Running 'Cause I Can't Fly 2

Saturday, January 2, 2021

The Poet: Arthur O’Shaughnessy"Music and Moonlight"

"Music and Moonlight"

"We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone seabreakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world forever, it seems…

We, in the ages lying

In the buried past of the earth,

Built Ninevah with our sighing,

And Babel itself in our mirth;

And o’erthrew them with prophesying

To the old of the new world’s worth;

For each age is a dream that is dying,

Or one that is coming to birth."

- Arthur O’Shaughnessy

The Daily "Near You?"

El Tejo, Cantabria, Spain. Thanks for stopping by!

“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”

“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”

by  Robert Fulghum

“In the summer of 1959, at the Feather River Inn near the town of Blairsden in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of northern California. A resort environment. And I, just out of college, have a job that combines being the night desk clerk in the lodge and helping out with the horse-wrangling at the stables. The owner/manager is Italian-Swiss, with European notions about conditions of employment. He and I do not get along. I think he’s a fascist who wants pleasant employees who know their place, and he thinks I’m a good example of how democracy can be carried too far. I’m twenty-two and pretty free with my opinions, and he’s fifty-two and has a few opinions of his own. One week the employees had been served the same thing for lunch every single day. Two wieners, a mound of sauerkraut, and stale rolls. To compound insult with injury, the cost of meals was deducted from our check. I was outraged.   On Friday night of that awful week, I was at my desk job around 11:00 P.M., and the night auditor had just come on duty. I went into the kitchen to get a bite to eat and saw notes to the chef to the effect that wieners and sauerkraut are on the employee menu for two more days.  That tears it. I quit! For lack of a better audience, I unloaded on the night auditor, Sigmund Wollman.

I declared that I have had it up to here; that I am going to get a plate of wieners and sauerkraut and go and wake up the owner and throw it on him.

I am sick and tired of this crap and insulted and nobody is going to make me eat wieners and sauerkraut for a whole week and make me pay for it and who does he think he is anyhow and how can life be sustained on wieners and sauerkraut and this is un-American and I don’t like wieners and sauerkraut enough to eat it one day for God’s sake and the whole hotel stinks anyhow and the horses are all nags and the guests are all idiots and I’m packing my bags and heading for Montana where they never even heard of wieners and sauerkraut and wouldn’t feed that stuff to the pigs. Something like that. I’m still mad about it.

I raved on this way for twenty minutes, and needn’t repeat it all here. You get the drift. My monologue was delivered at the top of my lungs, punctuated by blows on the front desk with a fly-swatter, the kicking of chairs, and much profanity. A call to arms, freedom, unions, uprisings, and the breaking of chains for the working masses.

As I pitched my fit, Sigmund Wollman, the night auditor, sat quietly on his stool, smoking a cigarette, watching me with sorrowful eyes. Put a bloodhound in a suit and tie and you have Sigmund Wollman. He’s got good reason to look sorrowful. Survivor of Auschwitz. Three years. German Jew. Thin, coughed a lot. He liked being alone at the night job – gave him intellectual space, gave him peace and quiet, and, even more, he could go into the kitchen and have a snack whenever he wanted to – all the wieners and sauerkraut he wanted. To him, a feast. More than that, there’s nobody around at night to tell him what to do. In Auschwitz he dreamed of such a time. The only person he sees at work is me, the nightly disturber of his dream. Our shifts overlap for an hour. And here I am again. A one-man war party at full cry.

“Fulchum, are you finished?”

“No. Why?”

"Lissen, Fulchum. Lissen me, lissen me. You know what’s wrong with you? It’s not wieners and kraut and it’s not the boss and it’s not the chef and it’s not this job.”

“So what’s wrong with me?”

“Fulchum, you think you know everything, but you don’t know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems. You will live longer. And will not annoy people like me so much. Good night.” In a gesture combining dismissal and blessing, he waved me off to bed.

Seldom in my life have I been hit between the eyes with a truth so hard. Years later I heard a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest describe what the moment of enlightenment was like and I knew exactly what he meant. There in that late-night darkness of the Feather River Inn, Sigmund Wollman simultaneously kicked my butt and opened a window in my mind.

For thirty years now, in times of stress and strain, when something has me backed against the wall and I’m ready to do something really stupid with my anger, a sorrowful face appears in my mind and asks: “Fulchum. Problem or inconvenience?” I think of this as the Wollman Test of Reality. Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference. Good night, Sig.”

- http://livinglifefully.com/

"How It Really Is"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 1/2/21"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 1/2/21"

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak
Jan. 2 2021 12:09 AM ET:

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 83,948,500

people, according to official counts, including 20,173,382 Americans.

At least 1,826,600 have died.

Jan. 2, 2021 12:09 PM AT:

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

- www.nytimes.com

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"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases,
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
- https://covidtracking.com/
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- https://www.cdc.gov/library/covid19/112420_covidupdate.html

"Helpless People"

“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident

which everybody had decided not to see."

~ Ayn Rand

“Almost all Americans have had an intense school experience which occupied their entire youth, an experience during which they were drilled thoroughly in the culture and economy of the well-schooled greater society, in which individuals have been rendered helpless to do much of anything except watch television or punch buttons on a keypad.

Before you begin to blame the childish for being that way and join the chorus of those defending the general imprisonment of adults and the schooling by force of children because there isn’t any other way to handle the mob, you want to at least consider the possibility that we’ve been trained in childishness and helplessness for a reason. And that reason is that helpless people are easy to manage.

Helpless people can be counted upon to act as their own jailers because they are so inadequate to complex reality they are afraid of new experience. They’re like animals whose spirits have been broken. Helpless people take orders well, they don’t have minds of their own, they are predictable, they won’t surprise corporations or governments with resistance to the newest product craze, the newest genetic patent - or by armed revolution. Helpless people can be counted on to despise independent citizens and hence they act as a fifth column in opposition to social change in the direction of personal sovereignty.”

- John Taylor Gatto,

“Some Reflections on the Equivalencies

Between Forced Schooling and Prison.”

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Related, highly recommended:

"Everybody Does It"

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Big Brother & The Holding Company,

"Heartache People"

Friday, January 1, 2021

Must Watch! “My Eye Opening First Day Of 2021; Take Advantage Of Your Time; Americans Can't Stop Spending Money”

Jeremiah Babe,

“My Eye Opening First Day Of 2021;

Take Advantage Of Your Time; Americans Can't Stop Spending Money”

Full screen highly recommended, in absolute contempt and disgust.

"The End Game: Prepare For Economic Collapse 2021 Apocalyptic Market Crash!"

"The End Game: Prepare For
Economic Collapse 2021 Apocalyptic Market Crash!"

by Epic Economist

"Today, we are leaving a year of economic collapse events. We are about to witness the downfall of society as we know it and the rise of a new reality. The collapse of the United States economy will have several more chapters and we'll be here reporting every one of them. In today's video, we decided to bring economic experts' insights on how the end game will be played. So be ready for the next apocalyptic stock market crash and the collapse of America.

In a recent publishing, the award-winning global macro asset management firm Crescat posted a letter to investors written by the founder and CIO Kevin C. Smith, and partner and portfolio manager Tavi Costa describing how markets are expected to perform over the next phases of the collapse and outlining how policymakers have set our economy for its greatest demise. The strategists point out that markets are cyclical, and currently, while stocks trade at record high valuations commodities are historically undervalued. That's the set up for a major change in the performance of both asset classes. As they presented in this chart, similar conditions were seen during the 1972 Nifty Fifty and 2000 Dotcom bubbles.

As capital tends to move towards the highest growth and lowest valuation opportunities, investors are expected to rotate or completely move away their assets from expensive deflation-era growth equities and fixed income securities and head towards cheap hard assets, ultimately reversing the 30-year downward trend of money velocity. Our current system based on Modern Monetary Theory and its two-fold and monetary stimulus is colliding head to head with an accumulation of years of reduced investments in the basic industries such as materials, energy, and agriculture. That's why, according to their analysis, the "end game" for both of the Fed's asset bubbles in stocks is inflation. And it has already arrived on the commodity front.

For that reason, Smith and Costa advise that investors should turn to hard assets such as gold and silver to protect their wealth. The monetary metals are amongst the most scarce resources on the planet, however, they have been facing a fresh surge of investor demand. By scrutinizing the supply conditions, the precious metals have been in the disinflationary zone since the precious metals mining industry’s latest peak in 2011, when gold and silver miners started to be criticized by investors as being capital destroyers. As a consequence, the industry's spending patterns have completely changed over the past decade. Major companies have purposely underinvested in replacing their reserves to create a supply cliff for the industry while also significantly boosting free cash flow.

Another key driver for the upsurge in gold prices in terms of demand is the falling real interest rates, which, according to the experts, are a combined reflection of central bank interest rate suppression tactics and investors’ rising inflation expectations. The lastest plunge lower in real yields, which is being shown inverted in the chart, was different from the price of gold - a clear signal of a strong imminent upward trend for the metal once again.

Overall, the outlook for gold is connected with the major imbalances we are seeing in the U.S. economy right now. The Federal Reserve's ability to prevent inflation is severely impaired at this point. Instead, it has actually become the main funding mechanism to it through its monumental purchases of US Treasuries, allowing the US government to run a large fiscal deficit. In reality, the Fed has no independence in the matter whatsoever. It has to keep funding the government’s fiscal stimulus programs as the lender of last resort. And as we learned with the repo crisis, liquidity can also be necessary in the short-run to avoid the collapse of the equity and corporate bond markets, but only to a certain extent - not at all as a firehose inside the markets as we are witnessing right now, because, in turn, it pushes commodity prices up and unleashes a massive real-world inflation. That's the direct byproduct of the newly printed money, and it is the killer of record overvalued financial assets. In other words, even if everything else fails to spark an apocalyptic stock market crash - which seems highly unlikely since our economy is already shaking to the core - inflation most definitely will. And that's, my dear viewers, is how the game ends with a major economic collapse and a new one era begins."

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Herb Ernst, "Awakening Stars"

Herb Ernst, "Awakening Stars"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Braided, serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Like its mythological namesake, the nebula is associated with a dramatic transformation.

The planetary nebula phase represents a final stage in the evolution of low mass stars like the sun, as they transform themselves from red giants to hot white dwarf stars and in the process shrug off their outer layers. Ultraviolet radiation from the hot star powers the nebular glow. The Medusa's transforming star is near the center of the overall bright crescent shape. In this deep telescopic view, fainter filaments clearly extend below and to the left of the bright crescent region. The Medusa Nebula is estimated to be over 4 light-years across.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121025.html

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "One"

"One"

"The mosquito is so small

it takes almost nothing to ruin it.

Each leaf, the same.

And the black ant, hurrying.

So many lives, so many fortunes!

Every morning, I walk softly and with forward glances

down to the ponds and through the pinewoods.

Mushrooms, even, have but a brief hour

before the slug creeps to the feast,

before the pine needles hustle down

under the bundles of harsh, beneficent rain.

How many, how many, how many

make up a world!

And then I think of that old idea: the singular

and the eternal.

One cup, in which everything is swirled

back to the color of the sea and sky.

Imagine it!

A shining cup, surely!

In the moment in which there is no wind

over your shoulder,

you stare down into it,

and there you are,

your own darling face, your own eyes.

And then the wind, not thinking of you, just passes by,

touching the ant, the mosquito, the leaf,

and you know what else!

How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky,

how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you,

even your eyes, even your imagination."

~ Mary Oliver

"Today Is The Day..."

"We are fast moving into something, we are fast flung into something like asteroids cast into space by the death of a planet, we the people of earth are cast into space like burning asteroids and if we wish not to disintegrate into nothingness we must begin to now hold onto only the things that matter while letting go of all that doesn't. For when all of our dust and ice deteriorates into the cosmos we will be left only with ourselves and nothing else. So if you want to be there in the end, today is the day to start holding onto your children, holding onto your loved ones; onto those who share your soul. Harbor and anchor into your heart justice, truth, courage, bravery, belief, a firm vision, a steadfast and sound mind. Be the person of meaningful and valuable thoughts. Don't look to the left, don't look to the right; we simply don't have the time. Never be afraid of fear."

- C. JoyBell C.

The Daily "Near You?"

Northwood, Ohio, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"No Special Hurry..."

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.”

- Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell To Arms”

"Maybe..."

“Maybe we’re not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes to simply be a human. Maybe, we’re thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe, we’re thankful for the things we’ll never know. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate.”

- “Grey’s Anatomy”

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 1/1/21"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 1/1/21"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"More this week on the 2020 election fraud, this time in Georgia, and, yes, there was more proof and lots of it. We find that Georgia voting machines were sending information to China, ballots were being shredded and people were caught on camera running the same stacks of ballots through the counting machines three and four times. If that’s not election fraud, I don’t know what is. As more and more fraud is exposed, the cover-up grows more and more desperate. More than just voter fraud is being revealed, and it looks like treason and sedition.

The Marxists on the Left would like you to think the election is over and everybody will just have to choke down the massive fraud. After all, the Deep State globalist Democrats cheated Joe and others in fair and square - right? The fight is far from over, and each revelation of more fraud and crime destroys the myth that Joe Biden actually won. Keep your faith because this fight is far from over. Biden lost in a landslide, the massive fraud just covered it up.

Gold and silver are up for the year, and Bitcoin is way up. What is going on? Is this the year the dollar falls and falls big time because of all the money printing and election chaos? The U.S. dollar is already off more than 5% since Election Day. Will the plunge intensify in 2021?

Have a Happy New Year, and please continue to “Fear Not.” They want you to be afraid - Don’t Be!!"

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he

talks about the year ahead in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.

"How It Really Is"

"2021 Can't Be Any Worse, Can It?"

"2021 Can't Be Any Worse, Can It?"

by Michael Reagan

"What a difference a terrible year makes. Last year at this time, my wife, Colleen the travel agent, and I were getting ready to take 40 of her clients on a 15-day cruise out of Dubai to India and back. This year, thanks to the COVID-19 virus and the strict lockdowns imposed to fight it, the world's travel industry barely exists and Colleen and I will be spending January under house arrest.

Unfortunately, house arrest has become the new normal for 40 million Californians. We've been locked down, masked up and ordered to stay in our basements for so long by Gov. Gavin Newsom that many of us have forgotten what freedom feels like or what it's like to simply eat in a restaurant.

The news is filled with stories of people and businesses leaving this state in droves because it has become so unlivable in so many ways. Californians who can afford it are moving to red states like Arizona, Texas and Florida, where taxes are lower, homes are cheaper and governors are not nannies and wannabe dictators. Life in Los Angeles is especially unpleasant, which is why I've rented an escape house for my family two hours away in the sleepy Santa Ynez Valley.

Most of L.A's 10 million people are not so lucky. They're stuck living 24/7 in a locked down city with tens of thousands of homeless people and drug addicts living under overpasses and on the sidewalks. But many well-to-do citizens are buying second homes outside the city in places like Palm Springs, Desert Springs and up here in the Santa Ynez Valley.

My friends here in Santa Ynez tell me the local real estate market is on fire. Houses sell in a day. One real estate guy predicts home prices will double in two years. Ditto for homes in Palm Springs and other places close enough to L.A. for people to commute to but far enough away to escape the slow-motion destruction of a great city. Life has gotten so depressing in L.A. that a friend of mine flew five hours to Miami just so he could eat dinner inside a restaurant.

That's the kind of madness that 2020 has brought us. Some folks are saying that the COVID-19 vaccines will let people go back to normal in 2021. But based on what our future pessimist-in-chief Joe Biden has been saying, I don't think that's going to happen. Listening to his dark speeches about the sad state of the union, how it's only going to get worse and what dumb things he plans to do about it is like listening to Jimmy Carter squared. Carter had his problems in the late 1970s with a high Misery Index, which was a way to gauge the economic conditions of the average American based on the inflation rate plus the unemployment rate.

But the future Biden is talking about will be Total Misery for all Americans. He's saying we won't get the vaccines to enough people, and even if we do, we're still going to be living in a masked and locked down country that resembles 2020 California, not 2019 California.

Pessimism like that from a U.S. president is not normal - or healthy for the country. You may hate President Trump for a lot of reasons, but you can never fault him for not being optimistic and upbeat. Other presidents - most recently my father, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama - looked on the bright and hopeful side of things. Biden is the opposite. He looks on the dark side, the Jimmy Carter side. He and the liberal media sing the same grim tune - that things are bad and they're going to be bad in the future, maybe forever.

On Jan. 20 we're going to lose the only guy in Washington who was consistently optimistic in 2020, one of the most horrible years in our history. I'm an optimist and I used to think 2021 couldn't be any worse than 2020. But with Biden and his crew about to take charge of our lives, now I'm not so sure."

- https://www.cagle.com/michael-reagan/