"Briely..."

“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence – briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing – cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity.”

- Erich Fromm

“I often question my sanity. Occasionally, it replies.”

- Darynda Jones

Musical Interlude: Il Divo, "Wicked Game" ("Melanconia")

Full screen recommended. A must!

Il Divo, "Wicked Game" ("Melanconia") 

(Live In London 2011)

Feel this in your soul...

"A Look to the Heavens"

“This rock structure is not only surreal - it's real. The reason it's not more famous is that it is, perhaps, smaller than one might guess: the capstone rock overhangs only a few meters. Even so, the King of Wings outcrop, located in New Mexico, USA, is a fascinating example of an unusual type of rock structure called a hoodoo. Hoodoos may form when a layer of hard rock overlays a layer of eroding softer rock.

Figuring out the details of incorporating this hoodoo into a night-sky photoshoot took over a year. Besides waiting for a suitably picturesque night behind a sky with few clouds, the foreground had to be artificially lit just right relative to the natural glow of the background. After much planning and waiting, the final shot, featured here, was taken in May 2016. Mimicking the horizontal bar, the background sky features the band of our Milky Way Galaxy stretching overhead.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170328.html

"Life's Funny..."

"Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do. Lots of times people just let themselves get lost, dropping into a wide open, huge abyss. But that's why we have to keep trying. We have to push through all that hurts us, work past all our memories that are haunting us. Sometimes the things that hurt us are the things that make us strongest. A life without experience, in my opinion, is no life at all. And that's why I tell everyone that, even when it hurts, never stop yourself from living."

- Alysha Speer

"The joke was thinking you were ever really in charge of your life. You pressed your oar down into the water to direct the canoe, but it was the current that shot you through the rapids. You just hung on and hoped not to hit a rock or a whirlpool."

- Scott Turow

"Life's funny, chucklehead. You only get one and you don't want to throw it away. But you can't really live it at all unless you're willing to give it up for the things you love. If you're not at least willing to die for something - something that really matters - in the end you die for nothing."

- Andrew Klavan

"On The Verge Of The Worst Homelessness Crisis In The Entire History Of The United States"

"On The Verge Of The Worst Homelessness Crisis

 In The Entire History Of The United States"

by Michael Snyder

'If you live in a major urban area, you may have noticed that “tent cities” are starting to pop up all around you. The worst inflation crisis in decades has combined with the worst drug crisis that we have ever seen to create an unprecedented homelessness crisis. Every night, even more Americans join the rapidly growing “unsanctioned encampments” that are taking up more and more real estate in our largest cities. If things are this bad now, how many of our fellow citizens will be sleeping in the streets when economic conditions are much worse a year or two from today? We are supposed to be the greatest nation on the planet, but with each passing day even more tent cities are established. Our system is failing, and the widespread economic suffering that we are witnessing right now is truly difficult to comprehend.

Just look at what is happening in Sacramento. It is the capital of the California, and tent cities are being established all over the place. In fact, it is being reported that the number of homeless people in Sacramento has risen by nearly 70 percent just since 2019…"During the pandemic, the unhoused population has soared all over California, but the increase in Sacramento has been particularly stunning. The region has seen an almost 70% rise in homelessness since 2019, now counting more unhoused people than San Francisco."

Needless to say, absurd housing prices are one of the main reasons why so many people are being forced out into the cold streets…"The primary force behind the dramatic rise, according to the 2022 point-in-time count, is the high cost of housing. The median home price in the county has surpassed $500,000 and the median monthly rent is $2,774, up more than 5% from last year. Some studios downtown rent for $2,000 a month, said Crystal Sanchez, the president of the Sacramento Homeless Union, while thousands of people sleep outside."

Most middle class families can barely afford to pay $2,000 or more for housing each month. And those that are poor don’t stand a chance. Conditions are very similar up in Portland, Oregon. Housing prices have soared to insane levels, and homelessness is spreading like wildfire. At this point, Mayor Ted Wheeler says that there are “nearly 800 unsanctioned encampments” spread throughout the city…“Nearly 800 unsanctioned encampments spread out over the 146 square miles of the City of Portland,” Wheeler said. “Something needs to change.” But many Portlanders have lost faith in city leaders. In a recent poll conducted by The Oregonian, nearly 75 percent of Portland voters said the city is “on the wrong track.”

At this stage, it has pretty much gotten to a point where you simply cannot avoid the tent cities. Things are so bad right now that there is a possibility that the state of Oregon could actually elect a Republican governor in November…"The race for the governorship remains a tossup, with a new poll showing a narrow lead for the Republican candidate in a state that hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 1982. Republican Christine Drazan leads Democrat Tina Kotek in the race, 44 to 41 per cent, according to a new Nelson Research poll, KOIN reported. That gives Drazan a 2-point lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average, having narrowly led in every poll this fall."

I thought that we would never see another Republican governor in that state. It looks like I might have been wrong about that.

Washington D.C. doesn’t have as many “unsanctioned encampments” as Portland does, but the New York Post is reporting that the number of tent cities in the capital of our nation has now grown to 120…"In the past two years, homeless encampments have exploded in Washington D.C., as both the city and federal governments lifted enforcement measures during the COVID-19 pandemic - and made it a no-brainer for itinerants to lay down roots by providing for their every need.

A tour by The Post of the district’s major tourist areas this week found at least 35 vagrants in residence at a National Park Service site two blocks from the White House; more than 20 in the green spaces surrounding the State Department complex; and five across the street from the infamous Watergate Hotel. And these sites accounted for less than 5 percent of the estimated 120 tent cities in Washington D.C. Over a decade ago, I worked in the heart of Washington. And during my entire time there, I didn’t see a single homeless person living in a tent. But now tent cities are all over the place.

Of course a rise in crime often comes along with an explosion in homelessness. In New York City, the rape of a female jogger by a homeless man with 25 prior arrests is making a lot of headlines this week…"Police said the victim was out by Pier 45, near West and Christopher Streets in the West Village, at around 5:30am, when the man, Carl Phanor, 29, grabbed her from behind and choked her until she passed out, the New York Post reports.

Phanor, who has 25 priors and who is wanted for at least two other sex crimes, then removed her clothes, raped her, and then fled the scene on a Citi Bike with her headphones, cell phone and wallet. The shaken victim was spotted by a fellow jogger, and first responders took her to a nearby hospital.

Sadly, the homeless population just continues to rise in New York City with each passing day. In fact, the problem has gotten so severe that the National Guard has now been called in to deal with the crisis…"New York City has called in the National Guard to deal with the rising migrant crisis that is overwhelming homeless shelters and facilities as staff are unable to cope with the surge. National Guard reservists are being deployed to help with day-to-day operations at many shelters, including managing the capacity, distributing food and helping out with staff shortages."

There are over 62,000 people currently living in New York City’s homeless shelters – close to 13,000 of which are migrants, according to the Department of Homeless Services. But this is just the beginning.  Over the next few years, I expect millions of Americans to lose their jobs. And the truth is that it is already starting to happen. Just today, we learned that Stripe will be laying off approximately 14 percent of their entire workforce…"Online payments giant Stripe is laying off roughly 14% of its staff, CEO Patrick Collison wrote in a memo to staff Thursday.

In the memo, Collison said the cuts were necessary amid rising inflation, fears of a looming recession, higher interest rates, energy shocks, tighter investment budgets and sparser startup funding. Taken together, these factors signal “that 2022 represents the beginning of a different economic climate,” he said."

Yes, as I detail in my brand new book, a “different economic climate” is definitely ahead of us. As economic conditions deteriorate, the number of tent cities will grow much larger. So the cold, hard reality of the matter is that our homelessness crisis is only going to intensify from this point forward. I know that may be difficult news to hear, but the truth is that these are difficult times."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"And It Speaks To You..."

And why does it make you sad to see how everything hangs by such thin and whimsical threads? Because you’re a dreamer, an incredible dreamer, with a tiny spark hidden somewhere inside you which cannot die, which even you cannot kill or quench and which tortures you horribly because all the odds are against its continual burning. In the midst of the foulest decay and putrid savagery, this spark speaks to you of beauty, of human warmth and kindness, of goodness, of greatness, of heroism, of martyrdom, and it speaks to you of love.”

- Eldridge Cleaver

"Russia's 24 Hour Warning, Millions Evacuating! Diesel Collapse"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 11/6/22:

"Russia's 24 Hour Warning, Millions Evacuating! Diesel Collapse"

"Major events unfolding in the next 48 hours, looming diesel shortage and civil unrest, 3 million evacuation and major destabilizing refugee crisis, Russia warns to get out in 24 hours. Medicine shortages are mounting, Iran and Israel on brink of war, Korean peninsula getting more nukes. Things are hitting the fan in slow motion."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

○

Douglas Macgregor, 11/6/22:

"Enraged Russians Nov 7"

The Daily "Near You?"

Calhoun City, Mississippi, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "The Journey”

“The Journey”

“One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice -

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do -

determined to save

the only life you could save.”

- Mary Oliver

"There Comes A Time..."

"Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But, conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right." 

 - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Ukraine's Descent Into Chaos"

Full screen recommended.

Col. Douglas Macgregor, 11/6/22:

"Ukraine's Descent Into Chaos"

"United States and worldwide Geopolitics analysis.

Russia-Ukraine conflict latest news update."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"A Special Moment..."

The Moody Blues, "This Is The Moment"

○

"To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour."

- Winston Churchill

○

"Get Ready for Power Outages"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 11/6/22:

"Get Ready for Power Outages"

"There’s a special agency working on preparedness for power outages in the UK. This will come here as well. People need to plan on no power for up to seven days. Also, I found a great report on EV cars and how expensive they are to charge."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"I'm Preparing For A Massive Depression, You Should Too; Don't Ignore The Coming Food Crisis"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 11/6/22:

"I'm Preparing For A Massive Depression, You Should Too;

 Don't Ignore The Coming Food Crisis"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Strange Prices At Target! This Is Crazy! Stock Up Now!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 11/6/22:

"Strange Prices At Target! This Is Crazy! Stock Up Now!"

"In today's vlog we are at Target and are noticing very strange prices! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and the empty shelves situation! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gonzalo Lira, "The Oil Price Cap Idiocy"

Gonzalo Lira - Again:

"The Oil Price Cap Idiocy"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Greg Hunter, "There May Not Be a 2024 Election – Martin Armstrong"

"There May Not Be a 2024 Election – Martin Armstrong"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong says, “The cheating in the midterm election next week is going to be so great that it is almost impossible to make a prediction. In a fair midterm election, the Republicans would win the House and the Senate.”

So, what does his Socrates program see for next week? Armstrong, says, “It’s going to be tight, and the Republicans have a shot at taking the House. Technically, they should take the House and the Senate. I am just not sure. The corruption is so bad, it’s crazy. Pennsylvania sent out hundreds of thousands of ballots to people who are not documented or even American. I’ve gotten emails from people in Canada, they are getting mail-in ballots. They mailed them to Canada. Where this ends up, who knows? It’s just so corrupt, it is over the top. It doesn’t matter who wins. Nobody is going to accept this thing, and that is the problem.”

The cheating is going to be so in your face President Trump may not even be able to run for President two years from now. Armstrong contends, “We may not even have an election in 2024. It is not looking very good, and it’s probably because this election is not going to be accepted. When it is so over-the-top corrupt, what do you do for the next one? The United States will not exist after 2032. After 2028 and 2029, we are going to have to redesign a government from scratch. America is being destroyed. Republics always end in absolute corruption. We just saw the same thing happen in Brazil. They staged a major effort to take Bolsonaro out. This is a worldwide effort. They had to get rid of Trump. The other one who stood in their way is Bolsonaro. Then there is Putin (Russia) and Xi Jinping (China). I think you are going to have historians look back at this 50 years from now, and they will call this period ‘The Climate Change Wars’. They are trying to take down as much oil energy capacity as possible.”

Armstrong is still seeing very strong signals on domestic violence everywhere. Armstrong explains, “Our computer is showing it’s going to be a rocket launch for volatility and civil unrest next year.” Armstrong also contends there will be a major loss of confidence in government around the world. That means gold will start having big demand from big money. Armstrong also predicts, “The whole monetary system as we know it is collapsing. That was what the bond crisis in the UK was about.” There is much more in the 1-hour and 7-minute interview.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Martin Armstrong, cycle expert and author of the new book “The Plot to Seize Russia, Manufacturing World War III.”

- https://rumble.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Believe"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Believe"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Massive stars, abrasive winds, mountains of dust, and energetic light sculpt one of the largest and most picturesque regions of star formation in the Local Group of Galaxies. Known as N11, the region is visible on the upper right of many images of its home galaxy, the Milky Way neighbor known as the Large Magellanic Clouds (LMC).

The above image was taken for scientific purposes by the Hubble Space Telescope and reprocessed for artistry by an amateur to win the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures competition. Although the section imaged above is known as NGC 1763, the entire N11 emission nebula is second in LMC size only to 30 Doradus. Studying the stars in N11 has shown that it actually houses three successive generations of star formation. Compact globules of dark dust housing emerging young stars are also visible around the image.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130211.html

"It’s Just… Life."

“Bad things don’t happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s just… life. And no matter who we are, we have to take the hand we’re dealt, crappy though it may be, and try our very best to move forward anyway, to love anyway, to have hope anyway… to have faith that there’s a purpose to the journey we’re on.”

- Mia Sheridan

"Warning! Diesel Running Out Before Thanksgiving?"

Full screen recommended.

City Prepping, 11/5/22:

"Warning! Diesel Running Out Before Thanksgiving?"

"Diesel shortages are coming! We're hearing this a lot lately,

 but is it true? In this video, we'll do a deep dive to get to the truth."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"People Are Racing to Get Cash Out of the Bank"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 11/5/22:

"People Are Racing to Get Cash Out of the Bank"

"Bank of America has issued a warning that people are racing to get cash out of the bank. This is a sign of the Times. Wells Fargo is losing everything with their mortgage business."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Cruelest Joke Of All..."

“The smallest decisions made had such profound repercussions. One ten-minute wait could save a life… or end it. One wrong turn down the right street or one seemingly unimportant conversation, and everything was changed. It wasn’t right that each lifetime was defined, ruined, ended, and made by such seemingly innocuous details. A major life-threatening event should come with a flashing warning sign that either said ABANDON ALL HOPE or SAFETY AHEAD. It was the cruelest joke of all that no one could see the most vicious curves until they were over the edge, falling into the abyss below.”

- Sherrilyn Kenyon

The Daily "Near You?"

Commerce City, Colorado, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Object Of Life..."

 

"We work in the dark. We do what we can to battle the evil that would otherwise destroy us. But if a man's character is his fate, it's not a choice but a calling. Sometimes the weight of this burden causes us to falter from the fragile fortress of our mind, allowing the monster without to turn within. We are left alone staring into the abyss, into the laughing face of madness."

- Fox Mulder, "X-Files"

The Poet: May Sarton, “Now I Become Myself”

“Now I Become Myself”

“Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places,
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before —”
(What? Before you reach the morning?
or the end of the poem, is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move,
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the Sun!”

~ May Sarton,
 Collected Poems, 1930-1993

"Now..."

“You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can’t remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise. Speaking of these things tells you that there are no words for them that are equal to them or that can restore them to your mind. And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment, in this presence. But you have a life too that you remember. It stays with you. You have lived a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present, and your memories of it, remember now, are of a different life in a different world and time. When you remember the past, you are not remembering it as it was. You are remembering it as it is. It is a vision or a dream, present with you in the present, alive with you in the only time you are alive.”

~ Wendell Berry

"Delusions of Grandeur… Or Cloak of Modesty?"

"Delusions of Grandeur… Or Cloak of Modesty?"

By Bill Bonner

"A dear reader objects to our use of the “royal we”:

“Hello Bill, for the most part, I enjoy reading your Diary. However, I do find your use of the ‘royal we’ in all your writings very off-putting. Even though I’m Canadian, I despise the monarchy, and I’m sure that many in your great republic to the south share my feelings on this. Am I missing something? Has it already been explained, perhaps? If not, what is the rationale for this?”

The Queen uses the “royal we” to signify that she is not speaking for herself, but for the Crown… an institution that was around for hundreds of years before she was born and will, presumably, outlast her by hundreds more.

Here at the Diary, we do not use the “royal” we. We use the “common” we… a plebian, down-market, gutter kind of we, with no pretension to grandeur, nor even mediocrity.

For here we are, writing from a house we didn’t build… in a country that is not ours… wearing clothes we didn’t design… looking out on rain we didn’t cause… and passing along ideas that are not original. Even when we think we have had a new idea, we discover later that someone had the same idea 2,000 years ago.

Not one molecule in our body, thought in our brain, or feeling in our heart is of our own making. It would be vanity to use first-person singular; there is nothing singular about who we are or what we do.

No, we have neither scepter nor orb; all we have is a laptop computer.

We wear no royal purple. We favor brown and grey. We dress in dull colors so we may think in vivid ones.

We have no throne, no influence, no privilege, no position, and no armed guards to protect us.

We speak not for the Crown, but for all those common people who try to put two and two together… And we use “we” to recognize all those real thinkers whose ideas we have dragooned into our service… all those tortured poets whose songs we have misunderstood and misused…  all those clever people whose insights we have purloined and presented as if they were our own… all those scientists, statisticians, and economists whose numbers we have hijacked and abused… and all those generations that have come before us and – by bad luck, bad manners, and bad judgment – learned painful lessons so we might be spared from learning them again…

“We” speak for them all – as best as we can.

Time and Love: As time passes, the conceits of youth… the illusion of timelessness… the passions and competitions – to have the biggest bank account, the biggest car, the biggest house, the biggest muscles, and the biggest you-know-what – all get dropped along the way, like discarded pianos on the Oregon Trail. All that is left is the shriveled up, naked reality… of time, love… and death.

And “I”? Does it matter what “I” do? What “I” want? “I” am too small… too nothing… too ephemeral. “I” am here, but “I” will be gone soon… in a flash, vanished, like a lost civilization or a forgotten language. Not even I care what “I” think.

So let us at least speak for a group… not of royals, but of commoners… and use “we” in sympathy with all those sinners, geniuses, half-wits, saints, and jackasses that came before and will come after us…

Those who will delight in Heaven for reasons we will never understand… or cry in Hell for all eternity because they forgot to fill out their census form. Yes, let us speak for all those who feel most intensely and horribly the vacant truth… They are as meaningless as we are."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"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”