The real Ukraine, from a disillusioned insider.

Interview with a former Kiev diplomat

The most interesting thing about this is that it explains so much more than that broken and bleeding proxy country.

With a few minor details changed, this guy might be any worker drone in Washington, or New York, or Denver.

It’s not what we did to some faraway place … that place is just another place, where the serious work of Empire happened to be going on, to enrich the fucks that own and run us all.

We exported the true american way wholesale.

It turned out just as ugly and stupid in Lviv as it does in Clovis, NM.

A graphic representation of what the monsoon looks like. It’s struggling to re-establish as we speak.

Tucker exposes GOP

We can all enjoy the Pence candidacy going down in flames, right? Watch it happen in the first few seconds of the video, with ammo from his own rocket launcher.

The hard part is that you have to like Tucker just a little bit for setting him up craftily.

The rest of Mr. Christoforou’s daily is pretty good too.

The habit of nothing.

Let me tell you how things are.

I know that’s a big request, and it’s a dangerous one too, because it could easily turn out that I’ll take that permission and merely indulge myself with it, and then you’d be bored and potentially pissed off with yourself.

Nevertheless, opportunist that I am, I will take your continued presence as a tacit acceptance of your willingness to Let Me Tell You.

How things are.

In May, we had an unusual early period of monsoon here that lasted a couple of weeks.

After that, it went dry, until the normal date for the start of the real monsoon had passed, and then well passed. It varies of course, so it’s hard to put a number of days or weeks to it. But … it was late.

Then a few days ago it looked like it was finally here. The days were warm, but there was a telltale buildup of clouds in the afternoon. The day before yesterday it actually rained; not a lot, but enough to call it rain instead of sprinkles.

Yesterday the clouds came, but too late and thin to do any good, so it went up to 103 degrees.

For the next four days it is forecast to get steadily worse. No clouds, and finally up to 105, with the night time temps crawling up until it won’t be less than 70 in any part of the 24 hours.

Very likely it will be the most scorching four days of the year.

I’ve filled the water jugs and I am up long before dawn and I feel ready, and as if there will be siestas.

When I woke it was too early and I didn’t have the feeling I would be able to sleep again right away in the proper slot–this has happened often since I started walking.

So I came here and wrote.

There was a phrase ringing vividly in my ears as I woke, and sat to type.

The practice of nothing.

I don’t understand what it means, though it sounds ominous and full of portent and kind of Zen at the same time.

I have a vague hope that the four merciless days will bake it into something comprehensible and maybe even useful.

Let me ask you to pray and practice nothing with me.

If you were in the House with him, how would you vote?

Which side will you be on this time?

Source

The side of the stupid ugly Republican, or the side of the good guys whose policy specialization for seventy years has been the blowing off of little brown feet?

And, you know, ‘abortion’.

Source

If you think it’s a trick question …

You’re right.

It’s a trick system.

The good guys are “hoping to harness anger”. Yours in particular.

Are you pissed off yet? Will you spend that rage on their behalf like they want you to?

The hero, over there in the Ukraine, he always needs more, and this time it’s artillery shells. Critical shortage.

Old Joe threw up his hands.

We’re out of those, he said. We gave you all the ancient stock. We gave the MIC billions to make more. But it’s gonna be slow, because we don’t really manufacture much any more.

In the meantime, what we do have is these cluster bombs. Take them, with our blessing. Go, team.

Cluster munitions have been banned by half the countries in the world. But not this half.

The Cambodian Prime Minister, over in the other half, objected.

He said he still has people dying all the time from previously unexploded cluster bomblets from a whole lifetime ago, when the good guys were fighting a different illegal and immoral war against, uh, ‘communism’.

Old Joe shrugged.

They do this with your money.

They do this in your name.

They do it to Cambodian kids and they do it to the wrong kind of Ukrainian kids now.

Eggs cost you ten bucks now.

Yes, these two things are very much related.

All of it sucks.

Sanity is a Christmas bonus granted to good slaves.

May your day be … nice.

In a dream I was living for awhile in a motel room in Wickenburg.

But I was living there as if it were instead: Wiccanburg.

I had a sheet of paper in my typewriter at all times in case a poem needed writing.

It often did.

A talk, from last month.

The whole hour-plus is worth it, but if you only have a few minutes, please at least start here.

Jeffrey Sachs, maybe the smartest and most humane servant of the American big house ever, starts the clip by pleading with his friends in Europe to not follow the US off a cliff, or even start to become what the US already is.

He is old, and clearly a little tired; bereft of any more optimism, but he still speaks the truth and tries to appeal to the best in us regardless.

Perhaps you will listen as I chose to, for whatever point-free reasons of your own that evolve.

Marxism is a critique of capitalism, but not my critique of it.

I’m not a Marxist for one simple reason.

A Marxist wants you to think of yourself as a worker, and to stand in class solidarity with other workers–Unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains, and all that.

The problem with this formulation, from my perspective, is that identifying as a worker means you already identify with the conditions of your enslavement–you accept that you are a slave, to the wage at least, even if as is likely you commit to changing that grim reality in some way.

This may very well be a much more realistic view of things than my own.

I accept the costs involved in my deficit of realism.

I do live under a system that runs on coerced labor, and legalized enslavement.

I have spent years picking massa’s cotton and that’s the truth.

A Marxist would say that running away from the plantation and into employment at a machine shop in Detroit is an act of progress toward freedom.

I see Alabama chains and Michigan chains and I can’t tell the difference. My eyes, you see, not so good.

His vision is acute, hopeful, and aspirational.

Mine is chronic, static and merely poetical.

We both hold stock in the revolution, and maybe even have faith in its promise.

He just wants to get there by seizing control of the means of production.

Whereas I want the buffalo back, and all the Cambodians and Iraqi children and the girls who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire to be resurrected into a paradise earth where rulers are extinct instead of polar bears.

How Endless War Bankrupted the US While Inflicting Mass Suffering at Home

Mr. Greenwald comes very close to the heart of the matter.

The wealth of the People and the People’s lands, across the nation and all over the world, is sucked up by the tentacles of the Moloch Empire and used only to feed its foul self and its most loyal house servants.

Meaning, if you go to college, you might end up qualified to work in the Big House, and not the field.

The buffalo had to die because they, and the land on which they subsisted, were allowing people to live in real freedom. In England the same lands in Common, the Common Wealth, was gobbled up by their own version of the local machine. Colonialism everywhere insured that the evil process was repeated wherever people lived under no one’s thumb.

Once their ability to live free was eliminated, they became slaves, whether they were red or black or white.

Slaves to the wage, slaves to the bossmaster, slaves to the gods of Mammon and Moloch.

The machine will be fed first, whether the slaves eat at all, or not.

The machine will be housed in oligarchic opulence even if slaves sleep under bridges, and when they certainly do, the compliant slaves will murmur about how tragic it is that the poorly compliant slaves are drunks and substance abusers and lazy, and crazy.

Sanity is a precious luxury bought with bits of your soul.

Sanity is a Christmas bonus that you get for being a good slave.

The wars will continue regardless of how many slave legs are shackled or blown off; how many brains are vaporized.

It’s non-negotiable.

It’s harshly obvious by now that distractions like abortion and wokeness and weed and whoever is selling you Bud Light this month mean absolutely nothing compared to the conditions of your enslavement and that of everyone you know.

It doesn’t matter at all if the nice old blue fool or the ugly old red fool is said to be your elected leader, because the legalized slavery and the wars for the sake of war will go on and on and on until you’re planted in the ground, and on past that until the machine burns itself and your children and the whole world alive.

There is one issue.

It is called: the economics of killer capitalism.

Everything else comes later and is subsidiary at best.

He’s whittling on a piece of wood.

I’ve got a feeling when he stops whittlin’

something’s gonna happen.

There are a number of ways to try to make a living out of taking a trip to the Big Bend.

The best of the worst:

Nine thousand views over the last five months. Be young and extroverted and do it in a Subaru.

The American middle ground:

Thirty thousand views over the last three months. Be older and relatably richer and do it in a Class A motor coach.

Or just sell yourself without remorse:

Half a million views in under two months.

Be networked and carry a lens the size of your arm, and do it in whatever the sponsor, GMC in this case, tells you to do it in, because that’s how the sausage really gets made.

***

I don’t know if I can explain it clearly.

But I am definitely unwilling, and possibly unable, to be a success in any of these ways.

There will be no soothing music.

There will be no shots from a drone.

There will be precious little clicking upon my thumbnail, and rounded off, zero thousand views of my moviefilm.

The man in the street
dragging his feet
don’t want to hear your bad news

You do his nine to five;
drag yourself home half alive
and there, on the screen–

A man with a dream.

***

I heard it was you, though rumor is a fickle Mistress.

Where I am is what I am used to. I can work around 10 or 14 one hundred degree days, and at the other end of the year, a couple of icy snowstorms that melt off the next day.

I do dream about it always being perfect, and I do dream about making that happen by becoming semi-nomadic.

She wanted another trip, so I said okay.

Let’s go where it is worst now, so that we know what it’s like in the nearby places where it’s the best in January.

An average winter day, way down at the Big Bend, the high might only be sixty. But the low at night only drops to 38, and that is cheap to remedy, compared to 51 and 22 in SandRock, or 49/27 at Cienega. You might make it, with no pellet stove to feed either.

Out there, even when you get up to 4500 feet on that average day in January, it doesn’t drop below freezing.

It’s a critical ten degrees of extra heat that comes for free.

Also, they don’t care if you are staying warm in a nomad rig instead of a house, and the land is still very cheap.

You could, were you prepared for it, live almost as if there were still buffalo, which is to say: very nearly free.

Free as in beer, gratis; free as in freedom, libre … I’m finally starting to see that there isn’t as much difference as I once thought.

Once I would have thought it unacceptably ugly, too, and far too far from the lifesaving hospitals and coffee made for you by poor little wage slaves.

My thoughts on death and servitude are changing along with my ideas about freedom.

Some rich people will pay a quarter mil for the privilege of dying in a tin can in the middle of nowhere.

If I can do it for 400 an acre …

I just might.

Not in July, though. I do still have some standards.

I am not on Twitter to win arguments, or followers.

I am not there to grow within a small community of the like-minded, or even comrades.

Neither am I there for the lulz.

I’m on Twitter for one reason, and that is to be in some way sufficiently interesting that:

–people will land on my profile, and
–perhaps see a link to this blog and/or to a video I posted, and
–watch and be a small bit more interested,
–as in enough to comment, and subscribe
–so that I can get to the 1000 sub monetization plateau, and
–start making tiny scraps of coin,
–so that I don’t have to go back to working for someone else.

My politics are the politics of economic freedom, first for myself, and then of course for the other enslaved too.

It really is that complex and simple.

Get up at first light, currently about three thirty in the morning hours. (In the winter you can sleep in until it’s warm out.)

Spend too much time in waking and preparing the buttered bulletproof frenchpressed caffiene.

Head out before the dawn anyway.

Walk. A minimum of a mile, to the unpeopled places, and speak. Film. Consider what this job really is.

Back home, splice the footage into a vid. Publish it. Promote it, in the tiny evolving ways you know.

Stop promoting it. This is harder than it sounds.

Resist, however, the urge to rest. It’s only 7:30. You can’t eat for another four hours and you can’t sleep for another twelve, so make productive use of the hours that are left.

Begin to invent what ‘productive use’ means.

I walk, I think, I film, I speak. Therefore … what?

Holsum Entertainment For Those Up Very Early With Me … video link

Just Passin’ Thru Man: So what about you, then … what have you been up to?

V: In a couple of days, I will have posted a walking video every single day for a month.

JPTM: Wull, yeah, but what do you want to do? (Like for a real job, or manly pursuit.)

V: I am doing exactly what I want to do.

JPTM: Ya mean ‘Nothing’? Hur dee dur.

V: …

V: Ya bro.

V: That’s exactly what I mean. Sure.

***

The Lord God: ‘If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat’. I decreed it, on my Proverbs Twitter.

V: But I am working. Just not for you, or the Man. I showed you on my Leviticus Tube.

Speaking of your Twitter, didn’t you once tweet “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, because of this the world hates you” ?

The Lord God: Everybody makes mistakes, son, and you’re making a big one.

V: Can I take my gun up to heaven? I’d rather not take a bullet from Your peacekeeping force.

TLG: …

They can always fly away from this rain and this cold …

Video Link

Start with the Telegraph Road. I’m just going to post the most relevant parts of the lyric. Go listen to it all.

Well a long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a sack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
Made a home in the wilderness

And the birds up on the wires and the telegraph poles
They can always fly away from this rain and this cold
You can hear them singing out their telegraph code
All the way down the Telegraph Road

…

Toward the end of the song Knopfler turns inward to how the System affects us personally even in our most quiet and intimate moments.

Now you act a little colder like you don’t seem to care
…
But just believe in me baby and I’ll take you away

And there we are again. Away. From all This.

The hell out of the way. Just have faith in me to make it happen honey, and everything will be alright.

Or not.

***

So that’s a song, trying to grapple with the same questions. Next let’s do a novel. This one’s complicated.

I’ve read the twenty long books of Patrick O’brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series several times. I love them, for various reasons. The first book has been filmed and you can see a relevant clip of that here.

In one of the later books in the series, Aubrey and Maturin spend a considerable time ashore at home in England. A subplot develops in which Jack Aubrey is not just a sea captain, but lord of a particular rural demense, and therefore a member of the Commons. He spends a vast number of pages explaining to his friend Stephen Maturin about how the feudal System still works in the countryside, and on one level it’s horribly dull reading. But now I have a reason to care.

In the end, because this is a novel, Jack casts his vote, and it is decisive, for the ability of the little people to take a good part of their living from the land.

It’s the right thing to do.

It’s fiction, though.

***

And a film. Any decent western will do, but I choose one of the best.

Once Upon A Time In The West

In this one, Charles Bronson is the Good, Henry Fonda is the Bad, and Jason Robards is the Ugly. It’s a story of the coming of the railroad to the wilderness and how that coming changes everything. In the end, spoiler alert, the Ugly, the man who represents getting the hell out of the way, is gutshot, and quietly dies. For the sins, of the rail, and of the Lie of Progress.

Dire Straits has a song by the same name as the film.

Sitting on a fence that’s a dangerous course
Oh, you could even catch a bullet from the peace-keeping force
Even the hero gets a bullet in the chest
Oh yeah, once upon a time in the west

That’s enough backstory and prep for now. I need to get myself ready for first light and try to tell this all again.

38 impressions on a post to here which redirects to YT. Six link clicks off them.

Doesn’t mean decisively that the videos were watched six times. But I did see at least one of those happen in real time.

So: sure seems worth it.

Geronimo: How We Got Here, Why It Sucks, and Some Suggestive Provocations For Getting The Hell Out
Video Link

If you read, even at the Wiki, you’ll see:

“earning him the title of the ‘worst Indian who ever lived’ among settlers”

“FBI called MLK ‘the most dangerous Negro’ to ‘national security'”

“Businessmen soon had the idea to have Geronimo serve as a tourist attraction, and hundreds of visitors daily were let into the fort to lay eyes on the ‘bloodthirsty’ Indian in his cell.”

Also, they killed all the buffalo on purpose, to starve out free native peoples.

We’re not the revolutionary heroes. We’re not the good guys.

We are not the people we think we are.

Dolores O’Riordan – Go your own way (Live on Europe2)

Or maybe you’d prefer the original original.

This video has many names. One of them is: Let’s Go Down To The Woods And Play, Pray pray For Brighter Day

Or you might say, Just Around The Corner From The Light Of Day.

I mean they both end in Day. Days split up into present passing moments.

Am I sage yet?

A Week Out From The Barest Hint Of Monsoon, I Mean …We Hope It’s Only That Long, Cowgirl

Quick one. Linking experimentally.

I’ve admired Jimmy Dore since before he had his own show, and was doing Aggressive Progressives on TYT.

I still do, in spite of his occasional bad takes (and the stoned out of his gourd on-air moments).

I admire him even though he has a blue checkmark now (a thing he used to routinely make fun of people about), and even though he has starting doing in-segment ads for some green superfood powder. (I saw, dismayed, that Glenn Greenwald had done his first ad ever, for the same powder. They must be paying these guys a fucking fortune, that they’d trade even a little bit on their cred that way.)

Today, I cut down my list of the people I am said to be ‘following’ on Twitter, but Jimmy is still on the new short list.

This afternoon I was having a kind of unintentional day off, and I put up a post about the weather, and it was dull, even for a post about the weather.

Three minutes later I checked my new streamlined ‘following’ feed page and I saw that:

1) JD had posted (a one-word tweet of Wow, plus someone else’s retweet video), and,
2) No one had replied yet.

Dimly sensing an opportunity, I rushed to type the first thing I could think of, which turned out to be: “Will be expecting coverage, James”, plus winkyface emoji. If you think that’s about as exciting as the weather, I forgive you, because I feel the same.

In the picture, there are three lines of data in gray. The bottom one is about my boring weather post. What you see there is that no one has replied to it, retweeted it, or liked it, and the number 16 is for how many ‘impressions’ the post has–the number of times Twitter even offered it to anyone’s eyeballs at all.

Those low numbers are completely normal for a noob like me with 15 followers.

JD has half a million, and you can see how that changes things. As you can see from the top gray data line, his post of “wow” plus vid had been seen 42,000 times inside of half an hour, generating 96 replies and almost a thousand likes. An hour later, that grew to 134,000, 199, and 2367 respectively.

It’s the middle gray line that interests me. It shows the coat-tail effect of a nobody posting early, in the thread of a somebody.

Just being somebody-adjacent for those few minutes made it almost 50 times more likely that Twitter would show you my post. Two of the 764 people who did see it thought I was such a talented wit that they hit the Like button for me, woo-hoo!

You would think that my little game of timely opportunism was gonna be good for my, uh, brand.

Here’s why you’d be wrong to think it.

An hour into the adventure, I had over 1500 impressions, and the same 2 Likes.

But none of the unprecedented 1500 were motivated to even reply, much less follow me, or even visit my profile, where they could have theoretically been tempted to evolve into traffic to my YT page, watch a couple of vids, subscribe there …

Which is, I’ve said, the whole reason I’m bothering with Twitter in the first place.

To grow the Youtube channel to the point of monetization and start eating off the scraps Google would thus throw me for my efforts.

This is problematic, to an existential depth.

I know for a fact that Twitter has gained me a couple of YT subs, but so far that’s literally it. One or two, in exchange for days of effort and 300+ posts of my own.

Until something changes the game, it’s not a game worth playing, in strict cost-benefit terms. In … labor or capital terms. I speak here only of Twitter. Making and posting vids, and paragraphs like these, are their own reward.

I’m not giving up just yet.

But I do need to remain focused on what matters, in the days I have left, and I’m starting to believe that Elon’s Folly might not be in that category.

It’s ten fifteen in the morning and the vid is already almost uploaded.

That is promising. Promissory. Goodominous.

The very heart of what I care to share, even if it is me telling you about my vivid detailed dream and you indulging me in that.

I have use of you, my pretty.

And your little dog, too.

See also: The Mous covers Hey Ya

The YT and the TwitVairtere are now poised in balance at 14 subs each.

A mouse just made me glow, and I don’t even care if saying so makes me cheap or dumb.

https://twitter.com/mousdrvr/status/1671988047628627969?s=20

Yesterday’s thumbnail so you can see it.

" I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace.”
Federico Garcia Lorca

— Papa J (@72MichiganPapa) June 20, 2023

vernacular (adj.)
c. 1600, “native to a place”
from Latin vernaculus “domestic, native, indigenous
from verna “a slave born in the house rather than abroad” a word of Etruscan origin.

Used in English in the sense of Latin vernacula vocabula, in reference to language.

As a noun, “native speech or language of a place,” from 1706.
So:
–(of language) native to a place (opposed to literary).
–expressed or written in the native language of a place, as literary works: a vernacular poem.
–the language or vocabulary peculiar to a class or profession

As in ‘the Tri-Cities’, ‘the back forty’, ‘the Inland Empire’, or ‘Appalachia’.

@yopasta on @theconvocouch with some hard questions for @CornelWest

and a critique of his positions from what we might call the post-Left.

Very grateful to Craig for sharpening the Doctor’s countenance.

L’enfer, c’est la autres. Clear and true enough.

Il y une couille dans le potage. ‘There is a nutsack in my soup’.

We have an issue here.

The inside baseball on why Cornell West shifted his candidacy away from The People’s Party and decided to run in the Green Party primary instead.

Featuring the thinker that made it happen, the estimable Mr. Chris Hedges.

Here’s Why Cornel West Switched To Green Party In Presidential Campaign

Personally speaking he would have been my candidate either way. But the switch makes it much more likely that others will feel the same, and it also raises his chances of victory from zero to … well, just above zero ….

One of these days we will eventually get a chance to see who RFKjr and Marianne really are, too, depending on who they chose to endorse a year from now, if not sooner.

The same will be true of the Ocasio-Cortez and Khanna types in the House. The Nina Turners of the world.

And maybe of you too.

If I love you now, and I do, I will love you then either way.

But please, just for me, at least consider the question with an open heart.

(PS: I still believe that american electoral democracy is a bad and sick joke, and I will never put myself in a position to get burned again like we got burned with the Bern. But right now my vote and your vote don’t matter at all. This is a choice to embrace a Just Above Zero possibility and I’m taking it.

After the 2000 elections I took a lot of alleged blame for voting Nader and ‘electing’ George Bush, even though I didn’t live in Florida. I rejected the allegation then. I will be happy to cheerfully reject it again should anyone be tempted to try and pin DeSantis or whoever on me.

True blue Democrats: You want my vote? It won’t be free this time, and that is the whole story. Earn it Joe. Or, alternatively, fuck right off. It makes no difference to me either way.)

What happened in the years before you and I were born, and …

How it relates to these years before we depart.

Security guarantees w/ Jeffrey Sachs

***

I really enjoyed visiting downtown Farmington.

Here’s why, for me, it isn’t perfect.

One: It’s 45,000 people and growing fast, which, though small, is still about three times bigger than my ideal. This leads to knock-on effects that you can easily discern by just putting ‘Farmington NM’ into a YT search box.

Two: All through the charming district of galleries and shops, they’ve decided to pipe in an assortment of classic rock songs which range from the overexposed to the dumb and gross. Doubtless there’s been a deal made, with some radio station or content owner to do this. It sucks. I would have filmed a lot more if it wasn’t there trying to copyright-strike me.

Three: The boomtown element. We had a lovely shady parking spot on the side street running along the best gallery, and when we were done walking and returned to the car, there was a capitalist dude walking up and down the shade yammering about deals into his phone, oblivious to the fact that we were doing our own research and enjoying the cool leafy place before he fucked it up. Really this could just be described as another knock-on effect I guess. Or a function of 45K being too many people in one place.

All that said, it was still much more spirit-lifting than a whole lot of other places, and the price of living there is still shockingly reasonable.

For she and I, Farmington was a pleasant surprise, and not at all necessary to any future planning.

But unlike us, people I care about are still looking and trying to figure it out.

So I keep looking, for those fellow travelers, and for the addictive fun of it.

Let’s try this another way around.

How Many People Is Too Many? It's A Charming Place, But Flagstaff Is …

https://t.co/0aWzufVp9R

— vairtere (@vairtere) June 9, 2023

Or this?

https://twitter.com/vairtere/status/1667035227926003712

Tucker Carlson spends the first short episode of his new online show primarily ripping the shit out of a rancid Republican, Linsday Graham, Graham’s dear friend the heroic president of Ukraine, and even Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley. I doubt that would have flown far, on the air of his former employer.

He concludes with the assertion that democracy is dead.

He even works in a mention of UFOs.

https://rumble.com/c/c-3216216

I am very much going to miss hating the little dweeb he used to be.

I spent more time on Twitter than I ever have before in a single day.

I responded to an RFK post, in which he was down at the border in Yuma commiserating with some very pale-looking farmers about how annoying it is to have brown people pooping in your beanfields.

In happier news, Cornel West is running, and has released a thumbnail of his platform.

I provide it here to you out of the goodness of my blue heart.

The artist who styled himself ‘John Denver’ once sang of coming home; ‘to a place he’d never been before’.

The artist who styled himself Alex Vairtere is doing it the other way around. Home, to an old decrepit familiar place.

Don’t think for a moment that I’m abandoning my dreams and plans of La Cienega, a town I fell in love with long before I ever even really saw the dusty, broken, unattractive mess by the Interstate called Holbrook.

It’s just that those plans can now ripen in their own good time, without urgency, just as they have been since late in the last millennium.

For the first time ever in this lesser place, I am not just happy, but almost content with what I already have.

In a way it’s been happening for days, but that deeper contentment bloomed fully on this day, down by the overgrown tangled thickets, down by the waterline, a mile and a half or two from this place where I plug in this computer and make the tacos and lay down my head at night.

The Big Ditch Park down there is a beautiful thing in its way.

But one thing you won’t find there is solitude.

It’s a park, and people love to go to parks, especially ones with good walking paths and running water.

Where there are people in numbers, there is no solitude.

Today I walked the goat trail past all the broken liquor bottles, and pushed through the brush and stepped over the broken barbed wire and slid gracelessly down the riverbank, and I was quite perfectly and ecstatically alone in natural reality. Just me murmuring words into a camera, and the birds talking their inscrutable song talk.

The healing in it was nearly as potent as being able to look up and see the mountains looming above.

Later on I went out for a drive just to the water machine for three more gallons, and on the way back I spotted this.

It’s a little visually confusing to look at because I was shooting into a window at sunset, and the top half of the image is dominated by a reflection off the glass, showing the sun going down and what is behind me across the street.

But the coffee and tea news on the bottom is clear enough …

Also, it seems they will have begals.

Cranky boy became mildly muddy boy.

In between: ceviche.

Every day above ground is a good day.

I don’t care about your position on abortion, feminism, trans athletes, or what Bud Light or Target are selling or not selling, or how.

I don’t care what you think either way about masks, vaccines, Anthony Fauci, or the lab leak theory.

I don’t care about your fake corporate slogans about diversity, or whose lives matter.

I don’t care whether your favorite propaganda outlet is NPR or Fox.

Put a D or an R after your name and see my interest in you evaporate, vaporize instantly like a Yemeni child.

Defund Raytheon. Defund the apartheid state and the indigenous genocide in Nazareth.

Defund the bombs and Ukraine and the bombers and the little adventure in Syria.

Close the 800 military bases.

Hell, close half of them, and we’ll talk.

Until then, you and your party and your candidate, all of you, can keep it out of my face and fuck right off.

All my life, I have been habitually and chronically Tangled Up In Blue. But man I don’t like being depressed. I was, for a couple days. Maybe I still am, but probably not. Forgive my incoherence. I just woke up.

From a long Saturday afternoon of napping, like some average boring drunkard or drone.

***

A couple weeks ago I decided to radically change the way I ate, tentatively embracing the gospel according to keto, and the faith of a short tight eating window every day. That’s all to the good. So is the inspiration put a Walk at the center of every day. For that I’ve been faithful, and rewarded.

The first couple of walks, I just walked. The third one I made a little film about, and it did … ‘really well’.

I have some videos that tank–four views, five views–and I rush them off backstage to an orphan playlist in shame.

Mostly I have my core of ten or eleven peeps who show up to watch dependably, and I’m so grateful for that and for them.

The first local walking video went up over seventy views fast, but even more gratifying was that people were actively liking it, and even commenting, and in one blessed case Subscribing–the holy grail.

For a hot minute I let myself think I had cracked the code, and reached over into the promised land of Doing Well By Doing Good, as the influencerati and other dislikable people might say. I felt all artisinal. I felt as if by opening myself up and letting go of some paranoia, I was not just going to be doing The Work, but maybe even getting paid. Man it felt good.

The second video slipped back to an average number, though at least the comments kept coming. I rallied my inner troops, and started to game and get clever. I read the evidence correctly, surmising that if I added “things to do” to the name of the town, it would jack the Algo, put me up higher in the search, and build the truth of my vids into something more … palatable to the wider markets.

Gaming it worked and pushed me quick in the direction of 150+ views.

They were not, though, quality views. More often than not, people weren’t watching after the first thirty seconds had rolled by, and the comments section went bone dry.

Things just got worse from there; or rather more specifically, went back to average, in spite of the fact that I was working (and walking) my ass off and posting every day. I’d even played the face-reveal card repeatedly, and still … the larger world yawned and clicked away.

I walked further and further, raging, until I was pooping in the woods. And then it started to be too much for me–couldn’t get back to sleep, burned; obsessed over people that have wronged me in stupid petty ways, or just failed to live up to a higher standard.

Knowing full well that the latter group included myself.

Finding the southwest floodwall road really was a success.

But it failed to translate. I failed.

I didn’t want to make a video today. I didn’t want to walk.

I forced myself to do a basic mile and a half anyway, and I filmed some, and got in the car and filmed more. Then I came home ‘like always’ and chopped it into twenty minutes of movie.

After six hours, two people have viewed it and I think that counts me, and the wife.

I went face down into the pillow and slept and slept in a paroxysm of escapist fat-napping until after sundown.

It’s 9:30 PM.

I know acutely who I am. I know, in rough outline, what my Work is.

It’s still easy for me to be calm and almost serene. It’s more of an effort now, to feel strong and tall.

I don’t know what side my bread is buttered on.

I am holding on, to a house that holds on to me, and all I can think about now is turning it into a liquid asset and then a home, some other where, in that better promised land place.

I’m angry that I’m even thinking about getting another fucking job (rage against the machine), and I’m afraid when I think about even applying for one. They might say no again and I already know what a double-blow to my pride that has ended up being.

There must be some way.

That is the mantra of my faith as the third cross-fades gently into the fourth.

Hunting and gathering was humanity’s original and most enduring successful competitive adaptation in the natural world, occupying at least 90 percent of human history.[3] Following the invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers who did not change were displaced or conquered by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world.[4] –Th’Wiki

“Displaced” = economic warfare
“Conquered” = regular warfare

‘Hunting and gathering was humanity’s … most enduring successful competitive adaptation’.

Which is kind of amusing in light of the fact that settlement and agriculture are typically painted as exactly that.

Civilization and progress, versus the poor benighted anonymes of dark pre-history.

Maybe it will prove so. The jury is still very much out and the verdict is far from written.

“The Anthropocene Era” is usually said to have begun around 2000 A.D., and I used to say that too.

Now I believe nothing special happened in 2000. We just started to notice that the adaptation of civilization was perhaps not nearly as enduring, or successful, as previously believed.

In that sense the dawn of the Anthropocene can be seen as precisely The Beginning of the End.

Nothing more and nothing less.

Today’s walk was by far the earliest, and the longest, of the week-plus streak.

Right at the start, I saw the sign, a sign that actually encouraged trespassing. “Recreation Area Entrance”, is how it read precisely. So that was nice.

There was an Unexpected Meadow in the middle of the fresh tierra too.

After a long time the floodwall ended itself and the next attraction was a wash, an arroyo. I went down into it trying to find a way over to the truckstop. For water, I said, but really I was beginning to need a bathroom for something other than a casual leak.

I didn’t find a way up out of the wash in time. Instead there was an epic flood. From my guts.

It looked like a big old coiled rattler when I got done.

I sacrificed my underwear because there wasn’t anything else to wipe up with.

I felt so much better after, and right away I came across those lovely flowers, and then the other sign, the carefully done handmade one that made me laugh as soon as I saw it.

All of these things made me feel as though I was on the right path.

It was an effort to get all that way back home to the ranch, back2theBase, but I accomplished that too and I still feel that way.

Is there more going on here than ‘good diet and exercise’, or is it just that these things really do matter more than they ever taught me?

I don’t think I ever saw anybody in my natal home exercise even once, and of course we ate whatever we could lay our hands on.

Also, some bills never did get paid back then. But somehow I learned much earlier what a terrible idea that was.

Some of those bills are still not being paid.

But that’s not the case in this house, where I am responsible for seeing that they do.

On time.

Every time.

Just as with the state of my bodymind, only I’m just starting to wake up to that fact, and smell the … flowers.

Exclusively. For about a week now.

Plus the walking every day and the biking in between, but mostly …

It’s about the intermittent fasting, and only eating really good food in an eight-hour (max) window each day.

Yesterday I got done with the Work about 3:30 and as I was finishing up my stomach growled. I said to myself, analytically, ‘Oh, I guess I’m hungry’.

But then my right brain chimed in and said: No you’re not. And it was right. I wasn’t. What I was, was in ketosis, burning fat instead of food because I hadn’t eaten in something like fourteen hours.

I did eat a few hours later, when I really was hungry.

One day soon I’ll check the waist number again to see if it’s doing any measurable good.

You are on a summer road trip to the dry sunny West. Eightyfive miles over the Arizona line, you exit and find yourself staying downtown at a motel that lacks one of those No Train Noise signs and is in fact right next to the tracks.

Although the accomodations are less than ideal, you find yourself staying night after night. Maybe you are hypnotized. Maybe you are somehow metaphysically trapped. Maybe it’s just time for a change.

Day after day you begin to walk the surrounding areas, carving your own paths past the blockages and around the no-trespassing signs, doggedly trying to outfox the fences of the ranchers and the city and the railroad bulls and break through to an exit from the town that is not an interstate or even a state route.

Today, this is what you providentially saw.

At the gasping end of May, this is what you literally found.

and also.

Nightcafe is an AI image generator service that makes a point of wanting you to engage.
So I did.

Somehow I knew you’d be interested.

Long story short, I made my way to dezgo dot com because it didn’t require cash or even signing up for an account.

I put in some keywords. In this case I think it was something like:

route 66 several buildings crumbling pavement derelict abandoned desert southwest town road sign restaurant gas station motel train tracks truck clouds in a sharp crisp photorealistic style

Then I picked a ‘model’, tweaked a few settings, and got … this.

A couple other favorites from various places …

***
***

*********

******

******

All very related to the ongoing project:

*********

******
-30-

After walking, posting, and filming, we drove over to La Posada for a gourmet celebration dinner at La Posada and the Turquoise Room.

I still don’t believe in eating out. But it was amazing, and I don’t think I could ever say no to it.

Churro Lamb meatballs and tepary bean hummus with piki bread from the Rez country. Wine from the Willamette. The most amazing marg ever, made with This.

That place is pure Oasis in every sense.

All it takes is one or two real artists.

Well, and a little equity too.

You don’t want to fuck with me, officer.

Yes I’m old, and dressed like a poor man.

I’m on foot instead of riding in a shiny car.

But I look like this and act this way because of my choices.

I have a shiny car. I have a big truck. I have a van with a bed in it, and a cargo trailer, and even a house.

But wealth made me fat and I’m walking to get rid of it.

The fat. All that comes with it too.

I am filming this interaction, as is my right, as a still marginally free citizen of the state that bought your gun.

Your shiny gun.

Your Indian killer gun; your geronimo-deporting badge we don’t need no.

I don’t want to fuck with you.

You don’t want to fuck with me even though I am not that guy.

In spite of my appearances, I am not one of the vulnerable droids you’re looking for. To fuck with the way you and your kind do.

So just be yourself. Your best self.

And resolve to not end up reflecting on this day ruefully.

When I say Request Password
I don’t care how you do it
Or even if you do it. But …

There’s a pretty good chance
I’ll deliver it up without
fuss or comment. If you do.

Really it’s a kind of
experiment in ways to post
with a certain granularity.

I still think that Insulin Sensitivity is a key, and I still think burning fat (“keto”) is important.

But I’m finding reasons to believe that the latter-day extreme diets are not the best answer overall.

I think the most important piece is a short eating window and a longer daily period of fasting.

Limiting calories matters for longevity, and moving (as in walking) is essential.

***

I think that I’m going to shift away from grains and even beans to a point.
And replace a lot of them with fish. Especially salmon. Especially high-quality canned salmon for price reasons.
In particular, I’m not going to stop eating pintos and garbanzos, but over time I will probably eat less of them.
I may not refill the bulk rice bucket.

On the tortilla front I’m going to investigate almond flour versions very closely.

On fruits, I’ll probably be sticking to berries.

Lots more avocado. Some sauerkraut. Goat cheese. Back to the MCT oil.

And lots and lots of vegetables, especially of the above-ground variety. As in: celery over carrots, for dipping up that partly wicked hummus.

It started here.

How to build a Tire Table for smaller SUVs or Crossovers
(as opposed to a ‘Tailgater’ tire table for 150+)

A tire table is a piece of shaped metal designed to fit over a tire and slide out into a flat surface. It’s a good idea and a low priority.

It did lead me down a distraction alley about camping in very small vehicles, and in particular:

Subaru Sleeping with Carson (using a crosstrek as a camping platform)

That’s a YouTube channel. If I were a better person I would link it. Anyway, Carson has a two-piece camper insert.

Longest Folding Sleeping Platform for Car Camping Ep. 24

Compact Storage for Car Camping Ep. 28

It’s not a completely novel idea. See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52YaEo48OTA

If you have, at minimum, a sleeping platform in your car, you’ll want to study other essential items to use it.

Honey and Me (Honey is her 1992 Toyota motorhome)

How to Make Reversible Window Covers for Your Car Camper — CHEAP and EASY!!!

You CAN Poop And Pee In A Car Camper – Car Camping

***

I love the concept. But just as with the guy I saw in Silver with the fancy bike-based rig, tiny-car camping is not a thing that would work well for me. I want to carry more stuff with me than that. The Starlink alone would take up a major chunk of the leftover real estate in a Subaru, and … I ain’t pooping in one either. Not even me.

If someday we do buy a newer Crosstrek, and if that Crosstrek could be set up to tow a trailer with a mattress in it instead … then it would move up to a Maybe, maybe.

But if I were driving a larger SUV, like, say, hmm … a Jeep Grand Cherokee? I could see an internal folding sleeping platform as very nearly viable.

Until then, it’s one more interesting idea that I don’t actually have to think about, once this post is done.

Hundreds Of Undercover Feds Were In The Crowd On Jan 6th!

They lie to you.

“Free Range” Chicken Label Is Complete Bullsh*t – Reveals Undercover Video

They lie routinely, and it’s not just ‘free range’ that means nothing. The same is true of ‘pasture-raised’ (in spite of what Dore says–I looked it up), and grass-fed … and even though you can buy perfectly certified Organic Non-GMO rice, it still could be legally loaded to the germ with poisonous arsenic, if it was grown in dirt that used to grow cotton, as is often the case in places like Texas and Arkansas.

I still cautiously and tentatively trust well-soaked certified organic rice from California, for example.

But I’ll be honest and say I’m having some issues, even there.

I blame the keto freaks on the YouTubes.

They’ve got me half-convinced, against my will.

I’m not going all the way down the rabbit hole here today, but the basic argument in its logical-conclusion form is that while human bodies need carbohydrates, it’s quite possible that eating them is unnecessary and possibly harmful.

This late-stage version of the widespread argument claims that even without taking in any carbs (including all grains, cereals, and beans) through diet, the body is fully capable of synthesizing the carbohydrate energy it needs from high-fat things like good meat, and nutrients from things like good vegetables.

And that therefore, layering my beloved pinto beans on to my beloved corn tortillas is a bad idea, spiking insulin and blood sugar unnecessarily, and letting the body run hot on carb fuel, instead of burning fat like it arguably Should.

Even that much is reasonably convincing to me. But that’s not the end of the harsh news, from my religious perspective.

If you were a hunter-gatherer before civilization and the Fall, you wouldn’t have been eating much in the way of beans or grains. Corn for example did not exist. It’s precursor plant, teosinte, produced cobs about half the size of your pinky finger, so gathering enough of it to be a dietary staple was just not going to happen.

Throughout human pre-history, in most places, you’d be eating mostly a plant-based diet of roots and stalks, flowerings and vegetable matter, supplemented seasonally by things like berries, and of course whatever meat you had the skill and luck to obtain through the hunting part.

You’d be burning whatever fat you could get, rather than running on the glucose of carbs constantly like we do in our hypercivilized modern way.

Excess fat on the body was pretty rare. but when it existed it did so as a survival mechanism, a stored reserve against lean times.

A morbidly obese modern human can be storing up to a million calories in their body for lean times that never come.

I probably have a hundred thousand at least in the tank myself.

Carbs are relatively cheap energy. Even with buying organic, beans and corn flour and rice in bulk will run you somewhere between two and five bucks a pound.

This morning, with all these factors on my mind I took a healthy walk to the grocery (a walk while still fasting, as the theoretical experts agree is best), and studied the meat section.

It’s the only grocery in town. They have a whole wall of meat of course. Only a tiny fraction of it even tries to pose as healthier than average, and for most meats there is literally nothing labeled organic.

I bought a pound of “100% grass fed US Angus ground beef” with a certified-humane label. Eight dollars.

I also bought ‘wild-caught’ salmon, 1.25 pounds for 13 dollars (10.40 a pound).

The cheapest thing I could find was organic ground turkey at about $5/lb. and the most expensive was ‘grass-fed’ (percentage of grass to grain unknown) lamb, at somewhere around $14. I didn’t find any specially-labeled pork or chicken.

As a very general rule, therefore, calories from quality fat costs two or three times as much as calories from quality carbs.

As an aside, that would correlate obesity with poverty, and 50% of all Americans now qualify as obese.

But even setting cost aside, I’m not entirely sure what to do now.

I do know that vegetables are going to be a much bigger deal in my life, and that gluten needs to go down to zero.

I do know that a walk like the one I did today will become a more regular thing.

Beyond that …

I will probably (and grudgingly) need to find a way to make beans and corn, and rice, less of a staple in my diet.

I will probably end up eating more meat than I have in a long time.

But a satisfyingly comprehensive big-picture solution is, for now, eluding me.

I’m going to work on de-cluttering today, and let the factors and possibilities ferment in the back of my mind.

RFK Jr. and Vaccines: What Counts as a Disqualifying “Red Line”?

Glenn starts out by saying he’s not an RFK fan, because RFK is a Russiagater among other things, but that he intends to interview this candidate himself soon.

But with the logistics out of the way, he goes on to sharply criticize his friend Krystal Ball for her knee-jerk crazifying of Mr. Kennedy, using examples.

It’s really informative and enjoyable, and more importantly a great case study for questioning your own assumptions.

By which I also mean my own assumptions.

Clutter is trauma, and clutter is indeed boxes of crap, but … not just boxes of crap.

Source: Crappy Childhood Fairy

There’s such a thing as mental clutter too. I’m feeling it in the moment. I’m pushing through in my way.

In addition to looking at is this way I’m also looking at it from the point of view of insulin resistance and fat.

More about that soon.

But …
You’re mistaken.
I do have work though.

It’s true that it doesn’t pay … yet … and that it may never pay.
It’s also true that almost no one has the least respect for this work
and that to my great moral chagrin, some days I don’t even properly respect it myself.

However.
It is work.
It is The Work.
It will survive the drought of your respect
just as it survives mine, on those some days.

I am holding up my end, paying my own way, completely and totally.
I haven’t even been late on any payment for twenty years.
Beyond that, I am free to volunteer my considerable and sometimes even unique skills and my time for good causes.
Like taking a big moving truck across the country and offering to do it again, uncompensated.
Like watering an old friend’s plants in exchange for a pound of coffee even though it’s not worth it, in dollars.
Like driving down to shuttle another home and accepting a sandwich as payment for the labor of that day.
I expect that this will continue to be true a good long while into the future.
If it doesn’t, fret not, I will most certainly take the necessary steps to remediate that.

I put a ragged-ass roof over my own head.
And not just my own.
I put food in my own mouth.
I keep my ragged-ass vehicles operational.
I don’t renege on my obligations and particularly not those I place upon myself voluntarily.

If you disapprove of any part of the way I run my life or what I do, that’s your business.

Just don’t try to make it mine. That would be inappropriate.

And probably irritating.

I choose to not waste timing caring, beyond normal civilized polite token care, about your appraisal of my modus vivendi.

Whether that opinion is dubious, or even whether, as is rarely the case, that opinion admires.

I mean … thank you, if it is the latter rare case–bless you in fact–but one thing I cannot currently afford is to pay out much attention to anyone’s murmured estimation of me or who I am or my choices.

Positive or negative; good or bad.

I’m laying this down for specific quotidian reasons, of course.

But I’m taking the time to bother with it now so that it always lives here to point to, should it become necessary.

Oh it will.

EXCLUSIVE: RFK Jr On Covid, Ukraine, Border, Nuclear Power And MORE | Breaking Points

Just another RFK interview. Pay me no mind.

This one is particularly interesting because the primary interviewer, one Krystal Ball, was married a week or two back, and married by a clergywoman named Marianne Williamson.

Who I am quite certain she would prefer, as a dark horse Democratic candidate, over Mr. Kennedy.

That doesn’t come up, though.

Let’s say that Krystal is right, at the end of this, and that RFK is a raging kook on the subject of vaccines.

My question is: Even if that were true, so what?

In every important way, Kennedy is an improvement over even Bernie Sanders.

You definitely cannot say the same about Marianne. Much less Biden of course.

Which also very probably means he doesn’t have a prayer.

But hey. A boy can dream.

India Hits Back at Europe Over Russian Oil Criticism | Vantage with Palki Sharma

The top European diplomat decided to start wagging his fat finger at India, because India is importing huge amounts of Russian crude, refining it into useful things like diesel fuel, and selling it to places like … Europe.

The Indian politician being criticized pointed out that not only is this practice perfectly legal, but it doesn’t even violate the many sanctions the West is trying to perpetrate upon the whole world.

The link is to English-language Indian media, covering these facts.

It caught my eye because the ‘top EU diplomat’ is named Josep Borrell.

You may remember that several months ago, this guy took a lot of heat for claiming that The West is a Garden, and needed to continuously fight back against the Dark Jungle of the rest of the world.

This is exceptionalism and ‘us vs. the shithole’ at its most stark, even if you or I might be tempted to believe it, a little or a lot.

The dude is a nice, polite, educated, rich, white type who might be your grandfather. He is also racist and a hypocrite and that much seems self-evident to me.

There’s a lot of that going around. Around us. Within us.

It interests me.

So what’s this Durham thing and why does it matter?

If you want the full historical context, go see Glenn.

Durham Report Obliterates FBI for Russiagate Misconduct | SYSTEM UPDATE #83

If you want the chirpy short bipartisan mainstream version, go see the Hill’s take.

Durham Report SLAMS Russia Probe: ‘DEVASTATING to FBI, Does Exonerate Donald Trump’: Jake Tapper

If you want my horrifyingly recalcitrant take, you’re in the right place.

For month piled upon year, they lied to you.

The reasons you were taught to hate Vlad the Putin years before he invaded the Ukraine were based on those incessantly repeated lies.

There never was any Trump-Russia ‘collusion’.

That durable lie was in fact concocted inside the Hillary Clinton campaign and then pumped into your cortex by the viciously corrupt ‘journalists’ you trusted most, over and over for years until you believed them.

There was only ever the vaguest trace of ‘election interference’ on the part of the Russians, very little of that very little was in support of Donald Trump, and in fact–this is by far the worst part–to the extent that there was interference in the elections of 2016 and 2020, it was perpetrated by the FBI under Obama, and then the FBI continuously under Trump in spite of the fact that he was then legitimately the President under our oh-so democratic system.

The details of those basic truths, as outlined in Independent Counsel Durham’s report, are truly and deeply disgusting to anyone who still hopes to cling to a belief in American or Democratic ideals.

I know you don’t want to hear or believe it. But even Jake Tapper has been grudgingly forced to admit it, seven years after the fact, because he somehow still has some lingering shreds of integrity left in his corporately captured brain.

Unlike the rest of those well-bribed dipshits.

You can have the same integrity and still go on hating the Donald for many other reasons, I’m sure.

That would be the ethical way to proceed, and maybe even not get taken in the next time they routinely lie to you, which will no doubt happen the very next time you turn to cable news or those fine papers in New York and DC or your Facebook feed.

But anyway, let do what thou wilt be the whole of the law.

Lord knows I would never even want to stand in your way.

Coming into Arizona on I-40 (or on Route 66 in days of old) from the New Mexico side, you soon reach Exit 348 to St. Anselm Road.

St. Anselm of Canterbury is the patron saint of theologians and philosophers.

He was born almost a thousand years ago in Italy and became a Benedictine monk, and a power player in politics.

And thinking.

Now it’s my turn to think.

It may also be, if my thinking is correct, Judy’s turn to cry.

Once upon a time I got a bamboo spear with a rubber arrowhead out of the deal.

I don’t know what ever happened to it.

And by ‘it’ I mean both the spear, and the deal.

Russell & RFK Jr | FAUCI, CIA Secrets & Running For President
#128 – Stay Free With Russell Brand

If you haven’t already been thoroughly hypnotized into drinking the Kool-Aid on RFK being a crackpot, they’ll be aiming at that again, repeatedly and soon.

Should you ever find yourself inclined to question to cult narrative, you can come back here and listen.

That is all.

Anti-corporatist, anti-war, and anti-censorship. The guy may be imperfect but his is posed correctly on these three central matters–maybe four, if you count the widening gap in income inequality.

And yet, that near-perfection is documented in a video called:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. won’t be “ALLOWED” to become President.

That certainly is a problem. An as-yet unsolved one.

Debating RFK Jr.’s Candidacy

In this second video, the DD guys talk with super-bright RFK supporter Anis Shivani, and everyone agrees that Robert Jr. is the last best hope in post-Bernie world.

But while Shivani maintains that RFK can and maybe even will win against the dark lords red and blue, Keaton and Russell remain skeptical that any party will come close to letting that happen, and want our hero to run as an independent from the start, to try and salvage something from dashed hopes if indeed any hope still exists.

We’ll see.

If the Dems have primaries, I’d switch affiliations long enough to vote for him there.

Maybe he will do the dirty break, eventually.

Or maybe I’ll just end up writing him in instead of marking down Kamala or DeSantis next year.

It doesn’t matter.

I just like thinking about it.

Some people like the Packers or the Golden Knights.

I prefer to think about the horses. Especially the dark ones in the meaningless but entertaining races.

Psychologist Explains How COVID Turned People Into Fascists

The tl;dr is: via mental surrender and mass formation psychosis. And by the way, if you think this only applies to the Magaheads or the AntiVaxxers, or even just to Americans, you are historically and dangerously mistaken.

It applies just as much to me and to you too, and the hallmark of the formation, according to the smart guy, is “intolerance for dissident voices … as if this (intolerance) were an ethical duty”. Whether the voices be named Nina Turner or Marjorie Taylor Greene.

He instead asserts that the real moral duty consists of continuing to speak out in resistance to the consensus trance even if speaking out does not appear to have any effect or change any minds. Resisting voices create the possibility of doubt and alternatives, and thereby (if nothing else) hold back the power of the hypnotic agreement to become total and absolute.

I hope you can see how that would make me feel better.

And yes it does.

***

The smart guy’s name, by the way, is Mattias Desme and his title is: University of Ghent professor of psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Later in the interview he has some interesting things to say about what “Trust The Science” came to mean over the last few years. It’s really something more like “Have Blind Faith In What We Tell You Is Science”.

It turns out that in our ‘data-driven’ for-profit world of conflicted interests, 85 percent of all research turns out to be irreproducible, not able to be reproduced, and therefore is, scientifically speaking, useless.

In this context:

They told you the virus arose naturally in a wet market, but they were lying about that–it was engineered.

They told you the vaccine would make it less likely you would get Covid, and that was almost purely false, but then they doubled down and said you had to keep on getting ‘boosted’ to keep up with the evolutionary variants.

Most perniciously, they told you getting the jab would help protect your vulnerable loved ones from getting sick from you, and that was almost completely wrong too.

They told you that side effects were minimal and that was another dangerous lie.

In the end, at best, the still largely untested and still largely unapproved vaccines led to some milder cases for some people.

But the exact same thing was true about Ivermectin and monoclonals and a lot of random crap.

You hissed at Joe Rogan and you slapped Neil Young on the back for his principled boldness, but that was all bullshit-based too. Or, to say it in the language of mass formation psychosis, you were collectively hypnotized.

People are still getting fired for refusing to take their garbage medicine.

The vaccine was wildly successful though, at making the rich richer, from Bill Gates to the notorious inside trader Nancy Pelosi.

They lie and the lie and then they tell you to worship the science, sinner. But they don’t give a shit about science.

They want money. They want power. They want control.

Of your thinking and your actions and your beliefs.

And your Time.

Do it today. Do it anxiously.

Hurry.

Despite what they all say and say and say, there is literally no hurry.

Nothin’ wrong with a little hustling and efficiency amirite? No. Sorry. Not right.

Through this distorted lens of this culture, hurrying habitually may look strong and healthy and productive. It probably does, to The Manager right above you, if you’re a Team Player working hard, working fast.

I recommend resisting this twisted view, even if it does make you rich, or a Boss yourself, by some chance.

Money is not Time.

Time is the only thing of value.

Killing Time is surely wrong and that’s easy to see, but that doesn’t make beating the clock automatically right.

The man is going only five mph above the limit in the left lane, and if that causes you a fury, you’re hurting yourself just as surely as if you were one of those self-harm cases with a secret stash of razor blades.

The lady got into the express line ahead of you with 22 items and now she is paying with a check. You have no control over that. But you do of course have control over your reaction to it.

You mad, bro? Why? Why really?

Maybe Time’s a-wastin’ and maybe it’s your Time and maybe that makes you feel disrespected.

I don’t know.

I’m not telling you how to be or what to think or what to feel, and I’m not making accusations.

I do know that my life will end in twenty seconds.

Or maybe twenty years; let’s be optimistic.

I know that, until then, whenever then is, that I refuse on religious grounds to hurry any more.

Rushing is a sin.

Consider that belief. If you feel like it. Reject it if you want to.

I don’t mind and I won’t feel disrespected and even if I’m lying and I do, that’s my problem.

And not yours.

Slow.

Don’t go
so fast.

Don’t you think that love can last?

She said Love?
Lord above
Now you’re tryna trick me
in love

I haven’t watched any politics for two weeks. Until now. I’m almost caught back up, quick and dirty.

Here’s Why The World Hates America

Short reason: We’re ‘sanctioning’ a third of them and sanctions hurt the poorest most.

See also:

From: Syria Welcomed Back Into Arab League & U.S. FLIPS OUT
(This is the single best and most informative video I watched today.)

Prof’s Story Shows SHOCKING Cost of Living Disparity in Europe vs. US

Free health care, almost free child care, and free college; 2000 rent on a three-bedroom house, and a $400 monthly food bill for a family of five. $1906 going out the door for basic living expenses in Germany, paired with better wages. The American wife in the couple says she’s never coming back and it makes sense.

Kshama Sawant SCHOOLS Briahna Joy Gray on Marianne, RFK Jr

Why electoralism will never change anything really. And even if it threatens to …

MSNBC, New York Times Say NO DEM PRIMARIES in 2024

.. We’ll cancel all debates, and if necessary, the primaries as well.

Welcome to Democracy!

While spending a lot of quality time with family, I also spend a lot of quality platonic time with The Woman Who Looks Exactly Like Jill Clayburgh, before confessing that I’ve had a crush on her since the first time I saw her in sixth grade.

The confession is like fifty years overdue, and I don’t have any expectations in finally telling her.

Maybe a few thin hopes though. I’m only human.

In the second part, we’re driving on a boulevard and see a stupid guy in a speedy car crash into a white truck and keep going. When he pulls into a parking space we follow.

I assume the role of a small autistic boy to call him out for being a jackass so I won’t have to fight him.

It works. I don’t remember what happens to the truck.

Or the Woman.

In reality we are still at the Henderson Hilton surrounded by all the amazing coffee and food.

The morning after tomorrow we’ll go somewhere else and the trip will be over, and it will be time for a little more more real real life before the next one.

Two nights ago I wrote:

It rained all day and the people around us on the I-20 drove like they were insane.

Two days of driving and thinking later, I wish to treat the same subject to some amplification and clarification, while rubbing down the cliche’ into something more useful.

Most of them likely were insane, but it is hard to pin the blame for that on each of them personally, and not right to use the word so blithely, or dismissively.

There’s more to it than that.

A necktie is a piece of fetish wear, an optional garment. It is a symbol of ritual strangulation.

Ritual strangulation of souls; and time and lives.

There are other fetish garments, of different styles, but of similar weirdness. Polyester fast-food wear with a ball cap and a name tag. All name tags in fact. Perhaps all uniforms, and uniformities, whether acknowledged as such, like the McUniform, or more subtle things as enforced by dress codes and even ‘casual fridays’. There used to be one about men wearing hats, and women wearing pantyhose–styles change, but the coercive demands underlying the styles, the haircuts, the beards and the armpits and the legs and the genitals shaved and unshaved, they’re all of a piece.

All this borders on cliche’ as well, a la The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit on the one hand, and the dirty smelly hippie longhairs on the other.

But what I really want to talk about is Time.

Though it pains me to even imagine it again, let’s go back out on I-20, or I-10, or even I-40 in Missouri in the rain, which I have recent hellish experience with, though not on this trip. Let’s go back out on most any Interstate and especially any Interstate east of about Weatherford, Texas, at the terminus of US 180 on the west edge of the Dallas tumor.

There, I found, it abruptly got better. Not perfect, but at least not a constant pounding horror.

Out east, it’s green and purty. There’s a beach or a shore nearby, often even an oceanic one, but if not, some big old lake or a fat well-fed river. All those things are true of coastal California as well, and so on up near Portland and Seattle too.

Green and pretty and relatively mild. Mostly.

It brings the people.

Eighty percent of We the People.

(Another interesting view of the fact.)

Too god damned many people, for sanity, in my occasionally humble opinion.

This is even more pungently true on the overstuffed, poorly maintained roadways.

I was a long-haul trucker thirty years ago, and then again for a little while just this week.

All that stuff was true then, but ten times more true now.

Out here in the western flyover between the Pacific coastal strip and the 97th Meridian, eight whole states and parts of nine more … nine percent of the People abide, and drive.

You say to me: Okay Mr. Vairtere, that’s all well and good and kind of obvious. But it’s about crowds, and space, and I thought you wanted to talk about Time.

(It’s time.)

***

Americans have a lot of strange fetish beliefs and sayings about Time.

‘Time is Money’. That’s a big central brain-dead one.

Money is what we as a group love best. If time was money, we would love time too.

But we don’t. We beat the clock. Like a red-headed stepchild.

The fetish belief about time being money leads us to conclude that because we can never have enough money, there is never enough time.

Thus, we rush.

We hurry.

We go too fast and because of this we cut people off in traffic, either because if we don’t, we’ll die, or because it is just an insane habit grounded in a mistaken belief and we can’t see the traffic for the bumpers.

We tailgate, or are tailgated, at incredibly fast speeds.

Do you know who very much wants you to believe that time is money?

Yes. You do know.

The people with all the money, and first dibs on your time, want you to believe that.

They teach this gospel to you a thousand times a day, just like they teach all the proverbs about the goodness of democracy and the exceptionalism of the American capitalist Empire.

They don’t just want you to believe it. They need you to believe it. So they invest very heavily in a whole bunch of little psy-ops that you swim in every day like a well-schooled fish.

You race to be to work on time.

You rush to the grocery store and get impatient in the line.

You get home as fast as you can, but they follow you there and pump you full of ads for time-saving devices.

That cost money.

You buy them. Sometimes. Then you set an alarm so that you’ll be sure to be to work on time.

In the proper uniform of course. Which also takes money, and time, but they don’t pay you for that part.

To save time you cut people off. They lose time. They honk. You flip them off for honking.

***

That’s life in the big green mild crowded shithole.

***

We’re not done here. You see, I do have a job, just like you.

You might be in a rush for the rest–I even hope you are–but that’ll have to be a shame.

Right now I’m off the clock.

So …

Some Other Time.

Until then, I beg you please, for your own sake and not mine

Stop.

Look.

Listen.

Despite what they all say and say and say, there is literally no hurry.

As in Longview, Texas. We got a solid motel recommendation from a random guy in a truck stop and stopped here. I have been doing the laundry for a few hours; got my current stash of footage downloaded from the camera, and still hope for a bath before I sleep.

It rained all day and the people around us on the I-20 drove like they were insane.

But come sundown we were on the edge of West again and there were only a couple of innocent looking white clouds.

Now there’s your good omen.

The La Quinta in St. Augustine is a nice place to be, but something about the pillows, or maybe the box spring, only let me sleep for five hours ’til 5.

I got up and cut yesterday’s footage together in the dark. It took an hour. By then the lobby coffee was fresh and I got some while the final cut was processing.

Outside there was wildlife. I saw two stray cats and a possum that was bigger than either of them out by the dumpster. The mood is wet and and atmospheric.

The video is uploading.

When I first woke I was thinking about some lines from 1990.

“I believe in the future
I may live in my car
My radio tuned to
The voice of a star.”

Images of the 72-year-old woman doing the same accompanied the lines. Images of the Frances McDormand character in Nomadland, too.

I won’t be the first or the last to observe that as long as this thing we call ‘vanlife’ is an option rather than a necessity, it can be fun or even spiritual. But as soon as it becomes less of an option and more of a necessity it also becomes less of an entertaining lark or bodhi path, and more of a poverty grind.

I still don’t think that living in a van, down by the river or elsewhere, is per se a shameful thing or a mark of failure. I still don’t think it’s a cynical joke.

Instead, I believe it’s as close as we can still get to living in accord with those an(archo)-prim(itivist) ideals in a world gone mad with technology.

I do have a website. Over there, I have multiple platforms. Right here, I am wearing corrective lenses, and I wouldn’t be alive right now without a lot of fancy medical interventions.

My being alive doesn’t justify it, or make it right, though. Much less does it make it pretty.

The stray cats are still a tragedy, and in a different way so is the possum who needs that dumpster to make it.

Who am I?

I am not old possum. I am not quite yet the poor sweet homeless kittens.

I’m a mammal trying to make its strange way through this stranger land.

I begin to suddenly wake up myself.

I begin to realize that none of this is going anywhere unless I have better ways to get the word spread about what I’m doing.

This post is going to sit here at the top for a few days to remind me of that fact until it sinks in.

Preview Of Coming Attractions

Preview of existing attractions

99.9% of the time, when you hear the phrase “Russian disinformation”, you are being actively disinformed, and not by Russians.

The same is true of other common phrases like “election meddling” (projection much, USA?) and, as noted recently, “autocracy” and the like.

Back before the last Presidential in 2020, Hunter Biden dumped his laptop off at a repair shop. The laptop was full of evidence that incriminated its owner, not only of being a crack-smoking sleazeball, but a deeply corrupt one as well. Depending on who you listen to, and how you interpret phrases like “the Big Guy”, it also seems to incriminate his father as a partner in that corruption.

Then he forgot all about the laptop and abandoned it. (Hunter is now frivolously suing the shop owner, which does and will do nothing except prove absolutely that the laptop is his.)

The New York Post got hold of some of the evidence and published it right before the election.

Immediately, that story was mercilessly suppressed. The paper had its social media accounts suspended so that they couldn’t promote the scoop. The story was mercilessly ferreted out wherever hints of it appeared and further suppression and suspensions ensued. Dare to re-tweet the Post, will you? Down comes the banhammer, no matter who you are, via exactly the same mechanisms brought to light by Matt Taibbi’s version of the Twitter Files.

Why yes, it does sound a lot like my previous post on The Game, doesn’t it?

But wait. Now there’s more.

(image sourced from coverage by The Duran)

This is October, before the election in November, which means … that this acting CIA Director was a Trump appointee and supposedly working for him at the time.

And yet …

The Biden campaign felt free to ask him to concoct this (widely reported) bullshit letter …

And even more astonishingly: he did it!

Is it any wonder, that Democrats trust these three-letter agencies at twice the rate now that R’s do, in a stunning historical reversal of the numbers?

Of course they trust them, because as this latest twist makes crystal clear, those agencies are full of neo-libs, and not neo-cons, and whether it’s in Sudan or Yemen or Russia or China or Ukraine or anywhere else fine regime-change products are sold, you can be sure that the agenda being pursued by our upstanding secret warriors is the one that people like Biden and Blinken and Nuland want pursued, regardless of who the people say they want their President to be, or who wins the office.

Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex.

He could never have foreseen that the military and its pet oligarchic defense contractors would end up so successfully taking over that Secretaries of State, Directors of TLAs, all the Senators, most all of the representatives of the House, the entire legacy media apparatus from NBC to NPR, and the new media companies like Twitter and Facebook would all become cultishly enthusiastic, card-carrying members of that Empire Complex.

But that is the unseen water that we little fish now swim in every day.

They’re lying to you. On purpose. They are accusing their nominal Enemies of being the disinforming liars and empire-builders when it should be so transparently obvious that their accusations apply more to themselves than to any imagined threat.

They lie routinely and habitually and they do it because, with far too many good smart successful americans, it works every single fucking time.

If you’re awake to this shit, great.

If you’re not …

Please stop being such a god damn rube.

Please stop trying to tell me how happy I should be about Fox Corporation handing over a billion bucks to Dominion Voting Systems Corporation, or how wound up I’m supposed to be about who uses which bathroom.

None of that crap matters my darlings. They keep you doped with religion, sex, and TV. They’re in your brain and in your dreams and it has been doing damage to your soul every single night since the day you were born.

Unjoin Team Blue. Don’t join Team Red.

Anarchy now.

The game.

1) Be a real journalist instead of a shill and dig up real dirt on illegal government surveillance and other real and serious crimes.

2) Watch while the substance of the illegality is completely ignored and no one pays a price.

3) Get slammed as a criminal yourself for being the messenger that brings the bad news.

It happened to Greenwald. It happened to Assange. And now we’re on step 3 with Taibbi.

Those are not the only examples, just the most significant ones in recent memory.

I hope you’re enjoying the theater, and I hope that at some point you’ll go back thoughtfully to consider what these people have paid such a price to reveal to your civilian eyes.

As per yesterday: Bombshell filing: 9/11 hijackers were CIA recruits

Today: Bombshell! Two 9/11 Hijackers Were CIA Recruits!
Max goes on Jimmy Dore to discuss, and add evidence (much of it circumstantial so far) to the claims.

In case you don’t want to read or watch the bad conspiracy theorists, CBS grandly gave it four minutes because grieving survivors turned pissed-off whistleblowers are good for ratings.

The Biden Administration is supposed to release all of the dirty laundry by a deadline Saturday.

But he was supposed to have declassified all the JFK stuff by now too.

We’ll see.

***

Brazil’s President Lula: Let’s All Abandon The Dollar and End The Hegemony That Oppresses and Threatens Us All

His words will make perfect economic sense to the 96% of the world that isn’t American. It’s happening. Now

***

In the meantime, and speaking of threats, we just literally invaded China. The murican boots are on the ground, just as they are, we learned the other day, in Ukraine. (Shocking.)

A couple hundred ‘advisors’ is exactly how Vietnam started. But Vietnam didn’t have three times the population of the US, or an economy that will soon be the largest by any measure … or nukes.

Imagine for a moment that China spent a decade pumping millions into some little Hawaiian independence movement, or even the Puerto Rican one, and then landed troops there one day. The US population would be shitting its pants and screaming for blood.

But you don’t understand. The reverse is okay because, um … I dunno …

China … bad?

We are not the good guys, darlings.

The karmic chickens are coming home to roost and it’s gonna cost US all and it doesn’t matter if you vote for the red monster or the blue monster because they’ve all been globalist empire monsters (even Jimmy Carter just a little)
since the day 60 years ago when the shots rang out in Dallas if not before.

Cleaning up, backing up, polishing some lists, including this one:

General tools with links (they’re affiliate links if it says amzn.to)

Panasonic LUMIX G7 Interchangeable Lens (DSLM) Camera with 14-42mm Lens (Silver) and Koah Mic Bundle
https://amzn.to/3AdAdvZ

Panasonic LUMIX G VARIO Zoom 45-150mm F4.0-5.6 =Lens with Optical Stabilizer
https://amzn.to/40quCgf

GoPro Hero 9
https://amzn.to/3V0f8P1

Deity V-Mic D3 Pro Super-Cardioid Directional Shotgun Microphone with Rycote Shockmount
https://amzn.to/41ComDq

ULANZI VT02 Camera Tripod Monopod 72″
https://amzn.to/3Ae7Rl1

Operating System: MX Linux
Video Editing: Shotcut
Streaming and Screencasting: None yet, leaning toward OBS-Studio and open to suggestions
Blog: WordPress
‘Email List’: Substack

Source: SYSTEM UPDATE #74

The green is me. Almost. You have to understand what a DVE is. I am domestic. I might be an extremist. I am not V for Violent, though. So far, that loophole has been enough to spare me, but as of today, that might have just changed.

The five activists of the Uhuru Black Socialist Movement–indicted today–were not violent either.

But the spooks allege that over a period of a decade, they took 15K in support from some other guys who turned out to be Russians, and thereby “weaponized” free speech, and supposedly turned themselves into “foreign agents” charged, literally, with “sowing dissent”.

So I guess the moral of the story is: If you happen to be Russian, or Chinese, please don’t sign up to support me at Patreon–don’t even buy me a Ko-fi.

(Everybody else: please do.)

***

Partly because the radicals in this breaking story from today are black, GG also had on Nick Cruse (aka SocialistMMA) from the Revolutionary Blackout Network.

Mr. Cruse made a lot of good solid points. But my favorite part was when he started updating the Devil’s Dictionary, thus:

In America, it’s Law and Order. In every other country the Empire doesn’t like, it’s “authoritarianism”.
(Or as Biden loves to say, “autocracy”.)

America has successful entrepreneurs, and ‘venture capitalists’. In all the bad countries, they’re Oligarchs.

In the bad countries, they have Secret Police. In America we call them undercover cops.

The secret police in bad countries “crush dissent” with “chemical weapons”. Here it’s just riot control with tear gas (and worse), along with infiltration and other covert ops.

They have forced interment in “gulags”. We have private prisons, and prisoners working for pennies. (Not to mention mental patients being eaten alive by bugs even in non-private ones.)

Thanks Nick.

Caitlin Johnstone has a concurring opinion.

SYSTEM UPDATE #73

Greenwald interviews someone who was high up in the Trump administration. Meh.

Greenwald talks about personal responsibility and hypocrisy, like Climate Czar John Kerry whipping around the world on private jets to squawk uselessly about the environmental crisis, or Robert Reich being all for housing the poor in Berkeley, up until the moment that someone wants to put housing for the poor in his neighborhood. Okay.

He then pivots to savaging Hasan Piker, Cenk’s multimillionaire Twitch-streamer nephew on much the same basis, and I’m good with that too. Good raw red meat.

He posts a clip of Hasan trying to make a ruling on who is ‘on the left’ these days and concluding that neither Greenwald himself nor Matt Taibbi qualifies any more.

And Glenn says, in so many words: “Listen you spoiled lying brat. Who the fuck are you to be making those calls?”

And Glenn says, I never claimed to be on the left, or the right, anyway. The only labels I’ve applied to myself are “civil libertarian” (he actually calls himself this all the time), and …

“Anti-Authoritarian”
(I’ve never heard him say this before, and it really made me glad).

I told you all this just to share that small moment of joy I felt.

***

To me, a serious preoccupation with Liberty (civil, constitutional, or otherwise) is pretty much mandatory for any thinking person trying to live in the heart of the Empire. Whether you know it or not, my darling, you really really want Fox News to continue be able to go on the air and spew what you think are lies. Because the damage done to freedom by preventing them from exercising their right to Speech is worse, by orders of magnitude, than any damage that can be done by some witless yokel who believes any given ‘lie’–whether that lie is told by Rachel Maddow or Tucker Carlson.

As for anti-authoritarianism, in my view, that’s a little more optional, although …

There IS a natural tension between real Liberty and any Authority and I think that’s obvious.

As for labels, I don’t care if Hasan Piker or anyone else thinks I’m a ‘leftist’ or not. But I will say …

Anarchy Now.

Bombshell filing: 9/11 hijackers were CIA recruits
KIT KLARENBERG · APRIL 18, 2023

At least two 9/11 hijackers had been recruited into a joint CIA-Saudi intelligence operation that was covered up at the highest level, according to an explosive new court filing.

…

The veteran FBI deep cover agent Aukai Collins concluded his memoir with a chilling reflection which was only reinforced by Don Canestraro’s bombshell declaration:

“I was very mistrustful about the fact that bin Laden’s name was mentioned literally hours after the attack… I became very skeptical about anything anybody said about what happened, or who did it. I thought back to when I was still working for them and we had the opportunity to enter Bin Laden’s camp. Something just hadn’t smelled right … To this day I’m unsure who was behind September 11, nor can I even guess …

Someday the truth will reveal itself, and I have a feeling that people won’t like what they hear.”

***

I find the Grayzone to be a very credible outlet, but I know very little about their source. Specifically:

” … the filing is a 21-page declaration by Don Canestraro, a lead investigator for the Office of Military Commissions, the legal body overseeing the cases of 9/11 defendants”.

I’ll keep letting you know what I hear, and we’ll see.

Featuring a thumbnail of most of my face. You’re welcome.

Let’s talk tortillas again with a little more understanding.

What I was missing is this. There are basically two ways to get to corn dough.

One is to finely grind whole corn, and it seems like that would be way simpler and therefore better. But you need a very hefty grinder to get that job done–which is where something like the $350 Wondermill comes in–or, as things turn out, you can buy already ground organic whole-corn flour from dozens of mills for a reasonably cheap price.

But the other is to nixtamalize, which basically just means cooking before grinding, and cooking with a bit of calcium carbonate or culinary lime (it’s why you see ‘trace of lime’ listed as an ingredient on packaged tortillas sometimes).

Unlike simple grinding, this yields not dry flour, but wet masa which has been largely stripped of the inert outer hull of the kernels. The downside of this is less fiber, but there are several interesting advantages, including the fact that it kills most of the mycotoxins that are often naturally found in corn.

So when you buy flour from a traditional American mill like War Eagle in Arkansas, you’re getting ground-up corn, the good and the bad together.

But when you buy “masa flour” from a clued-in boutique vendor like King Arthur in Vermont, or Masienda in LA, you’re getting a dried version of masa that has already been cooked with lime before being dried and packaged.

Generally speaking you do pay a little more, but I’m starting to think it’s worth it. If I was more of a prepper type, I would probably want to start with raw corn kernels and nixtamalize it myself. But both grinding and nixtamalizing are a ton of work that also usually requires a substantial equipment investment. Dry side: a Wondermill for several hundred bucks. Wet side: Masienda’s Molinito for a couple thousand.
(Although … there are always going to be less robust cheaper options of course. Here is one that potentially interests me–maybe and someday. See also the Masienda version.)

Everything’s still subject to change pending an even deeper dive, of course. But …

Here is my best solution for the moment.

Azure Market Organics Yellow Corn Masa Flour Medium, Organic

Well under two bucks a pound, already nixtamalized, and ground. Closer to a dollar if you could use up 45 pounds of it before it expired. A white corn version also available for a bit more. A Bobs-Red-Mill version for more still. ‘Just add water’, and a basic $25 masa press, or the sweet fancy indigenously crafted hundred dollar one from Masienda if it’s time to treat yourself. Set the flattened circles on a griddle or comal, and taste heaven on the cheap.

We’re gonna make us some real soon, together out here in the vivid Southwest.

Research dump follows in 3, 2, …

****

Tortilla Recipe from Nixtamal
Quite fun. The Masienda founder guy using the radically overpriced tools he sells on the site to do the whole process from raw kernels to lovely finished tortillas.

NIXTAMALIZATION – How to make fresh MASA from Corn
Doing it homestyle.

Bob’s Red Mill Organic Masa Harina and also yet another supplier for it.
One part of the page reads: “While they’re similar, corn masa is very different from cornmeal (don’t swap the two). It’s finer, and the method of preparation is very different: dried yellow or white corn kernels are soaked in water and lime. Then the skins are removed and the remaining corn kernels are dried and ground into corn flour perfect for masa dough”.

Stone Ground Hominy Grits” at La Cosecha: nixtamalized

King Arthur Baking Company Organic Masa Harina Flour (nix’d)
I can’t see a strong reason to pay more here than at Azure, except .. I might have a chance to visit this mill in the fall, which would be cool.

Two academic research paper type deals about the advantages and possible disadvantages of the Nix process
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/food-science/nixtamalization
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6520960/
and Wikipedia’s two cents
“The pericarp is then removed, leaving the endosperm of the grain with or without the germ, depending on the process”.

The Azure Standard page for deciding between all 3 offerings for ‘masa flour’ there.

***

Pure Unannotated Notes Dump

Masienda https://www.youtube.com/@Masienda/videos nonGMO, not organic
War Eagle is really more like 3.50, and not nixt, but is organic
Ole Rico
Azure Standard
grain place: whole not nixt, organic, 3.80
congaree: whole not nixt, organic, 5-6
mulberry: whole germ not nixt, organic, 5.60

King Arthur is organic and nixt for $4, but germ?
Norwich, Vermont
Monday-Sunday
Store: 8:00am to 5:00pm
Café: 8:00am to 3:00pm

Organic Yellow Corn Meal
6% Protein
A finer ground organic corn in which the germ and most of the bran are left intact for added flavor and nutrition. This grind is well suited for corn bread, yeasted breads, pizza dough, and for dusting your peel or proofing boards.
25 lb. #28625
“professional baking flour”
Stone ground cornmeal contains the corn’s germ and hull, meaning you’ll get a flavor comparable to that of whole-grain bread. It is important to remember when using stone-ground cornmeal that the meal will not have the same shelf life as a powdered cornbread mix, so you should always store the mix in your refrigerator or freezer to slow it from becoming rancid.
Read More: https://www.tastingtable.com/1162099/tips-you-need-for-the-absolute-best-cornbread/

I am pretty sure that ‘stone ground’ is the opposite of nixtamalized, which is: cooked with lime
masa is made from whole dried corn that has been soaked in a calcium hydroxide solution before being ground …this changes the taste and texture, in addition to changes in some enzymes (?) that, when eaten with beans, forms a complete protien that plain cornmeal does not do
there is a certian something about a masa dough that is lacking in a cornmeal dough tough to describe, but an undertone of richness that ain’t the same without it
https://www.stripersonline.com/surftalk/topic/347099-masa-verses-stone-ground-corn-meal/

The not-funny version of living in a van ‘down by the river’. Compare the story of the 72-year-old woman in her Volvo. I’m comparing it to my own story too and feeling blessed.

Same guy, starting out to tell his story, in late 2020.

Nice to meet you, Joseph.

** What also is unknown is that Zelensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, “although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine.”

“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it.

Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally “competing,” I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks. **

–A brief clip from the very useful Substack of Seymour Hersh

There are three eminent American journalists working today in a class of their own, and their names are Taibbi, Hersh, and Greenwald.

There’s a fourth name right up there, Assange, but he’s been in jail and quasi-jail for a long, long time. He’s an Aussie.

There’s the Grayzone and a group that now includes Lee Fang in an up-and-coming tier. There are expert guests like Scott Ritter and Douglas MacGregor and Robert Barnes. There are good YouTuber hosts like Sabrina Salvati and the Due Dissidence guys.

Then there’s everyone else, routinely spewing dreck and overt lies from within the corporate communication monopoly and various arguably state-funded outlets like the BBC and NPR.

If you don’t feel like reading Hersh today, the heart of the story, unattributed at least in this clip, was covered in characteristically vibrant fashion by one James Dore.

I swear.

Amazon asked for my site info and I believe they sent a bot right over to actually read these recent posts, because an hour later they recommended this to me.

Open Seed Vault 15,000 Heirloom Seeds Non-GMO Organic

So yeah. “Compromises will be made.” Prepare yourself for The End Times now.

They took away my Amaz Affiliate status because I was a slacker and never posted links.

Like this one, on my second time around, since I was there anyway looking at corn and tarp poles.

https://amzn.to/3mFnKxI

My understanding of how this works is:

1) You click it to shop there.
2) You pay the same as you would have, but …
3) I get a little sliver of the sale.
4) In theory, anything you buy during the same session also gives me the little cut. So …
5) If you use the link, decide you don’t want to buy the book, but do buy a razor blade or a shipping container, I get the tiny percentage from those sales anyway.

I’ll leave that up to your discretion. Oh, and I don’t believe I get to know who you are, either.

Thank you.

“We all knew what he was doing” – Cindy McCain on Jeffrey Epstein
“Me and my late Senator husband and my media star daughter knew all about the pedophilic sex abuse, but we were powerless to stop it!”

Meanwhile

What happens when you lose your home at 72 in Amesbury, Massachusetts?

You get a storage locker and live in your Volvo for a year until you can shake some Section 8 housing out of a world in which you have no other way to pay $3500 a month for rent even if you could find employment.

***

This is your Empire in the 2020s, for the blessed, and for the ‘less fortunate’.

The homeless are not all mentally fucked up alcoholics and things are worse for everyone every day.

What I actually bought and have on the way.

White Duck 18 oz. 100% Cotton Canvas Tarp, 20′ x 24
(That’s the Amazon link but I really bought it from White Duck’s own site, on sale)

2 state of the art tarp poles
(actual site)

2 experimentally cheap tarp poles from Hikeman

Hikeman 10 Pack 4mm Camping Rope Reflective Outdoor Guy Lines with Aluminum Guyline Adjuster Tensioners Nylon Tent Tie Downs for Hiking Backpacking Tarp
A video on using the rather funky tensioner buckles

STAYGROW 2 Pairs of Adjustable 1/8″ Rope Ratchet Hangers, Heavy-Duty Tie-Down Ratcheting Strap with Stainless Steel Gears & Hooks, 300 lbs Combined Weight Capacity per 4-Pack
These are for backup/alternative to the funky tensioner buckles.

Outback Element® – 15 Tent Stakes Heavy Duty with Glow in The Dark Heads + Bonus Canvas Carry Pouch and Hex Drill Bit
A video on ’em.

$348.49 tarp
$99.33 for 2 GE and 2 Hikeman poles
$76.28 stakes and lines (3 items above)
Total: 524.10

***

Things I Didn’t Buy, But Might

Very Spendy 10″ Screw Stakes (bought the much cheaper 8″ ones) (a vid)

danchel stakes (massive steel spikes that would hammer in, instead of screw in)

REDCAMP Heavy Duty Suction Cup Anchors @ $15.99 (yet another tie-down point/tensioning option)

***

I think setting this up might be a long video when we get back, or maybe a couple of videos with field-testing too. It’s kinda exciting.
In a very low key way …
I’m still looking for a field chair to furnish this ‘new place’ but for testing I can take a non-field version too.

There’s a certain school of thought out there, sciency and nominally humanistic, that says: Fuck you and your elitist boutique organic food. There are eight billion hungry mouths to feed and soon there will be more; so we need to use technology to genetically modify our way out of this mess, and we as a species can ill afford to live according to your ritualistic notions of purity.

I stand somewhere off to the left of all that, an anachronistic archaic anarchic pessimistic purity addict maybe. I don’t want to live on Mars, even if the new Martians would offer me a seat to come along, which they definitely will not. I’m down in, I’m down for, the pre-Anthropocene dirt. I want to eat from it. I want to be buried in it.

I don’t own a suit that nice and I gave all my ties to the Goodwill. I lack the flowing mane and I’ve never ridden either on the Lolita Express like old Doctor Steven.

I don’t want the plastic pellets of previous salvation efforts littering the sea floor, nor the British ash falling like snowflakes on the Arctic, or genetically modified anything, nor artificial versions of brains that mimic intelligence, whatever that is.

Keep it all for yourself, and keep it out of my face. I’ll do my best to undermine everything you stand for, and my best will not even be close to good enough, and I don’t feel a need to give a shit about that either.

In half the length of a standard mortgage I’ll be pushing eighty or I’ll be gone for good. All I have left is this little space of time, and living in its moments.

I don’t want pounds of organic corn from a family-owned farm in Illinois in variations red and blue and yellow and white for health reasons, nor even precisely for aesthetic ones

It’s more of a pagan thing, quasi-religious, pseudo-indigenous. My Jesus don’t like frankenfood and if he were here to speak for himself he’d be turning over the granary tables in the Bank of Monsanto.

***

Let’s talk Corn Tortillas.

There are no good ones, out here in the sticks.

90 miles away at the good store, they’re expensive and only intermittently in stock, so I’m thinking it might be worth the effort to make them, at least sometimes.

First things first.

All organic food is non-GMO, but not all non-GMO is necessarily organic. If it says USDA Organic you’re good to go on both fronts. If it’s just non-GMO, okay, but it had better be pretty cheap.

Additionally, I want corn that has the corn germ included. You have to dig pretty hard to see if any particular product does. (The hulls/husks/seed coverings are optional, in my book.)

The best way to know would be to just buy whole dried kernels.

Great River Organic Milling Great River Organic Whole Corn, 25 Pounds (Pack of 1)
Visit the Great River Organic Milling Store
Price: $51.27 ($0.13 / Fl Oz)

Yellow Corn Organically Grown in Michigan, Farmer Direct, USDA Organic Certified, Non-GMO, Vegan, Maíz, Dry 10 Lbs
Visit the Findlay’s Organics Store
$41.99 ($4.20 / lb)

But there’s a big downside to buying them whole, and that is that you need to grind them, and good grinders ain’t cheap.

Wonder Junior Deluxe Plus Manual Grain Mill Unboxing, Assembly, & Review | Prepper Pantry Equipment
This one looks best at $350, especially with the thing that turns it optionally from a hand-crank to an electric:

Wondermill Junior Drill Bit Adapter
WONDERMILL – Wonder Junior Drill Bit
Visit the WONDERMILL Store
$42.99

An even more expensive grinder
Country Living Grain Mill with Large Corn & Bean Auger
$724.00

There are cheaper ones that probably won’t last long, including this one and
Moongiantgo Corn Grinder Mill Cast Iron Manual Grain Mill Hand Grinder with Large Hopper for Corn Barley Wheat Berries Coffee Chickpeas Pepper Dried Beans Animals Feed Home Brewing
Visit the Moongiantgo Store, etc.

In most cases, from most vendors, you don’t save that much buying whole kernels, either. (The one big upside would be that other things could get ground at home too … like coffee, the grinding of which remains an only semi-solved problem.)

So this brings us to already-ground cornmeal, and to flour (masa harina).

***

I’d rather stick to meal, but all-cornmeal tortillas, in my understanding, come out like more of a flatbread (which might be okay–I might adapt …).

MAKAI KI ROTI (cornmeal flat bread) || HOW TO MAKE CORNMEAL BREAD

Easy Cornmeal Flat Bread Recipe

How to make Gluten-free Chapati Soft [Easy Makki Ki Roti Recipe/Cornmeal Flour With Rolling Pin]

Homemade Corn Tortillas (no flour)

I don’t necessarily want to HAVE to adapt, though, so for purposes of making something more classic and familiar, there’s this:

Corn Tortilla Using Cornmeal & Masa Harina

So: We need either meal, for the flatbread, flour for classic corn tortillas, or both. We’re looking for organic either way, and with the corn germ included if possible ( it is).

Some options.

Grain Place Foods
Multi-product organic vendor, germ or not unknown, about $4 a pound

Congaree Milling Company
Every kind of flour/meal you could want, including blue corn, germ or not unknown (but probable), $5-6 dollars a pound
See also: HHominy, Grits, Polenta, Just Plain Corn …

Mulberry Lane Farms
Multi-product organic vendor, germ or not unknown (but probable), $8 a pound
Amazon includes the “germ” right in the title, and knocks the price down to $5.60 a pround

King Arthur Baking Company
American grown and milled, shop is very focused on baking goods $4 a pound.
Like some other companies it shouts with pride about their product being nixtamalized –soaked in lime. I haven’t made up my mind yet on whether that’s a good thing.

War Eagle Mill
“Coarsely stone-ground with nothing added or removed so the corn germ and bran are left to provide plenty of taste and healthy fiber”. And, $2.80 a pound, well hell yeah.

Masienda
On the higher end at $5.45 a pound, but very tempting anyway. They say they use ‘heirloom’ corn from little farmers, and they offer an amazing range of corn colors, including red. Nixtamalized and germ unknown. They offer a small selection of other heirloom products, and a book about traditional masa, and even a ‘sourcing report’ updated yearly on their growers, who seem to be entirely based in deep southern Mexico. For which … I might pay more. Or at least doubling back to their YouTube channel after I finish up here.

Bob’s Red Mill Organic Masa Harina — (‘everybody’s favorite‘)
This is available everywhere, even in corporate supermarkets. It very definitely includes the germ (I found and then lost the quote saying so). The price varies widely, but I did find it on Amazon, ‘thirty percent off’, at $5.60 to the pound.

Nothing wrong with any of this, except that Masienda looks a lot more interesting at the same price, and War Eagle looks damn good at half the price of either.

I think I’ll start with those two maybe.

But I also need to reconsider the grinder possibility after finding whole organic corn in bulk at the same place I get my pintos, garbanzos, and rice. For 75 cents a pound, holy crap.

***

A few more related ideas.

On the cooking methods … (most people use no oil)

Blue Corn Tortillas: NO TORTILLA PRESS NEEDED!

How To Make The Perfect Corn Tortilla For Tacos

On other kinds of gluten-free tortillas and wraps … I have for example, some almond flour and garbanzo too I’d like to try.

Who Makes the Best Gluten Free Flour Tortillas? (We Review 3)
Ungodly expensive store-bought option.

KETO TORTILLAS! How to Make EASY Keto Almond Flour Coconut Flour Tortillas! ONLY 1 NET CARB!

Recipes from Arnie (lots of them, not necessary health-conscious, but always tradicional)

MEXICAN / SPANISH RICE (Traditional & Easy Recipe)

Pico de Gallo

And speaking of salsas, how about those from scratch? … Non-Amazon Ole Rico Link

***

When we get back I’m going to order from War Eagle and Masienda and perfect a technique.

From Ole Rico too for some experiments in chile.

If I get good, and do this on the regular, and decide that a fancy Wondermill is worth the investment, I’ll order the whole kernel seventy-five cent stuff from Azure Standard, twenty-five pounds at a time, and prepper bucket it just like I’ve been doing with the beans and rice and chickpeas for a year now.

Glenn Greenwald continues down the path of post-partisan brilliance.

Does Endless Spending in Ukraine Cause Deprivations at Home? | SYSTEM UPDATE #68

As it turns out–yes it does. The endless war machine grows fatter and uglier until it physically and spiritually resembles Jabba the Hutt, while we the People have no health care and live in cities and towns bereft of life’s necessities, deliberately.

The new House speaker Kevin McCarthy ran against sending a hundred billion dollars to Biden’s latest war, and then as soon as he was elected did a complete 180, fell to his knees, and starting sucking the appendage of the defense contractors and the military-industrial complex. Repubs … Dems … there is literally no one worth wasting your vote on when it comes to this most central of all imperialist issues.

As MLK points out, hings have been like this your whole life. They’re getting markedly worse than they were in 1967.

The candidates we so very democratically elect are literally taking years off of our lives, as measured by declining life expectancy, and it’s not just the quantity of life either: “The quality of our lives is degrading.”

I don’t need to explain every angle of it–you know it in your heart. And if you really don’t, or forgot, then just go watch.

***

Elon/BBC Conflict Shows Fraud of “Disinformation, + Lee Fang Exposes MSNBC | SYSTEM UPDATE #69

During an interview with the BBC, Elon Musk, love him or hate him, accurately calls the interviewer a liar. GG dives deeper than either of them to prove why lies are the least of it.

I share the belief that–just like the word ‘fascist’–the terms ‘hate speech’ and ‘disinformation’ are essentially devoid of meaning at this point, and just serve as props to try and libel any view that the speaker wants to demonize, without reference or regard to the First Amendment or the neglected concept of free speech.

If you just want the heart of the interview without analysis, you can get it in five minutes here.

The second segment is Glenn’s interview with Lee Fang, who recently jumped ship from the farce that is The Intercept just as GG did over the Hunter-Biden-laptop story a few years back. Mr. Fang’s first free piece is about another mainstream media liar, Medhi Hassan, and MH’s attempted and botched smear job of Matt Taibbi.

***

Dems Urge Biden to Ignore Court Rulings | SYSTEM UPDATE #67
from 53:17-1:14:51
(a slightly different edit of the same content at YT)

Speaking of liars and tools, here are a couple of Dem Senators a few days back calling for the Biden administration to unconstitutionally ignore the rulings of federal courts. One of the most famous court cases in early American judicial history, Marbury vs. Madison, specifically forbids this, but … whatever, right?

If you let it play past the 1:15:00 mark you get a bonus segment about Republicans being equally venal and dumb.

More mulling, and a tiny toedip into the political waters in a video too.

selected … abridged

***

Is capitalism evil?

As an AI language model, I do not hold personal opinions or beliefs. However, I can provide information and perspectives on capitalism.
…

Some critics argue that capitalism can be inherently evil or immoral due to the emphasis on profit and the accumulation of wealth, which can lead to exploitation of workers, environmental destruction, and concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few.
…

Ultimately, the answer to whether capitalism is evil is subjective and depends on individual perspectives and values.

***

please write a one page essay arguing effectively that American democracy is dead

It is a widely held belief that American democracy is in peril, if not already dead. The foundations of democracy are built on the principles of free and fair elections, protection of individual rights, and the rule of law. Unfortunately, the recent years have seen a steady erosion of these democratic values, raising questions about the future of democracy in the United States.

One of the main challenges to American democracy is the increasing polarization and divisiveness in political discourse. The political parties have become more extreme, with little room for compromise or cooperation. This has resulted in legislative gridlock and a government that is unable to address the pressing issues facing the country.

Another factor contributing to the demise of American democracy is the influence of big money in politics. Wealthy individuals and corporations can donate unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns, effectively buying influence and access to policymakers. This undermines the idea of a government that is truly representative of the people.

Furthermore, the erosion of democratic norms and institutions has become a cause for concern. The rise of populism and authoritarianism has resulted in attacks on the free press, the judiciary, and other key institutions that serve as checks and balances on the power of the executive branch. This creates a situation where the government is less accountable to the people, and the balance of power is tilted in favor of the ruling party.

In conclusion, American democracy is facing significant challenges that threaten its very existence. The growing political polarization, influence of big money, and erosion of democratic norms and institutions have all contributed to this crisis. If these issues are not addressed, the future of democracy in the United States is uncertain. It is up to the people and their leaders to work together to strengthen and defend the principles that underpin American democracy.

***

Please write me a story that tells what happens when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is elected to the Presidency in 2024.

In 2024, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shocked the world by winning the United States Presidential election. Kennedy was known for his progressive policies, his commitment to social justice, and his tireless advocacy for the environment. He had been a prominent activist for decades, and his election was seen as a turning point for the country.

On his first day in office, President Kennedy wasted no time in getting to work. He immediately began signing executive orders to address some of the pressing issues facing the nation. He focused on climate change, healthcare reform, and ending the endless wars in the Middle East.

Kennedy’s approach was bold and unconventional. He took on the big corporations, advocating for strict environmental regulations and challenging the power of Wall Street. He pushed for universal healthcare, and his policies helped millions of Americans gain access to affordable medical care. He also made significant strides in promoting equality and civil rights for marginalized communities, including people of color, immigrants, and the LGBTQ+ community.

The world took notice of Kennedy’s leadership, and he quickly became a respected figure on the global stage. He worked closely with other world leaders to address the most pressing global issues, including poverty, hunger, and environmental degradation. His bold leadership style and his commitment to justice inspired people around the world, and he was widely regarded as one of the greatest leaders of his time.

But not everyone was happy with Kennedy’s approach. The big corporations and the political elite felt threatened by his policies and his popular support. They began a relentless campaign of opposition, attacking him in the media and using their vast resources to undermine his administration. Despite this, Kennedy remained committed to his vision, and he continued to fight for the people he represented.

In the end, Kennedy’s legacy was one of courage, compassion, and vision. He inspired a generation of activists and leaders, and his impact on American politics was felt long after his time in office came to an end. The nation had been changed for the better, and the world was a better place for his leadership.

***

Write me a story about how real freedom and democracy came to the USA at last in 2025.

In 2025, the United States of America was a vastly different country than it had been just a few years before. For years, the country had been plagued by political corruption, economic inequality, and social injustice. The government had become increasingly authoritarian, and the people had grown disillusioned and disenchanted with the political system.

But then, something incredible happened. A grassroots movement began to emerge across the country, as ordinary people came together to demand change. They organized rallies and protests, they wrote letters and made phone calls to their representatives, and they took to social media to spread their message.

At first, the government tried to ignore them, dismissing them as a fringe group of radicals. But as the movement grew, it became impossible to ignore. The protests grew larger and more widespread, and people from all walks of life began to join in.

The government responded with force, deploying the National Guard to break up protests and using tear gas and other crowd control measures. But the people refused to be silenced, and they persisted in their efforts to bring about change.

Eventually, their efforts paid off. The government was forced to listen to the demands of the people, and they began to implement real reforms. They abolished the electoral college and implemented a system of ranked-choice voting, ensuring that every vote would count. They also passed sweeping campaign finance reform, limiting the influence of special interest groups and corporations.

But perhaps most importantly, they passed a series of laws to protect the rights of all Americans, regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status. They expanded access to healthcare, education, and housing, and they implemented a universal basic income to ensure that no one would be left behind.

For the first time in decades, the people of the United States felt truly free. They had a voice in their government, and they knew that their rights were being protected. They had come together to create a better, more just society, and they had succeeded.

Looking back on those years, people would remember them as a time of great struggle and hardship, but also as a time of hope and unity. They had learned that when people come together to fight for what is right, real change is possible. And they had shown the world that real freedom and democracy can only be achieved through the collective efforts of the people.

***

Will AI replace humans?

It is unlikely that AI will completely replace humans in all areas of work and life. While AI technology has made significant advancements in recent years, there are still many tasks that require human creativity, emotional intelligence, and social skills.

However, it is possible that certain jobs or tasks may be automated and replaced by AI. For example, routine and repetitive tasks like data entry or assembly line work can be automated with AI, freeing up humans to focus on more complex and creative tasks.
…

Doesn’t “freeing up” humans just mean making them expendable and worth less?

The idea of “freeing up” humans through automation can be viewed in different ways, and it’s important to consider the potential implications and consequences. While it is true that certain jobs may become obsolete with the advent of AI technology, this does not necessarily mean that humans become expendable or worth less. Instead, it may create opportunities for individuals to pursue more meaningful and fulfilling work that utilizes their unique skills and abilities.

Moreover, the increased productivity and efficiency brought about by AI may lead to economic growth and job creation in other areas. For example, as technology frees up time and resources in one industry, it may create opportunities for innovation and growth in other industries. Ultimately, the impact of AI on the job market and society as a whole will depend on a range of factors, including technological advancement, social and economic policies, and individual and collective actions.

A little optimistic, maybe, but I appreciate your perspective.

As an AI language model, I strive to provide an objective perspective based on the available information and data. However, I recognize that the impact of AI on society and the job market is a complex and ongoing conversation with many different viewpoints and potential outcomes. It is important to approach the topic with a critical and open mind, and to work towards creating policies and practices that ensure the benefits of AI are distributed fairly and equitably.

***

How can I go about gaining more subscribers at YouTube and Substack?

Gaining more subscribers on YouTube and Substack can take time and effort, but here are some tips to help increase your audience:

Consistency is key: Consistently post quality content on a regular basis, whether it’s daily, weekly or monthly. Your subscribers will come to expect and look forward to your content, so make sure you deliver.

Use keywords: Use relevant keywords in your titles, descriptions, and tags to help your content appear in search results. Researching and targeting the right keywords can help increase your visibility.

Promote your content: Share your videos and articles on social media platforms, online communities, and other relevant websites. The more people see your content, the more likely they are to subscribe.

Engage with your audience: Respond to comments, ask for feedback, and create opportunities for your subscribers to engage with you. Building a relationship with your audience can lead to more loyal subscribers.

Collaborate with others: Collaborating with other content creators in your niche can help expose you to new audiences and potentially lead to more subscribers. Reach out to other creators to see if there are opportunities to collaborate.

Offer exclusive content: Consider offering exclusive content, such as early access to videos or articles, to your subscribers. This can incentivize people to subscribe and help build a community around your content.

Optimize your channel and newsletter: Make sure your YouTube channel and Substack newsletter are visually appealing and easy to navigate. Make it easy for people to subscribe and find your content.

Remember, building a subscriber base takes time and effort. Be patient, consistent, and always strive to improve the quality of your content.

Thanks. I will strive for patience and consistency and quality too.

You’re welcome! Patience, consistency, and quality are key ingredients to building a successful YouTube channel and Substack newsletter. Keep working hard, and don’t be afraid to try new things and experiment with different types of content to see what resonates best with your audience. Good luck!

***

It’s almost midnight and I am thinking that it might be high time for me to go to bed. Do you agree?

As an AI language model, I don’t have access to information about your daily routine or personal circumstances, so I cannot say for sure whether it is the right time for you to go to bed. However, if it is almost midnight and you have responsibilities or obligations in the morning, it might be a good idea to prioritize getting a good night’s sleep. Adequate sleep is crucial for both physical and mental health, and can help you perform better in your daily activities. Ultimately, the decision to go to bed is up to you and what works best for your individual needs and schedule.

https://vairtere.substack.com/p/the-habitable-attic

***

I’m not giving up on posting here.

I’m not giving up on video or YT either.

But I am suddenly very serious about Substacking and growing a real audience that way.

So that’s where things stand of a Sunday night.

https://vairtere.substack.com/p/sstack-as-a-platform

I have long felt and still feel that there’s nothing much for me at the big soc.med. places like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram (with the possible major exception of FB Marketplace now that it has mostly killed off CraigsList–but that’s about consuming, not about creating).

I’ve been happy here on my own WordPress Spillsite.

But now the time has come to get serious about a path to monetizing, which I’ve never cared about here, and WordPress alone is not very good at that.

YouTube was the next thing I tried and although it does attract more views than this blog, it’s still not going to be worth any $ for a while yet, if ever.

Over the last few daynights, I reposted the cream of my YT channel to Rumble, and did a minor refresh of my presence on its sister site, locals.com … I think what that duo is mainly good for is backup. There are many more eyeballs at YT and the feature set is better–although Rumble has a much better reputation for not stupidly censoring.

Next I checked out my Patreon. The dealbreaker here is that you can’t post/host video there without upgrading to a ‘Pro’ subscription, meaning that they take an even bigger cut of donations than the five percent they already take, on my ‘Light’ plan. That doesn’t seem like a good deal, and besides that Patreon is not anti-censorship in any way. Pass.

Finally, Substack. I think this and YouTube will be where my primary energies go in the medium term. The post linked above contains a bit of raw video uploaded directly to Substack for testing. I don’t know if there are file size limits, or time-of-video limits … I don’t really know that much at all. But … my gut sense is that YT and Substack together are the way forward, with this blog and Rumble as the fallbacks.

In the next day or so I’m going to educate myself more thoroughly on that and see if it holds true.

Let’s begin again.

Right quick, and for reasons that are opaque to me, I want to give you a couple of the very best counterarguments to a couple of the things I’ve been saying.

Yesterday I linked to Brian Berletic’s video on Syria, which, best I can tell, is very close to the truth of it.

Later on, I came across another less robustly truthful version.

Congressman Ro Khanna Interviewed By Aaron Mate’ and Katie H.

Berletic knows, and Mate’ knows how things really stand (that’s my opinion of course). In this interview, one of the better Congresspeople offers a sanitized version much closer to the mainstream account. Mate’ pushes him pretty hard, but not too hard, so that he’ll have another chance someday I think.

Ro Khanna has presidential ambitions and can’t be drawn into agreeing with the whole truth.

IMHO.

******

Also:

Matt Taibbi and Mehdi Hasan THROW DOWN on MSNBC

This is DueDissidence doing a long analysis of an interview between the gentlemen named in the title.

I doubt you care much about any of it, and I doubt you should, but now it’s there on the record.

The Young Turks entitled their similar piece: “Mehdi Hasan Makes Matt Taibbi SQUIRM Over His Twitter Files Lies”.

Which tells you which side they’re on …

I’m not linking the fucking young turks.

Instead, I’ll link to Matt Taibbi’s most recent incarnation of a site, which appears to be a heavily modified Substack page.

Where you can read some interesting platform news like:

Taibbi: Earlier this afternoon, I learned Substack links were being blocked on Twitter. Since being able to share my articles is a primary reason I use Twitter, I was alarmed and asked what was going on.

It turns out Twitter is upset about the new Substack Notes feature, which they see as a hostile rival. When I asked how I was supposed to market my work, I was given the option of posting my articles on Twitter instead of Substack.

Not much suspense there; I’m staying at Substack.

I tell you all that to tell you the next thing.

Personally I never really understood it entirely before

I watched this.

In essence the official reason is: We’re fighting the turrurists (aka ISIL, Isis, Daish).

While the actual reason is: We’re actually arming and backing exactly them, in the fading hope of toppling the democratically elected Assad government who we don’t like.

Which makes sense.

At least in context of everything else we’ve learned about the Empire in the last couple of years.

Wave the old glory. Bless the troops. Exercise your freedoms and duties as a citizen.

Do all you can to keep believing that your side is, that We are, still, still, still The Good Guys.

Let your illusions last until they shatter.

Live the Good life while it lasts.

Judgment Day is nigh.

Fourteen thousand for the heavily wooded acre at 7200 feet. Ten minutes from good coffee, twenty to the regional hospital, an hour back here to Sand Rock and about three hours to Cienega. It’s in that county with no zoning too. I’m dreamin’ and you bet I am. This is why I need an income and might even break down and get a job to generate one.

Meanwhile in prosaic reality, I watched an extra long DD livestream tonight and while I was logged in over there at Rumble I started uploading my videos to that site too, for a backup, for an alternative.

https://rumble.com/user/vairtere

The first few went fast because they were small GoPro-generated .lrv files, but now I’ve hit the good-camera .mp4s starting in October, and the going has gotten slow. That’s alright. It’s not a rush job anyway, and it might keep me focused for other things.

I started to make a new moon vid too, but it’s rising in the east/southeast and there are too many damn wires in the way to make it worthwhile.

I’ll have to catch it setting for this April while I reckon.

Link to a timestamp where Robert Barnes enthuses about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s just-announced candidacy, which comes 55 years after his father’s murder.

The enthusiasm is infectious in spite of some misgivings on my part.

I think I would probably shift my registration to Dem to vote for him in the primary, although I wouldn’t do it with any foolish hope in my heart like I did for Bernie.

No borders with Poland. Clinton nuke apology. Macron warns China. Habeck apology to Elensky. U/1

I would encourage you to have a look at the first three minutes of Mr. Christoforou’s video this morning. It scans like a quick summary of the real headlines that actually matter. The Empire is falling apart under the weight of its own sanctions–sanctions are economic war, and the hegemon is losing this war fast on every front.

After the illegal-but-not-unprovoked border crossing on the part of Russia a year ago, I heard a popular sentiment repeated, something to the effect that ‘Sure, I’m happy to pay twice as much for gas if it goes to the holy cause of getting rid of Putin’. From the start it was at the least a classist thing to say, because it assumed that people living on the economic edge, unable to afford such acts of twisted altruism, would just have to go along and suck it up anyway too, and that it would be worth it for all of them in the end. Because Freedom!

Regardless, we all paid anyway, Putin hasn’t budged an inch, and very soon, four-dollar gas is going to look like kid stuff as the non-Atlanticist 85% of the world frees itself from any trace of addiction to the dollar, and suddenly nobody is left to be interested at sucking at Uncle Sam’s … well, let’s call it his tit, but whatever.

Meanwhile, imperial Rome burns with a hot fever over how it can finally rid itself of the Republican frontrunner, and it seems that no amount of chicanery and stupidity and double-dealing is too much to ask for that new dumb goal. Every fresh effort weakens and damages the very democratic ideals that the political class is so very sincere about saving.

If the flyover demos actually wants him back in 2024, shouldn’t they have him back? Isn’t that what democracy means, regardless of how awful you think that would be?

Take anything that was said five years ago about Trump–that he’d tank the economy, that his tax codes would widen the wealth gap, that he would make the rest of the world hate us, that he couldn’t be trusted with the royal nukes.

Then look for real at what Biden’s policies have done to us, and try to make the case that he’s any bit better.

The rats are jumping ship not just rhetorically, but for real. Here’s looking at you, Saudi King.

We are closer than we have ever been to nuclear war.

This economy is hanging by a fraying thread.

Trump killed Khashoggi as a favor to Israel. Biden blew up the Nord Stream as … a favor to who, exactly? Not Germany, that’s for damn sure. No. As a favor to a bunch of fracking cronies, maybe, hoping to flood Europe with American LNG at twice the price.

I’m sure they’ll make a killing.

Making a killing is the only thing the Empire is still good at.

OPEC / Russia, production cuts. Japan breaks oil ceiling