Full screen recommended.
2002, "We Meet Again"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Sunday, July 4, 2021
"A Look to the Heavens"
"You can't walk along the Milky Way. Still, under a dark sky you can explore it. To the eye the pale luminous trail of light arcing through the sky on a dark, moonless night does appear to be a path through the heavens. The glowing celestial band is the faint, collective light of distant stars cut by swaths of obscuring interstellar dust clouds.
It lies along the plane of our home galaxy, so named because it looks like a milky way. Since Galileo's time, the Milky Way has been revealed to telescopic skygazers to be filled with congeries of innumerable stars and cosmic wonders."
Chet Raymo, “We Are Such Stuff…”
“We Are Such Stuff…”
by Chet Raymo
“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had wak’d after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again.”
“Caliban is talking to Stephano and Trinculo in Shakespeare’s “Tempest”, telling them not to be “afeard” of the mysterious place they find themselves, an island seemingly beset with magic, strangeness, ineffable presences. And you and I, and, yes, all of us, find ourselves inexplicably thrown up on this island that is the world, and we too, if we are attentive, hear the strange music, the sounds and sweet airs, that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere
No, I’m not talking about the usual ubiquitous clamor, the roar of internal combustion, the blare of the television, the beeping of mobile phones. I’m not talking about the Limbaughs and the Becks, the televangelists, the blathering politicians, the twitterers and bloggers (including this one). I’m not even talking about the exquisite music of Mozart, the poetry of Wordsworth, the theories of Einstein.
I’m talking about the sounds we hear in utter silence, in moments of repose, in the heart of darkness, when we are a little bit afraid, disoriented, off kilter. A strange music that comes from beyond our knowing, a felt meaning. You’ve heard it. I’ve heard it. You’d have to be deaf not to have heard it.
Where we differ is how we describe it. Mostly, we give its source a name. Angels. Fairies. Gods or demons. Yahweh. Allah. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nixies, E.T.s, shades and shadows. Naiads, dryads, Ariel and Puck. A host of invisible creatures who are, in one way or another, images of ourselves. And, in naming, we are a little less afraid.
And some of us are just content to listen, to take delight. Having woken to the inexplicable mystery of the world - the sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not - we let the music lull us back into a sweet slumber, a kind of dreamless dream, a reverie. Does reverie share a deep root with reverence? I don’t know.”
“I Pity You, Too...”
“Said a philosopher to a street sweeper, “I pity you. Yours is a hard and dirty task.” And the street sweeper said, “Thank you, sir. But tell me, what is your task?” And the philosopher answered saying, “I study man’s mind, his deeds and his desires.” Then the street sweeper went on with his sweeping and said with a smile, “I pity you, too.”
- Kahlil Gibran
Greg Hunter, "Using Disaster Capitalism to Control All Humans"
"Using Disaster Capitalism to Control All Humans"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Investment advisor and former Assistant Secretary of Housing Catherine Austin Fitts contends CV19 and vaccines to cure it are all part of the “Going Direct Reset.” Fitts explains, “This is so simple at the root. The central bankers are using the government to shut down the main street economy, and then they are going direct and injecting money into the private equity firms and Wall Street who are running around the country buying things. Think of this as a leverage buyout of the world. We are being purchased with our own money. Also, we are liable. If you look at all the debt the government is issuing, our assets are liable for that debt. This is a continuation and consolidation of the financial coup that we have been taking about.”
Fitts goes on to say, “We have had a small group of people who have gotten away with crime, and crime that pays is crime that stays. Now, they are in full blossom. We have been talking about this, and many people have tried to stay in the middle of the road. Now, the message in 2021 is there is no middle of the road. You’ve got to pick sides. This is freedom or tyranny, and tyranny is slavery. We are talking about very invasive slavery because they are planning on installing the smart grid into our bodies. There will be 24/7 surveillance and control of your money. If you don’t behave, they will turn off your money. If they don’t want you to go more than five miles, your money won’t work further than five miles.”
Fitts says the entire CV19 virus and vaccines to fix the problem is simply part of the cruel and brutal plan. Fitts says, “There is no legal basis for an ‘emergency authorization’ even though they have done that. More important, if you look at what we know about the vaccine injuries, the type of vaccine injuries and the extent of them, it is shocking that these have not been shut down. We are talking about serious physical harm coming to the people who are taking them. There is recent information that has come out of the Japanese health agency, and one of the indications is we are seeing toxicity in the female organs. If you look at the damage that is being done, I am told it’s impossible to not know this before they started giving these injections. We may be looking at a full blown sterilization program.”
Fitts has much more to say in this 36 min interview. Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Catherine Austin Fitts, publisher of "The Solari Report".
Happy Birthday America! Ray Charles, "America the Beautiful"
Full screen recommended.
Ray Charles, "America the Beautiful"
Happy birthday America!
The Poet: Langston Hughes, "Let America Be America Again"
"Let America Be America Again"
"Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed -
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek -
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold!
Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean -
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today - O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home -
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me?
The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay -
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again -
The land that never has been yet -
And yet must be -
the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine -
the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME -
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry,
whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose -
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes, I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath -
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain -
All, all the stretch of these great green states -
And make America again!"
- Langston Hughes
Saturday, July 3, 2021
Happy Independence Day!
Have a safe and happy holiday folks!
Full screen recommended.
John Philip Sousa, "Stars and Stripes Forever"
National march of the United States of America.
"Ominous Times Ahead For Consumers; Is Your Money Safe From Cyberattacks; AI Will Replace You"
Jeremiah Babe, PM 7/3/21:
"Ominous Times Ahead For Consumers;
Is Your Money Safe From Cyberattacks; AI Will Replace You"
Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"
Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“The Flame Nebula is a stand out in optical images of the dusty, crowded star forming regions toward Orion's belt and the easternmost belt star Alnitak, a mere 1,400 light-years away. Alnitak is the bright star at the right edge of this infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope. About 15 light-years across, the infrared view takes you inside the nebula's glowing gas and obscuring dust clouds though. It reveals many stars of the recently formed, embedded cluster NGC 2024 concentrated near the center.
The stars of NGC 2024 range in age from 200,000 years to 1.5 million years young. In fact, data indicate that the youngest stars are concentrated near the middle of the Flame Nebula cluster. That's the opposite of the simplest models of star formation for a stellar nursery that predict star formation begins in the denser center of a molecular cloud core. The result requires a more complex model for star formation inside the Flame Nebula.”
"Life is A Journey - Don't Be Afraid"
"Life is A Journey - Don't Be Afraid"
Author Unknown
"Life is a journey filled with lessons, hardships, heartaches, joys, celebrations and special moments that will ultimately lead us to our destination, our purpose in life. The road will not always be smooth; in fact, throughout our travels, we will encounter many challenges. Some of these challenges will test our courage, strengths, weaknesses, and faith. Along the way, we may stumble upon obstacles that will come between the paths that we are destined to take. In order to follow the right path, we must overcome these obstacles. Sometimes these obstacles are really blessings in disguise, only we don't realize that at the time.
Along our journey we will be confronted with many situations, some will be filled with joy, and some will be filled with heartache. How we react to what we are faced will determine what kind of outcome the rest of our journey through life will be like. When things don't always go our way, we have two choices in dealing with the situations. We can focus on the fact that things didn't go how we had hoped they would and let life pass us by, or two, we can make the best out of the situation and know that these are only temporary setbacks and find the lessons that are to be learned.
Time stops for no one, and if we allow ourselves to focus on the negative we might miss out on some really amazing things that life has to offer. We can't go back to the past, we can only take the lessons that we have learned and the experiences that we have gained from it and move on. It is because of the heartaches, as well as the hardships, that in the end help to make us a stronger person.
The people that we meet on our journey, are people that we are destined to meet. Everybody comes into our lives for some reason or another and we don't always know their purpose until it is too late. They all play some kind of role. Some may stay for a lifetime; others may only stay for a short while. It is often the people who stay for only a short time that end up making a lasting impression not only in our lives, but in our hearts as well. Although we may not realize it at the time, they will make a difference and change our lives in a way we never could imagine. To think that one person can have such a profound effect on your life forever is truly a blessing. It is because of these encounters that we learn some of life's best lessons and sometimes we even learn a little bit about ourselves.
People will come and go into our lives quickly, but sometimes we are lucky to meet that one special person that will stay in our hearts forever no matter what. Even though we may not always end up being with that person and they may not always stay in our life for as long as we like, the lessons that we have learned from them and the experiences that we have gained from meeting that person, will stay with us forever.
It's these things that will give us strength to continue with our journey. We know that we can always look back on those times of our past and know that because of that one individual, we are who we are and we can remember the wonderful moments that we have shared with that person. Memories are priceless treasures that we can cherish forever in our hearts. They also enable us to go on with our journey for whatever life has in store for us. Sometimes all it takes is one special person to help us look inside ourselves and find a whole different person that we never knew existed. Our eyes are suddenly opened to a world we never knew existed- a world where time is so precious and moments never seem to last long enough.
Throughout this adventure, people will give you advice and insights on how to live your life but when it all comes down to it, you must always do what you feel is right. Always follow your heart, and most importantly never have any regrets. Don't hold anything back. Say what you want to say, and do what you want to do, because sometimes we don't get a second chance to say or do what we should have the first time around.
It is often said that what doesn't kill you will make you stronger. It all depends on how one defines the word "strong". It can have different meanings to different people. In this sense, "stronger" means looking back at the person you were and comparing it to the person you have become today. It also means looking deep into your soul and realizing that the person you are today couldn't exist if it weren't for the things that have happened in the past or for the people that you have met. Everything that happens in our life happens for a reason and sometimes that means we must face heartaches in order to experience joy."
- Author Unknown,
found here: http://journey.20fr.com/about.html
Paulo Coelho, "Be Like a River"
"Be Like a River"
by Paulo Coelho
“A river never passes the same place twice,” says a philosopher. “Life is like a river,” says another philosopher, and we draw the conclusion that this is the metaphor that comes closest to the meaning of life. Consequently, it is always good to remember during all the year to come:
A] We are always doing things for the first time. While we move between our source (birth) to our destination (death), the landscape will always be new. We should face these novelties with joy, not with fear – because it is useless to fear what cannot be avoided. A river never stops running.
B] In a valley we walk slower. When everything around us becomes easier, the waters grow calm, we become more open, fuller and more generous.
C] Our banks are always fertile. Vegetation only grows where there is water. Whoever comes into contact with us needs to understand that we are there to give the thirsty something to drink.
D] Stones should be avoided. It is obvious that water is stronger than granite, but it takes time for this to happen. It is no good letting yourself be overcome by stronger obstacles, or trying to fight against them – that is a useless waste of energy. It is best to understand where the way out is, and then move forward.
E] Hollows call for patience. All of a sudden the river enters a sort of hole and stops running as joyfully as before. At such moments the only way out is to count on the help of time. When the right moment comes the hollow fills up and the water can flow ahead. In the place of the ugly, lifeless hole there now stands a lake that others can contemplate with joy.
F] We are one. We were born in a place that was meant for us, which will always keep us supplied with enough water so that when confronted with obstacles or depression we have the necessary patience or strength to move forward. We begin our course in a soft and fragile manner, where even a simple leaf can stop us. Nevertheless, as we respect the mystery of the source that gave us life, and trust in eternal wisdom, little by little we gain all that we need to pursue our path.
G] Although we are one, soon we shall be many. As we travel on, the waters of other springs come closer, because that is the best path to follow. Then we are no longer just one, but many – and there comes a moment when we feel lost. However, “all rivers flow to the sea.” It is impossible to remain in our solitude, no matter how romantic that may seem. When we accept the inevitable encounter with other springs, we eventually understand that this makes us much stronger, we get around obstacles or fill in the hollows in far less time and with greater ease.
H] We are a means of transportation. Of leaves, boats, ideas. May our waters always be generous, may be always be able to carry ahead everything or everyone that needs our help.
I] We are a source of inspiration. And so, let us leave the final words to the Brazilian poet, Manuel Bandeira:
A] We are always doing things for the first time. While we move between our source (birth) to our destination (death), the landscape will always be new. We should face these novelties with joy, not with fear – because it is useless to fear what cannot be avoided. A river never stops running.
B] In a valley we walk slower. When everything around us becomes easier, the waters grow calm, we become more open, fuller and more generous.
C] Our banks are always fertile. Vegetation only grows where there is water. Whoever comes into contact with us needs to understand that we are there to give the thirsty something to drink.
D] Stones should be avoided. It is obvious that water is stronger than granite, but it takes time for this to happen. It is no good letting yourself be overcome by stronger obstacles, or trying to fight against them – that is a useless waste of energy. It is best to understand where the way out is, and then move forward.
E] Hollows call for patience. All of a sudden the river enters a sort of hole and stops running as joyfully as before. At such moments the only way out is to count on the help of time. When the right moment comes the hollow fills up and the water can flow ahead. In the place of the ugly, lifeless hole there now stands a lake that others can contemplate with joy.
F] We are one. We were born in a place that was meant for us, which will always keep us supplied with enough water so that when confronted with obstacles or depression we have the necessary patience or strength to move forward. We begin our course in a soft and fragile manner, where even a simple leaf can stop us. Nevertheless, as we respect the mystery of the source that gave us life, and trust in eternal wisdom, little by little we gain all that we need to pursue our path.
G] Although we are one, soon we shall be many. As we travel on, the waters of other springs come closer, because that is the best path to follow. Then we are no longer just one, but many – and there comes a moment when we feel lost. However, “all rivers flow to the sea.” It is impossible to remain in our solitude, no matter how romantic that may seem. When we accept the inevitable encounter with other springs, we eventually understand that this makes us much stronger, we get around obstacles or fill in the hollows in far less time and with greater ease.
H] We are a means of transportation. Of leaves, boats, ideas. May our waters always be generous, may be always be able to carry ahead everything or everyone that needs our help.
I] We are a source of inspiration. And so, let us leave the final words to the Brazilian poet, Manuel Bandeira:
“To be like a river that flows
silent through the night,
not fearing the darkness and
reflecting any stars high in the sky.
And if the sky is filled with clouds,
the clouds are water like the river, so
without remorse reflect them too.”
- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/
silent through the night,
not fearing the darkness and
reflecting any stars high in the sky.
And if the sky is filled with clouds,
the clouds are water like the river, so
without remorse reflect them too.”
- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/
"The Problem Is That We Are All Stupid"
"The Problem Is That We Are All Stupid"
by David Cain
"The question “What’s wrong with the world?!” is usually more of a statement of exasperation than a question. But it can be treated like a question, and it is a good question. Clearly something is wrong, at least with the human world. Even if you don’t trust the news to tell you how the world really is, we all witness too much pettiness, unfairness, and dishonesty to say with a straight face that nothing’s wrong.
However, I’m not sure you could rewind us to a point in the last 10,000 years when we wouldn’t feel the same way. Our complaints today are about corrupt leaders, unfair systems, unscrupulous merchants, religious demagoguery, and everything else that has happened perpetually since we freed ourselves from picking berries all day.
In a recent article about the “What’s wrong” question, Masha Gessen got me thinking that the answer is quite straightforward: we’re all stupid. Contrary to popular belief, stupidity isn’t only present in some of us, it’s a universal human trait. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t also smart—we simply exhibit both qualities. As intelligent as we are in certain ways, each of us is also very stupid in other certain ways, and the powers conferred by the intelligent, inventive part can increase the amount of damage the stupid part can cause.
Among other signs of the times, she mentioned the comedy of Sacha Baron Cohen, who seems able to draw the pettiness and stupidity out of virtually anyone, on camera. His approach is very simple: get people talking about their strongest beliefs, while pretending to agree, and watch the ridiculous pronouncements pour out. Most recently he was able to get several congressmen to apparently state their support for issuing firearms to “highly trained” kindergarten students to keep classrooms safe.
I have always found his comedy difficult to watch, and I think Gessen might have articulated the main reason: "Every segment of every episode is designed to leave the viewer feeling not so much appalled - something a sentient being in today’s America experiences many times a day - as finally enlightened: the ultimate explanation for what’s happened to us is that everyone is a moron."
The idea that everyone is stupid seems a little stupid itself. Clearly only some people are stupid. Otherwise how did we figure out DNA sequencing and particle physics, or design the Rubik’s Cube (let alone solve one)? Well, because stupidity can co-exist with smarts in the same person. The human world is so often portrayed as a noble battle between the stupid and the rest of us, each of us drawing our own smart-stupid line in some way or another between individuals, often corresponding to political, religious, or sports team fanship boundaries, as we see them.
This is the classical way to think about the distribution of human intelligence and human idiocy - each person is mostly a concentration of one or the other. But maybe that simplistic view is a good example of our stupid-aspect at work. Perhaps every single one of us is stupid, just not completely. Clearly there are variations in what we can call “personal style,” but nobody is so smart that they are not also frequently stupid, and vice versa.
The same person can design an award-winning public building and still be defeated by a parking meter with perfectly clear instructions on the side. A hobby chess player can visualize a tree of possible moves five or six deep, but cannot anticipate running out of toilet paper until the moment he does. I somehow created my own dream job, but I’ve had winter tires on my vehicle for at least 48 consecutive months, and I cannot seem to make a doctor’s appointment.
Solzhenitsyn famously wrote - or so the smart people tell me - that the line between good and evil runs “not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either but right through every human heart.” This seems true with the line between smart and stupid, and each human mind. We are complex apes, with innate abilities to be both profoundly clever and powerfully stupid. This isn’t a contradiction, just two complementary talents.
Of course, stupidity can’t comprehend itself—that’s one of its most interesting properties—which is why we overlook our own so easily. When it comes to my stupidest beliefs, I’m likely to think they’re my smartest ones. I easily fall in love with strongly-worded arguments that make me feel good but which I didn’t examine very well. (Am I writing stupid things at this very moment? How would I know?)
This may be why we often feel wholly smart when we witness some apparent evidence of our own intelligence (good grades, completed crosswords) and wholly stupid when that second quality becomes more obvious (such as when it’s your turn to tell the group a little about yourself). We evaluate others even more readily, with even less evidence, probably because we tend to assess a person’s smart and/or stupid qualities moments after they’ve just impressed us with one or the other.
Meanwhile, privately, we all know that much of life consists of trying to hide the extent of our own stupid-aspect, while accentuating the smart stuff so that others might think we’re made of it through and through.
Despite our varying personal styles of intelligence and stupidity, there are species-wide patterns. Humans are generally good at untangling contained problems with definite parts, but bad at doing things we’re emotionally averse to doing. We’re good at separating things into lists, labels, patterns, blacks and whites, and not so good at interpreting grey areas and patternless data.
Research suggests we’re atrocious at weighing moral questions objectively, an important skill for any meaningful “What’s wrong with the world” discussion. We make our moral judgments very reflexively and emotionally, and we seldom re-examine them. (Related: "Why The Other Side Won’t Listen To Reason") Above all, we’re notoriously susceptible to confirmation bias: scanning for evidence that we’re smart and already informed, and ignoring evidence that we’re dumb and/or wrong.
It’s not hard to see that whether we deem someone smart or stupid has a lot to do with whether or not we identify with that person in some way—whether they sit in our own political or social wheelhouses, or seem to be an outsider to them. We’re quick to point out this sort of bad faith in others, even though we’d see, if we looked for it, the same motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, and selective hearing in ourselves. No matter how smart we are in some ways, humans are universally susceptible to those types of stupidity at least.
Probably. That’s my hypothesis anyway. It seems like a smarter bet than the traditional view: stupidity is a defining quality of certain people and not others. And I think that’s my smart side talking. I’m pretty sure."
Free Download: Charles Mackay, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds"
"Extraordinary Popular Delusions
and the Madness of Crowds"
"Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the force of imitation. Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
- Charles Mackay
"'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" is an early study of crowd psychology by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay, first published in 1841. The book chronicles its subjects in three parts: "National Delusions", "Peculiar Follies", and "Philosophical Delusions". MacKay was an accomplished teller of stories, though he wrote in a journalistic and somewhat sensational style.
The subjects of Mackay's debunking include alchemy, crusades, duels, economic bubbles, fortune-telling, haunted houses, the Drummer of Tedworth, the influence of politics and religion on the shapes of beards and hair, magnetizers (influence of imagination in curing disease), murder through poisoning, prophecies, popular admiration of great thieves, popular follies of great cities, and relics. Present-day writers on economics, such as Michael Lewis and Andrew Tobias, laud the three chapters on economic bubbles. Scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan mentioned the book in his own discussion about pseudoscience, popular delusions, and hoaxes.
In later editions, Mackay added a footnote referencing the Railway Mania of the 1840s as another "popular delusion" which was at least as important as the South Sea Bubble. Mathematician Andrew Odlyzko has pointed out, in a published lecture, that Mackay himself played a role in this economic bubble; as leader writer in the Glasgow Argus, Mackay wrote on 2 October 1845: "There is no reason whatever to fear a crash."
Freely download "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds"
by Charles Mackay, here:
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