𝐂𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐞 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐞?

Don't you be a "Coffee Asshole". 

What's that you ask? 

That's when you are cultivating a pampered palate and take having a nice hot cup of Joe to the Nth level and make a Tea Ceremony ritual of it, procedurally and with the never ending quest for all the equipment and paraphernalia that's being marketed for you to part with your cash. Let's not even get started on the choices from the world of beans. The best cup of Coffee I ever had was in Jamaica; probably Blue Mountain. At around $100 USD per pound, sorry, just how good do I have to have my Coffee? Price/value dialectic.

Like take, for instance, Coffee grinders. Electric or hand ground? Price point? Seems "entry level" electric is close to $200 USD. There are even $200 plus hand jobs too on the high end of manuals. Not to belabor the pun too far, but after all the time invested in turning a hand crank for your result, it might not be such a happy ending.

Consistency of grind — size [matters] varies depending on brew method — is a big factor. Maybe I'm not that much of a Coffee Asshole ... I'm pretty well satisfied with the grind I get with my $20 blade unit. But, I do watch for how long I press the button, and give it a few shakes in between pulses to get all the particles done to uniform size. 

I would be tempted to buy an electric grinder. But, when you investigate the options, it's very easy to trade yourself up to the next ... and, the next pricier unit. Conical vs. flat burrs. And, what size. "Retention" ... how much grounds does the unit keep for itself. I generally step back at such a point and consider how many actual coffee beans I could buy for that price. I'll stick with my blade gizmo. Besides, I'm not inclined to do the multi-dimensional palate taste report. "Berry-Orange notes forward, with a hint of Chocolate and Caramel with just the right snap of acidity, finishing with a nice slightly bitter note of burnt Sugar." 

Don't give me no jive ... give me a cup of Coffee! 

Starbucks, nota bene: "Vente?" That some jive. When I used to go to Starbucks, since I like a good amount of Milk, I'd order a Grande in a Vente cup. [If you're getting from how I'm focused on price, you might think I'm a cheapskate. And, you'd be right.]

But, when I mention "entry level" at $200, the numbers go up quickly from there. The real bucks are in the units designed for Espresso. Let's not go into that thicket of techniques and equipment. Net net, seems you can easily spend at least $1,000 on a half decent Espresso set up. Half. You better be a heavy user at that price point. Or, some Asshole who likes to impress the company. Or, have money to burn.

Which reminds me to convey to you there's the world most expensive and rare Coffee. Kopi Luwak. They literally get it out a cat's ass. I shit you not. And not just any old pussy, but a rare Coffee cherry-eating feline; one Asian Palm Civet to be exact. Talk about bustin' a Cherry! Seems these cats are fussy too. They are picky about what Coffee cherries to eat. Apparently the beans are fermented in the kitty's digestive tract. Thoroughly cleaned for your drinking enjoyment. Let's hope the guy cleaning the shit off your beans that day didn't have a row with the old lady last night. Or, quite the opposite; in which case he might be too pooped to do the poop. 

Interested? $650.00 USD per kilo. No shit! At this point I simply have to ask once again, just how good does a cup of Coffee have to be? 

The world is full of "the best of" this-or-that's. Like once someone talked about the "best" Burrito. My question was the same, just how good does a Burrito have to be? It's probably a subject worth a doctoral thesis: "The Mindset That Gets You Going down the Rabbit Hole to Perfection." I was once "into" high-end audio. Did you know you can spend $100,000 plus USD on speaker cables?

Okay, we've had our fun. Now back to the topic.

I have to confess I've watched hours of instructionals on how to brew coffee; the various brewing methods, and the equipment requirements whereof. Maybe watching all those videos is a Rabbit hole itself.

When I want a punch, it's Bustelo, in a Moka Pot. Cafe con Leche style with hoted whole Milk and a spoon of Sugar. There are still probably lots of spots in my once hometown NYC to get a good Cafe con Leche at any number of Puerto Rican and Dominican restaurants.

Props to my go-to favorite ...

Alas, no more. Formerly at near the NE corner of 8th Avenue and 14th Street.

Mostly, my morning cup is a pour-over. Fresh ground in a cone shaped funnel, water poured over and collected under into a carafe. Be sure to make a divot in the center so the water gets to the bottom-most grounds. Precisely measured amounts of Coffee beans and water. Beans ground on the spot, with a dash of Bustelo for the win.

I like my "cuppa" hot. If you've ever done a pour-over you know it takes a while. First, a "bloom" with a dash of hot water — better be sure it's the precise right temperature. The "bloom" is to release trapped carbon dioxide for a better brew. Wait a few minutes, then slow pour your hot water. I get a 300ml amount that fills my cup and pour it in three 100ml passes. 

I always wonder with all the various ways people have for doing a pour-over no one mentions the temperature fall off what with waiting so long for to get that brew into your cup. Some, I believe prefer drinking their Coffee at a less than hot-hot level. I'm sure there's a whole specialized discussion on just that one topic alone.

So ... here's what this Coffee Asshole does beside the basic steps what to get a nice hot cup of Coffee.

I set the kettle to heat the water. In a shallow pan I heat water with a carafe with some water in it. The pour over funnel goes over the heated carafe — be sure to toss the hot water out of the carafe before introducing the beverage. I've missed this point a few careless times. Ugh! I like a middle-generous amount of whole Milk in my Coffee. I put hot water in my cup and a small glass inside that to heat the milk. Works like a charm: Hot Coffee in my cup!

Here's a link to a much more lengthy treatment on the subject of "Coffee". If you've read this far into it, you're probably a Coffee Asshole so you'll be sure to want to read more.

𝐖𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐔𝐤𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐝? ... 𝐀𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧

This is excerpted from the transcript of an interview with former Ambassador Chas Freeman. Edits were strictly grammatical/for reading flow. See the full video below. 

Attention Cold Warriors: If you are of the mind that the nation of Russia is out to conquer the whole world like from the days of the USSR, then skip reading this. Go ahead, continue to polish that turn nugget of Russophobia. Especially if you are convinced that President Putin is the embodiment of everything evil and dastardly. Refusing to even entertain any consideration or communication like Joe Biden did calling him in a litany of darkest shade: "butcher", "mass murderer", "killer", "crazy SOB", "war criminal", "murderous dictator", "pure thug". Some might take that as propagandizing narrative. If you bought it, then be that way. 

... Unless, of course, if you are willing to entertain that Russia has it's own legitimate security concerns. Like the US of A would most certainly have should China, for example, or some other country start training and equipping a military on the soil of Mexico with missiles pointed north.

Psychologically speaking ... We may have opinions on all this. One way or the other. Justified too, one way or the other. Nevertheless, opinions, however well justified, at some point have to have been put on; taken on, decided on ... however you want to put it. What we seem to forget is that it's not the opinion that we're contending with/protecting, it's the justification. So, how about putting opinion aside once in a while and simply look at the facts. If you're brave enough to do the shadow work, then go ahead and reexamine your justifications too. In this, and in anything in the world as well. Carl G. Jung speaks eloquently on this subjects. Dig.

On with the share ...

"Ambassador Charles "Chas" W. Freeman served as US Assistant Secretary of Defense, as US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and he was Richard Nixon's principal interpreter during his 1972 visit to China which led to the normalization of us China relations." 

Was the Russian invasion unprovoked?

"No, it was not unprovoked. We began to hear as early as 1994 from Boris Yeltson, before Vladimir Putin came to power, that the expansion of NATO and the presence of hostile forces on Russia's borders was unacceptable and would draw a military reaction. That reaction was actually further signaled during the brief war between Georgia and Russia, and there should have been no surprise. [And, BTW, Mikhail Gorbachev reportedly — and disputed — was given assurances in connection of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany that there would be no NATO expansion eastward.] Promises, promises. 

Chas Freeman: 

"The war began actually as a civil war between Ukrainians, Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers in 2014 after the coup d’état in Kiev when the new ultra-nationalist government in Kiev outlawed the use of Russian, Hungarian, Romanian and other minority languages at the local level, so that the Russian speakers who were predominant in eastern Ukraine, in some cases 70 — well 75% in Crimea — but sometimes as much as 90% in the Eastern Oblasts, rebelled and Russia naturally supported them. 

"So they wanted the right to use Russian to educate their children and to communicate with the local administrations. This actually resulted in a negotiation; two agreements at Minsk sponsored by France and Germany, which were agreed to by the Russians, confirming that the Donbas region Oblasts Luhansk, Kharkiv, and Donetsk would remain part of Ukraine but on a basis similar to that of Quebec and Canada; that is, they would be allowed to have their own language as an official language and educate their children in that language. That agreement was then repudiated, was first vigorously endorsed by Zelensky when he ran for president, and then when he came into office it was repudiated at which point Angela Merkel of Germany and François Hollande of France both said well we didn't really mean that agreement it was just a means of gaining time for us to arm and train the Ukrainian armed forces against Russia. So the provocation began with attacks by ultra-nationalist Ukrainians on fellow Ukrainians who happened to be Russian speaking in the East it escalated to a Russian intervention against those ultra-nationalist Ukrainians that went on for eight years.

"15,000 people died from barrages of artillery into the Russian speaking areas and eventually in December 2021 Vladimir Putin demanded negotiations on three topics: [1.] one was the halt to any talk of bringing Ukraine into NATO, or the implication that American and other anti-Russian forces would be stationed on Russia's borders; [2.] the second was to reaffirm the Minsk Accords and the autonomy of Russian speakers in the East and by implication Hungarians and Romanians as well (there are other minorities in Ukraine); [3.] and, finally of course, a broad discussion of European security architecture in with Ukraine as a neutral party to that rather on the model of the Austrian State Treaty of 1955 which was reached at the height of the Cold War, which guaranteed Austria's Independence and democracy, and required Austria to treat its minorities Italians and the Slovenians [and] Hungarians in the very manner that the Conference on Security and Cooperation Europe [CSCE] requires. 

"So those were the three items for negotiation. They remain the three items for negotiation, with one major difference which is that Russia now having had to go to war against Ukraine and occupying the four all or part of the four Russian speaking Oblasts in the East now demands to keep them because it does not trust guarantees from Ukraine that in fact anything like the Minsk Accords is now possible to be implemented. 

"So I'll end here and I think that's a very brief history. There are many twists and turns in this, of course."

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐍𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐌𝐄𝐍 ... 𝐁𝐲 𝐙𝐞𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐦

WHAT EVERY WOMAN NEEDS 

TO KNOW ABOUT MEN

If He Could Say What He Really Felt, 

This Is What He’d Tell You …

By Zen Prem

Most men don’t want to be distant. He’s just never learned how to be close, without feeling like he’s about to emotionally shit the bed

Let’s get that out of the way first.

Most men weren’t raised to be emotionally available.
He was raised to be useful. To keep the wheels turning.
To shut up, get on with it, fix things, pay bills, don’t cry, don’t need, don’t break.

He was taught how to function. He was never taught how to feel.

So when you say: “Just tell me what you’re feeling…” you may as well be asking him to explain the mating patterns of deep-sea octopuses in Sanskrit.

It’s not that he’s unwilling. It’s that he was emotionally house-trained with shame. He grew up swallowing grief like it was chewing gum. He learned that softness equals weakness. That fear equals failure. That vulnerability equals exposure equals humiliation.

And then he meets women who say: “I just want you to open up…”. But here’s what that request sounds like in his heads: “Please hand me the keys to the one room inside you that’s never been safe. And I promise I won’t flinch.”

Except… you might. And you have.

And so has he.

Because when a man does open that door, when he lets himself be scared, raw, uncertain, … too many times, what meets him isn’t reverence. It’s rejection.

He’s suddenly “too much.”

Too messy.

Too emotional.

Not strong enough.

Not grounded enough.

Not man enough.

You want him cracked open, but still stoic. You want his tears, but art-directed. You want his fear, but only if it comes with a plan and a sexy voiceover.

But that’s not real. That’s a curated breakdown.
That’s Instagram-safe vulnerability. And most men don’t have access to that kind of tidy unravelling .

When a man starts to feel, really feel, it’s not beautiful at first. It’s awkward. It’s clumsy. It’s terrifying. It’s rage with no language. It’s grief that’s been fermenting for decades under a lid of “I’m fine.”

Because the male psyche is a warehouse full of unlabelled boxes. He doesn’t know what’s inside until one bursts open at the worst possible moment, usually halfway through a conversation about why he forgot to text back.

He’s not emotionally unavailable. He’s emotionally unsupervised.

He’s been left alone with his shame so long he’s started calling it “independence.” He’s scared shitless you’ll see through the façade and realize half the time he doesn’t know what he’s doing. In life. In love. In bed. In conversation.

But he also wants to show up. He wants to feel safe.

He wants to be that man, the one who can hold space without shutting down. But not if he has to perform our evolution to earn love. Because performing is exactly what broke him.

So if you really want to know the one thing every woman should understand about men… ?

He’s not scared of you. He’s scared of being seen, and left.

He’s scared that the second he let’s you into the soft, unfinished places, you’ll quietly pack your emotional bags and leave him with a look that says, “That’s it?”

And look, maybe men are emotionally constipated idiots sometimes. ( ok, most of the time) … But it’s not because we don’t care. It’s because no one ever taught us how to metabolize pain without violence, shame, or silence.

So here’s what I’ll say to the women reading this: I know it’s hard to love someone who doesn’t yet know how to love themselves. I know your nervous systems are exhausted from holding the emotional scaffolding of every relationship.

But he’s not your project. He’s not your redemption arc. He’s not here to complete your healing story.

We are men, trying. Fumbling. Waking up slower than you wanted us to. But waking up all the same.

And to the men reading this…?

Stop pretending you’re not scared. Stop outsourcing your emotional labor to women and calling it intimacy. Stop confusing stoicism with strength and silence with sovereignty.

Start doing the work. Not to impress her.

But to finally meet yourself.

You don’t heal by performing evolution. You heal by showing up when it’s fucked up and messy.

Because the truth is, every man has a moment where he must choose between safety and soul. Between performing and presence. Between the armor and the love he actually fucking wants.

And if he doesn’t choose presence…

He will never experience, and probably lose everything that ever mattered.

Zen Prem

Coauthor of Beyond Bullshit To Bliss 

with Samantha Spiro

𝐎𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 ...

"Research studies have shown ...". How many times have we heard that phrase narrated like an imprimatur for whatever the F is being stated as verified fact.

There's research, then there's research. Be skeptical. Just because it's "research" don't mean it's true. But, what is true anyway? There's aren't words for that ... anyway.

One type of study is to find out what's what so that we can glean some understanding about how things work. Take atomic energy. [PLEASE!] A prime example of how knowing how things work can be used for good, or ill. These days the conversation is over whether nation states in order to not be fucked over —Muammar Gaddafi is spinning in his grave — need to have an atomic bomb, or two, in the cupboard. What could possibly go wrong? Especially since we're fortunate to not have a single soup-brained nincompoop at any level of governance on the geopolitical world scene. [As if.]

Then there's "pure" research. Just looking into stuff to see what we find; what's there. Open ended. I don't know the percentages between the number of "applied" versus "pure" research studies, but you can be sure there's a lot of latter in the works and looking for funding. 

Researchers, they want to research. Whether any one of them is wise enough to be self-aware enough to research into themselves why they are disposed to wanna look into things anyway ... well, who knows.

So what's with Hippo farts? And the carpenter level? The story goes that this is an offshoot of the classic "pure" research study to determine how many wrinkles in a Bull's ass. The lab joke goes, "Bend over, let me count". Don't laugh. Who knows. It just may be that the number and pattern of wrinkles in a Bull's ass may have significant implications, ramifications, and applications in who knows what and wherefore in so many areas of Human activity. That's "pure" research, you never know.

So what about the flaming Hippo. Well, the study is essentially about how the number and pattern of wrinkles is a large beast's tuchus has effects on the many various aspects of effluent "windage". Why anyone would want to delve into this stinky mess ... well, depends on researcher inclinations and preferences. "Anal retentive"? Who knows. A lot of history is no doubt a result of such conditioned determinants. 

Let's not over state the complications of conducting such a study. The Monkeys? Well, they're the least complicating factor in what would otherwise be the necessity to strap that dumb beast to a contraption which as we know from our understanding of scientific process would be a hugely complicating factor and color the research unduly owing to the layers of input due to the apparatus itself.

From there, the world is your Oyster. The many permutations of measurements: volume, intensity, direction, duration, olfaction, heat — Did you hear the one about the guy who farts in church ... he must sit in own pew. — flame color, environmental impact(s) ... to name just a few.

Then there's the other variables: Animal sex — among the beasts of the world, seems there are only two ... still — age, indigenous locale, diet, health ... and, of course, the number and patterns of those wrinkles. 

As you can see such a study, while seemingly besides any point any reasonable person would want to make, can keep a researcher in lunch money for quite some time. This is not to say that it's all about the money. Like they say at Chase Bank, "Hey, it's just money!". Maybe for some out there. But mostly about, as we've mentioned, just looking into things. 

Even if it's looking into things from the behint of a Hippopotamus.  

𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ...

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡 𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐕𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐓𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐲𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐁𝐢𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐢 ...

One Summer in our early days together at Rockaway Beach I stood waist deep in the ocean and watched as the rolling waves lifted her up, and too her blue velour terrycloth bikini.

Velour terrycloth is very loosely soft when wet; like tissue paper. It clung close to her body, and with each wave she had to adjust it to keep from being exposed. 

So modest. So sexy.

A moment so vividly remembered after so many years, and so many waves ... upon waves. And, all kinds. As you can imagine. Many gentle and regularly recurring. Others more so. And some, crashing. 

𝐀 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 "𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐝" 𝐛𝐲 𝐒𝐜𝐨𝐭𝐭 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐧 ... 𝐚 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐃𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐤𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞/𝐑𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐚 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐭

 

"𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐚 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 ..."

 

Most people think a spiritual awakening is a peaceful transformation — a shift into light and clarity. But for many, it becomes a storm they never saw coming. In this video, we explore why most people never survive their spiritual awakening, and how Carl Jung helps us understand the terrifying brilliance of collapse. 

A true spiritual awakening doesn’t just wake you up — it tears you apart. It exposes every illusion you’ve built your life upon. What follows is often an invisible spiritual crisis: confusion, fear, loss of identity, and the unbearable silence of meaninglessness. 

Why don’t most people survive this? Because they resist the very thing that would set them free: the ego death, the surrender of the mind’s control, the death of the false self. The process triggers emotional fragmentation, and the soul begins to shake — violently — against the structure that once held it in. 

Carl Jung called this the confrontation with the unconscious — and he knew that many don’t make it through, not because they’re weak, but because they try to escape the pain instead of listening to it. This is the moment of shadow collapse, the full unraveling of what was never real. 

If you're going through a spiritual awakening and it feels like you're losing everything — you're not alone. You're being emptied, not erased. What’s being dismantled is not your truth, but your illusion. 

Only those who surrender survive. And through this spiritual awakening, the soul learns how to live — finally — without pretending.

𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐇𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐎𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞 ...

Full text:

The last days of dying empires are dominated by idiots. The Roman, Mayan, French, Habsburg, Ottoman, Romanoff, Iranian and Soviet dynasties crumbled under the stupidity of their decadent rulers who absented themselves from reality, plundered their nations and retreated into echo chambers where fact and fiction were indistinguishable.

Donald Trump, and the sycophantic buffoons in his administration, are updated versions of the reigns of the Roman emperor Nero, who allocated vast state expenditures to attain magical powers; the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, who funded repeated expeditions to a mythical island of immortals to bring back a potion that would give him eternal life; and a feckless Tsarist court that sat around reading tarot cards and attending séances as Russia was decimated by a war that consumed over two million lives and revolution brewed in the streets.

In “Hitler and the Germans,” the political philosopher Eric Voegelin dismisses the idea that Hitler — gifted in oratory and political opportunism, but poorly educated and vulgar — mesmerized and seduced the German people. The Germans, he writes, supported Hitler and the “grotesque, marginal figures,” surrounding him because he embodied the pathologies of a diseased society, one beset by economic collapse and hopelessness. Voegelin defines stupidity as a “loss of reality.” The loss of reality means a “stupid” person cannot “rightly orient his action in the world, in which he lives.” The demagogue, who is always an idiote, is not a freak or social mutation. The demagogue expresses the society’s zeitgeist, its collective departure from a rational world of verifiable fact.

These idiots, who promise to recapture lost glory and power, do not create. They only destroy. They accelerate the collapse. Limited in intellectual ability, lacking any moral compass, grossly incompetent and filled with rage at established elites who they see as having slighted and rejected them, they remake the world into a playground for grifters, con artists and megalomaniacs. They make war on universities, banish scientific research, peddle quack theories about vaccines as a pretext to expand mass surveillance and data sharing, strip legal residents of their rights and empower armies of goons, which is what the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has become, to spread fear and ensure passivity. Reality, whether the climate crisis or the immiseration of the working class, does not impinge on their fantasies. The worse it gets, the more idiotic they become.

Hannah Arendt blames a society that willingly embraces radical evil on this collective “thoughtlessness.” Desperate to escape from the stagnation, where they and their children are trapped, hopeless and in despair, a betrayed population is conditioned to exploit everyone around them in a desperate scramble to advance. People are objects to be used, mirroring the cruelty inflicted by the ruling class.

A society convulsed by disorder and chaos, as Voegelin points out, celebrates the morally degenerate, those who are cunning, manipulative, deceitful and violent. In an open, democratic society, these attributes are despised and criminalized. Those who exhibit them are condemned as stupid; “a man [or woman] who behaves in this way,” Voegelin notes, “will be socially boycotted.” But the social, cultural and moral norms in a diseased society are inverted. The attributes that sustain an open society — a concern for the common good, honesty, trust and self-sacrifice — are ridiculed. They are detrimental to existence in a diseased society.

When a society, as Plato notes, abandons the common good, it always unleashes amoral lusts — violence, greed and sexual exploitation — and fosters magical thinking, the focus of my book “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.”

The only thing these dying regimes do well is spectacle. These bread and circus acts — like Trump’s $40 million Army parade to be held on his birthday on June 14 — keep a distressed population entertained.

The Disneyfication of America, the land of eternally happy thoughts and positive attitudes, the land where everything is possible, is peddled to mask the cruelty of economic stagnation and social inequality. The population is conditioned by mass culture, dominated by sexual commodification, banal and mindless entertainment and graphic depictions of violence, to blame itself for failure.

Søren Kierkegaard in “The Present Age” warns that the modern state seeks to eradicate conscience and shape and manipulate individuals into a pliable and indoctrinated “public.” This public is not real. It is, as Kierkegaard writes, a “monstrous abstraction, an all-embracing something which is nothing, a mirage.” In short, we became part of a herd, “unreal individuals who never are and never can be united in an actual situation or organization — and yet are held together as a whole.” Those who question the public, those who denounce the corruption of the ruling class, are dismissed as dreamers, freaks or traitors. But only they, according to the Greek definition of the polis, can be considered citizens.

Thomas Paine writes that a despotic government is a fungus that grows out of a corrupt civil society. This is what happened to past societies. It is what happened to us.

It is tempting to personalize the decay, as if ridding ourselves of Trump will return us to sanity and sobriety. But the rot and corruption has ruined all of our democratic institutions, which function in form, not in content. The consent of the governed is a cruel joke. Congress is a club on the take from billionaires and corporations. The courts are appendages of corporations and the rich. The press is an echo chamber of the elites, some of whom do not like Trump, but none of whom advocate the social and political reforms that could save us from despotism. It is about how we dress up despotism, not despotism itself.

The historian Ramsay MacMullen, in “Corruption and the Decline of Rome,” writes that what destroyed the Roman Empire was “the diverting of governmental force, its misdirection.” Power became about enriching private interests. This misdirection renders government powerless, at least as an institution that can address the needs and protect the rights of the citizenry. Our government, in this sense, is powerless. It is a tool of corporations, banks, the war industry and oligarchs. It cannibalizes itself to funnel wealth upwards.

“[T]he decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness,” Edward Gibbon writes. “Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious: and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted for so long.”

The Roman emperor Commodus, like Trump, was entranced with his own vanity. He commissioned statues of himself as Hercules and had little interest in governance. He fancied himself a star of the arena, staging gladiatorial contests where he was crowned the victor and killing lions with a bow and arrow. The empire — he renamed Rome the Colonia Commodiana (Colony of Commodus) — was a vehicle to satiate his bottomless narcissism and lust for wealth. He sold public offices the way Trump sells pardons and favors to those who invest in his cryptocurrencies or donate to his inauguration committee or presidential library.

Finally, the emperor’s advisors arranged to have him strangled to death in his bath by a professional wrestler after he announced that he would assume the consulship dressed as a gladiator. But his assassination did nothing to halt the decline. Commodus was replaced by the reformer Pertinax who was assassinated three months later. The Praetorian Guards auctioned off the office of emperor. The next emperor, Didius Julianus, lasted 66 days. There would be five emperors in A.D. 193, the year after the assassination of Commodus.

Like the late Roman Empire, our republic is dead.

Our constitutional rights — due process, habeas corpus, privacy, freedom from exploitation, fair elections and dissent — have been taken from us by judicial and legislative fiat. These rights exist only in name. The vast disconnect between the purported values of our faux democracy and reality means our political discourse, the words we use to describe ourselves and our political system, are absurd.

Walter Benjamin wrote in 1940 amid the rise of European fascism and looming world war:

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

Our decay, our illiteracy and collective retreat from reality, was long in the making. The steady erosion of our rights, especially our rights as voters, the transformation of the organs of state into tools of exploitation, the immiseration of the working poor and middle class, the lies that saturate our airwaves, the degrading of public education, the endless and futile wars, the staggering public debt, the collapse of our physical infrastructure, mirror the last days of all empires.

Trump the pyromaniac entertains us as we go down.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐲𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐩𝐢𝐧 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐫 ...

 

There's a war on in the Middle East. Israel is defending itself. As usual. As it should. As it will.

From what, exactly?

Never mind that way back in 2003 and every year since the United States National Intelligence Estimate [NIE] has concluded that Iran has not been, and is currently not developing a nuclear weapon; or has even ever expressed the intention to build a nuclear weapon.

The lynchpin to the Israeli government justifying its posture and action(s) vis-à-vis the State of Iran is the claim that Iran wants to see Israel "... wiped off the map". That is, it's hell bent on the destruction of Israel. Therefore ... the need to destroy it preemptively. 

As lynchpins go, it's a big one. Pretty convincing on its face. 

But ...

Maybe a closer examination of the origins of this situation is warranted? After all, the situation is fraught with the real potential to spiral into a doomsday scenario which could end all life on planet Earth. Let's be sure we get things right. Worth a second look, don't you think. The end of the world after all.

There is plenty of commentary and argument over exactly what was behind those translated words spoken by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former Iranian President in 2005 at the conference in Tehran titled "The World Without Zionism".

Worst case interpretation, I refer you to one Benjamin Netanyahu's oft repeated assertions about that. Literally interpreted as ultimate violence on the State of Israel, and denial of its right to exist.

Ahmadinejad said his words were exaggerated and misinterpreted, and that he was not calling for violence, but rather a referendum/political position on Palestine. [Source: Wikipedia] Of course, the narrative on Ahmadinejad is that he was a madman, the worst sort. So we can stop thinking and just go with that. Bennie would want us to do that. And, as someone worth scores of US Congress standing ovations [58!], you can be sure he's dishing the truth. God's truth, no less.

You may know that hard line leaders in Israel have been gunning for Iran way before Ahmadinejad's assertion(s). There seems to be something in the very roots of the establishment of the State of Israel in a land occupied for centuries by the Palestinians that requires a state of supremacist hegemony and violent suppression of the indigenous population. 

For some, history began on October 7th 2023. Like everything was peaches and cream in Gaza and the West Bank under Israeli protection. Or, do we call it occupation? Whatever. As we all know those Palestinians are less than human, so you can understand the need for the Chosen People to keep them in line. And, of course, they would complain. But, hey ... those Amalek. Translates variously as you will; "Cockroaches" works. Nobody likes them critters. And, besides, the Bible commands Israel to eradicate them. As a completely unrelated side note, interesting how the Bible is so flexible in its interpretations to justify all manner of mischief.

So in a nutshell you have it. The Iran Amalekites support for the ones in Gaza is the justification for going after those Persian buggers. 

Nota Bene: This is a complex issue and history. I by no means am versed in it all. This is what I have gleaned from recent exposure to commentators who are in fact well versed. Net, net ... it's simply a land grab. Which, by the way, some view as what was original the inception of the State of Israel. 

And, be assured this is not necessarily my own point of view. Just reporting what I have learned. Don't call me an antisemite. 

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𝐂𝐨𝐳𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 ..

JETSUNMA TENZIN PALMO

Most people feel cozy enough in samsara. They do not really have the genuine aspiration to go beyond samsara; they just want samsara to be a little bit better. It is quite interesting that “samsara” became the name of a perfume. And it is like that. It seduces us into thinking that it is okay: samsara is not so bad; it smells nice! The underlying motivation to go beyond samsara is very rare, even for people who go to Dharma centers. There are many people who learn to meditate and so forth, but with the underlying motive that they hope to make themselves feel better. And if it ends up making them feel worse, instead of realizing that this may be a good sign, they think there is something wrong with Dharma. We are always looking to make ourselves comfortable in the prison house. We might think that if we get the cell wall painted a pretty shade of pale green, and put in a few pictures, it won’t be a prison any more.

**Into the Heart of Life