Bleeding US Dry?

Israel in need, again.

Oct.11, 2023

“In the days since Hamas attacked Israel, that response has translated into contributions of millions of dollars, loads of military gear and mountains of clothing, food and household supplies from Jewish communities across the United States. Items have ranged from granola bars to boots and bulletproof vests.
The outpouring has come from the smallest neighborhood synagogues to the wealthiest corners of the Jewish business community – and everything in between. Some 5.8 million Jews live in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center.
While there is no sign that Israel is short on basic supplies like granola bars, the donations underscore the concern and connection Jews in the United States feel toward Israel.”

With bulletproof vests, socks and soap, US Jews rush to aid Israel

Will it stop there?

$100 million in one year, and that’s in 1957 dollars!

Life Magazine
August 12, 1957
“The Jews Of America and the State of Israel”

“Aid from U.S. to Israel. U.J.A.’s $100 million supports refugees. Generosity to the less fortunate has been an article of Jewish faith since the time of Moses. In the eyes of American Jews, this now means helping the swarms of persecuted Jewish refugees from Europe and the Arab world, for many of whom the one glowing hope is to get to Israel. America’s vessel of generosity is a phenomenal private philanthropy called the United Jewish Appeal, which this year will raise $100 million to help Jewish refugees.”

In the same issue
“How U.S. Jews View Jewish State” by George Steiner
“We do not, admittedly, have enough information on American electoral trends and voting habits to give a definitive answer. But certain generalization can safely be made. In New York State professional politicians regard a measure of pro-Zionism as a law of survival. In close presidential and congressional elections New York and other urban centers in which Jews are concentrated may determine the margin of victory.”

“It should not be overlooked that the American Jewish community makes itself heard not only at the polls. There are a great many Jewish writers, impresarios and performers—men skilled in presenting ideas and summoning emotions. Whenever Israel is threatened, the voice of Jewish feeling is heard eloquently in the full-page advertisements of leading newspapers and over the loudspeakers at well-attended rallies in New York’s huge Madison Square Garden. This flair for public relations must be taken into account when one tries to say just how much pressure, political and indirect, American Jews can bring to bear on Washington officials in defense of Israel.”

“Adjusting to a new life, Omessi, who had always been an office worker, still wears a city man’s clothes as he awkwardly half-squats in the broiling desert sun to try to prune a grapevine. Of three alternatives in Israel all offering little but hard work and risk, Omessi deliberately chose to join a farm settlement, or moshaw, where he would at least have a home and seven acres of his own and receive about $9 a day for his labors in the vineyard and other projects.” 😂 😂

I wonder how long Omessi lasted as a farm laborer in his new home?!

Wet Paint

A spontaneous site redesign is in the works! It’s come to my attention that this site is unorganized, unnavigable and losing its relevance—if it ever had any. 😆

We really need a makeover.

I’ve decided to tackle those issues posthaste. But, please be patient, as my skill set will be very challenged during this restructuring.

In the meantime, scroll away for previous meme drops, updates on the wee homestead, amateur poetry and varied shares. Or, check out the so-far few Herbal Explorations pages, or the Geoengineering Resources, or the Farm-to-Table Resources, which will be updated as well.

And, feel free to share any suggestions and opinions: what would you like to see more of on this blog? What kind of blogs do you think we need more of in the cyber world? Are there any blogs you particularly like that you think I could learn from as far as content/design/features?

Please, share to your heart’s content! I hope you’ll miss us while we’re gone! 🤗

“I’ll be back!”

Homestead Happenings

I know it must be autumn somewhere! Here that reality is still mostly in my dreams. We’re still in the 90s and still mostly dry. There are a few tiny signs of change though, that I’m magnifying in my mind, because I can hardly wait! It’s been a terrible summer.

See, right there, 3 red leaves on my favorite Sassafras tree!
(Very soon to be featured in an ‘Herbal Explorations’ post)

But, I’m not going to complain about that now. Instead we’ve got lots of happy snaps, and even a few scary ones.

We’re gearing up for the fall/winter garden, getting the beds ready for the transplants that have been growing under lights for a month and are very ready for their new outdoor home, just as soon as the temperature drops a bit.

Hang in there brassicas, it’s almost time!

We just started harvesting sweet potatoes from the boxes waiting for replanting.

Those vines helped keep the goats happy and healthy during the extra long heat wave.

Summer keeping a sharp eye on Shadow even though there’s a fence between them.
None of the goats have warmed up to him, despite all his best efforts!

The peppers have come back with gusto after another dose of compost dressing and removing their shade cloth.

Jalapeños and banana peppers and the now monstrous cranberry hibiscus on right that is finally just starting to bloom.

Cucumbers again, yippie! Plus hurricane lilies, turmeric, zinnia and basil keeping the bees happy. And lots of bindweed (morning glory)—scourge to the industrial farmer—a hardy, lovely and welcome cover for the rest of us.

I’m getting about 1/2 gallon of milk a day from 2 goats and making cheese often—mozzarella and soft chèvre every week and a hard cheese whenever I can accumulate at least 3 gallons (preferably 6) in the freezer. The larger the hard cheese the easier it is to age properly and goat milk works just fine for cheese after freezing.

The easiest cheese to make and so delish!

But I’m really looking forward to making Camembert and Munster again. Just like all things natural, cheeses also have seasons. I was very disappointed by a so-called Brie I just splurged on from the grocery store. They should call it a processed Brie-like imitation and market it in the aisle with Velveeta. Quel scandale!

A few more friendly faces . . .

As I mentioned last update, we had a sausage-fest this summer, that is, a super-high percentage of males born, of all species—cats, pigs, sheep, chickens, goats. So odd.

Now we have 3 young male cats, a new thing for us. But one of them is a real scaredy cat, we’re never able to get close to him and he’s rarely around except for meal time.

Always crouching in the shadows and darting off even from the camera.

Also odd but true—our black cat, Mittens, hangs out with our black Shadow and our blond Tony hangs out with our blond Bubba and Buttercup—go figure!

“Hey in there! Where’s our breakfast?!”

I love spiders, especially these beauties, but some folks find them scary, apparently.

Now here’s a real foe . . . .

Gross! Looks like right out of a horror movie.
And he has a lot of friends haunting our compost heap. 🤢

But who loves ‘em but our very scary Halloween rooster . . .

Poor guy, we’ve no idea what happened to him, but he is one scary-looking dude!

Soon we will be making the tough but necessary fall homestead decision—who will get bred and who will shuffle off to freezer camp?

But not a care in the world for these contented creatures!

Hope you’re having a fine Sunday and thanks for stopping by!

Devious vs Clever

Does narrative control our lives?

Do mere words, forever shifting on the barnyard wall, mold our collective behavior?

If a lie lands in the narrative, and no one knows it’s a lie, does it pass for the truth?

Enter, the Scapegoat:

“No, everything seems conditional now, contingent on proof of cognitive compliance. Their cancellation of me has been cemented into their own identities. The people who were once closest to me now exist in direct opposition to the person they imagine I’ve become. There is no way to dissuade them, to show them that I really am me, the same me I’ve always been. I realize the framing they’ve embraced since the lockdowns cannot shift without destabilizing the shaky narrative they’ve chosen to inhabit. I am the problem. I have to be the problem in order for their reality to remain steady.”
Alison McDowell

Oh how I know this role so very well! I was born into it—by chance, divine intervention, twist of fate—I have no idea.

Alison, having experienced life primarily as the golden child, here feeling it now so poignantly, perhaps for the first time, navigating as an outsider, has put words on my reality as I never could. Such poignant, touching, true words.

There is something about venturing into new territory and trying to map the landscape for yourself that highlights what is most special and unique about a particular place from a particular perspective. It’s a kind of magic I think. What has become invisible to the native through habituation has new meaning through new eyes and in turn brings new insights to the observers’ previous perspectives simultaneously.

It’s why I wanted to be a travel writer, why I thought I could be good at it, because if I could recognize that level of magic, surely I could learn to apply it myself.

But now I deal in inner worlds, instead of outer ones. So many of us find ourselves here in these times that we can hardly consider ourselves outsiders anymore. Can we?

“The Herculean effort to struggle to come to an understanding of something alone, without mature guidance and the fellowship of other stumbling souls is more than most can bear. This is what angers me about the glib soundbites in praise of the ‘freedom’ for individuals to simply learn alone via internet study.” Christine Jones

Withered Leaves & Spoiled Fruits meet Wrench in the Gears, if only here in my words. I hear you say the same thing, though you are physically and in so many other ways, so far away, from me and each other.

But, in ways that don’t seem to matter to me much these days.

That we are each middle aged women who have been cast off—by our own or divine, or others’ design—how delightful, still, to find sister castaways.

What I’ve come to learn lately navigating the inner worlds at the expense of the outer ones is that words matter much less. Labels hardly at all. That works out pretty well since language has forgone nuance words have become superfluous. (Spellcheck just tried to correct me from ‘become’ to ‘Beyoncé’, how apropos)

The inner world narrative is not man’s narrative. Words hardly fit. Words hardly fathom. The words sound ever-more more political the further in you journey. Falsity reigns and duplicity rains and you find that words only rein in reality. They don’t invent it, they don’t even represent it, not really. The map is not the territory.

In fact, it becomes more difficult to navigate the inner worlds the more you rely on the words.

What are thoughts but words yet expressed? What am I to rely on once words begin to lose their meaning to me? Me, who spent four decades devoted to the study of words. Who considered language to be the cornerstone of civilization and all that made it function.

What a shift, now to think in fact it is not words that craft the spells that create our cultures, but rather enclose them, like walled gardens or mazes, constructs that sometimes illuminate and sometimes obstruct. Sometimes nurture and sometimes confound.

Once upon a time “devious” and “clever” were not synonymous. To understand how they’ve become so confounded one must explore the inner world, beyond the words and into the being. There the answer lies.

Lies?

Perhaps the lies inherent in the words, inherited with the words, are driving us collectively mad? Everywhere I hear about the ‘clever’ machinations of the great powers. Clever?

Perhaps if we shake hard enough, like a soaked dog after his bath, the words will be cast off like water droplets, leaving the cleansed being behind.

A Case for Applied Bitterness

The Promise and The Fantasy: It is said Love is God’s weapon.

Revelation 21: 1-6
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell among them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, ” I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.”

The Promise and The Fantasy: An end to all pain, suffering, sacrifice.

“Man will oppose everything except a Hand Extended, … he will stand up in the face of every hazard except Lonely Time; that for the sake of his poorest and shakiest and screwiest principle he will lay down his life, endure pain, ridicule, and even sometimes, that most demeaning of American hardships, discomfort, but will relinquish his firmest stand for Love …
Love — or the fear of Not Having It, or the worry of Not having Enough of It, or the Terror of Losing It — certainly does conquer all.”
~Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion

Repeat after me: I believe in LOVE!

Repeat after me: I believe in LOVE!

The New Age Movement:
Love as weapon of coercion and behavior modification

Benjamin Creme (1922-2016), Aquarian Age conspiracist
From Wiki:

“Creme said that he was first contacted telepathically by his Master in January 1959, when Creme was asked to make tape recordings of his Master’s messages.[19] Creme first began to speak publicly of his mission on 30 May 1975, at the Friends Meeting House on Euston Road in London, England.[20][21] His central message announced the emergence of this group of enlightened spiritual teachers who would guide humanity forward into a new epoch, the Aquarian Age of peace and brotherhood, based on the principles of love and sharing. At the head of this group would be the one who occupies the office of the Christ, Maitreya, the World Teacher,[1] expected by all the major religions as their “Awaited One”: the Christ to the Christians; the Imam Mahdi to the Muslims; the Messiah for Jews; and the 5th Buddha (i.e., Maitreya) for Buddhists. As early as 1982, however, Creme emphasized that Maitreya would reveal himself fully only when Humanity began to live in right relationship to one another – most notably, by living in peace, and by beginning to share the world’s resources more equitably.[22][23]

Creme asserted that Maitreya was the World Teacher for the Age of Aquarius, and that during the transition of one astrological cycle to another humans undergo a quickening of their evolution, while experiencing crisis after crisis.[45]”

At the end of George Orwell’s 1984, broken, humiliated, every bit of his humanity smashed, Winston waits for the bullet in the back of the head and thinks, “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”

Become the weakest, most vulnerable, most obedient and acquiescent version of yourself, and then the world will be peaceful.

Love one another blindly in a thick global stew of brotherly affection, and then the world will be free of war.

Lay down your weapons and your sour pusses, and then the world will be free of crime.

Give all your worldly goods away, and then the world will be free from exploitation.

Spread all your love all around everywhere all the time, give it all you’ve got—mind, body, soul—And then we will all live as One.

Virology’s Death March

It couldn’t make me happier to see that the pseudoscience of virology is on its way out! I don’t need a Utopia to be happy, I just need to know the bullshit sciences are going down, kicking and screaming of course, as useless as that will soon prove.

The top 3 on my Shit-Sciences list: virology, nutrition and climate — all pseudosciences full of con artists passing themselves off as scientists while getting public approval, respect and major funding as real science—with detrimental effects on life.

So, I just have to share the latest, copied entirely from DPL’s Newsletter on Substack. For the full-article with all links, comments, formatting and memes, read it directly here, this copied version is incomplete, meant for your quick perusal.

Hacking At the Root of the Virus Issue

Introduction
Starting out on the No Virus topic, I was introduced to the isolation issue. Cowan mentioned that the 1954 Enders paper showed a failed control and I searched for this paper to confirm it for myself. At the back of the paper under “Other agents isolated during the study” Enders discussed the failed control and this was enough to know that virology was dead (refer to an earlier article here). The below meme was born from this knowledge.

A further two years of study and I was confident enough to start chasing down the Mutton co trolls and the 77th brigade on Twitter. I joined some sharp peeps and a team of people are now confronting these twitter sewer dwellers on a daily basis. One thread has been ongoing since 10 March this year, believe it or not! You can have a look at that thread here.

For the longest time my focus was on the isolation process because this seemed to be the best angle to take down virology seeing as this same method is still being used today with some small changes in the process. Being new to the subject I did not really question this angle because the entire movement was talking about the isolation issue.

However, the most fundamental assumption of virology is that a viral agent can be transmitted by means of natural pathways for a sick person to make a healthy person sick. If there is no proof to support this assumption, then virology is well and truly dead. The meme obviously had to be updated as seen below.

Latest Update

The idea of hacking away at transmission was recently given a very good update with two presentations by Cowan.
Firstly
The true issue of where the idea or theory of virology comes from was well divined in a presentation discussing Inductive vs Inventive theories (the full length presentation can be seen here).

Conclusion

Every single transmission study that we have reviewed has shown that transmission has never been successfully demonstrated. Most of these studies include the injection of ground-up spinal fluid into the brains and lungs of animals and the remaining studies are observational, where there is little to no control over a large number of variables that can influence the results.
The virus pushers hate addressing this point because it cannot be addressed with the current body of peer reviewed publications.

https://dpl003.substack.com/p/hacking-at-the-root-of-the-virus?utm_medium=email&utm_content=post

I hope you’ll pay him a visit on his Substack, he’s got a small team there and they’re doing some great work!

Monkey Money

The crowd itself a money
Voodoo dollars, yes-men yen
Swing and merge, swipe and swindle
Build then purge, craft then kindle
Poverty for profit
Everything on the market

Birth to earth
Every photon
Every breath
Monetized
Vulgarized
Philanthroposized
Dispersed among the dispossessed
And the dead

Get in the game!
Get back in the game
Stay in the game
We all love the game
We’re all mad loyal to the game

Monetized
The mind
The hearth, the heart, the health
Hey you suckers
Circling the squares
Send us money
Must have more money!

Transactional life
Care by bottle, screen, needle or tube
For rich or rube
Conform to constant strife
Higher, faster, louder, bigger
Climb that ladder
Chutes and we laugh

Shoots and we cry
But send us that loot
We need barns and bigger barns
Boats and bigger boats
Boobs and bigger boobs
Swinging from the stars
Idols as far as Mars

Gold, silver, bullion
Digital assets
Making our hard on
Pies in the skies
Billionaires in lies

The crowd itself a money
So funny, money
Not a moment without
Movement through the currency
Current flowing always to the
Current see

So funny, money
From sea to shining sea
For all the global mobile monkeys
Now the most funniest of funny money

Clown world, always sunny
Getting the best of you
Climb aboard, son
Get in the game, girl
We’re singing in the rain
Rainbows all the way to Spain!

Technology & Sustainability II

I venture once more into this unsavory file. I have to force myself, because there are about three thousand things I’d rather be thinking and writing about. Here’s the first one in my on-going efforts.

But, it’s the kind of questions that keep circling round and round in my mind day and night. Why are technology and sustainability being pushed on the public as essentially and inextricably connected? With the follow-up question being, and why do folks keep accepting it?

I read and listen to quite a bit trying to wrap my tiny mind around it all. I still can’t. But, do know I’m not giving up, and feel free to click around at some articles and quotes of interest.

All I can come up with is, it’s a classic Bait & Switch.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/04/28/how-technology-is-driving-a-sustainable-future/

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/using-technology-and-innovation-to-ensure-the-world-won-t-starve-by-2050/

“Three years ago, Olam International, a global agribusiness company with nearly $27 billion in annual revenue, took a big step toward helping the agriculture field meet its ambitious goals to lower greenhouse gas emissions, reduce waste, and improve the livelihoods of farmers by launching AtSource with Olam, a groundbreaking digital sustainability platform. AtSource makes it possible for customers to trace their products’ origin, measures the environmental and social impact of those supply chains, and offers insights on how to influence them for the better. Customers can view the journey from source to factory for more than 20 ingredients across more than 60 supply chains, and in many cases they can trace crops to specific groups of farmers, calculating the environmental footprint of a specific crop by volume, origin and destination.”

Obviously, this is customers and regulators teamed together to squeeze producers around the world into compliance. It is not that much different than administrators and students taking over academia, squeezing the critical voices out of even tenured professors, which I experienced first-hand.

Businesses will have to employ this technology in order to ‘live up to’ their sustainability pledges according to the Davos Agenda 2022.

I wonder if the rancher up the road has made a sustainability pledge to the Davos kingpins? I dare say he hasn’t the slightest clue what the global public-private partnerships have in store for him, his cattle and his land.

How digital technology can improve your sustainability game | World Economic Forum

“Sustainability is no longer just a buzzword, but an environmental, economic and social driver that’s changing our day-to-day lives in almost every way imaginable.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/08/31/how-technology-can-provide-a-more-sustainable-future-for-the-industrial-sector/

How is the digitization of all life going to create global sustainability?

“For example, a 5G-enabled IoT network allows smart cities to automatically monitor and manage utility systems, helping conserve water, combat pollution and reduce energy consumption. Smart cities will also enable dynamic traffic management systems that continuously collect and process data from thousands of vehicles to reduce traffic congestion and pollution. Additionally, smart agriculture will allow the industry to minimize their use of water, fertilizers and pesticides through a more precise application. This is a significant opportunity, as agriculture irrigation currently accounts for 70% of water use worldwide. Finally, 5G-enabled smart buildings and homes will be equipped with sensors that react to environmental conditions and occupancy to reduce energy consumption caused by lighting, heating and cooling.”

Sure, there are problems with industrial agriculture, this is not news. But why are the only solutions offered requiring so much tech and so many sacrifices for the average person?

Why don’t they talk about why there are such water constraints? What’s causing so many droughts, for example? (Geoengineering and Weather Modification!) Why do we allow industry and corporations and global mass consumerism to exploit our resources? How will digitizing everything change that?

“In recent years, agricultural regions around the globe have been subject to extensive and increasing water constraints. Major droughts in Chile and the United States have affected agricultural production while diminishing surface and groundwater reserves. These and other extreme weather events, like floods or tropical storms, are also expected to be more frequent. Climate change is projected to increase the fluctuations in precipitation and surface water supplies, reducing snow packs and glaciers and affecting crop’s water requirements.
Coupled with these changes, farmers in many regions will face increasing competition from non-agricultural users due to rising urban population density and water demands from the energy and industry sectors. In addition, water quality is likely to deteriorate in many regions, due to the growth of polluting activities, salination caused by rising sea levels and the abovementioned water supply changes.”

Water and agriculture – OECD (check out their site also for plenty of Covid19 and Ukraine propaganda)

All I seem to find is more big business solutions aimed at getting blood from turnips.

What is the role of technology in sustainability? – MAHB

Digitalization to achieve sustainable development goals: Steps towards a Smart Green Planet – ScienceDirect

Homestead Happenings

A quick reprieve from ruminating about technology for some recent happy snaps. I’ll try to not do too much complaining about the weather. But I know how hard that’s going to be so, here’s a deal, for every complaint I will offer one bonus. 😁

Dortmund climbing rose makes a surprise appearance

The extreme heat, and drought, is not normal, so I really wish folks would stop saying it is.

Bonus! It’s reassuring how remarkably resilient some plants and animals are.

Hibiscus for tea, to be blooming soon
With plenty of irrigation and shade cloth the re-seeded cucumbers are coming in, lots of okra, eggplant, peppers. And sweet potato vines, which the goats especially love.

One green melon from one surviving plant, I think I’ll name those saved seeds the Miracle Melon.

Not much harvesting happening, but at least something. A few figs and grapes, some herbs and elderberries for flavoring kombucha.

How dare man meddle with the weather, makes me SO mad!

Bonus! We can fully appreciate how precious water is to all of us.

Pretty obvious where the sprinkler spray stops

Man changing the climate? Perhaps.

Man changing the weather? Definitely. Do they care how toxic and dangerous that is? Seems like no.

Bonus! We can observe different species peaceful tolerance of the other under times of stress, as well as which critters are more heat tolerant. The honeybees only appearance in the garden at the moment is at this water trough where I feed some tadpoles. But, bumblebees are going crazy on the salvia, wonderful!

It’s so hellishly hot by 10 am we can’t stand to be outside anymore.

Bonus! We can feel like heroes as we try to keep the critters as comfortable as possible.

This cool-looking wasp followed me inside, maybe hoping to keep cool? It’s been living happily on this ‘longevity spinach’ (gynura procumbens) for nearly a week. I didn’t realize they could live so long alone, indoors and with no nectar. The wasps must eat something on the leaves, there’s loads of wasps on the okra leaves too.

Here we come to save the day! Bubba in his tub and Buttercup in her sand hole.

The final bonus of bonuses! I can tackle all kinds of indoor projects I’ve been neglecting, like organizing the closets, washing the windows and floors, attending to the neglected pile of sewing . . .

The only true bonus of that list is that I find it so objectionable I’ll instead be reaching for another novel I’ve been meaning to read. 😆

Thanks for stopping by, hope you’re keeping cool!