Monday, January 12, 2009

Strange Days Indeed!

I apologize beforehand for this stream of consciousness post, I will try not to ramble too much. Originally I was going to post another bit of my writing while I try to find the next paranormal story or series to work on here and also while I try to get my new blog going. I just have to get some of these thoughts out of my head. I actually owe a great deal of the inspiration for this post to people whose blogs I link to. I was going to name each one individually, but in the end did not think that would be necessary, as I think there is also some cross-linking between the ideas people I link to are working on. Also some of the inspiration comes from people who comment here. I was also reminded of why I wanted to do this post by one of my own posts! The words that reminded me were not mine however, but Royston Lambert's from when I was doing the series on Hadrian and Antinous. In the 26 November post about Hadrian's succession to emperor Mr. Lambert's words were, "It was a strange and disconcerting beginning....".

This is the way I am starting to feel about the coming 'reign' of America/Rome's new emperor. I will definitely have to give a nod to Michael at Gosporn for the wording of this sentence! I would also like to give a quote from one of Jeff Well's posts that is also in his fantastic new book, Rigorous Intuition: What You Don't Know Can't Hurt Them. I did a post about this book on 20 December, here is the quote from Mr.Wells from his 31 July 2006 post, 'The Violent Bear It Away', "The Age of Nations is over, and many of the most powerful are no longer ruled by forces, which safeguard the interests of the state, let alone it's citizens. We're entering an extinction boundary, between the reign of mammals and the return of the jellyfish. What are the politics of jellyfish?" Wonderful wording and imagery as always Mr. Wells! The 'jellies' or the 'deep ones' as people of Lovecraftian bent might have it are coming back in great numbers. There are an ever increasing number of 'jellyfish' type UFOs in the sky also. I wonder if on some very deep sub/unconscious level of reality if the gods of old are coming back. When I look back over the events of the last ten years, especially the last eight-sometimes a sense of unreality hits me that is so strong, I say to myself, "Can this be real?" or "Is this really happening?"

Here is a breakdown of but a few of the events that have happened recently and things said about them, that have caused a deep sense of angst/loss inside my soul that leaves me wondering if humanity is going to make it past this 'sticky wicket' -a nod to Mother Shipton, I think? here, we are in. Locally to my dismay I found out a bit of news that I wish I had never seen or heard about. On 23 December 2008 in Chandler, Arizona-a city that I live very close to, a mentally disturbed man followed two very young boys as they were heading to a park to play and beat them both to death with a baseball bat. How sick is that? How will the families of these two little boys ever recover? And of course its not just this-its every time you turn around there is some horrid new example of human brutality to humans in the news. Just a matter of hours ago I saw a headline on Yahoo news where a French synagogue has been firebombed -no doubt due to the Israeli pounding of Hamas in recent weeks. Here I am not pointing fingers-I think this is where people always go wrong. Only the "Big Pine Cones" in Russian wordage are to blame for the overall horrific state of affairs in the world-although we, the 'small people' each and every one of us, no matter our rank on the social totem pole, race, sexual orientation, religion etc may all have to bear a kind of collective guilt for allowing 'leaders' like the current batch to rule over us. That's not enough to worry about-OK -let us start small and work our way up to big issues-although the small and the big may intermingle quite a bit here.
1) Job growth in the United States during 43s tenure was just 2%-and that is if you believe government stats-it was the smallest 8 year gain on record and GDP grew at the slowest rate since the Truman administration (synch wink here :-). A Moody's economist said, "We really went nowhere for almost 10 years." I say No Shit Sherlock! Oh well they can always print more bucks right? If anyone has the least bit of grasp of financial history they will know where all fiat currencies eventually end up -which leads to
2) William Buiter, a former Monetary Policy Committee member for the Bank of England from June 1997 to May 2000 believes that the plug is about to be pulled on the US dollar. He thinks that an increase in government spending will be catastrophic and foreign investors will not only turn away from the buck, but also US backed assets including government bonds.
3) Bernard Madoff, the man who allegedly committed the largest financial crime in history will not go to jail as he awaits trial. Mr. Madoff will be able to await hiw trial in his tony Manhattan penthouse. This really galls me to no end-here we live in a country-and indeed a world where homelessness is being criminalized. A man stealing food to feed his starving family can go to jail for stealing a fucking (scuse the lingo please-anger here) loaf of bread-but the greedy pigs who run our world continually pull shit like this and get a slap on the wrist. All equal under the law-haha-what total garbage! Anyone who believes this about the USA in the 21st century needs to come out of their caves.
4) Russia is a little pissed off right now -to put it mildly. A new deal to start supplying the Ukraine with gas just fell through. The Ukraine, Poland and Bulgaria (the poorest EU member) have been hardest hit by this, but the Bear's displeasure has rattled nerves all over the continent. Topolanek, the Czech prime minister and other European officials are clearly unnerved as lights in factories have blinked out and homes went without heat in some of the new European Union member states of east Europe. This is also a very cold winter and even if Russia decides to turn on the gas it will take 3 days to repressurize the pipelines. Oh-did I say cold? Well ole Mr. Sun just might have something to do with this and this leads to
5) "Its quietest before the storm" applies to the solar maximum also think scientists at NASA and the period between 2004 to 2008 has been unusually quiet for our dear Helios-but not to worry-hehe NASA thinks our friendly little star is going to make up for this in the 2010-2012 timeframe with "the mother of all solar maximums". MFM wonders if we are not about to be nuked into being crispy critters if Mr. Sun is going to do it for us! O -I said nukes! well not to worry here folks!
6) Think about this set of countries at each others throats as critical resources dwindle and the food supply gets to about a thousandth or millionth of the level it is at now-geez right when there are the most people living-good timing there! USA, China, Russia, Iran, Israel, India, Pakistan and lets never forget Mr. Hair in North Korea-but not to worry he seems like a good bloke(wink) and that isn't even all of the nations in the nuclear-can I say it this way now-or do I have to wait until 20 January and say noookular til then!

Do not worry fellow citizens of the world-I am sure our valiant leaders have it all figured out for us -hey they did such a good job on September 11, Katrina, the boxing day tsunami in 2004, Sudan, Ethiopia, Iraq, Afghanistan, a fucking superb job on 'noookular' containment-wouldn't you say? How about the global financial meltdown-hey thumbs up there boys-U B Smart! It just makes my little ole heart pitter patter with joy thinking that this bunch of clowns are going to be guiding us "to the light" as food rations drop, the global economy tanks, climate change gets more severe, more and more nations get the bomb. Like I say NOT TO WORRY!

Sorry folks-had to get this out of my system. This is why you will not find MFM doing politics too much! I am trying to find a nice paranormal series to get going to get my mind off things and also work on my other blog. Tomorrow if I am able to post I might have to subject you to my writing:-). Peace and be well all of you! Special thanks goes to wise woman, Michael Skaggs, Xdell, Jeff Wells, Anadae, Nina, Michael at Gosporn, Aggie, Ben-Emlyn Jones, aferrismoon and all of the other wonderful, funny, intelligent and thoughtful people I link to and follow and that comment here! I have to give the most thanks and hugs and love to my mom, dad, brother, payro and clementina-without who, neither me nor MFM and Dev's Questions would exist! Don't go to the following link unless you want more bad news http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/09/soviet-doomsday.html

16 comments:

Nina said...

devin~

sometimes i feel living on this planet is the "hell" as depicted in the various religious texts. the idea of heaven--to me--is freedom--in its purest form. and we have varying degrees of it here on this planet--but nothing close to the truest version. but we could have it and that is the part that is the most maddening to me.

ps-thank u for the mention. :) that was very nice of you.

Devin said...

Nina i was more than happy to give you and others the mention! for awile there i thought puter might be kaput-even if this happens i hope people will still comment and all-i will blog from other places when i am able-I agree with your thoughts so much-i hope i did not sound too angry with this post-but i am really disgusted by some of what i see-actually a lot of it-best to you always Nina and thanks so much for commenting!

Alex Robinson said...

Hi Devin
I do hope you feel better after that - I would actually vote for you if you were a politician - nicely said - expletives included :)

Its always a pleasure to come here & I thank you also for your support on my blog.

All the very best

Devin said...

wise as always I am very delighted to see you here and thanks so very much for the compliment-I feel the same way about you! I need to turn in very shortly as appt tomorrow I am so glad I caught this comment-hopefully computer will be ok tomorrow as i definitely have new things to post at other blog and here too maybe-and of course i want to keep up with net friends and their work! thanks so much for stopping by and i hope to chat tomorrow-best to you and your family as always-like i say i am always so thankful to have found your blog-i think it is truly the most unique, heartfelt and creative blog I have ever seen-and that is out of a lot of splendid runners up! :-)

Anonymous said...

It sure is a scary world. I guess the only way to make sense of any of it is to do the best you can in your part of the Universe. It may feel small and ineffectual, but we gotta try. I trust in a much higher power than any world government ... so their continued stupidity only confirms that need for me. Take care and keep cheerful.

Devin said...

I agree Aggie we can't give up hope-thanks so much for stopping by and commenting-Auckland NZ is always very welcome here at MFM-I hope to be around tomorrow-really going to bed this time(actually might do 30 mins of research for new post;-) I hope you are still having a splendid vacation-best to you and yours always!

Alex Robinson said...

Hi Devin
I had an interesting synch with the image you used for this post, last night.

Don't know if you've ever seen the movie Dark City (I think there's a couple of movies by that name - it's got Kiefer Sutherland in it - a very interesting move indeed). Anyway at one point an alien gets his split open (sounds gory but not a gory movie) anyway the thing that comes out of his head looked heaps like the pic you used!

Hope you are having a creatively charged day :)
All the best

Devin said...

Leon-I am doing ok-how about yourself? I was just at your place a while ago-but your blog moves so fast it is hard to keep up:-)best to you as always!

Devin said...

Hi wise -so great to see you here! just got back from the dentist a bit ago-have only been online a few minutes-delighted to see new comments coming in! I did see that movie-that was something else wasn't it?! You are right about pic-I didnt notice that at first! I am having a good day so far-it is not to creative yet-but I hope it will be:-) I am waiting a few mins to see if puter will be ok for a post at Devs ?s-if all goes well I hope to chat very soon-I hope you are having a fantastic day and week-best to you as always!

X. Dell said...

(1) Most peculiar, mama.

(2) There are things happening at all times, I'm afraid. But in my four-and-a-half decades on this planet, I can't remember a time that looked this bleak. It's not just the big headlines that you mention here, but the growing sense of anxiety among peoples that manifests itself in intolerance and violence.

(3) I don't know if you've seen the old 1970s movie Rollerball, but in the flick nation-states had lost all of their power to the corporations. Indeed, what we have seen in NAFTA supports the notion that the dictates of foreign industries can override the collective will and laws of sovereign nations.

Devin said...

Thanks so much for 1 2 and 3 Xdell! I am so glad you had time to comment-i agree with your thoughts completely about bleakness of the times-and yes I did see Rollerball-a person a the RI forum some time ago brought up a 70s movie I did not see called Americathon-did you see this-it also seemed to have a pretty prophetic message in regards to what America would become from the way the person described it-I think it was a 1978 movie-glad connection still holding -best to you as always!

X. Dell said...

The 70s had a lot of prescient movies, among them Network.

Sharon Day said...

Just after Katrina, you could see folks driving up to New Orleans and trying to put as many folks in their cars as possible, taking them into their homes, crying with them, helping them rebuild. Just after 9-1-1, you saw something you never imagined--New Yorkers handing out sandwiches to workers on Ground Zero. I don't think I'm a pollyanna, but the stories my parents told of the Great Depression and WWII sounded like a horrible and traumatic upbringing and yet my parents contributed more to society than any other generation. I think what we have is that people don't realize what they have (like God Bless American mentality) until something bad (like 9-1-1) that makes us put the flag on the back of our car for the first time in our lives. It has to get bad to get better. Gas prices have to go up to make people look for alternative fuel finally, people have to witness horrible crimes before making new laws. We learn unfortunately a great deal from what goes wrong, so if things remain "nirvana" as they have felt since the 80s, we get complacent and then we get things like economic issues, overindulged children, and crazy religious zealots deciding they can easily attack our unprotected airports... So, I'm glad things are getting bad enough that humans can begin to be humane...

Sharon Day said...

When my parents were growing up during the Great Depression and WWII they had the hardest times imagineable, the start of the Cold War, the threat of the bomb, inability to get jobs, two wars at one time... Sounds familiar? They also grew up to be the greatest contributors to our society. When we saw New Yorkers handing out sandwiches to Ground Zero workers and folks taking Katrina people into their homes, we have to realize that it's always hardships that make us forced to change. Ask any addict who hit rockbottom. Until gas prices rise and we're forced to come up with alternative fuel, we were complacent about global warming and pollution. Faced with the worst of times, we become a community working on one cause together. I'm thankful for these times because they knock us out of the complacency we've seen since the 80s. We have to change. We have to EVOLVE. That's exciting. We're heading for nirvana. We will get there because we have no other choice but to change and to adapt and to be a commmunity with a mission instead of individuals with greed.

Devin said...

Xdell thanks so very much for stopping by again I agree very prescient movies-I have one question were they meant to be prescient? will explain later unless you know what i mean-best to you as always!ps thanks so much for your series!

Devin said...

autumnforest-thanks once again so very much for sharing your thoughts-sorry it is taking me so long to get to them-technical difficulties-however as with all things these 'difficulties' have allowed me to read a delightful book-as a matter of fact i am going to ask for permission to post a poem from it here! best to you always!