Seeking Balance

This week Max and Stacy have been discussing the coming digital currency on the Keiser Report. They suggest the IMF will digitize money to cover all the printing and central bank bailouts. As Max and Stacy often say, "You can't taper a Ponzi scheme". Stock trader, Greg Mannarino, has been saying he thinks the Fed will issue its own digital currency, but perhaps the plan is to work in conjunction with the IMF. The meme has been "money printer goes brrr", yet it seems eventually the piper must be paid. The idea of digital dollars which WILL track every transaction isn't a pleasant thought to me.

Anniversary Edition

This is the 200th issue of the WW. We've covered lots of ground in the last four years...traveled around the world a bit, worked in the garden and on the farm, maximized our health with good diet and life style, learned to avoid COVID-19, studied environmentally sound structures and alternative energy options, but the purpose and origin of this column has been to ferret out the weeks news and try to make some sense out of what has happened each week. In creating this series, I've found all news is bias by its nature. Which stories you cover, the sources you cite, the way the stories are integrated all reflect the compiler's perspective. I hope you've found some useful information in these pieces over the years. I know most weeks are a fire hose flow of links, but the WW is meant to be a menu of stories to select from...like a Sunday newspaper. That's one reason I usually try to include a comic or two. As a kid that was my favorite part of the paper. So join in as we ramble through this week's news and views.

Under the Radar

Yesterday as hurricane Delta came by, they warned people to be weather aware because there could be under the radar tornadoes. It made me think of so many things that are "under the radar"...mostly because the corporate media fails to inform, and they want our attention purposefully turned elsewhere. TPTB do not want US citizens to know Russia brokered a cease fire. Sadly it appears to have failed. All they can do is bad mouth their sputnik V vaccine which is in clinical trials. How often have you heard the main stream media report on Julian's torture? Evidently the US is building a permanent base in Syria in order to guard the oil we've stolen as we impose crushing sanctions...not to mention more sanctions against Iran. Meanwhile the debate about the debate is 24/7.

COVID Fatigue

Everyone is sick of COVID, literally and figuratively. With the Trumps' infection it is worth looking at the state of the pandemic. This winter appears to ensure continued spread. Today, we'll examine some new treatments and understandings of the nature of the virus and its disease expression. I'm not a doctor, I'm trained as a soil scientist, so take this as my understanding based on my research and not as advice. The most critical factor is age, something we can't control, however many other factors are... things like: optimizing our health, protecting ourselves and others when out and about, and being aware of best treatments if we become symptomatic. Much of this essay will be review, but there's also some new research and I hope I've put together an organized and logical approach to the pandemic. Let's begin with encouraging news which I rarely hear discussed. Up to 50% of us may have immunity already because of exposure to other corona-viruses.

“Our team also tested uninfected healthy individuals and found SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells in more than 50 percent of them. This could be due to cross-reactive immunity obtained from exposure to other coronaviruses, such as those causing the common cold, or presently unknown animal coronaviruses. It is important to understand if this could explain why some individuals are able to better control the infection,” said Professor Antonio Bertoletti, from Duke-NUS’ Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) program, who is the corresponding author of this study.

A Time to Regenerate

The world seems to be between a rock and a hard place. COVID has amplified the problems and made obvious the dysfunction of the system. Meanwhile the money machine goes brrr, funneling ever more wealth upward. The ecosystem is degrading faster than we imagined. People are protesting in the streets around the world. If there is a way out of this mess, I don't see it. Is it really the end times? If so, should we go out with a party celebrating our life, or fighting the system tooth and nail to the end, or perhaps both at the same time? I know this much, I'm going to do my best to live in harmony with the ecosystem as I wrap up my last decade or two. Of course that has been my path for many years now, so why stop at this point. As I stated last week, I feel for the young folks who we are leaving with all this dysfunction. This week I thought I would explore ecosystem restoration because restoring our political, economic, and social systems is beyond my ability.

CStMS will be moving her essays to Wednesday to relieve el of creating two open threads every week. So as usual please feel free to chime in with whatever is on your mind. I'm calling today's edition:

In homage to powers of nature... wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and the erosion of social cohesion. Perhaps we can find some good in the tragedies as any rational person must admit to climate chaos, a failed political system, a collapsing economy, and a polarized society. Awareness is a first step toward change. We can't force societal change, but we can as individuals select a better path to survival. I'm fine, but the young people deserve our best effort.

Unspoken Truths and Damn Lies

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” 1981 Former CIA Director William Casey

The powers that be (TPTB) don't want truth spoken nor understood. The kangaroo trial of Julian makes it obvious. And of course the main stream media (MSM) isn't going to inform the citizenry...just the opposite...it will be unspoken. Consortium News is a go to outlet for updates.

The New York Times did not deem it fit to print an article on Tuesday about the resumption of Julian Assange’s extradition hearing after a seven-month delay because of the pandemic. It only ran a story online that could not be found by scrolling down the page. One had to put “Julian Assange” in the search engine to find it.

Instead the dispatch from London that appeared in print editions was about the city’s bridges “which are really falling down.” It is unlikely the Times will provide day two coverage, or any coverage at all until the verdict comes down on whether Assange will be extradited to the United States.

The Washington Post tucked a FAQ about Assange at the very bottom of its web page, and published a piece at the bottom of the last page of its World News section about Prof. Mark Feldstein testifying for Assange, because he is a local from the University of Maryland.

A Tale of Two Narratives

Yesterday my buddy said he was concerned about the election. Given the two options at the top of the ticket, I can't get too concerned one way or the other. Just look at the number of neocons throwing in with Biden. As I drove home I thought about the nature of the parties and elections as a coin toss. Some like heads, others tails, but it is the same corporate coin either way. Another example of two narratives is the ongoing protest. Listen to MSDNC, or the Clinton News Network, or National Propaganda Radio and it is peaceful demonstrators protesting police violence countered by right wing militias. Listen to Faux News and it is violent rioters looting and destroying small businesses and faithful veterans come to town to protect them. No wonder we are so divided. No wonder we are so ill informed with a totally captured media. Bill Binny was on Jimmy's show this week. He suggest operation mockingbird isn't just alive and well, but on steroids (at the 9 min mark).

C99 Constitutional Convention

This afternoon is the Movement for a Peoples Party Convention. Jimmy Dore is streaming it on his channel if anyone is interested. But this morning I want to suggest a bigger project... redesigning the nation with a new constitution. This community well understands the failure of the US economic, political, and social systems...hurdling us (and other species) toward extinction, all for the greed of the oligarchs. Reinventing our systems might save us, but it would have to happen quickly. So climb on your unicorn, ride under the rainbow, and lets have fun re-imagining the way the country is organized.

Unconventional

I managed to avoid most of the DNC convention other than a few clips on Rising and Jimmy Dore. What I did see was hollow, vapid, and without substance...full of platitudes and no policy. All they got is 'we ain't Trump'. Perhaps the inept response to the pandemic will be enough to sink Trump, but this sure rings of 2016. We'll see. I find myself in agreement with Caity and her view that this isn't normal...

So abnormalize the status quo. Abnormalize it every chance you get. Abnormalize it by holding a clear idea in your mind of what a healthy society would look like, then point out all the bizarre deviations from that vision at every opportunity. Remind people that this is crazy. Assure them that it doesn’t have to be this way. That the only thing keeping it this way is the fact that the powerful keep pouring vast troves of wealth into manipulating us into thinking that we should.