caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

Happy Friday everyone. Hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

It's breeding season for the Brandt's Cormorant.
The largest cormorant on the Pacific Coast, Brandt’s Cormorant is an expert diver that can swim deeper than 200 feet in pursuit of fish and shellfish. In addition to standard cormorant black, Brandt’s sports a vivid cobalt-blue throat patch and eyes during breeding season, along with wispy white feathers on the head. This species nests on cliffs and forages in the California Current, an area of rich upwelling between British Columbia, Canada, and Baja California, Mexico.

I don't know exactly how much money we've spent on Ukraine so far, but this article from last week says $113 Billion. To put that into perspective, Ukraine's entire GDP in 2020 was $200 billion.

Authors note: The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. What is that? Greed. [1]

One may wax philosophically about that which ails man, especially in this day and age of policrises. An argument can be made that our current dilemma is caused by a myriad of causes, such as dwindling resources, or overpopulation, or climate change, or war, or economic collapse, or global health. Any one of these can be considered existential. Here we are in the third decade of the new millennium, confronted with all of these crises at the same time. Is it by chance that this has happened or is there an underlying causal phenomenon at work? It is tempting to lay blame at the feet of overpopulation as the root of all our current emergencies. That may very well be true. This piece is not about the temporal aspects of the policrisis, but more about the philosophical tenets of the existential fork(s) in the road. In other words, that component of the human psyche that has brought us the point of no return.

In my simplistic and humble opinion it all boils down to one human trait: greed.

“Pope Says Homosexuality Not a Crime,” the AP headlined on Jan. 25, reporting on their interview a day earlier with the pontiff. “Pope Says Homosexuality is Not a Crime” headlined The New York Times and The Washington Post the same morning. “Pope Francis says laws that criminalize homosexuality are ‘unjust’” was the lede to the PBS Nightly News segment that evening.

Ritter's speech, as planned, expresses hopes for disarmament and peace. Here is the beginning. I hope you have time to read it all. Peace.

https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/the-best-speech-i-never-gave?utm_sour...

The Best Speech I Never Gave

Since it's all worth seeing, I'm not going to bookmark it. Soave's comment is at the six-minute mark.

Social Isolation:

I know I'm getting old, I know that I don't know how everything works all the time anymore; not that I ever did. I know that I don't watch TV so I'm not right onto things, I get it. But still... This article on the Plague of Social Isolation by Chris Hedges really hit me in the gut (listen to it here).