What do you think? Have you had a personal experience of transformation through art?
I wrote my Master’s thesis on social engineering in 90s, before I had any idea what social engineering was. I didn’t know at the time that’s what I was writing about. The thesis was about women writers of francophone West Africa using their novels as a means to catalyze social change. Liberation through literature, I called it, where practices like polygamy, female genital mutilation, and lack of educational opportunities were voiced in fictional form by the otherwise voiceless.
Certainly it is not at all uncommon for writers to use their works toward such ends. And yet, something about the timing of my thesis, or perhaps the content, resonated less with others than I expected.
I found that instead ‘Art for art’s sake’ had become the more popular mode of the times and works that were considered to be ‘too pedantic’ (which seemed to mean any fictional work with a purpose other than sheer entertainment) were heavily criticized.
I tried for years to pitch similar ideas for publishing to various entities and could find no interest and quite a lot of criticism. Folks wanted to be entertained, not taught. If they had to learn something, they wanted it tightly obscured in a bubble of excitement, like a Dan Brown novel.
But times seem to have changed again and authors and artists with a serious message, with deep societal concerns, seem to be able to find, or are perhaps themselves creating, a growing audience hungry for their transformational content.
It reminds me of some of the criticisms I heard in the 90s—art is not meant to transform or educate, but rather has the sole purpose to simply express the subjective worldview of the creator. Any feelings of universality in a work of art is essentially meaningless coincidence. Art should not be held in the clutches of meaning-making. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Art cannot be personally or socially transformative, except to the artist himself, that is an establishment myth of conformity.
I even had an artist friend, with an art degree, who assisted at a gallery, try to insist to me that the glass flask full of the artist’s excrement (I’m not joking) was to be considered art just as much as any old famous painting.
So I’m very pleased to see this more recent ‘re-formation’ to art with purpose. But, I wonder, can it actually be transformative? Or were all those critical voices in the 90s correct?
What do y’all think?
Here’s a couple of amazing pieces which might have such power. Do you know of others to share? If so, please do link below!
In Shadow: A Modern Odyssey
Kingdom
These works are both by: Lubomir Arsov and you can find an excellent interview with him here:
The Hate spewed in this tirade is not politically motivated, nor is it the result of biases toward any ethnic group, nor gender-oriented ideology nor philosophy, nor tribe, nor nation, nor social collective, market, herd, country, continent, school of thought or fish, sea or sea-adjacent, corporation, cooperative, nor any other type of group, at any time in past or present or future.
This will be Hate directed squarely at specific individuals, mostly for their overarching idiocy, blind obedience, gaslighting or other dainty bullshit* and general full-fledged and undeniable assholery. These would be individuals for whom my disdain and contempt has been building, decades in some instances, seconds in others.
This is not your average rant or shitposting. Therefore it will be organized in proper form, beginning with Silver level Hatred, then proceeding to Bronze level, and ending with Platinum.
In no way can my Hateful Epic Tirade be confused with a real Hate Crime, of the variety of famous (or infamous, depending on his audience), Mr. CJ Hopkins, currently awaiting his second trial in New Normal Berlin. That’s because real Hate Crimes are against groups, particularly those groups with a shitload of power.
Mr. Hopkins deserves his prosecution for so hatefully opposing many such VIP groups. Too many to count surely, but most certainly he is an enemy of the totalitarian State by any measure. He made a grave mistake of criticizing it repeatedly on various public forums and a great many suffered for his actions, so there must be strict punishment.
Besides, any satirist worth his salt should spend time in prison, it’s like a rite of passage. It will ultimately improve his work, so I hope he understands it will be worth it. That is, if he lives long enough to get out. And even if not, great satirists often get even funnier after they’re dead. It’s mystical or something.
But I do not like the idea of spending heaps of sums (which I don’t have) on attorneys, or the threat of a ruined career (too late) and jail time (been there too) by being hateful to any group, powerful or otherwise.
Therefore I’m focusing my Hate directly on the individuals who engendered that hatred by their own actions, or lack thereof.
Before proceeding I’d also like to clarify that my hatred does not extend to violence, nor to the threat of violence. I want to make it perfectly clear that while, yes, I am indeed armed, I am not dangerous.
Furthermore, I’m a terrible shot and get frightfully nervous and shaky when alarmed, and I probably couldn’t manage to shoot a pair of balls at close range, eyeballs or otherwise.
So, to get on with it!
The Silver Level Hatred is awarded to my neighbor, Herr Blackheart. His crime is being a belligerent idiot. Idiocy is one thing, we all have to tolerate it regularly, this is part of the invisible social contract no one signed.
Belligerent idiocy is common as well, but it’s far more dangerous. Herr Blackheart is bullying and condescending and adolescent and has the social graces of a shanked hog.
And he has the infuriating gall to go on and on about the pristine air quality of our skies!
I can only assume he means in comparison to the slums of New Delhi in winter. Otherwise he might have earned a Bronze or even a Platinum award for the level of Hatred he was able to inspire in me.
A man so willfully blind he laughs out loud as he yells about his army of friends in the aviation industry, who all (shockingly) tow the company lines: Chemtrails are a conspiracy theory! Geoengineering is not real! You are a crazy lady! Stop bothering us!
And furthermore, weather modification is awesome, so there!
Some day we will control the weather and he who controls the weather will control the world!
YEEHAW!
Moving on.
The Bronze Level Hatred is awarded to my former dentist in Arizona, a total Jackass of epic proportion, who is really lucky I can’t remember his name.
Jackass was forced on me by my insurance plan and I had to suffer his arrogant used car salesman tactics for a year before I could switch. He employed all the well-worn tricks to get me to purchase every product and procedure available at his Uber High-Tech office with an unusally large staff of all young and beautiful female assitants. My teeth aren’t white enough, straight enough, clean enough, my gums are receding, I need a root canal, and maybe another.
I’m super surprised he never tried to send me to his 2nd cousin in Albequerque for a boob job.
And, I’d bet the farm he was on drugs, amphetamines of some sort. He would hit nerves I didn’t even know I had, and then claim I was being too sensitive.
Too sensitive, eh? Perhaps I didn’t have the same degree of drugged blood necessary as to render me as insensitive as being in his presence required. (Perhaps because he and his staff were sniffing off the top a little too much?)
Too bad I can’t invite him to sit in my magic chair of torture and drill into his brain, just a little. With an entourage of uniformed pretty boys gazing on.
Don’t let the bland eyes and penciled-in eyebrows fool you, this is one mean career Tyrant standing here!
The Platinum level Hate goes to Frau Ines Karl, the Hate-Crime Commissar of New Normal Berlin.
This is my personal gift, since I can’t afford a financial donation, on behalf of the Hate Crimes trials of Mr. CJ Hopkins. I know, that’s mighty white of me, as the saying goes. I will avoid taking a bow for humility’s sake.
I just think he needs some solidarity at the moment and even though he has been terribly Hateful to many VIP groups, he has been far too kind to the garden variety Tyrants he’s been exposed to on a daily basis for quite some time.
I know he’s a very courageous individual, but he’s hardly in a position to put any Hate down on any one person, especially if said person has the power to put him in prison for three years. Or more. Or less. Her whim, I suppose.
Not that he doesn’t deserve to be in prison, that’s been established in the previous paragraph: All good satirists deserve to go to prison. It enriches their work. Really, she’d be doing him, as well as his international audience, a great service.
But since I know that’s not her motivation, she gets the full reward of my individualized Hate.
I know some of you are probably thinking she doesn’t deserve that, from me certainly, who has never even met her, or heard her name spoken before this day. Hate, well-tended, does tend to come on suddenly, and be transferable. It’s mystical or something.
While you may be right about that, it’s beside the point. I stand with Mr. Hopkins. He is not able to Hate on her, maybe he doesn’t even hate her at all, so clearly, it’s up to me.
Right here you can see he’s being far too kind to this career Tyrant.
“I don’t want to impugn her competence as a Senior Public Hate-Crime Prosecutor or in any way suggest that the “lengthy review process” of her understanding of the law (including the concept of “the rule of law” in non-totalitarian societies) conducted by the Judges’ Election Committee and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution prior to turning her loose on the public following the collapse of the GDR was … well, anything less than adequate, but, if Germany is going to continue to claim that it has any respect for basic democratic principles — not to mention its own constitution — someone might want to take Ines Karl aside and explain that political dissent is not a crime.
Or, on second thought, maybe it is now. In which case, it would helpful if the German authorities would drop the “Germany is a democratic state under the rule of law” crap and just go openly totalitarian. It would certainly be less confusing.”
Tyrants, please have mercy on Mr. Hopkins, just look how sad and confused he is!
You see, he’s confused. I get it! I just want to help.
This Tyrant has made a long and successful career out of prosecuting Haters, so being a Hater myself, I feel justified to a bit of long-distance revenge.
“Senior Public Hate-Crime Prosecutor Ines Karl began her distinguished prosecutorial career back in the GDR, i.e., the German Democratic Republic, the judiciary of which convicted roughly 200,000 people of political crimes during its 40-year existence.”
I’ve reserved a special Hate-On Voodoo Supreme Package I learned deep in the swamps of Plaquemines Parish before the arrival of the Great Hurricane Katrina of the Raytheon Empire. This ritual can only be performed on the Sabbath of the 56th year of the Holy Birth of the Phantom Shelle.
And it just so happens that’s coming up at the end of this month!
Prepare for a Major Hate Flow coming your way Frau Karl of New Normal Berlin!
*Dainty bullshit, is the popular expression attributed to shitposting professional, Decker, of the esteemed blog: Dispatches from the Asylum.
I’m adding another from Gavin’s Newsletter to the Herbal Explorations pages—the very popular Lemon Balm. Gavin does such a thorough job of covering it and I’m excited to start working with it more. I grow it, like mint, mostly for the bees, but like mint, I don’t use it nearly enough.
I’ve copied some favorite parts from his article below, but I’m sure I’ll be referencing it again directly in the future.
I really recommend viewing his full post and would love for any readers to add your own experiences with growing and using lemon balm as well, here in the comments section.
“I love this plant as it is very easy to grow (in fact, it now grows itself in our garden without any assistance) it provides forage for native pollinators while repelling mosquitoes and provides a long list of medicinal benefits. Lemon balm’s pain-relieving properties may make it an ideal choice for relieving muscle and toothache pain. In addition to drawing on its relaxing properties, this home remedy targets inflammation in the body.
“The leaves of lemon balm contain potent astringent and antibacterial properties useful for many things including cleansing wounds and pores to reduce blackheads. Due to rosmarinic acid, one of lemon balm’s key antioxidant ingredients, the herb also benefits the complexion. On top of all that, this herb is versatile in a culinary sense (providing fresh and enlivening flavors and aromas that lend themselves to enhancing creations in the kitchen).
“In the late 14th century, the nuns of the Carmelite Abbey in France began to make a “miracle water” using the lemon balm found in the monastery’s gardens. This is known as Carmelite water, which consisted of multiple herbs and spices with Melissa officinalis always as the main ingredient. This “perfume,” as it was called, was very fragrant and it was used to cover body odors as people seldom bathed in those days. This formula was also called “Eau de Melisse,” and it was revered by kings and nobles as well as commoners. It became a popular cure-all for various ailments and was used both internally and externally. Nicholas Culpepper, the 15th century English botanist and physician, praised the virtues of Carmelite water writing: “It causeth the Mind and Heart to becom merry, and reviveth the Heart fainting to foundlings, especially of such who are overtaken in their sleep, and driveth away al troublesome cares and thought…
“By the middle ages it was cultivated throughout all of Europe. Spiritually it is said in some cultures that lemon balm is known to balance feelings and emotions. It was used in ritual baths to invoke the Goddess, making you more appealing in the world of love and romance. Lemon balm has been associated with the feminine, the moon and water. It was considered sacred in the temple of the ancient Roman goddess Diana. It was first mentioned in medieval manuscript as “Herbe Melisse” in 1440. ( It’s botanical name, Melissa, stands for “bee” in Greek. Avicenna, a Muslim herbalist, recommended Melissa “to make the heart merry”. The Swiss physician and alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541) believed that lemon balm was an “elixir of life” and would increase strength and lengthen life. After it’s introduction by settlers and subsequent naturalization (in what is now known as the United States) the Cherokee people used the herb as a remedy for fevers, colds, chills and typhus.”
“Lemon balm contains within it the virtues of a dozen other plants” ~ Hildegarde von Bingen 12th century mystic and healer of Germany
“Keep in mind that like mint, lemon balm grows incredibly fast in rich, well drained, moist soil that receives lots of sun. In the right conditions, it can even become massive. Once you discover all of the useful benefits of having this plant around, I’m sure you’ll be more than fine with that!
“Lemon Balm Repels Annoying Bugs This herb has the ability to repel ants, mosquitoes, and flies with its high amount of compounds that resemble the scent of citronella. Try making this easy herbal no bug balm to keep those pesky mosquitoes at range. Out on a hike and forgot to bring your bug balm? Find some lemon balm, crush the leaves, and rub them directly onto your skin! The same can be said of yarrow.
“As We Explored Above, Lemon Balm has Medicinal Benefits: Not only is this plant great in the garden, but it’s also an excellent gem to keep in your herbal remedy cabinet.
“Ancient Greeks used lemon balm steeped in wine to relieve the symptoms of fevers. Put together your own ginger and lemon balm cold/flu syrup to relieve those same symptoms today.
“This super healing lip balm uses the antiviral effects of lemon balm to quickly clear up cold sores. You can also use it in an herbal salve to speed healing of minor wounds. Lemon balm may also reduce menstrual cramps and premenstrual syndrome when taken daily for a prolonged period of time.
Lemon Balm also Attracts Beneficial Wildlife.
Traditional Medicinal Uses:
“Herbal Actions: Nervine: acts on the nerves. Sedative: calming agent. Mild Antidepressant: relieves feelings of depression. Mild Antispasmodic: reduces voluntary or involuntary muscle spasm. Carminative: gently calms the nerves. Lemon balm is a relaxing diaphoretic as opposed to a stimulating diaphoretic. Antiviral: destroys or suppresses growth of viruses, generally by supporting the immune system. Antioxidant: prevents free radical or oxidative damage. Specific use for dyspepsia associated with anxiety and/or a depressive mood. It is indicated for someone with symptoms typical of hyperthyroidism (inhibits TSH binding to receptors): anxiety, restlessness, palpitations, headache, and excitability and also is a mild anti-depressant. It strengthens the brain and its resistance to stress/shock, and lifts the spirits. It has tonic effects on the heart and circulatory system and can be used topically for herpes and other viral infections. Can also be used topically for gout and internally for rheumatism and neuralgias.
Practical Uses:
“What do you do with lemon balm? The most useful parts of this plant (and the way it found its name) are the leaves.
Compounds are extracted from the leaves and used to make lemon balm oil, tincture, salves and various medicines.
You can use the leaves in combination with other powerful herbs such as Yarrow in order to make effective (all natural, non-toxic and skin enhancing) mosquito repellant. Here is a link to an example of one such recipe: https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/lemon-balm-bug-spray/
Some of the most popular lemon balm uses include using the leaves in the kitchen to make tea and flavor dishes, as well as to create perfume oils and insect repellents. Some people even use it to make homemade toothpaste.”
Gavin’s article continues with many more pages of useful details about Lemon Balm, including lots of recipes and more detailed medicinal uses, loads of links and references and excellent images.
“We have created a hell on this earth for other creatures. Our abuse of animals is the final savagery; the final outrage of mankind in a long history of savagery and outrage. Instead of learning from other animals, instead of attempting to communicate with them, we abuse, torture and kill them. We diminish ourselves in a hundred different ways through our cruelty and our ignorance and our thoughtlessness. “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn and his inhumanity to not-men makes the planet a ball of pain and terror,” wrote J. Howard Moore.
If man were truly the master of the universe, he would use his wisdom and his power to increase the comfort and happiness of all other creatures. But, tragically, man has used his wisdom and his power to increase their misery. Animal abusers imprison millions of animals in cruel and heartbreaking conditions and ignore their cries of pain and distress on the grounds that animals are not “sentient creatures.” What self-delusional nonsense this is. Sheep and cattle are left out in huge fields in cold, wet weather. They shiver and search in vain for shelter because all the trees and hedgerows have been removed to make the farm more efficient. The animal-abusing farmer cares not one jot for animals: he cares only for his profits.”
Delving deep Diving sweet Sipping sublime Nectars divine
A one minute clip of Datura inoxia alive in the evening breeze covered in honeybees and dotted by the diving ‘tobacco hornworm’ moths (manducasexta) in a safe haven among the blossoms here on the wee homestead, of this ‘poison plant’ it loves so much, from the great many pesticide lovers who hate them so.
Accepting the unacceptable. We all must learn to do it, they say. It’s the Gospel of all Gospels. Humility. Here we must go into the higher realms of consciousness. Those feared and revered and most hallowed of places where we learn how to bow gracefully. Where we learn our pride is misplaced. Where we learn to swallow our tears. Where we learn to stifle our voices and especially to keep with the program.
Did you learn all the right tricks? Do you still pledge allegiance to the flag on cue? Do you still believe the hollow rituals and shapeshifting lies?
Lucky you! Here’s to the happy few!
Historic picture of Bathhouse Row, Hot Springs, Arkansas
A short trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas and I’m deep in the sticks, and deep into pondering the relevance of free speech. Why? Because I realize you can’t have free speech in a nation if you don’t have free speech in your own family.
It’s more than freedom of speech, it’s freedom of thought, which begets freedom of information, which begets freedom of ideas freely circulating, because one hardly exists without the others.
We don’t have that and we need everyone to stop pretending that we do.
It’s much more all encompassing than I think most folks realize. It begins in the family, because it begins in consciousness, which is something that is exceptionally easy to limit. Especially when we are very young. A few simple lies of omission and generations are easily compromised.
Imagine what chaos the biggest lies create.
It’s happening in the micro and macrocosms simultaneously, filling up, in and through, the waters of life, saturating the atmosphere itself, all has been compromised. It would seem not just the walls, but even the air, have ears.
I learned a new word on the roadtrip there while listening to a podcast: Iatrogenesis – from Wikipedia
“Iatrogenesis is the causation of a disease, a harmful complication, or other ill effect by any medical activity, including diagnosis, intervention, error, or negligence.[1][2][3] First used in this sense in 1924, the term was introduced to sociology in 1976 by Ivan Illich, alleging that industrialized societies impair quality of life by overmedicalizing life. Iatrogenesis may thus include mental suffering via medical beliefs or a practitioner’s statements. Some iatrogenic events are obvious, like amputation of the wrong limb, whereas others, like drug interactions, can evade recognition. In a 2013 estimate, about 20 million negative effects from treatment had occurred globally. In 2013, an estimated 142,000 persons died from adverse effects of medical treatment, up from an estimated 94,000 in 1990.”
In Hot Springs I’m headed directly to Bathhouse Row in the National Historic Landmark District, part of the Hot Springs National Park, alone, for a bit of site seeing. Back in my heavy travel days I often traveled alone and I don’t mind it, I actually rather like it, in moderation. It does get lonely, and sometimes awkward, but that’s balanced with the reality that I’ve known very few people in my life who appreciate the same types of exploration that I do.
A National Historic Landmark District nestled inside a National Park, that’s an awful lot of ‘protection’.
Bathhouse Row—Where our ancestors once turned to bathing in mineral springs and walking in wooded mountains to restore health. How silly!
More online historic photos of Bathhouse Row
I like visiting odd and anomalous sorts of places off the beaten track. I like old architecture and ruins. I especially like the places where city and nature become fused.
Hot Springs, Arkansas is definitely one of those places. And so much more. Bathhouse Row was once a spa destination for the rich and famous and boasted healing springs on par with the greatest European spa cities, like Karlovy Vary and Baden-Baden.
That was definitely boasting, I’ve been to many of them. But, there’s no doubt in its heyday it was very impressive. Especially considering Arkansas has for a century at least been considered a hillbilly-type haunt in the middle of the ‘flyover states’ and certainly not a hotspot for anything, except maybe the Dixie Mafia.
But, like in so many other places, something very strange is happening with the history, and I don’t mean the tall tales of gangster stories and bizarre wax museums and outrageously lame ‘haunted house’ tours meant to sell over-priced tickets to the vaudeville-loving masses.
What I really want to know is: What are they actually still hiding here in plain sight? And how is it they are still able to get away with tearing down pristine architecture and carting away the evidence unquestioned, even in the protected area of a National Park, which is Bathhouse Row?
So I started to do a bit of digging.
“The Bathhouse Row cultural landscape is located along the foot of Hot Springs Mountain. It is identified it as one of six landscape character areas within the 18-acre Reservation Front. The cultural and natural features of the surrounding areas are evidence of the historic recreational and spa experience that have brought visitors to Hot Springs since the 1830s. Bathhouse Row is historically designated as an “architectural park” in which the buildings and landscape were designed to be a cohesive unit.”
“According to the National Historic Landmarks Program the status of Bathhouse Row was threatened as most of the historic bathhouses were vacant and are not being maintained. Some have had “damaging uses” contributing to the severe physical deterioration of the majority of the historic bathhouses. Bathhouse Row was added to the National Trust for Historic Preservation list of “11 Most Endangered Places” in 2003. It was removed in May 2007 because the National Park Service began to rehabilitate the buildings. Hot Springs National Park now rents the renovated structures to commercial enterprises who submit an approved request for qualifications. The restoration of Bathhouse Row and commercial leasing of public structures has become a model for similar projects across the country.”
In 2007 the NPS began to rehabilitate the buildings? You mean, like, these abandoned buildings I photographed a few weeks ago? Of which there were plenty more.
Very clearly not being renovated, not even a little!
So, they say Bathhouse Row will be a model for similar projects across the country, eh? My guess that is a model for how to. . . stall, defraud, gaslight, loot, and plunder, all while spinning a positive image of public care and service.
As a case in point there’s the demolished Majestic Hotel Resort Complex where I walked among the ruins.
There’s even been a documentary on the ‘controversial’ decision to demolish it by a young filmmaker who is making his career in filming abandoned buildings. He certainly has a long and busy career ahead of him! The Abandoned Atlas Foundation.
So I paid the few dollars to watch his story about the destruction of the once glorious Majestic Hotel and the (pathetically meager) attempt of a few locals to stop it.
An online historic photo of the multiple-acre Majestic Hotel Complex
A few interesting points I learned from the film:
The Majestic was sold for $1.00 (One Dollar) with the legal agreement that it would be repaired and reopened within a few years. That did not happen, though no problem for the buyer, he incurred no punishment and resold the abandoned buildings for a cool $2 mill. What does he care?
Our hands are tied, a few locals cry! The city is run by the mafia!
Apparently the city has always been run by the Mafia. Which makes perfect sense right, because the official story is the city went into major and rapid decline as soon as gambling was made illegal. So, we went from pristine health resort, to rich and famous gambling haven, to neglect and dilapidation within just a few decades.
My those gangsters and gamblers were sure able to fill a lot of hotels!
Seeing what an enormous challenge they had to save this architectural gem, they bring in the big guns to fend off this centuries-long all-powerful Mafia, which apparently still runs this neglected National Historic treasure that is Bathhouse Row in the middle of a National Park: An Asian ‘local’ historian who barely speaks English, a novice documentarian who waxes romantic over logoed plastic pens from a decade ago, a full-time nurse wannabe local politician, and some clueless young architecture students from another state.
Brilliant! I can’t believe that didn’t work!
The documentary does not answer any of the questions I would’ve asked, but then, they never do. Questions like:
What happened to all those red and yellow bricks? As well as all the other artifacts, that is, besides those awesome plastic pens the filmmaker found. And, where did the materials come from to build all that in the first place? That’s an awful lot of infrastructure to build into the sides of mountains at a time when local folks were mostly moving around in horse-drawn carts.
And why were They (the Mafia?) so keen on destroying it all? What do they care about some old buildings anyway, considering demolition costs are super expensive?
While the documentarian gushes at his found pens, he misses every other clue and congratulates himself and his fellows for creating an everlasting tribute to yet another ruined structure.
Poor sod, didn’t you ever learn you must . . . Follow the yellow brick road?
“Originally named the Avenue Hotel, the Majestic was built in 1882 on the site of the old Hiram Whittington House. The Avenue Hotel was notable for its amenities such as streetcar service to transport guests to and from the bath houses every five minutes. In 1888, the Avenue Hotel was renamed the Majestic Hotel after the Majestic Stove Company of St. Louis, Missouri, though the precise connection is unclear.”
(Since it’s so unclear, good thing you chose to include it in your online information encyclopedia, such a fascinating unclear detail!)
Free speech can’t save us now, because there’s not enough people willing, or capable, of speaking freely from a place of wisdom and clarity. Just look what passes for encyclopedic facts these days.
The confiscated bricks, like our confiscated history, may as well be ground into the Smart Dust eternally absorbing the consciousness of the masses.
As we watch and record the destruction of our country As we wonder, how it has come to this As we wait for the next shoe to drop And the next Still, we remain Still As the deer in headlights Still As he charmed by the snake Still As she alarmed by her fate
Doomed As we watch and record the destruction of our lives As we wonder Still As we stop wondering Still We remain As the fox wanders by . . .
A fox occupying the ruins of the once Majestic Hotel and Bathhouse
“You know how many of us have been calling for an actual experiment with net zero? Take a town, make it net-zero and see how it works, that sort of thing? Well, we just got what we wanted in Paris.
Since I don’t really follow the Olympics, it was belatedly that I learned this year’s edition was supposed to be the greenest in the history of the games but when I did learn it eventually, it was more than I could have ever asked for. Predominantly vegetarian food, no air conditioning in athletes’ rooms and on the buses that transport the athletes to the venues, eco-friendly mattresses, swimming in the Seine instead of pools (I’m not sure how exactly this falls under the net-zero label but whatever) — the French had really taken their net-zero mission seriously. And they promptly turned into a laughing stock.
I’m sure you’ve all seen the reports. Teams bringing their own ACs. Teams moving out of the Olympic village to get some air-conditioned comfort and decent food. Athletes getting sick after swimming in the Seine. And, of course, the massive outcry against the vegetarian menus — and the very pertinent suggestion by Tammy Nemeth that if richer teams could afford to move to hotels but poorer ones couldn’t, wasn’t that an unfair advantage? The Paris Olympics have turned into a summary of the energy transition in a nutshell: a complete disregard of physical realities in favour of a fantastical goal that has about the same chance of succeeding as a vegan hockey team beating a meat-eating team.
Of course, there has been a backlash from veganists on the food topic. After those responsible for catering to the athletes discovered — with much surprise, I’m sure — that professional athletes cannot perform optimally on a 60% vegan diet, the menu was “adjusted”, meaning changed. Athletes breathed a sigh of relief but veganists and vegetarians jumped at the chance to cry foul. “Athletes requiring high animal protein diets is a myth that has been busted a long time ago. Those perpetuating it in these Games aren’t basing their arguments on science,” the policy manager of the European Vegetarian Union, because there is such a thing, told Euronews.
Of course it’s a myth, just like the myth that oil and gas produce more reliable energy supply than wind and solar. That’s probably why the history of sports is so full of vegan champions across disciplines. And that’s why people in countries with a lot of wind and solar pay so much less for energy than people in countries that focus on hydrocarbons.
I haven’t seen an explanation of the gastrointestinal problems athletes developed after swimming in the Seine but they could be probably put down to that increase in meat, eggs, and carbohydrates that the organisers were forced to provide. Meat and eggs are, after all, bad for us. Or it’s climate change. In a charming attempt at what passes for journalism these days, Global News wrote that “It’s not yet clear if the illnesses were due to Seine’s water quality – which has been a constant concern in the lead-up to and throughout the Games.” They’re perfectly correct, of course. All the athletes that fell ill did so after dipping in the Seine but hey, correlation does not mean causation, right? Right? It could totally be the meat and the eggs. Or it’s climate change. By the same token, a recent Wall Street Journal report attributed the fact that Californians pay the highest electricity prices in the country besides Hawaii to climate change. It’s not the mad dash to build as much solar as there’s space available. It’s not the equally mad dash to turn all Californians into EV drivers. No. It’s climate change:
“Across the country, fires, hurricanes and other extreme weather associated with rapidly warming temperatures are prompting utilities to take expensive steps to protect electric lines and generators. Utilities are also pouring money into increasing capacity to handle surging demand.” There you have it. It’s climate change and nothing else.
Now how about that decision to leave athletes with no air-conditioning smack in the middle of summer? Well, first of all, the only reason it was this hot in Paris in the middle of July was, yes, you guessed it, climate change. We know this courtesy of the World Economic Forum, which recently enlightened us that “temperatures experienced by athletes during the Paris Olympics “would not have occurred without human-induced climate change”.” Source?
That thing called the World Weather Attribution, which is not at all like a pharma company that makes up an illness so it can develop a drug to cure it. In other news, wind turbines are perfectly safe for animals both onshore and offshore, solar does not mess up the soil for future use, and green hydrogen is totally cheap and not just hype at all.
Based on all this, it is utterly incomprehensible why so many athletes moved out of the Olympic village and why many others brought their own AC units. It is equally — and utterly — incomprehensible why Glencore decided to not spin its coal business off after all, and why Maersk, which had promised to go all-methanol and zero-LNG with its ships suddenly says it will actually be buying a lot of LNG ships — that can incidentally work with regular bunkering, too. In a world fraught with incomprehensible things, a glimmer of perfect comprehensibility was delivered to all willing to see this week by the FT. In a story titled, rather comically, The IEA’s divisive mission to decide the future of oil, the publication wrote that “The IEA’s forecasts matter. Governments, oil companies and investors rely on the agency as a trusted source on global energy to inform their policies and strategies.”
I’m not done yet. The FT then went on to write “But its forecasts have faced criticism in the past from climate activists for not predicting the rapid rollout of renewables and are now being attacked by fossil fuel advocates as too supportive of the energy transition.”
This posts aims to answer the question: Would there be anything redeeming about August in East Texas if it weren’t for the watermelons?
I repeat this every year. But I can’t help repeating it again. When we first came here and I’d spent my first August, I was mostly without Hubby because he would often get stuck offshore in the Gulf for bad weather or working over for vacationing colleagues. I swore I would find a way to travel in August, just like the French.
The heat is brutal, the garden mostly gone. Actually, it amazes me anything can survive out there, and yet, plenty of plants are thriving.
And now I can’t imagine having a happy vacation when we’ve got bushels of grapes to harvest and after that bushels of pears, which then must all be processed.
Into wine! I know I shouldn’t whine. It’s not every year we get either good grapes or good pears, and this year we’ve got both.
My wine lab, soon to be greatly expanding. 😊
Wine-making has proven to be a reasonable replacement for my sudden loss in cheese-making ability. That story has only gotten worse, so I’m going to avoid telling it, at least for now. Like I said, August is bad enough already.
The healthy half of the herd.
While we have made hard cider from the pears and a bit of wine from grapes in past years, I really had no idea how versatile wine-making could be. Since last post I’ve added cantaloupe wine to the rows—joining Elderberry, Blackberry, Wild grape, and mead.
Cantaloupe wine? Who knew! But after giving these great big delicious 20- pounders to friends and eating them daily we still had so many and they were ripening so fast we had to do something. We forgot to keep track, but we had at least 15 of them, off only 3 plants.
‘Ole Tyme Tennessee’ melon
Enough to make 3 gallons of wine. I plan to make cider from it as well. Imagine all the fun we’ll be having wine tasting in December! (That’s exactly what I’m doing, a lot of imagining, to keep my mind off the miserable sweltering reality.)
Now we’ve also got a couple buckets going of our cultivated grapes: white and red muscadines, sometimes also known as Scuppernongs.
“A glass of scuppernong wine is better for a body than a shot of penicillin.”
If you’re not from the Southern US you’ve probably never heard of Scuppernongs because they don’t have a good reputation among wine connoisseurs and don’t grow north of the Mason-Dixon line, as far as I know.
And they aren’t really suitable for table grapes either, unless your table allows for a lot of spitting.
Good enough for country wines, they say. So, good enough for me!
In fact they are really delicious. Beyond bursting with juicy sweetness, the green ones especially have varied and complex notes, sharp and earthy. The red ones have such an huge pop of intense grape flavor I’m reminded of manufactured fake grape flavors from childhood, Jolly Ranchers and Bubbalicious gum. Sad, but true, since I never tasted such fruit as a kid.
Except, that these have a tough skin and big seeds. And they are really a pain to harvest. If the weather were nice it wouldn’t be so bad at all. But the thing about muscadine grapes is they don’t ripen in nice clusters like the fancy grapes of more civilized peoples. 😆
Every other day we’re out there gathering these plump gems from under their enormous vines, one by one, little jewels among the masses of deep green leaves. They’ve done remarkably well this year, after a dismal last year, and a meager crop the year before, and just when we were starting to worry all our hard work planting them was wasted.
I wish we knew the trick, Hubby tends the vines and he did nothing different this year from the previous.
Our beautiful grape vines beneath a disgusting chem-filled sky.
We did have the big rain with a nice temperature drop, which also brought down another big tree, right through a fence, as per usual. It seems we lose a big tree with every rain event these days.
Too bad, because that oak has been providing a lot of acorn forage for the critters in autumn. There are several other nearby mature oaks looking like they are also about to keel over.
But, the pears have been spared and that will be our next big project in the blazing heat. Yay! 🤪
Three hard pear trees, two which were the only cultivated fruit trees here when we arrived, abandoned and still producing, bringing the feral hogs many happy meals. They produce prolifically when they produce, which is every 3 years on average. Plus one we planted in our still struggling orchard, it does really well most years, having gotten the regular run-off from our duck tub from it’s early years.
But the real pièce de résistance this year especially has been the watermelons.
They’ve not been as prolific as the cantaloupes, but they are some of the best I’ve ever eaten. Watermelons are Hubby’s preference, so he’s been in hog heaven every day, and the hogs are in a similar heaven with all the rinds they’ve been eating.
August has a few redeeming qualities after all. I don’t think I could make it through otherwise.
At sunset, within one hour they all open together while the bees get furiously busy. If you can’t catch the scent at just that initial pip of release, it’s instantly gone. Such an inimitable fragrance, enough to keep a woman longing, just long enough, that August might be gone again, and we’ll forget. It’s not so bad, right?
Until the next August.
Datura inoxia perhaps signaling the season of intoxia? Because we’re making lots of wine and it helps to get intoxicated to get through it? 😆
Chemtails aka weather modification aka geoengineering aka AIR POLLUTION!
Especially considering these photos I took just last evening. Now for our scheduled weather we will have weeks of drought, high humidity, and escalating temperatures.
Excellent article, worth the entire read, but of course, this is my favorite part:
“What could possibly be a factor in the rising heat levels that could be contributing to this surge in droughts? How about artificial clouds that block out the sun and trap in the heat? According to the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation,the lingering contrails left in the sky forming artificial clouds (often referred to as chemtrails, which I detailed the health and environmental impacts here), actually trap in the heat from the Earth’s surface. A study cited by CNN also made the case that aviation’s contribution to “climate change” between 2000 and 2018 had a negative warming effect. It concluded that contrails create 57% of the sector’s warming impact, which means that this was significantly more of an impact than the CO2 emissions from burning fuel. It was stated that these lingering trails create this effect by trapping heat that would otherwise be released into space.
While these trails are seen around the world, in Canada, it appears that a 1985 law, known as the Weather Modification Information Act, makes it legal to actually modify the weather in this manner. According to the law, weather modification is defined as such:
weather modification activity includes any action designed or intended to produce, by physical or chemical means, changes in the composition or dynamics of the atmosphere for the purpose of increasing, decreasing or redistributing precipitation,decreasing or suppressing hail or lightning or dissipating fog or cloud.
All that one must do in order to engage in this type of activity is to inform the administrator, i.e. a member of the public service as may be designated by the Governor in Council, as to what they are doing.”
“It is not too far of a stretch to imagine a scenario where cloud seeding, whether intentionally or not, is creating droughts and higher ground level temperatures that are leading to the lingering effects of these unprecedented fires polluting our air. Factor in that the vast majority of these fires are considered to be man-made, it is, once again, not far-fetched to imagine that these two scenarios are working hand-in-hand to keep the air unclean and unhealthy as well as to sell the public on the impact of “climate change.” Regardless of the motives involved, these fires, the trails, and the droughts are a man-made problem that could be corrected in order to clean up the air and bring about better health for everyone. There is absolutely no reason to blame any sort of “natural” climate change and invisible “pathogens” for the resultant negative health effects when there are clear culprits that need to be addressed.”
Thank you Mike Stone at ViroLIEgy! Read this excellent article or visit his thorough archives debunking the pseudoscience known as Virology.
