Thoughtful musings for the unabashedly aware and ravenously curious intellectual and intelligentsia
Interesting starter information about the mythic lost tribes of Israel here for those who are curious about it. This subject is necessary to know about only for a contextual understanding of human conversation and historical reading, or for a study of religious folkloric literary devices. Completely unimportant for any other reasons.
Was there a historical Jesus? Well as it turns out, barely. More has been written about a person who we know less about than anyone else in human history.
As historians will attest, we know approximately 3-5 things about the man commonly known as Jesus historically: he was Jewish, he was the brother of James, he lived and died during the first century CE. From there historians are almost unanimous that he was born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem. And that be was executed for sedition by Roman authorities. After that it’s all myth and legend as told by a very large assortment of so called gospels, some approved by the authorities of the christian church presently ie allowed in “the gospels” and some not. The point being that for all the hype and hoopla, for the entire world to be so adamantly committed to “worshiping” this strange amalgamation of ideologies shoved underneath this lone Jewish man, annexing ancient holidays and adding him into the mix of them — talk about confusing, there are very few facts and very little actually known about him. The rest is made up. And that for some unknown reason doesn’t seem to bother most humans. It is a mind boggling fact of humanity circa 2023 CE.
For more check out this video….
You can hear the song ”Angry” the first single from the Rolling Stone’s new album in 12 years here.
Chatting with a friend about it… “Fucking a Bob I agreed with everything you felt and said myself. I am sure the Stones tried hard with this one. It’s been 11 years since their last single. The pressure must be enormous. And at 80, they’re taking in something that’s never been done in our rusty rock world. Though one might observe that we are all more than ready for it. Concerns about age, no matter what the reasons are so last century.
The key now is to OWN it. No matter what or who we’re talking about. Don’t try to hide it or mask it or pretend it’s not happening or pretend to be someone or something that you’re not. We’re not in that world anymore. Shit, younger kids feeling lost and left out now are “pretending” to have things to own, just to feel like they’re in the game. Now that’s funny.
I also agree re going on Fallon, hell let’s call it what it is, paying Fallon and better put the Tonight Show Execs to do the grand opening marketing stint on the show was foolish from marketing perspective and extremely uncool from a rock-n-roll perspective. This is the largest collection of short hairs and mainstreams on planet earth and you’re going to choose to try to pimp The Stones?!? To them?!? It screams sold out or worse, never bought in. Definitely not hip or cool. But maybe at 80 that’s where they’re coming from at this point… we don’t know.
We do know they’re old as fuck and still making records. And that’s cool. And sure, the song is just okay and I’d it weren’t the Stones there’s no way in hell we’d be talking about it, let alone even listening to it. So there’s admiration and impressiveness there. For sure. But there’s also recognition that our heroes may never release anything truly good again. And he’ll that’s okay. They gave us enough. And we love them for all of it.
READ THESE PARAGRAPHS FIRST THEN TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK. My comments below. You can guess how I feel.
From the New York Times this morning…
“FIFA, the soccer world’s governing body, said on Saturday that it had provisionally suspended Luis Rubiales, president of Spain’s soccer federation, amid an investigation that he FORCIBLY KISSED the player Jennifer Hermoso after Spain’s Women’s World Cup victory last Sunday.”
“Mr. Rubiales’s kiss at the Women’s World Cup medals ceremony last weekend in Australia — broadcast live to millions — CAST A PALL over the Spanish team’s celebrations, drawing attention away from a proud national moment.”
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[I added the ALL CAPS above over the words I felt were primary to this event.]
Cast a pall?!?! Seriously? Over Spain 🇪🇸 winning their very first ever Women’s World Cup in the Most Beautiful Game?!?! What the heck has happened to humanity?!? How did we get here??? Is this US? All of us?!?! Or is this just Woke-crazed bored-ass Gen Z doing all this??? We’re watching an incredible game, my beloved England 🏴 team gets beat by a better Spain 🇪🇸 and we cannot help but feel as elated as the happy Spaniards!!! It was exciting and amazing and breathtaking!!! Our human spirit filled with thrills and chills and celebration 🎉!
And then a few lonely bored attention-needing Woke-hungry Gen Z’ers who obviously don’t like football focus instead on the spanish director kissing one of the players, a moment that lasted less than 1 second, in all the jubilation, and that’s it…, they’ve completely ruined the moment and event for Spain and the entire world.
A normal everyday thing we see in sport all the time. 2 men footballers win a tough match. They run all over the field screaming and whooping it up, take off their shirts, grab each others sweaty bodies and hug and kiss each other, maybe they make funny faces because they didn’t mean to kiss but they don’t care because they’re celebrating, they slap each others butts, they slide on the ground, they’re celebrating!!! We say nothing. Because we get it. The human spirit has been lifted to other worldly heights.
What the hell happened here that was so “bad” to this new breed of terribly annoying bum-rushing woke a+*holes?!?! How the hell did they miss the whole point of the event? To be that absent from the reality we were all experiencing and instead focus on something so small and insignificant..?
I had to watch video clips of the exact moment 5 times before I even noticed it!!!
And now this poor girl, Hermoso, will spend the rest of her life having to be known for and speak about getting kissed instead of being a good footballer!!! Not because she wants to. But because others will force her to. These fockers have ruined her career, completely changed the trajectory of her life. How sad this is for her.
The spanish director will be fine. He’ll serve his 90 day suspension and come back and keep winning. If he’s smart he’ll rightfully ignore media questions about that 1 second moment and focus his answers on football.
But the girl…. Her name will now go down in Woke history and will only be known for “being forcibly kissed by a dude”. No one will ask about her playing style or her incredible win over England in 2023. Damn that sucks.
What i wonder is… is this all of us? Most of us? Or is this just these bored unhappy little Woke-obsessed Gen Z’ers?!?!
I dont know about you but I am SO over their Woke movement. We were all on board 5-6 years ago. I was in the STREETS and on the PHONES with congress and the White House for MeToo and BLM!!! But they’ve swung this pendulum WAY TOO FAR now.
It’s been ugly, admittedly. And it’s getting more ugly. These little aholes are angry and unhappy with their lives and deliberately trying to ruin other people’s lives. It’s sick and perverted. And yet the media is still running with it, enlarging and exaggerating it even further.
Just announced this morning, The BRICS Group Has Invited SIX new Nation State Members, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia, to join its roster, expanding Its reach as an alternative global super power. These six new countries have been invited to join the Chinese and Russian led club of emerging nations, strengthening its role as a geopolitical alternative to Western-led forums. The BRICS group — think an alternative NATO — is already composed of the countries Brasil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Though the group of eleven countries just met in South Africa at the fifteenth annual BRICS Forum in South Africa, the newest member states to be invited have not formally joined BRICS, implying that the United States and its European allies have a chance in the coming months to massage differences and offer incentives to said countries in order to keep diplomatic ties and strengthen relationships between them and NATO allies.
What this illustrates more than anything is how important the next presidential election in the United States is and how much work that person and cabinet will have in order to try to cool things off on the geopolitical scene, and hopefully stopping BRICS from growing any further. No easy feat.
Read more in New York Times article below:
Read more about it on CNN:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/24/business/saudi-arabia-brics-invitation-intl
Since even before it’s founding as an independent nation, America has always been two different countries, with two very different populations and two very different sets of morals and values. Two hundred and fifty years ago, Just As It Was 250 Years Ago, It Is Vital For the Future Of American Democracy to Ignore the Slave Staters i.e. Republican Party
A small number of friends have made note that the slave staters are holding a debate tonight and have asked me if I’ll be watching it. But there is not a chance of that. My viewpoint is we, the intelligent educated and compassionate populace of the United States are DONE with the slave state party.
They’re no longer relevant since Donald Trump demolished the Republican Party six years ago and any relevance it had as a viable political party in the United States. And the RNC directors know it. Media outlets report zero interest in any news related to the Republican Party, yet still report on their goings on in order to offer full and fair coverage of both parties.
This, their attempt to run another series of debates to somehow oust Trump from the lead, just like six years ago, is a sham and a circus. And everyone knows it. Their platform which at one point 50 years ago perhaps was valid, but is now so convoluted and muddied that nobody even knows what Republican means anymore. (Though we have an idea… See below.)
The most important thing we the educated intelligent and compassionate of America can do is ignore anything Republican and anyone who professes to be Republican. They have slowly transformed over the last 40 years into an inhumane and corrupt group in intention and practice, even if a few naive and innocent few don’t realize it.
Republicans in practice deliberately allow and support mass shootings every day in the United States — every Republican member of Congress and the Senate accepts annual bribes from the NRA by the millions. Killing hundreds of innocent people a year under the guise of “freedom to buy and own guns”.
Republicans overtly defend and support the genocide of millions of Palestinians by the apartheid government of Israel because they believe that “the state of Israel needs to exist” in order for their “messiah to return a second time”. Regardless of how childish this fairytale sounds, they believe it and support Israel at all costs to both the detriment of the Islamic citizens of Israel and the threat it poses to global peace and stability.
The environment global warming climate crisis
Having overturned Roe Vs, Wade without any safety rails or laws to protect the sick or innocent they are deliberately forcing poor young rape victims to have babies they do not want, even in cases of incest or impending death. They are also notoriously anti-MeToo movement. How could they not be considering their stated president of choice is one of the worst perpetrators of assaults on women..? There is nothing more invasive and inhumane than a government forcing half its population to have their physical bodies under state control. In this practice, sealed by law, the United States is no different than Iran or Saudi Arabia et al. Deplorable.
Republicans deliberately block black and brown skinned people from basic human and equal rights in the country. They are anti-Black Lives Matter, anti-government assistance programs, and despicably diehard defenders of Confederate monuments scattered all over the country.
Republicans do everything in their power to block equal rights progress for LGBTQ citizens because they claim it goes against their religious beliefs.
Republicans refuse to allow any other religion other than their white bread Slave-Stating old fashioned bigoted Christianity into the fold in our great melting pot which once upon a time promised religious freedom for all.
Republicans are immigrants themselves but erroneously believe that any new immigrants coming into our country are somehow not entitled to the same freedoms they benefited from by coming here and making a new life for themselves.
Republicans deliberately defend and protect police officers all over the nation who torture and murder black and brown people, spending billions of dollars and millions of man hours to assure murderous police officers go free regardless of how heinous their crimes are.
Republicans conflate “capitalism” with “democracy” in order to confuse their party members into believing that any beneficial government sponsored programs such as universal healthcare is “socialism” and inherently “bad” or “dangerous”. Their stated goal is to rid Americans of all social safety nets and gleefully watch as millions of Americans get sick and die in the streets.
Republicans do NOT deserve to be heard nor counted. It is vital that we ignore them so the statistics of anything they do whether on television or radio or podcasts or online show that the viewership is low, that there is no interest in them or what they have to say and that they have no relevant voice in the nation.
This is essential for our future. Just as it was 250 years ago when we mistakenly attempted to reconcile and unite with them to form a country. That plan backfired 100 years later. And hundreds of thousands sadly lost their lives solely because of them.
Americans cannot afford another four years of Trump or anyone else from this wicked group of religious zealots and monsters. The entire world believes this and is terrified of our country once again falling into the hands of these corrupt, unintelligent people. We must protect the country and ourselves and our families by ignoring them. Give them zero attention particles.
From a FB Spinal Surgery Support Group I’ve been in the last few months, pr
New Post:
6 weeks post op L2-L-5 decompression and fusion. Dr stopped my meds suddenly. Still having pain in thigh, lumbar spine, and swelling on my ankle. How could he do that? Has this happened to anyone else? What do I do? The pain is excruciating still. Help.
Me:
I went through this same thing before my surgery. Mine was L4/L5 Fusion, little more than 2 weeks ago. My orthopedic and pain management doc only gave me Tylenol 3. Which obviously didn’t work. As if i were a 10 year with a tooth ache. He should not be allowed to practice for that. Period.
He knew and stated in writing many times over 6 months that I was in level 8 pain (I reserve level 9-10 for things like torture) in order to get me injections (which the insurance company refused due to wanting me to have surgery). Yet he still only gave me Tylenol 3. And told me point blank he did that because he was “afraid of the state medical board”.
He was the third pain management doctor to tell me that behind closed doors. My first ortho doc closed the door to his office and said “look, with your disease you need opioids. But I’m only going to give you Tramadol, which will be too weak for your level of pain. But every weekend on the golf course we hear of another doctor who lost their license for giving their patients opioids for pain. I dont want to be one of them. So I’m sorry. Go online if you have to.”
I went public with it. And then had people from all over the world sending me their meds, mainly pain meds and steroids. That started in September. I’ll never forget that first day in September. My pain went down to level 4 just from having real medicine. It was a revelation. Once I experienced what it felt like to have real medicine for a disease with real severe pain of that level, I started ordering pain meds and steroids from online pharmacies in the UK Canada and India. This kept me going in order to get through all those medical appointments until the surgery.
Without those pain meds I would not have been able to walk to get to the doctors or surgeons appointments. Not a chance. As the deformity and deterioration progressed Pre-surgery I was limping on both legs as it was and the pain was increasing. So the Tylenol 3 prescription became an afterthought. That doctor became an afterthought. Because he was, quite literally, useless. Only my two surgeons understood.
I do not believe that we should suffer because the government effed up and took the easy way out trying to solve the opioid epidemic. Unlike the EU, congress just banned pain medicine for everyone — all 350 million of us. Even those of us in dire life threatening pain.
It is NOT our fault that the US government was lazy, ill advised and shortcutted the solution and failed in their duty to serve. It is not our responsibility as patients with real life viable pain to suffer because of bad governance or cowardly doctors.
Your doctor is only doing that because he or she is a self-serving coward frightened of losing his or her license. They either stick up for their patients — as they swear an oath to do. Or they torture them by not providing the right medications. And then gaslight us by acting as if we should be happy with Tylenol and NSAIDs. It’s shameful.
In your case he chose the latter. It’s sad and it’s infuriating to read stories like yours. I’m so sorry for what you are going through.
Whatever you do, don’t feel bad about asking for what you need as a patient. Or as a human. You deserve no less than the best healthcare the system has. Which in our case are opioid pain medicines, muscle relaxers and steroids until you feel better. Demand it. Talk to friends and family. And/or order online.
We all need to speak up about this. The NYT just released a major article about this. We are not alone. People care. And they are starting to listen.
Most importantly we all need to be talking about this more to make more people aware of what’s happening. This is a crisis. Caused by dereliction of duty and cowardice.
In a biological preserve in Mexico’s Campeche State, a team of archaeologists has documented pyramids, palaces, a ball court and other remains of an ancient city they call Ocomtún.
Read more about this new discovery, from the New York Times. Link below.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/world/americas/maya-city-yucatan-archaeology-ocomtun.html
“Flying in an airplane in the United States is literally like a torture chamber. Americans are revolting.”
Now i don’t know how true it is that “Americans are revolting”, because the airlines are still severely overbooked and the airports are packed. Delta (DAL) just reported stellar earnings for the last quarter and very optimistic forward guidance.
BUT we should be revolting. As in revolution. We should ALL be revolting against the airlines. Nobody gets off a plane, stretches their arms out and says “ahhhh what a wonderful trip”. Quite the opposite. We KNOW when we are about to greet someone who just flew to see us that the first ten minutes of conversation will be them needing to let out some steam about how horrible flying is.
From the expensive fares to the utter chaos at the airport to the fees to check an effing bag — as if suddenly everybody stopped wearing clothes when they visit a different town, to the no more food to the seats that are so small and hard that they shouldn’t even be legal to the sudden lack of TVs or entertainment or wifi on half of them… on and on….
Something happened during Covid. Airlines decided, or realized, that average people are so weak, so desperate, so cowardly, so without agency, that they can literally do anything to them, no matter how horrible, and not only will they take it, they’ll pay to be mistreated like that.
And so it is. 95% of the people you talk will claim that reason that they put up with it is because they don’t feel like they have a choice. (Let’s not get into the fact that the majority of flights people take are recreational and not for business. So clearly they have a choice to fly or not…).
But bigger than that, just as everything else in this late stage capitalist society we have let run too far, be it the insanity of the simply horrendous and torturous healthcare system, to concert tickets which cost hundreds, to a congress who makes millions from trading stocks before everyone else because it’s based on inside information they receive, or the bribes they take and call “lobbying” or “campaign contributions”, paying to be tortured when you’re trying get from one town to another because you don’t feel you have any power as a citizen is just one more thing that history shows leads to full scale people’s revolutions.
It reminds one of those little disclaimers we now see every time we visit a website, any website. Selling our data is the biggest business of them all. Each of us is now on thousands and thousands of databases owned by every company on earth whether we want to be or not. We can Accept Cookies i.e. allow our personal data to be sold to a hundred other companies that month, OR we can leave that website.
When did Americans decide it was okay to be personally raped and pillaged by a small select group of super wealthy individuals and corporations? Why did they do it? The set up seems to be something like “we’ll allow it because if we don’t then we cannot benefit ourselves. We won’t get a good job. We won’t be affluent ourselves. We won’t fit in. We’ll be outsiders.” So we trade our dignity and self respect for the promise of a future prosperity we hope to achieve in “the future”.
And some do achieve this. But look what happens. Now they CAN be a bit more comfortable when flying, by paying 6 times the price of an airline ticket and flying first class. Now they suddenly have to spend $100,000 on a car instead of $40,000. Now they’re not satisfied inside unless they pay $600 for a purse AND make sure everyone knows they did it. Happiness? So far, no. But they tell themselves “we’ll if I can only find my life mate THEN I’ll be happy. But hang on… What happened to the consumerism idea that told you you’d be happy if you were just a good slave and did what you were told and worked hard to climb that ladder after years and years of being a victim to the mad torture of capitalism? We thought for sure that tradeoff would pay off. But it didn’t.
The key can be found in a simple comparison between the very young United States versus all the other capitalist democracies around the world. Countries who are much older and already learned their lessons through numerous peoples revolutions. So from the start they created more fair more humane more compassionate capitalist democracies who are far less prone to corruption.
We can start with the airlines if we’d like as the attached article implies. But it will take many of us. We don’t even need a majority. Just enough bold and proud people with enough self respect that they decide they are done being a victim to greed and capitalism. They are done flying for five hours on a seat made out painful wood and that’s 1 to 2 feet too small for their body. Of course we’ll have to speak up. We will have to demand these things change. We will have to go on strike from flying. Just as all of Hollywood is doing now. Going on strike. Standing up for what they believe they deserve. Agree with them or not, they are showing us what it means to have self respect, to have pride, to refuse to be used and abused by a system who doesn’t care about you but only about getting your money. After that you are inconsequential.
Who among any of us isn’t tired of feeling that feeling all the time? And then having to remind ourselves we have no choice in the matter. That’s just how it is. In reality that is NOT how it has to be. How it HAS to be is however WE want it. After all it’s OUR money running this economy. We’ve just let the wealthy take the power and convince us all that we deserve to be mistreated even if we are paying for it.
I believe we are getting very close to this system coming to an end. And yes sure total chaos comes out of revolution. But it’s better than living our lives as victims because a few greedy assholes tell us that’s just how it is. I believe Revolution is close. For good reason. It’s past time for it.
Just because major newspapers or networks cover the terribly sad stories of how just regular folks have yet again been screwed over by some large greedy corporation — there hundreds of those in the news everyday — doesn’t mean that anything’s been done about it. It doesn’t mean anything has changed because it was covered as news. It just means we all know about it. We need to remember that. Real change happens when large groups of us stand up make the changes we want to see in our world. Through strikes, boycotts, peaceful protests, or full on revolution if necessary. And real change and nothing less is what we need now.
Every major news outlet reported in the last hour that “Aspartame Is a Cause of Cancer in Humans, a W.H.O. Agency Says, but may not offer much risk if consumed in small quantities.”
Bearing in mind that we’ve known the first part of this statement for 40+ years, what is so disturbing disgusting and infuriating about the statement as a whole is how transparently it reveals the inherent corruption of late stage capitalism. “Causes cancer, but poses moderate risk if you don’t take much of it.”
Science tells us one thing. Government tells us the opposite. Knowing full well that the very few intelligent consumer population will never fall for it, the majority of consumers will. Because they just cannot bear accepting the reality that the government is not honest, is not compassionate and does not have anyone’s best interest in mind. Instead they exist to do one thing: make as much money for themselves as they can at the expense of every last citizen in the country. It is disturbing to fully accept this reality. But it is essential if a people are ever going to get a government that works for them rather than against them.
We all already know aspartame causes cancer based on the numerous trials throughout the 70s and 80s, but just like it’s predecessor saccharin, big money is secretly and overtly given to congress persons and various government agencies to get its approval to be consumed by unsuspecting uninformed consumers. In most ways, this process is perfectly legal in hardcore capitalist countries, most notably the United States. The bribery is relabeled “lobbying” or “campaign contributions”.
And even now, after even more trials show once again that the chemical is a carcinogen to the human body, the governing agencies still have the heartless audacity to add the phrase “but poses little risk if consumed in small quantities”. Why? Because they’re being paid to do so.
It is some of the worst of human behavior, taking bribe money to knowingly deceive others, potentially causing them cancer down the road just because it’s “legal” to do so as long as you commit perjury a few years or decades later. But that in a nutshell is capitalism. Of course capitalism has its benefits. It’s a phenomenal idea, that kind of freedom. I’ve benefitted from it in business for 40 years as so many others have. But there’s a dark side to it if it’s allowed to get out of hand. Capitalism gone wild yields very little benefit and begins to become the problem instead of the solution.
In the last 10-20 years we’ve begun to see more and more examples of this, which in turn compels the entire populace to become more and more cynical as they realize there are no rules in place to protect them or their family, and no leaders who care about them but instead operate from a strictly self serving capacity only.
The feeling of hopelessness that stems from this form of capitalism is what leads to the cynicism, making everyone even more focused on becoming self serving themselves as they start believing that the society they live in itself truly is a dog eat dog, live and let die world where nobody can afford to even consider the well being of other people except themselves. Nothing good comes from this descent in consciousness. History has shown us how it always ends for these types of societies.
Despite these criminals disguised as government officials and their deplorable behavior, each of us must find in our own way a path to fight these self serving tendencies and cynicism and continue to strive toward helping those around us, service to others being the primary way we will one day achieve an enlightened planetary civilization.
May each of us never lose so much of our soul that we can ever be capable of uttering the phrases “causes cancer” and “but poses little risk” in the same sentence ourselves.