Groveling for Gratitude

Handy Hubby is a veteran in common parlance, but I’m so glad he doesn’t go around announcing that to strangers like a child desperate for recognition and approval.

We get a discount at Lowe’s, so that’s pretty cool, because we spend loads of money there. It makes perfect sense that corporations reward veterans, because that’s who veterans serve.

Hubby joined the military because he wanted to expand his opportunities, same as many young people today.

Instead of celebrating Armistice Day, we celebrate Forever War.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel (USAF) Bill Astore writes:

“Sadly, as we raise more troops and fight more wars, we seem committed to the opposite. Our military just enjoyed its best recruiting class in years. This “success” is not entirely surprising. It’s no longer that difficult to fill our military’s expanding ranks because many of our young men and women simply have little choice but to enlist, whether for economic opportunity, money for college, or benefits like free health care.”

I served in the Peace Corps, but only one person has ever thanked me for my service, a stranger who didn’t know what the Peace Corps was, but everytime he heard the word “corps” was conditioned to reply with the proper canned reply, “Thank you for your service.”

Everyone knows the Peace Corps is for idealistic, lazy losers, unlike the military, which is for tough, courageous go-getters. Hollywood tells us so.

You want to joing the Peace Corps? What are you some sort of bleeding heart liberal hippy?!

“Since a very young age we are indoctrinated into the idea that wars are the story of “good” guys vs “bad” guys, that we are (of course) on the “good guys team” and the reason that the poor people from our country were (and continue to be) sent to other countries to kill other human beings with technology designed to end sentient life is so that we can “bring them democracy”, “protect our freedoms” and “ensure regional stability”. The truth is nothing even close to that comforting fairy tale.”

The Peace Corps volunteers don’t get included in Veterans Day, which used to be called Armistice Day, to remember the fighting that ENDED.

Once the wars became continuous they had to change the name.

I supported the Peace Corps for over two decades after I returned home, through financial donations, writing articles for their sites and singing their praises whenever I had occassion to do so. I stopped supporting them once I realized they’d turned pro-war.

Hollywood creations and fictional characters like the veteran Jack Reacher are worthy of the fandom of grown adults because that definitely has no resemblance to grown adults worshipping comic book figures like Superman or Robinhood as if they are real people.

“Collectively, we Americans tend to suppress whatever doubts we have about the wisdom of our wars with unequivocal statements of support for our troops. And on days like Veterans Day, we honor those who served, and especially those who paid the ultimate price on the battlefield.

Yet, wouldn’t the best support for our troops be the achievement of the dream of that grizzled vet who cut through a young man’s fog thirty years ago? Shouldn’t we be working to achieve a new age in which the rosters of our local VFWs and Legion posts are no longer renewed with the broken bodies and shattered minds of American combat veterans?”

“Working Towards Peace: Imagine if Veterans Day Became Obselete” Bill Astore, Bracing Views substack.

“There is no honor in tax-payer funded organized murder for profit: War is still a racket” Gavin Mounsey substack

“On November 11th, a day when we have been conditioned to glorify war as “necessary and honorable” let us take an honest look at the true nature of (and profiteers) of Modern Warfare”

Healing, or Perception Management

“Don’t sweat the small stuff. And it’s all small stuff.” ~ Idiots everywhere

“That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Fathers everywhere

“Where God closes a door, he opens a window.” Mothers everywhere

“Best cancer EVER!” ~ Stefan Molyneuxhttps://freedomain.com/freedomaininterviews/how-cancer-can-make-you-well-stefan-molyneux-with-laurette-lynn/, shilly online philosopher

“It’s just a flesh wound!” Monty Python

The message is clear and ubiquitous in the modern world, that favorite word of religions, wanna-be warriors, social programmers and closet tyrants everywhere: Transcend.

Or suffer. Your choice.

Transcend pain, transcend discomfort, transcend ennui.
Transcend mind, transcend body, transcend your very sex.

Jennifer Bilek might tell us a thing or two about that.

“The speed and coordination of this deployment—from zero “transgender children” before 2000 to their ubiquitous presence in schools and media within two decades—reveals orchestrated social engineering rather than natural cultural evolution.

The speed of normalization reveals coordination impossible through organic social change. Within two decades, major medical associations endorsed pediatric transition, schools implemented gender identity policies, and laws passed making it child abuse to question a minor’s gender identity. This transformation required massive funding, institutional capture, and media compliance—all documented in the money flows Bilek traces.”

Growth, like healing, does not happen on a fixed schedule, and sometimes it never happens. But, permanent medical interventions invented to create a profitable market out of confused and abused children is truly circling the drain.

It really irks me when those who call themselves and think of themselves as healers, use this form of gaslighting, which is actually perception management, in order to train ‘patients’ and the public how they should feel.

What’s actually happening at a fundamental level is cognitive and emotional dissociation. It makes the healer feel a lot bettter than the patient.

It’s an epidemic really. Magical thinking, positivity, silver linings, Hopium–they really only get you so far–which is to the next moment, where your mood or situation will have necessarily altered, but the REAL healing, the real growth, was simply relinquished to the back seat.

To rear it’s head another day. A day when most likely that fair weather friend or healer has moved on to greener pastures. More hopefully, the seeker has to. And by seeker I mean, the one looking for the healing.

It is the worst possible solution to be in because 99% of nitwits everywhere call themselves healers and having to navigate that at the precise moment of your own weakness is really shitty.

“Instead of ending these experiments, wealthy transsexuals like Martine Rothblatt began creating legal and linguistic frameworks to normalize their fetish. Rothblatt, who built satellite surveillance systems and founded Sirius XM, authored the first gender rights legislation and created ideological structures supporting body dissociation. The shift to “transgender” accomplished multiple strategic goals: it removed medical gatekeeping, expanded the market beyond surgical candidates, created ambiguity about what the term meant, and most crucially, included children.”

Soon, just another decade or so, this worst possible solution will be obvious to everyone with any cognitive function left. Because the endless loop between healers and patients will encompass the vast majority of the population. Wounded healers will become the most common archetype of the modern ages.

“Understanding the financial architecture behind gender ideology matters because it fundamentally changes how we perceive and respond to this phenomenon. When we recognize that the same billionaires funding gender clinics invest in artificial wombs, that the same foundations promoting “trans kids” advance transhumanist philosophy, that the same corporations threatening economic sanctions for “bathroom bills” develop human augmentation technology, the seemingly inexplicable suddenly becomes comprehensible. This isn’t about civil rights or social progress—it’s about market preparation for humanity’s technological transformation.
Breaking the spell, as Bilek emphasizes, requires following the money. The trail leads from philanthropic foundations through medical institutions to tech companies, revealing coordinated investment in reshaping humanity’s relationship with biological reality. This essay traces that trail, examining how gender ideology serves as psychological and cultural preparation for transhumanism’s larger project: the transformation of human beings into technological substrate.
What follows challenges comfortable narratives on all sides of the political spectrum. The evidence presented comes not from speculation but from documented financial transactions, institutional connections, and the explicit statements of the movement’s leaders. The patterns revealed demand we reconsider everything we think we know about why gender ideology emerged when it did, spread as rapidly as it has, and encounters such fierce protection from institutional power despite growing public opposition.

Children internalize this commodification through comprehensive indoctrination. They learn about “choosing” their sex characteristics like selecting avatar features in video games. School curricula teach about “families created through technology” and normalize the idea that biological parents are merely “genetic donors.” They see their bodies as collections of customizable parts rather than integrated biological systems. This dissociation from physical reality serves the larger project of normalizing human augmentation, genetic modification, and eventual merger with artificial intelligence.”

The Wounded Healer, the Autistic once called the Artistic? The previous victims of collective perception management, noticing.

Noticing no healing is happening. And calling out the so-called Healers.

Disenchanting Enchanted Rock

I was so excited when I found ‘an expert’ on Enchanted Rock, who had written an entire book on the monument and its surroundings and has a website too, with lots of details. I was sure to have found a great source, I thought.

Click pic for my previous post about Enchanted Rock called “My favorite Enchanting photo”

And with a name like Kennedy, it’s gotta be good, right?

In the spirit of disobedience, in a word, no. Two words: Hell, no! Three words: Big, Fat, Disappointment!!

Wow, I didn’t realize anyone can just throw any piece of nonsense together and call it history. Or anthropology. Or pretty much any ‘science’.

Way to spoil a miraculous destination, Kennedy, thanks bunches.

But I can’t really blame him alone, it’s more than a trend. The dumbing down of the public has been documented for decades, and this sort of material that is supposed to pass as educational is a perfect case in point. So, let’s take a few pokes at it from a few of those many angles.

The History of Enchanted Rock in the Texas Hill Country by Ira Kennedy self-published in 2010 naming it https://www.amazon.com/HISTORY-ENCHANTED-ROCK-TEXAS-COUNTRY/dp/1456818783
“The Sacred Landmark of Central Texas”.

It is not sold as a children’s book and costs $21.99. According to the the Amazon page Ira Kennedy is:

“Considered as the state’s leading authority on Enchanted Rock, the sacred mountain of Central Texas, Ira has assisted the author’s of several published books, articles and the Thomas Evans mural of Enchanted Rock in the Austin-Bergstorm International Airport. IN 1992, Ira was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from the Texas Parks and & Wildlife Department for providing numerous educational talks at Enchanted Rock Natural Area.” And it goes on.

The first Amazon review looked promising.
“Ira Kennedy is the world expert, in the opinion of many, of this beautiful Texas natural treasure. His knowledge comes from spending a great deal of his life on or near the rock. Ira is a creative genius and humble man who has written this amazing book, sure to answer all your questions about this geological wonder. Beautifully illustrated by Ira, you will keep this book among your special collections.”

The ‘book’ itself looks more like a coloring book. There are no references or citations, no bibliography or notes. While the author states he did multi-disciplinary research and himself has an advanced degree and was employed in Naval intelligence as a cryptographer, he must seriously understand what an ‘expert’ text would look like, and this one is the polar opposite of scholarly.

I can only assume ‘expert’ has taken on a new meaning sometime around the year 1999.

Let’s set the tone with his “Brief Historical Timeline” which begins his story in 12,000 B.C. and ends in 1978. With only a smattering of centuries missing, bless his heart!

We learn of a dubious-looking character named Jack Hays who was ‘an enigma’. We learn about a William Kennedy and his ‘flower-spangled’ landscape and ‘lost mines’ the ‘fueled the imaginagtion’. We learn about some immigrants from Germany in the 1840s.

We have the ‘First People’ myths and ‘The Imaginary Frontier’ of the Spanish explorer Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, who passed right through Mason County in the sixteenth century. And some childish stick figure drawings, some arrowheads and feather headdresses.

Later in the book are some drawings of angry indians who we learn may or may not have practiced human sacrifice.

And that about sums up my waste of money and time! Alas, the journey of discovery continues.

Poor, misunderstood ‘Enchanted Rock’ — I don’t even like your name anymore, so I think I’ll find a new one. And a new history to go with it. It would surely be better footnoted than this toilet paper, and good bit more entertaining I expect too!

I dare say, you there, intrepid traveler, can you smell anything beyond the boulders of bullshit?

Destination Zion

The plot thickens, and twists.  This time we learn from Wiki that after the Columbia Space Shuttle disintegrated re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, there were indeed body remains found after all.  According to this source, the remains of all of the bodies of the astronauts were found.  Someone should really share that info with Rich Husband’s people.

Kalpana Chawla, our next look at astronaut lore, was also a music lover.  She served as the shuttle’s flight engineer.  She was married to Jean-Pierre Harrison, who has written a book about her and is the president of two dubious-looking companies for which I was able to find no information.

“Chawla” means “imagination” in Hindi. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1527404/bio/According to her IMBd bio page

“Steve Morse of the band Deep Purple released the song “Contact Lost” in 2003 in memory of the Columbia disaster.[50] Chawla took three Deep Purple albums on STS-107, using their song “Space Truckin’” as a wakeup call.  One of their albums was found in the shuttle’s wreckage.”

Wow, so an entire album was discovered, as well as a CD.  She had room for 3 albums, and clearly must have had a player for those.  These space shuttles must be roomier than a magic bus!  I wonder if they ever had arguments over who got to choose the ‘wake-up’ music.  I know that much Deep Purple and I’d definitely be wishing for some disintegration.

She was accused of screwing up during the previous mission, but was given a second chance.  On a YT video of day 4 of that mission we learn that one of her colleague’s favorite songs is from a popular Japanese television show about puppets in space.

“Chawla first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and robotic armoperator aboard STS-87. Her role in the flight caused some controversy due to the failed deployment of the Shuttle-Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for Astronomy (“Spartan”) module. Chawla’s second flight was in 2003 on STS-107, the final flight of Columbia.”

In an interview about her previous mission the reporter writes:

“We’d be very foolish if we tried to second-guess or tried to figure out what the actual turn of events were without having all the information… We’re six folks up here, we know what happened on our side, we’ll get together with the folks on the ground and we’ll put the whole story together and make sure it never happens again. Sure, we’re always a bit disappointed if we don’t get the full mission accomplished, but we did retrieve the satellite, and so the important thing is we’re bringing Spartan back down to Earth and it’ll get to fly another day.”

It’ll get to fly another day.  And so will Chawla, but apparently just the one.

She is now in Zion, her final resting place being Zion National Park, Utah.  

Running To The Light

Running To The Light, Columbia Space Shuttle, Modern Myths

I came across this photo on our nearby city map and found it so compelling I thought to do a few post about it.  This is from Palestine, Texas.  The Columbia Space Shuttle was reported to have exploded over this area of East Texas killing all these crew members.

Rick D. Husband, Commander; Kaplan’s Chawla, Mission Specialist; David M. Brown, Mission Specialist I; Williams C. McCool, Pilot; Michael P. Anderson, Payload Commander; Lian Ramon, Payload Specialist I;  Laurel Blair Salton Clark, Mission Specialist 4.

We will start with the latter, Laurel Blair Salton Clark, Mission Specialist 4 Wiki page:

The Scottish band Runrig pays tribute to Clark on the 2016 album The Story. The final track, “Somewhere”, ends with a recording of her voice.[18] Clark was a Runrig fan and had a wake up call with Runrig’s “Running to the Light”. She took their 2001 The Stamping Ground CD into space with her. When the shuttle disintegrated the CD was found back on Earth, and was presented to the band by her family.

Laurel Clark – Wikipedia

Mission Specialist 4 

Y’all did read that correctly, right?

When the shuttle disintegrated this CD was still there and given in homage back to the band.

You got that part, right?

What a fun gal, eh?