And now they’re finally realizing climate change is the red herring of geoengineering. Finally. Finally, too late? Any mention of those of us screaming this for the last decade plus? Any apology forthcoming? Any change of heart or personal accountability? You decide, does she look ashamed as she giggles, talks in an ultra-feminine child voice and repeats ‘um’ over and over? Do you see remorse on her face as she confesses? I sure don’t!
“This is just mediocre banter about the lives of tech wives.” says one commenter who is spot on.
Soon it will be a new TV series I expect!
Real Housewives of Silicon Valley
Oh wait, that’s already a show. She’s probably on an audition!
We’ve got a sad-but-funny Shadow story, the usual weather nonsense, garden goodies, another instance of AI lies, lots of cheese bragging, the will of pigs, my creativity commitment, all in no particular order.
My how they’ve grown!Spring 2024
We’ve had both new setbacks and new achievements so far this growing season.
The false friend of an early spring might feel nice for some temporarily, but most got slammed hard by the subsequent freeze weeks later. We lost all the fruit trees except the citrus, which Hubby’s been painstakingly covering and uncovering all Weather Whiplash Season. The figs, mulberries, magnolias and even the oaks got it the worst as they were already well leafed out.
The lovely wild cherry we uncovered about six years ago when Hubby cleared for the new chicken coop was another sad loss, again. It looks so beautiful full of blossoms, but only once did they last long enough for a cherry harvest. If it’s not the late frosts, it’s the wind, or the bag worms that destroy them.
I’m sure it has nothing at all to do with these totally natural clouds that come right in lockstep with our strange weather, I’m certainly not seeing any patterns and I surely don’t imagine these are some sort of chemicals that fill the sky and do weird things like change the atmosphere, and the climate. Heavens no!
What crazy talk! This is just beautiful big Texas country skies, that’s all!
On the fun success side of things, we have the earliest pepper harvest ever, by far. This was no thanks to the weather either, but rather to my laziness. Now that’s a rare and welcome anamoly! I had excellent success for the first time over-wintering three varieties, after multiple failed attempts. The trick seems to be to never move them. Whereas before I’d haul them in and out during our warm to freeze snaps, thinking I was benefitting them with all the extra effort, in fact no, they did best parked in front of the window for three months.
We’ve already had a little harvest because I feared the still small limbs so heavy with fruits might not fare so well in our next big wind.
The strawberries are another big success, which I finally achieved after so much trial and error, especially error. So successful I shared wheelbarrows full of plants with many friends and neighbors, one who asked to share my tips with the Master Gardeners county extension newsletter. So, here they are! It is certainly a high maintenance crop, but such delicious rewards.
We were able to save the majority of tomatillos from the freeze, but not the tomatoes, not sure why. We had to double cover them, with pots and then frost blankets on top, but that worked. We’d already opted for tomatillos over tomatoes this year for a nice change of pace.
The onions and garlic were not bothered by the freeze and are still growing strong.
plus we’ve got lots of carrots and lettuces, while the crucifers jump directly to seed in their seasonal confusion.
We were also able to get an early jump on blooms we housed with the citrus, so that’s fun. I never tire of more flowers!
Even an extraordinarily early datura!
In other happy news there are always the cute little lambs.
They appear so sweet and harmless, n’est ce pas? But don’t ask our poor terrorized Shadow to agree with that assessment!
Friend or foe, sometimes we don’t know.
He looks, and often acts, like a big brut. But one mama has such a hate toward him he can’t even cross the yard in her presence! Hubby literally has to escort him if the lambs are in the front yard, she will charge at him from 15 yards, and even his meanest growl won’t keep her from butting him if he’s unprotected by a human. The poor dear, it must be terribly immasculating. 😆
Please refrain from shaming the Shadow, he’s a lover not a fighter!
But speaking of fighters, pigs can be extremely pig-headed, in case you didn’t know that slander is very true.
Hubby had already decided to take a sabbatical from pig-rearing last year, and planned it for this spring. He put old Papa Chop down in December after his last breeding hurrah. Seems providence wanted to put a fine point on that decision, by making this round particularly painful. Knowing a big storm was coming, he positioned Mama Chop’s birthing area under cover. She had other ideas, probably because it was so damn hot. They tusseled for two days, she won. Just as Hubby predicted, 3/4 of her litter drowned. And that’s the end of his breeding adventures.
Other changes in our territory are equally ambiguous, are they for better, or for worse? Two opposing, and/or related events. One on the plus side–we seem to be having a resurgence of wildlife. I’ve had multiple sitings of wild turkey, and now we hear some down by the creek seeming to have taken up residence there. I’ve heard many stories of abundant wild turkey in these parts from oldtimers, but in nearly 20 years here had not come across them. Feral hog are another story, they’re always around. But there’s been more deer too, it seems. And rabbits, squirrel and bobcat. No complaints from me, I love to see it! Though I do wonder, might it be because all the oil activity here now is forcing them out of other nearby habitat?
Time will tell.
Friend or foe, sometimes we’ll never know. Like this little guy, lounging in our garden shed, who didn’t seem to find me nearly as cute as I found him! As he struck at the bill of my cap and made me jump like a squealing teenager.
Harmless, I know, jump and squeal I still did! 😂
The last two points will have to wait–my creative commitment and the latest AI lies–they are intrinsically related, please stay tuned.
And the cheese bragging! Coming very soon!
And thanks for stopping by! Until then, a simple song, for us simpletons. 😆🤗😘
I grew up in the suburbs; I found it really boring; I watched a lot of TV, especially cartoons.
For better or worse, a good portion of my sense of justice came from Bugs Bunny.
Which is actually a lot more healthy than what passes for justice these days, I’d say!
During that time artificial reality did not blur so readily with actual reality. Now when I watch any media I see cartoons everywhere. I see cartoons when I look at people, too. So many have created caricatures of themselves it is clear there is too little authentic left to matter in them anymore. It’s like a return to the primitive, only plastic. Surface obsessed–the inner world collapsed in order to buttress the phony outer world of a manufactured jungle.
The following I copied and/or jotted down from still more media consumption, from a writer I imagine is real, who calls himself Stylman. Interesting name. I stopped following, despite his many wise expressions, when he wrote he thought the crazy weather is being controlled by the fears of the people who believe in geoengineering. A lunatic, obviously. And yet, some prescient views nonetheless.
“And it’s a road to nowhere—a few winners, millions of casualties, and an entire generation taught that their value lies in their ability to perform rather than create, to influence rather than contribute, to be seen rather than to matter.”
Now we live in an era where TikTok influencers who dance for thirty seconds make more than teachers, nurses, or the engineers who build our bridges. We’ve moved from celebrating skill to monetizing attention, from honoring achievement to rewarding performance and exhibitionism.
The fame machine isn’t just anti-human—it’s filling the void left by our disconnection from authentic community and natural guidance, while simultaneously being the logical response to living under constant surveillance.
But this isn’t cultural drift – it’s social engineering. The same institutional forces that have systematically replaced real information, real money, and real community are now replacing authentic human development with performance for strangers. This reflects a broader pattern: we live in an era where every essential human system has been replaced with artificial substitutes designed to harvest our energy rather than nourish our souls.
We’ve built a system that teaches them to treat their lives like content. That tells them: if you’re not being seen, you’re not really here. That your private self has no value unless it’s validated by strangers. We’ve stripped away something essential—the right to exist without an audience.”
While I agree, it’s actually much worse, in my experience.
The invasion of privacy of public systems and the individuals willing to force this state on everyone have deeply influenced inter-personal relationships as well–corrupting them, disfiguring them into parallel invasions–where expectation, extraction, exploitation has become the nauseating norm, and accountability has become entirely absent.
The public and private realities mirroring each other. Recently when I was visiting a dear friend who is Uber-Tech-Attached I had a Truman Show Moment, where she was gushing over her new air-fryer and I got the uncomfortable and uncanny sense I was unvoluntarily in an infomercial.
It’s a very creepy feeling I knew she would not understand.
Folks are faking their way through life, and this will have continued disastrous consequences.
The invasions will continue, until the trespasses are rejected and honor is restored to privacy and to nature.
The dangers of such a system, where access is assumed–access to your private spaces, your private thoughts, from your micro-expressions to your quotidian habits–is a culture of mutual parasitism, not even close to mutual understanding. This is not a culture more connected, it’s a culture more devolved. Incapable of boundaries, non-chalant around respect and autonomy, mocking of custom and structure, collapsing into a decaying emptiness. The nothingness of perpetually dissolving illusions, like the garish carricatures of a cartoonish, substanceless life.
A life perpetually romanticising illusion.
Even as its entire life support system slips away.
I attract scorpions, I always have. It’s my sweet blood, I’m sure, I can be very irrestistible when I want.
There are a lot of us. You can imagine us as the frogs. Some of us let their hearts and wallets bleed out dry for stray cats, which then makes them act nasty toward fellow frogs. Others turn their skin to poison for protection, which doesn’t really work all that well, because it gets some scorpions really high.
And still others migrate to Florida, where they freeze in manufactured ice storms.
Scorpions on frogs has been a pretty common theme for a while. It’s so common in fact that a new language is being crafted as I live and breath, right now, in this very cyberworld, also manufactured by man, like the Florida ice storms.
In scorpion-speak, everything was working just fine until the frogs started complaining.
But, the message in the bottle is that there are far more frogs than scorpions and the messengers are dropping many truths right into our very laps all about them. All kinds of clandestine information is flowing, on how to uncover them, how to trap them, how to recognize the master scorpions and even how ship them off to a land far, far away.
It’s a very exciting time! It’s becoming fashionable even! Soon the frogs will be free from scorpion influence! Maybe even forever!!
I do tend to get too enthusiastic and hopeful, but the thing is, I really think it’s working this time. I think it might even be coordinated. But, you know, they call me a conspiracy theorist.
This time they’ve given us the words. The words are the map to the behavior. The behavior is the path to extermination. From what I’ve been able to work out so far, it’s a lot like used-car sales with them.
First, they get their foot in the door. Then, they try to sell you a lemon.
“Foot-in-the-door technique is a compliance tactic that aims at getting a person to agree to a large request by having them agree to a modest request first. This technique works by creating a connection between the person asking for a request and the person that is being asked. If a smaller request is granted, then the person who is agreeing feels like they are obligated to keep agreeing to larger requests to stay consistent with the original decision of agreeing.”
If you buy it, their quick onto your back, for as long as they feel like free-riding. They’ll expect you to cart them around everywhere without ever learning to paddle for themselves. They’ll expect to suck your life’s energy while you’re paddling them around, cooking for them, cleaning for them, while simultaneously entertaining them. When you complain you’re too drained and exhausted, they’ll snap at you that you are weak and that you should really try harder. Their drive matters far more than your fatigue.
Once they’ve got their claws in you, you’ll wish you were the frog freezing to death in Florida. They have all kinds of tricks, let me tell you!
If you try to pry them off your back once attached, here’s what you should expect to hear. They are, in fact, the true victims! They will actually try to persuade you this is true, even if they have to shapeshift before your very eyes, distort words just spoken, and throw you under the bus, all at the same time.
Indeed, Frog, why have you been so dissappointing a carrier? Why are you so cruel and malintentioned that your energy and vitality are not infinitely enduring? Why are you holding back?
You said you wanted me to be comfortable, Frog, and I am no longer, so fix it! I want more!
And you see I’m not capable of crossing the river by myself, it’s so obvious, what are you, some kind of a dumbass? I suppose you’d be fine if I just drowned. You’re just mean, that’s it. You pretend to be kind and caring, but you don’t care, you’ll just leave me by the side of the river while you go off with your other frog friends.
I know plenty of other frogs who will help me, you know. Not that I need help, of course. Just with this one little thing about getting across the river. And you won’t even do that. But, another will. They always do. You’ll see.
I don’t know, Scorpion, the frogs, well, they’re catching on to your tricks. They’re starting to collectively block you. That can’t be fun! The young scorpions, they’re getting more and more lazy and entitled, while the young frogs are getting wiser and craftier. I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem to be looking too good for your kind anymore.
One fellow frog has even started selling deep-fried scorpion chips, and I tasted one, and wow, are they tasty!
“Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.”
~ Edward Abbey
What Anarchy Is:
I tire of constantly having to explain what anarchy is and what it is not. I tire of having to explain our language to those who seem never to have the time or inclination to study and learn it on their own, and without prejudice. Words mean things, and cannot be arbitrarily changed, or altered to suit a mood, an agenda, or be used improperly in order to create out of thin air, a State or political narrative, or to advance any particular agenda. To begin my comments, I will clarify that the word anarchy simply means no rule – no rulers, and therefore, no master or government; period.
If one is to go to most any modern dictionary, or look at dictionary synonyms, the list is common. The synonyms used to describe anarchy are: chaos, confusion, disorder, lawlessness, nihilism, rebellion, riot, turmoil, disorganization, insurrection, mutiny, revolution, tumult, mobocracy, mob rule, non-government, reign of terror, and unrest. Only one of these terms is correct; all the others are false, and have been intentionally manufactured to change the true meaning of anarchy. Non-government (no government) is the only correct synonym used, but all other descriptions are what most any would not only find if searching for the meaning of anarchy, but what they would also believe. Of course, few would search out the true meaning by going to the Greek root system of our language, and of course, that is by design as well. Why else do ‘public’ (government controlled ) schools (government indoctrination training centers) exist?
The refreshing article coincided with an ‘interesting’ new documentary on my long-time favorite conspiracy theory–the weather.
Climate Trails, which can be streamed for the price of a Starbuck’s latte, on Amazon.
What got me to find this latest gem is that I was curious and went looking for the first ‘chemtrail’ whistleblower I’d found, round about 2014. She had been threatened and forced out of the Air Force in 2010 and I’d been really moved by her story.
USAF Environmental Specialist and Air Force ‘chemtrail’ whistleblower interviewed in 2014, threatened and forced out in 2010.
Kristen Meghan
It also includes the courageous activist, Kathryn Saari, who I wrote about a year or so ago, called MellowKat on her Substack.
A very ‘interesting’ documentary, and by that I mean curious. Perhaps meant to create cognitive dissonance by simultaneous clips of a cursing Anarchist with a well-meaning Kentucky politician, both trying to address the geoengineered atmosphere. Perhaps with the ultimate ‘come together against this evil’ intention.
Of course we all already know the UK admitd it’s going to dim the sun, and Bill Gates can’t wait to make more billions poisoning more populations in more ways.
I learned that 32 states now have some legislation in the works against weather modification/geoengineering and while I have said in the past this is pointless, the states have zero jurisdiction over this level of operations, I think I was underestimating the overall strategy, perhaps being that I’ve always been a big hater of games.
It is raising awareness. It’s not that I’m not thrilled for that, I absolutely am!
My concern though is, by raising awareness, are we raising more folks who really care about the environment and want to stop these persecutions of the natural world? Or, are we just creating more markets for the great many who choose to profit off our serious problems?
Such a synchronistic interview popped into my feeds, which I just have to share. Not only is our wee homestead full of young blood sucking down mamas’ milk, but I’m also teaching another cheesemaking workshop this week.
So, milk is big on my mind, nothing unusual there.
This interview from Weston A. Price is priceless! It really is such an awesome feeling for me when a new and powerful voice comes on the scene repeating what I sincerely believe and what we have been diligently cultivating on the wee homestead. We are losing too much of great value in our blind rush toward ‘progress’. We’ve got to work harder to keep hold of our wise traditions, or they will be lost forever.
Clearly this issue is getting lots more attention lately, but it has been on the radar of many cheese-lovers since the 90s, including yours truly, because I was so peeved to have to give up cheese, because I was suddenly ‘lactose-intolerant’, like loads of other people. But at that time it was only in the U.S. I couldn’t eat breat or cheese, not in Europe.
Today in Europe they have also been inundated with ‘vegetarian’ rennet and glyphosate and other chemical industrial products and processes, and when it comes to cheese, the vast majority are not labeled as such. I got suspicious, started asking a lot of uncomfortable questions, and found out A LOT about GMOs and our body’s reaction to them.
The interview summary and link for anyone interested in some fantastic cheese talk (he even talks about the maggot-ripened cheeses I’ve mentioned quite a few times on this blog!)
Traditional cheesemakers respect the process of cheesemaking. They honor the environment, the animal, its milk and traditional techniques – all of which lead to delicious, nutritious cheese. Industrial cheesemaking, in stark contrast, emphasizes sterile conditions, uniformity, and artificial inputs (including GMO-derived rennet). The cheese that results from the conventional approach is consistent… but misses a lot in terms of flavor profile and nutrients.
Trevor Warmedahl is a cheesemaker, fermentation educator and the author of Cheese Trekking. Today, he takes us on a cheese adventure, as we gain insight on traditional, artisanal cheesemaking. He gives us pause about what is in our fridge and where it comes from.
Trevor has trekked all over the world, working alongside artisanal cheesemakers, so he understands and shares the importance of working with (instead of against) microbes and nature. He describes cheeses you may have never heard of, along with unique approaches to making them. Trevor also helps us take stock of what has been lost in our modern approach to cheesemaking.
Character is what’s left when no masks hold. We recognize it most often in its absence.
Give a one power and watch, do they use it to make others more comfortable, or do they use it to dominate?
Here is a perfect example of a wolf preying on men who love it. Look at who she is being, not who she says she is. She’s a self-proclaimed coach, for men, who have been abused by narcissistic women.
She’s wearing a black neglige and has an eroticised naked woman in the very obvious background. Her career took off when she started focusing on wounded men. Big surprise!
Here is your wolf in lamb’s clothing, men. Why do you love her? She talks the talk, she looks the part, you fall for it, again, and again. A poser, pretending, while on the hunt.
She will poison every healthy relationship you have as you long for the fantasy she creates with her makeup and her emotional manipulation. She speaks of her own clientele as objects while buoying their egos without any context.
A true Machivallean artisan maneuvering in plain site and getting applauded for it!
Pro-tip: No serious woman wears a black neglige to make her intellectual point. She’s fishing for vulnerable men, beware.
Another one from the deep archives, 9 years ago this month. In reflection what I wish is that I’d had more time to elaborate and get better photos. Noted, but probably not improving much in all these years. Maybe that’s why it had zero likes besides my own?! Room for improvement.
I know in these old posts formats and links are screwy. Sorry about that, but hope it’s still of value to someone, somewhere, sometime, besides me.
3.20.2017
Some iconic lines in films imprint on the psyche collectively and I know you could think of one right now that instantly crosses several generations and continental divides.
“You can’t handle the truth!” Name that film, name that actor. Could you even name his co-star in that blockbuster?
Somehow, somewhere, as a collective, we’ve given ourselves over to worship and celebrity and fantasy and distraction in the most destructive ways. I am not resolved from that influence and never will be. I watched TV constantly for years in high school, only to give it up for years later in exchange for an exhaustive social life, only to give that up more years later for work I found most of all, exhausting.
I had/have this secret fantasy I’m going to share right now (again). After hurricane Katrina, right after, when I heard on the news the city was more or less safe, and me many hours away in a quaint bed and breakfast drinking wine with lunch, the hurricane widely reported as much less dangerous than anticipated, but that residents would need to stay away for a few days at least for safety precautions, I was glad. Nearly giddy, and not from the wine.
I had just started a new position at Tulane university and already I didn’t really want to go back. It took a day or so more before all hell broke out and select areas of the city flooded terribly and all residents had to stay out indefinitely. In our case, we were allowed to go back after two months. For some, it was never. We lived in a trendy and relatively upscale area right on Audubon Park. It was a beautiful spot, both before and after the hurricane. Some were far from so lucky and they’d been there many generations, not just two weeks, like us.
I do hold shame for this secret fantasy, because I still feel it. When I dwell, necessarily, in the dark places of my life and the world, I know there is much sickness, far too much. Far too much destruction, voluntary and deliberate and needless. Still, I have dwelt in destruction.
And there is too much wind, dammit, all around me lately seeming to get worse every year. It’s bloody annoying! We had no winter and now no spring. The plants and animals struggle with it far less than I, but still, I know, they do.
Wind is really stressful! This makes me smile, because there was a time I lived in Chicago and worked downtown and yes, the wind was legendary, but it was mostly something I peered at from the window and got annoyed at how it affected my hairdo.
But the wind is far more powerful and penetrating than I had, and I think most, ever realize. Is that not what blew down the house of each of the three little pigs?
They are blowing, those wolves, our weather right now is as manipulated as the currency market. And in my secret fantasy I sometimes can’t help but wonder—would we all be better off in the long run if they would just blow it all down? Roses blooming at the same time as the dogwood?! It just ain’t right.
This week’s breadcrumb, I’ve got so many I’d love to share this week, but this one is so essential it needs to stand alone.
Unslaved podcast, exploring the self in the work of Ayn Rand and others.
As the world reboots, this is where the rubber will meet the road.
After I got over the shock of hearing the squeals of a drift of wild hogs crashing through the forest, and the fear that I’d lost our dearest Tori, I was amazed to see her come through the trees clearly proud of herself. Still a fav, La Duchesse de Brabant, unfortunately with a bad case of ‘black spot’ but which I’ve been treating with whey, banana peels and chicken poop. Tori’s ‘Illuminati’ pose, hehehehehe!
A combo post–a bit of Homestead Happenings with a bit of my favorite conspiracy theory.
We are having our New Normal weather whiplash where 1/4 of the population pretends the weather has always been like this; another 1/4 couldn’t care less about it, normal or otherwise; 1/4 who think it’s all manmade, but not by tech, by carbon pollution; 1/8th who LOVE the idea of man controlling the weather; and the final 1/8th who believe one of the following: it’s NAZIS controlling the weather, aliens are controlling the climate, a global ice age is coming, too many paranoid plebs are actually causing climate change through their malignant minds, or, the world’s militaries have been using weather tampering against the public for many decades.
23 February 2026 | ZEROGeoengineering.com | Report below published in 2021 by the Land Forces Academy Review evaluates the use of weather influencing technologies and their impact on global security. The authors discuss potential damage resulting from weaponized weather changing activities: “artificially increasing the level of precipitation in order to cause floods and paralyze the enemy’s transport communications; artificially reducing the level of precipitation, in order to cause drought in enemy territories and difficulties in the supply of fresh water; the creation of unfavorable weather conditions that impede the conduct of hostilities (increased wind speed, deterioration of visibility); violation of radar and radio communication by direct impact on the Earth’s ionosphere. The use of technologies for changing the weather for military purposes leads to the destruction of infrastructure, paralysis of the economy, losses in agriculture, disruption of the work of state and commercial structures, mass casualties, large financial losses and demoralization of the local population.” Olena Shevchenko and Kira Horiacheva, Impact of Weather Change Technologies on Global Security, Land Forces Academy Review, Vol. X XVI, No. 4(104), 2021, DOI: 10.2478/raft-2021-0042
“increased wind speed?” check “unfavorable weather conditions?” check “artificially reducing the level of precipitation, in order to cause drought?” check “demoralization of the local population” check, check and check! Well they can certainly count me in! It’s indeed demoralizing to see the bumblebees out because it’s over 80 degrees for a week and all is blooming, only to then frost and kill all the buds. Including the fruit trees. Or to be told by a young gardener that ‘winter is our dry season’. What? Since when?! So I guess all seasons now are our ‘dry season’. Except for when it suddenly floods in one county while the neighboring county stays bone dry. Or the crazy winds that make these sudden and highly unnatural shifts with storm-level gusts that continue for days making any outdoor activity really unpleasant, if not impossible. Soon every five mile radius will have its own climate, and the technocrats will cheer, even if it makes vast swaths of the world uninhabitable by all but the scorpions and robots and data centers.
Can you see the honeybees on the henbit? The henbit does really well as a groundcover even through our last ‘wintery mix’ (used to be called snow). They also like the other early bloomers and I LOVE to see them. But, for bee sustainability it’s not a good thing, necessarily. If they build up their colonies too quickly too early there will be a lot of starvation of the young brood if (when) the temperatures plunge again killing off the buds.
Until that time I guess we’re stuck here counting our blessings.
We did get that frost, and now we’re going right back up to the 80s.
A few garden blessings doing well, one box under protection with lettuces, radishes, the last of the crucifers, some parsley and cilantro
Crucifers, like many veggies, do not like weather whiplash
Atleast if we can share some credible and valuable information while it’s available to us, the next generation might know more what they are in for when they move to the country thinking they’ll start a farm or homestead in order to escape the rat race. Newsflash, you might want to research underground gardening, because between the inclement weather and the cost of energy you won’t be able to garden, indoors or out!
It really helps to start seed indoors, an extra protection from weather whiplash season, but it’s not exactly economical these days. Growing here are lots of tomatillos, my garden mission this year, and more broccoli, flowers, squash and lettuce.
Everybody’s doing it, nowhere to escape!
Oldfield, J. D., & Poberezhskaya, M. (2023). Soviet and Russian perspectives on geoengineering and climate management. WIREs Climate Change, 14(4), e829. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.829
“Soviet science contributed significantly to our understanding of anthropogenic climate change and, as part of this, played a central role in the emerging science underpinning climate modification and geoengineering initiatives. A key focus of discussion was the use of stratospheric aerosols linked to the innovative ideas of Mikhail Budyko and colleagues. This work had its origins in what has been termed the theory of aerosol climatic catastrophe, which gained prominence in the Soviet context during the early 1970s.”
Onions also don’t like weather whiplash, but we usually get a decent crop I finally got most of the strawberries replanted. They multiplied like rabbits last summer and I gave wheelbarrows full to the neighbors and still plenty went into the compost. It’s taken quite a lot of effort to get the strawberries to multiply during our summers, but I think I finally figured it out. We’ll have to wait and see how well they produce in a couple of months. I’ll keep y’all posted!
Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to watch your skies!
When I first started watching alternative history Youtube channels I was skeptical, and I still am. I want the truth, not more redirection. Not more fantasy. Not more illusion. Not more heavily curated or mediocre nonsense.
So far, I don’t sense I’ve found it, but I’ve become ok with never finding it. I’ve resigned myself to what’s as close to the truth as I’ll be able to manage to get to in this lifetime, which is: I’ll never know the truth, but I may be able to manage truth-adjacent with enough study and discernment. I can confidently opt-out of the lie, permanently. That’s a big improvement to the path of blind acceptance I was, and most are, still on.
The first step toward truth was achieved pretty easily, it began with calling bluffs. As long as I don’t allow it to frustrate me, which isn’t exactly easy, this alone feels pretty empowering. For me, as usual, I had to experience it directly, no Youtube influencers, no professors, no self-styled experts can convince me, not without applying my own eyes and ears and reason.
I looked to the architecture because that’s what’s visible, and only then to the official history, because that’s what’s accepted as truth. I started in my own neighborhood, that is, the small city closest to us, called Palestine. It’s actually easier I think to consider the small city, rather than the large ones, because there’s been less tampering more likely, more holes in the narratives that can be more easily noticed by the novice.
The well-maintained Redlands Hotel today.
Like, the story of the popular Redlands Hotel, where I sometimes go for lunch on my rare trips to town. It’s a lovely old building that they’ve done a relatively decent job of keeping up, especially considering the condition of the vast majority of the downtown area.
Interestingly, they have a panaramic photo of the early years of the city on display. As you follow the railroad tracks from left to right in the photo, you end up at graffitti painted on the side of a building. That is, the word OWL.
That’s my cue to start calling bluffs.
The owners of this hotel are deep into the official history, which is superficially helpful. As it goes, in 1914 when stockholders rushed to build the brown brick building, it was oxen that delivered the sand for the concrete. That is, sand from the Trinity River, 30 miles away. Are you kidding me?! That’s a pretty big bluff.
And even with that serious transport challenge, on supposed dirt roads, they managed to complete the five story building in a year. Apparently dirt roads weren’t effected back then by rain or snow, neither were the human builders, or the oxen. Amazing.
Even more amazing was that another striking building was going up on the other side of town, that is, the County Court House. The two structures apparently shared Italian artisans who installed hexagon tile to both buildings.
The original burned court house, depending on which source cited. Another source states the original courthouse was a small building made of wood.
“Considered one of the most modern constructions of its era, and built to withstand the challenges of time, its walls are made of concrete, masonry blocks, sheetrock, and metal studs—evident in the structure today.”
My those were some busy boys and oxen!
In fact, with just a bit of digging, we learn there was in fact another town at the Trinity River junction where the cherished sand came from, now missing from both the land and the history books. But, there remains one hand-drawn map available in the archives, Magnolia was the town’s name, and it was apparently so bustling with commerce and activity according to one source that they called it the ‘St. Louis of the South”.
One of the many demolished structures of the non-existent town once called Magnolia, according to the official history.
“Magnolia was established in the early 1840s as a Trinity River cotton port and was named for a large magnolia tree in the center of the townsite. Magnolia had a post office from 1851 to 1871. William A. Haygood was one of the principal property owners in the community and operated cotton gins, a hotel, a livery stable, a general store, a blacksmith shop, and a local ferry. Among other businesses in the community were a drugstore and John McClannahan and son’s warehouse. Magnolia was reported to have a population of 800 at its peak around 1863, when the town had thirty-three blocks of residences and businesses. Most shipments from the port went to Galveston, but on May 5, 1868, a steamboat traveled up the Trinity to Dallas. After it was bypassed by the International and Great Northern Railroad in the 1870s, Magnolia declined rapidly. By the 1930s it was no longer shown on the county highway map, though its name was preserved in that of the two schools that stood on the site of the former town. In 1932 the Magnolia school for whites had an enrollment of forty-three and the Magnolia school for blacks, thirty-four. A 1982 map showed only the Magnolia Cemetery at the townsite.” Magnolia, Texas
This is the sort of vessel which would have been traveling the Trinity River through Magnolia.
Nothing remains of this supposed river hub besides the hand-drawn map of the area where it was supposed to have been, where is now located some simple family houses, an intersection and the cemetery. I couldn’t even locate the river, or the supposed subsequent railroad.
Several other beautiful structures were also said to have been destroyed in this small city of Palestine not long after they were constructed.
The Temple Opera House was built originally as the Palestine Masonic Temple with the cornerstone date of August 29, 1878. In 1907, it was bought and remodeled by W.E. Swift and known as the New Temple Theater. In 1929, it was the home of Garrett Motor Company, Palestine’s first Ford Motor Car Agency. It was demolished in 1962. It originally had another floor on top, but this was removed at some point.
At some point? Not even the official historians can tell us more specifically.
Exquisite building of multi-functions which didn’t have enough value to the small city to remain for a full century. The small box building housing a liquor store in that location now is so much better, I’m sure.
The “Railroad YMCA Building” was another one.
The Railroad YMCA opened in April of 1903 and continued as the YMCA until the building burned in the mid 1950’s. Interestingly, there seems to be no recorded photos available of this horrid fire event of a huge BRICK building. Nothing to see here! (In fact, I believe this to be another building altogether, more on that in a future post.)
As I searched the stacks of the local history at the library I was surprised to find several ‘fake books’ — that is supposed local history written by a source who cannot be located and is listed in the local phone book with phone numbers that don’t work and at addresses which never existed. Three different phone books, three different addresses, I actually went to all of them personally. Nothing. The books appear to be written by AI! I brought this to the attention of the library board, and no one cared. At all. I never heard back, though I went personally to the board meeting with evidence in hand. They didn’t even care to know which books it was with these obvious falsities, possibly written by an unaccountable AI, and sitting in their stacks posing as actual local history written by a fake person.
And now I feel frustration setting in, so enough for now, to be continued . . .
