. They’re very content with that- even to the point where no one really questioned how is it that Squanto knew how to speak perfect English when they came.”
Here’s what really happened. In 1614, six years before the Pilgrims landed in modern-day Massachusetts, an Englishman named Thomas Hunt kidnapped Tisquantum from his village, Patuxet, which was part of a group of villages known as the Wampanoag confederation. (Europeans had started visiting the northeast of what is now the United States by the 1520s, and probably as early as the 1480s.) Hunt took Tisquantum and around two dozen other kidnapped Wampanoag to Spain, where he tried to sell them into slavery.
“It caused quite a commotion when this guy showed up trying to sell these people,” Mann said. “A bunch of people in the church said no way.” Tisquantum escaped slavery- with the help of Catholic friars, according to some accounts- then somehow found his way to England. He finally made it back to what is now Massachusetts in 1619. As far as historians can tell, Tisquantum was the only one of the kidnapped Wampanoags to ever return to North America, Peters notes.
As far as historians can tell, Tisquantum was the only one of the kidnapped Wampanoags to ever return to North America. But while Tisquantum was in Europe, an epidemic had swept across New England. “The account that’s recorded by Gov. Bradford of Plymouth Plantation is that there’s a shipwreck of French sailors that year on Cape Cod,” Mann said. “One of them carried some disease and it wiped out a huge percentage of the population in coastal new England. The guess is it was some kind of viral hepatitis, which is easily communicated in water. It exploded like chains of firecrackers.”
When Tisquantum returned to Patuxet, he found that he was the village’s only survivor. “Into this bumbled the Pilgrims,” Mann said. “They had shown up in New England a few weeks before winter. Up until the Pilgrims, the pattern had been pretty clear. Europeans would show up, and Indians would be interested in their trade goods, but they were really uninterested in letting [Europeans] permanently occupy land.” Often, armed native people would even force Europeans to leave if they attempted to stay too long.
This time, the Europeans wanted to stay, and the disease that had decimated Patuxet ensured that they had a place to settle. “Patuxet ultimately becomes Plymouth,” Peters explained. “They find this cleared land and just the bones of the Indians. They called it divine providence: God killed these Indians so we could live here.” A website Peters helped create for the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival puts it even more bluntly: “The graveyard of [Tisquantum's] people became Plymouth Colony.”
Massasoit, a local Wampanoag leader, didn’t trust Tisquantum. “He looks at this guy and smells trouble,” Mann said. Massasoit kept Tisquantum under what was essentially house arrest until the Pilgrims showed up and promptly started starving to death.
Patuxet wasn’t the only native village decimated by the plague. The entire Wampanoag confederation had been badly hit – as much as 75 percent of the Wampanoag population was wiped out, Mann said. But the Narragansett, a rival neighboring group, basically weren’t affected by the disease at all. That put the Wampanoag in a precarious strategic position. Massasoit had an idea. “He decides we’ll ally with these guys, set up a good trading relationship, control supply of English goods, and the Narragansett won’t be able to attack us,” Mann said. On March 22, 1621, Massasoit went to meet with the Pilgrims. He brought Tisquantum along to translate.
Mann described the meeting in a 2005 article in Smithsonian Magazine: “Tisquantum most likely was not the name he was given at birth. In that part of the Northeast, tisquantum referred to rage, especially the rage of manitou, the world-suffusing spiritual power at the heart of coastal Indians’ religious beliefs. When Tisquantum approached the Pilgrims and identified himself by that sobriquet, it was as if he had stuck out his hand and said, “Hello, I’m the Wrath of God.”
Massasoit was right not to trust Tisquantum, who soon tried to pit the Pilgrims against him. But the plan didn’t work: Massasoit “is just pissed off and demands the Pilgrims hand him over because he’s gonna execute him,” Mann said. The Pilgrims didn’t. Instead, Tisquantum stayed in the colony with them, helping them prepare for the next winter.
“Never did the newcomers ask themselves why he might be making himself essential,” Mann wrote in Smithsonian. “But from the Pilgrims’ accounts of their dealings with him, the answer seems clear: the alternative to staying in Plymouth was returning to Massasoit and renewed captivity.”
It’s all a lot more complicated – Machiavellian, even – than the story you might have learned. Mann in Smithsonian again: “By fall the settlers’ situation was secure enough that they held a feast of thanksgiving. Massasoit showed up with “some ninety men,” Winslow later recalled, most of them with weapons. The Pilgrim militia responded by marching around and firing their guns in the air in a manner intended to convey menace. Gratified, both sides sat down, ate a lot of food and complained about the Narragansett. Ecce Thanksgiving.”
So what does this all mean? “While it was by far not the first occasion of human trafficking conducted by European explorers to the new world, the capture of Squanto and his fellow tribesmen would forever alter the course of history for people on two continents,” Peters wrote on the anniversary website. “We learn about Columbus landing in 1492 and it’s as if nothing happened for over 100 years until the Pilgrims landed,” Mann added. “But the Tisquantum story gives you this tiny peek into that all the people involved had been interacting for more than a century. And today, of course, the Wampanoag are still around.”
Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 11/26/2020"
"Weekly News Wrap-Up 11/26/2020"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Voter fraud was on display Thursday at a hearing put on by the Pennsylvania State Legislature. The hearing was given to legislators responsible for allocating the state’s 20 Electoral College votes for President of the United States. Massive voter fraud was alleged by Rudy Giuliani, who is spearheading the President’s election legal team. Giuliani highlighted dozens of people who witnessed fraud on many levels. One expert testified Biden had nearly 600,000 votes dumped on his side of the ledger, while Trump vote dumps were 3,200. All states have at least one illegal thing in common and that is mail-in ballots that were fraudulently counted and used. The Trump team says it will prove in court the President won on election night by a landslide, and fraud stole the election from him in several states.
Half the ballots cast in the 2020 election in Nevada were mail-in ballots. The Trump election team says one huge flaw is the signatures were not verified and, in many cases, not even signed. This makes them invalid and unconstitutional. This is a huge problem in all contested states in the 2020 election. Just this one illegal voting flaw is enough to turn the election back to Trump’s favor in all contested states. There were many other forms of election fraud as well, according to people suing for the President and “We the People.”
Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks. Greg Hunter has a message and will talk about that and many other stories in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Endless Horizon"
Deuter, "Endless Horizon"
Full screen mode please. Feel it...
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"I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colors and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, not any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.
That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense.
For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue."
- William Wordsworth,
"Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"
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“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that
only loneliness can help you find them again.
Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them.
Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”
- Gregory David Roberts, "Shantaram"
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