Let Cooler Heads Prevail

Thursday: Solve The World's Problems

"What a difference a day makes."

"The first thing you do, when you get up in the morning, is: make your bed.."

I used to find myself humming that song in the past, after I had gone from having a lousy day to feeling on top of the world 24 hours later.

The table was set for me to have a lousy day, today (Wednesday -although it's already "tomorrow" now).

I didn't wake up until about 2 in the afternoon and with a brain fog that I attribute to the "non dairy" Cherry Garcia flavored Ben & Jerry's ice cream I had eaten the night before, in the course of being sucked into watching "just one more" video, over and over until the sun was up.

At this point I am wondering if I should just try to start nurturing more healthy addictions, rather than trying to become totally free of them. Addicted to jogging...

The Youtube videos are becoming like a book I can't put down. Only one that never ends because, as soon as I turn a page, another one appears at the back of it.

I'm pretty sure the artificial intelligence (AI) that is being developed by the media platforms is behind this.

I have my doubts that there is even a war in the Ukraine. I have never seen any videos shot on the phones of any of the participants in that engagement. It would probably be impossible for me to fly over there and check out the situation for myself.

I can picture a travel agent: "Right now we are offering a special package to Buenos Aires which includes a round trip ticket, plus a coupon for 3 days and 4 nights in a fine hotel. It's our "Carnival Season Special!"

"Any flights to Ukraine available?"

"What about Belarus?"

A guy I met in Saint Augustine was an Iraqi War veteran and he had all kinds of stuff on his phone that he shot right in the middle of battle. In one (which he told me was hard for him to watch) another soldier about 20 feet away from him was seen getting hit by, I'm guessing a bullet, then becoming motionless. "He was was one of my best friends," the guy had said. And now, you can whip out your phone and watch him die whenever you want? Hmmm...

So, with everyone carrying a smartphone these days, why are there not countless videos like that, with click-bait titles like: "Soldier was on Zoom call with girlfriend when killed by shrapnel"?

I guess that is because "violence" isn't allowed on Youtube. Maybe there is plenty of stuff like that on X that I just don't know about. 

But I became suspicious after seeing the same artillery ravaged buildings over and over in "news" reports on the Murdoch-owned outlets. Then the same people being carried on stretchers into the same hospitals -the same rockets being launched from the same fields, etc.

It would be clever of the parties involved to just fake everything, and keep a tight lid on it, then continue to bilk the U.S. and other taxpayers out of billions of dollars, to be divvied up amongst the elites. On the same idea as that fake moon voyage movie. That might explain why Hollywood is on strike; they're all over there, writing and directing for CNN...

As far as the Hamas thing... I can understand the sentiment of people wanting revenge. I've heard enough drunken macho men in bars saying things like: "if anyone ever messed with one of my kids, I'd be in jail for murder right now!" to be able to fathom the emotions.

Israel can't bring back the dead, but they can make things worse for the living.. 

First, they can re-assess their "most sophisticated intelligence network in the world," after admitting that they had been "had," and then upgrade the system to incorporate detection of metallic flying objects the size of horses coming into their airspace.

"Stop wiggling; this is a video, not a still-shot!"

Hesitating to act would frustrate, and maybe even lay bare the plans of whomever masterminded the attack, taking for granted, most likely, that the Israeli response would be what we are seeing now. You don't want to play into their hands...

Then, they could open a gate into a section of Israel, in order to admit any Palestinian civilians seeking to evacuate the Gaza Strip. They could pat them down for weapons, then house them there (perhaps it might resemble an "open air prison" but...). After about 3 weeks without electricity, water nor Internet (but not particularly in that order of priority) a large portion of the Palestinians (am I even supposed to capitalize that, given there is no such nation?) would become amenable to this arrangement.

How large a percentage of them would Hamas be able to physically stop from escaping through this Gate of Amnesty? Trying to gun them down before they left would put the Hamas guys (a.k.a. the other team") out in the open; for Israeli snipers.

Then, with very few civilians left in the territory,, blockades could be set up to starve Hamas in their tunnels. Soon, they would be out of rockets, their cellphone batteries would be dead, they would start to fight amongst themselves in their tunnels over the last morsels of food. Biden, et. al. wouldn't have to keep appealing for more "humanitarian aid," and the mission of the Israeli soldiers could then entail honing the skill of shooting the Hamas guy's head while missing the head of the child he is holding in front of him like a medieval era shield -not too challenging for a sharpshooter.

The entrances to the tunnels could eventually be uncovered and then a page taken out of the "extermination using noxious gasses" handbook of the Nazis, in order to turn those tunnels into quick, painless and humane gas chambers. Seems apropos in some sense...

And, what of the Palestinian children caught in the crossfire?

Well, once I was in the Walmart in Gretna and there was a large woman of color in there shopping. She had with her a couple boys around 7 or 9 years old. The circumstance of them both being shirtless revealed them to be on the road to obesity. One of them was barefooted. Despite their pudginess, they still possessed enough energy to run amok, up and down the aisles of the store; often out of sight of whom I'm guessing was their mother. 

Up and down the aisles they ran, pulling things off shelves, leaving them laying on the floor, Never a word of reproach from the large woman of color.

I was one of only a handful of white people in the store, which is the norm in the Gretna Walmart. 

Spotting me, the kids seemed to begin concentrating their mischief especially where I would be able to observe them, Their faces were kind of blank as they made a mess of the aisle around me. Then, one of them ran up and slapped the box out of my hands that I was reading the ingredients of. At that point both of the boys assumed an attitude of: "what are you gonna do, you wanna fight?" as they bounced around in front of me with scowls on their faces. Then appeared the mother, whom I expected, wrongly, was going to tell her kids something like: "Stop bothering that man!" She only gave me the family scowl when I appealed to her by looking her way.

Am I writing this for mere catharsis?

No, the point I want to make is: Let's say, at some point a grenade with its pin pulled out slid across the floor and came to rest at my feet, thrown by a terrorist. If, in the split second that I had to try to save my own life, I glanced around, looking for a place to throw it where there were no people, but didn't see any. The choice I would probably make would be to toss it towards the scowling woman and her unruly kids. Then, I might position myself so as to shield any better behaved people who might be towards the other end of the aisle.

So, you have these Palestinian kids, whose first words might have been "Gas the Jews!" and who, by all reports, are being raised to be terrorists -being taught to play games like "stab the Jew," in lieu of kick-ball, by parents who (overwhelmingly) voted Hamas into power -Your vote; your choice, type of thing- and you have this choice between throwing a cyanide canister into a tunnel, where some of these kids might be, or letting Hamas live, that they might murder you and your own (well behaved) kids some day.

I often think about how, if I'm ever on a commercial jet flight and the plane is hijacked and set on a course to crash into a heavily populated area, the United States Air Force is instructed to shoot it down before it reaches its intended target. That would really suck for the few being sacrificed for the welfare of the many.

And, what if I was still alive for the 4 minutes or so of falling to earth. That's a long time to think about what your government just did...

What if it was my nation that was being targeted by Hamas? I think I would have to shoot down the plane, so to speak.

Maybe if they starve Hamas long enough, so they look like Auschwitz inmates after a couple months, they will hardly be able to lift a rifle to defend themselves, and the Israeli army will find them easy pickings in a close combat situation. Then, they can rescue the human shields and nurse them back to health -give them something like Field of Greens™nutritional supplement, and they will be back in the pink in short order. Their chances of such would certainly be better than mine of landing on a huge pile of hay, in the hijacked plane analogy above.

This idea of being patient (because nothing will bring back the dead; the hostages are like the hijacked plane's passengers, and there is no urgency to act while still pissed off...cool, calm and calculated will win the day, in my opinion) has the added benefit that it might expose the Military Industrial Complex as the greedy S.O.B.s that many believe them to be. Biden won't have to ask congress for all those billions, as this would be a cheaper solution (leave it to the Jews to come up with a frugal battle plan is what you're thinking, right?) to just place Gaza under siege, and starve them. All that ammunition they have stored away isn't going to help the cause if they are wielding it against each other, over the last can of mackerel. Let's see how evident Biden's disappointment will be when billions in weaponry is not needed. Just some World War II era cyanide dispensers.   

Right now, the barrage of rockets slicing through the air might as well be sky-writing: "Send money,!" in various languages. Not a good look for a country that is taking this seriously, and can afford to be patient. What would another few months be for a people who have been dealing with this crap for centuries?

Alternatively, they could detonate a couple strategically placed atomic bombs, Hiroshima-style over "the strip," after having patiently waiting for the winds to shift so that the fallout would be primarily on Arab nations (a west wind, appropriately enough). That's what I'd do if anyone ever messed with one of my kids.

Are There Those Who Will Be Roasted Alive?

I'll probably manage my hot spot data better this monthly cycle and not run out a half month from now. 15 days between posts is nearly a record for this blog...

Self Improvement to be emphasized...

Of course, with a title like the one above, the bulk of the traffic to it will be -the first "crawl" by the Google algorithm; that will be 1 view. And then, well, not much more, after at least one opinion expressed here will raise a flag (or flip some flag bit to "one") and only those assiduous enough to have scrolled past 12 pages of results from a search for "playing street music in the French Quarter" might even see it.

When I'm 61...

Having just passed the milestone of a birthday, my emphasis has been upon self improvement and living more in the present moment; and frankly, the issue of whether or not to put more than 5 minutes a day into this blog is up for internal debate...

The whole idea of some person half a world away being led here after having done a Google Search for: "What's it like to play in the French Quarter? has proven to have had some impediment to the realization of, put in place..

Set aside a time each morning to find a quiet place to meditate. Let go of any over rational, or judgemental thoughts. Focus your attention on what is right in front of you, in the present moment... Let go of the past and the future, along with any resentments, regrets or worries; and just "be."

The baby has been thrown out with the bath water; with the baby being stuff that might amuse and inform people about busking in the Quarter; and the bathwater being me stating anything that is counter to the narrative that has been established by the "owners of the world" "deep state" types. Whomever is "above" Biden and Trudeau; as well as the president of Brazil, I believe, and others.

I kind of hope it's just some nerds working in Big Tech who, in a mindset similar to that of 10 year old kids burning ants alive with magnifying glasses; are seeing if they can start World War III, just to create the coolest and largest scale computer hack ever...

It seems like maybe a narrative will be spun that Israel went too far with their retaliation for the murders of 1,300 or so of their Jewish citizens. Then all the other Moslem nations might jump in which would place all of them in the crosshairs of the U.S. Military, which would go to war, after all the natural resources in the entire middle east, but mainly to "stand with" Israel. It will be important for all of us to understand that...

This will put China and North Korea and other such countries in the position of possibly choosing sides, setting the table for a full fledged World War III.

Iran might be hoping Israel drops one or two small nuclear bombs on Gaza, with a clear conscience (because they warned them ahead of time with pamphlets) so that, when the Hamas soldiers do eventually come out of their tunnels, they will be in a Gaza sized sand box....

But at the same time, like ants from underground nests, might appear in the streets of the western world, thousands of armed fighters who look remarkably like the BLM protesters -just flying green and red, instead of black -who will instantiate a slaughter of their own of American Jews; and for good measure, any other "oppressors" they run in to. White, middle class Trump supporters come to mind.

It is easy to see how the deep state army will already be connected to each other through social media, while the other group will find their phones unresponsive, and thus, will have become sitting ducks...
I thought the solution to Israel's dilemma should be to just collude with the social media companies so that the entire Hamas force could be made visible to the Israeli army through some kind of "app," coded for just that purpose. The whole Hamas "army" is undoubtedly on social media; staring at their screens, clicking and scrolling away all the live long day, like the bulk of their contemporaries.

Why not give the Israeli fighters something that will render a map that would have a flashing red dot showing the location of every single Hamas guy's phone (hint: probably within a foot of his head during most waking hours) and then they could micro-target them that way. 

They could nickname that app "Ferret," after that adorable animal that can crawl through holes apparently only half as wide as their bodies, to enter tunnels and kill rodents. And maybe there will be an acronym for it, using words like "fumigate" and "tunnel" as part of it....

Being Having Been Born

If Israel really has the kind of technical cyber-geniuses that their Netinyahu guy says they do, then it should be child's play for them to hack the cellphone towers to use as military tools, in divining the locations of all the Hamas troops who are in mid tweet or uploading a dead baby pic. This is preferable, in my opinion, to the dropping of impersonal and non-discriminating bombs, that might impact children. Their only sins being having been born there.

Then, after a global outbreak of hostilities ensues, that same technology could be used in the U.S. to point out the locations of the MAGA types. You get the idea. Not to worry, though; nobody's going to behave like a 10 year old kid with a magnifying glass...

Thank You

I set out on foot, my bike having been stolen about a week prior. I had my backpack on my back. It was empty. I had tightened the straps on it so it would cling to my body and not sag as much in its emptiness. 

I was walking the one mile or so to the Winn Dixie for food, compiling a grocery list in my head as I walked. I was having an internal argument with myself over whether I was going to buy the most healthy and cleansing foods i.e. prune juice, apple juice, and plenty of alkaline water, or if I was going to splurge on this occasion of having my food card replenished after having run out of money 5 days prior. 

Splurging would, on this evening, mean getting a pint of ice cream and a bottle of some kind of soda in order to make what would be called a "root beer float," should that be the actual flavor of the some kind of soda. 

Yes, the 5 day stretch, after my food money ran out, proved to be mostly a test of the tap water that comes out of my sink. Everything else I ate -the most unpopular items with me that had been passed over the entire month until the point my hunger had increased enough to make them seem edible- were things I had eaten before and I knew what to expect as far as their effect upon me. 

Pasta would fill me up, but would make me feel sluggish the next morning. I would wake up feeling emotionally kind of low. Maybe this has to do with blood sugar levels or maybe I'm geared more towards the keto diet and should cut back on, or eliminate entirely all carbohydrates. 

Jordan Peterson discovered that he had been subjecting himself to "carbohydrate poisoning," as he put it, on the diet that he had been on before having had an epiphany which led him to start subsisting upon nothing but red meat. Not even any leafy green vegetables, and certainly not a baked potato to go with his one staple of steak. His recovery from a host of ailments is something that can be read about by Googling him and "diet." Everything from psoriasis to brain fog to chronic fatigue; and taking "an hour to get out of bed in the morning" went away. 

I kind of knew, from having used my own body as a laboratory for nutritional experimentation, that he was eventually going to want to add some greens (because of the amino acids, according to some) and at that point, might be able to live a long and happy life. I had left a comment on one of his videos suggesting that he add mushrooms to the red meat only fare as an experiment. This came only from a gut instinct that I had (excuse the pun). 

I felt rather weak, physically, as I walked the mile or so to the store; maybe that's part of the reason the foods that I had eaten the past 5 days were the last things left on the shelf; not a lot of energy in corn mixed with black beans in spaghetti sauce, perhaps. 

This might have concerned me given the prospect of having to make the return trip with the backpack laden with whatever I bought. I have a habit of forgetting about that walk back while grabbing stuff off the shelves. A 3 liter bottle of alkaline water along with a half gallon of "Simply Apple" juice is a not insignificant weight to carry a mile. Add things like jars of peanut butter and instant coffee, as well as frozen fish, and the weight accrues. 

Once I had stuffed my backpack with what I bought and was hoisting it up upon my back, I had to think: this is going to be some good exercise, in an attempt to put a positive spin on things. 

There was a half pint of ice cream and a can of Monster Nitro Coffee flavored soda in there. I had bought those so as to give myself the option of splurging or not. But I know that is like someone picking up a rock of crack on the way home, thinking he might just save it for some time in the future; when he might want to feel like King Kong for an hour or so; not necessarily for smoking that night... 

Right now, I'm home, and the thin crust "white" pizza with spinach as a topping has come out of the oven and I will pause here to go and eat probably the whole thing, before it cools to the point where it won't be as good as right now. It came out about 12 minutes ago... 

Post Pizza

Well that was that; I ate half of it. The other half will have to be refrigerated and then re-heated, which may or may not revitalize it... 

Then, I guess the next juice, and then water only, fast and cleanse will take place. 

The meditations and sleep affirmations that I've been listening to are seeming to have a positive effect upon me. I had enough points accumulated in my "rewards" account to have gotten a 25 ounce can of Foster's Lager or their ale, but the thought didn't cross my mind, even though I was within 10 feet of them while grabbing some kombucha and Simply Apple juice. I guess I can't say it didn't cross my mind, or, how would I have noted that I was within 10 feet of them (and they were on sale for $2.50 + tax)? 

I have been entertaining the notion of taking a more proactive stance on my diet and, rather than trying to cleanse myself of toxins through fasting, I might try to exercise more and build more muscle mass on a diet of fish and greens with plenty of accoutrements like vinegar and garlic, as well as basil and oregano, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, type of thing... 

I think this is because I am drawing upon the memory of when I was in the best shape of my life, and that involved a lot of pretty intense exercise. 

In 1998, I would start a typical day by racing against the neighbor's dog (she would let it out for that purpose) a quarter mile to a store at the end of our street. The dog wasn't a particularly fast breed, short legged and long haired, and so it was a pretty evenly matched contest. I would pretty much sprint the whole way with Rosie panting along beside me. I'm not a dog psychologist but I suspect that there is some gene in dogs that makes them want to stay right by the side of any human that they are accompanying. And so, if the human breaks into a run, then it is genetically programmed into the dog to keep up. The treat of a little tin of gourmet dog food that I always bought her might have added an incentive. 

We would walk back, with me sipping on the Sobe "Power" drink that I would usually get. 

Then there was the weight set in the garage that I would work out with pretty intensely while consuming sometimes 5,000 calories. 

That's right, the "Nitro Fuel," and "Carbo Force," and "Metabalol" drinks that I used as pre and inter (intra?) workout drinks gave me around 1,500 calories. But there was a drink named "XXL" which had 1,150 calories per bottle. If I had smoked weed before working out -which was the case, except for maybe 5% of the time when I didn't have any- I might go through 3 bottles of XXL during a 2 hour workout. They were like thick frappes -delicious; and containing every vitamin, mineral and amino acid you may have ever heard of. They were listed on the back of the bottle; a lot of them being like 3,000% of the "recommended daily allowance" of whatever it was. 

So, the yin and yang of the dietary thing, I would conclude, is that one should either consume a lot of calories, but then exercise vigorously, in order to feel at peak vibrancy, or one should fast on water alone for up to a month at a time, and exercise only by walking to a store and carrying a couple gallons of water back home. Both seem to yield the same result of feeling wonderful; with the former just being more proactive, and maybe better suited to the physical world, whereas the latter might help one along more in the metaphysical one... 

I had left for the store in a pretty upbeat mood, having done my meditations and visualizations and this turned out to be a buffer against a lot of the negativity I would encounter during the trip. 

Basically, I had to wait to get in line until after it had already been announced that "the store is now closed," i.e. after midnight. I have to do this every month, it seems. I get behind the last customer in line and, by the time my food card gets swiped it is a minute or so after midnight and the transaction is "approved." 

Slovenly, Big Boned White Woman Alert!!

On this occasion there was a rather slovenly looking big boned white woman who just looked like a neo-progressive liberal Democrat to me, of the type that would stand on one side of a street and hurl insults at a group of people on the other side who are lined up outside a Trump rally. Insults composed of empty headed talking points. 

She was poking at her phone (or propaganda portal) and so I asked her if she had the time. 

"It's 11:56," she snapped, seemingly annoyed over having had to glance a couple inches upward to read the time. 

Then I added, by way of explanation, and as a way of trying to tell her to go ahead of me because I wasn't ready to swipe my card: "I have to wait until after midnight to swipe my card so, why don't you..." 

At which point she cut me off and barked something to the effect of: "I can't help you, I don't even know why you're talking to me, to tell you the truth!" said with such venom that, had I not been in such a positive and "grateful for everything" frame of mind and finding myself feeling, more than anything else, sorry for her for the fact that she has to live her life under such a burden of negative emotions, a frame of mind in which I just politely said: "You've helped me a lot by giving me the time, sorry if I interrupted you," rather than what I would have said if I were still drinking and not following the self improvement regimen, which would have been: "That's because you're a neo-progressive liberal Democrat who most likely f***s n*****s I can smell it on you. You look like trailer trash, but the truth is much worse that that!" 

That would have made her day the way that a hunter traipsing through the woods with his shotgun loaded for deer's day would be made upon seeing a deer. 

She has been brainwashed by her phone, courtesy of Google and Facebook, with their globalist agenda to subjugate the democracies of the world and bring them under the control of a handful of elitist billionaires, namely, them. 

So this dumpy looking middle aged white woman is another product of the attempt to divide the populations of said nations against themselves and all she "knows" is she hates straight white males with a passion, and would walk up to Donald Trump and punch him in the face if she ever saw him. 

She wouldn't be able to tell you why this is so. (Don't ask her why this is so, or you will give yourself away as being one of the previously nameless and faceless enemies that "all she knows" is that she hates. She wouldn't give them the time of day. Or, at least not civilly... 

So, it's a minefield out there, with the majority of the population glued to their phone screens, subjected to the bias of a monopolistic search engine company, and being manipulated. 

There was another older white lady in the store who had made the mistake of not entering her phone number when prompted to do so. She spoke in the amplified voice of someone who is hard of hearing, and was trying to explain to the staff, all of whom were Negroes, what had happened. 

Since the store was "now closed," none of the staff members seemed to want to deal with her. They would have to refund the money back onto her card and then allow her to add her phone number, so she would receive the discounts, then re-swipe each item. Too much work for the first cashier that she had asked, apparently. 

That cashier decided to delegate the task to the manager on duty, a slightly older black lady whom she had to walk about 20 feet to get to. She went over and explained that there was a lady, adding the apparently relevant detail that it was "a white lady" over there, who was embroiled in this complex situation that she (the cashier) just didn't want to deal with. "I told her just come back in the morning.." she said. 

The upshot was that this older white lady customer was treated like a dog. They lied to her and told her that she was out of luck -she would just have to pay the additional $35 or so for her groceries because it couldn't be undone, etc. It was just bullshit that they were pulling out of their asses in order to try to avoid doing any more work after "the store is now closed." 

Overhearing all of this, as I waited for the clock to strike midnight while holding my tongue involving the ignorant trailer trash woman, I walked over and suggested: "You would have to void her purchase and credit the money back to her card, then she could ring everything up again, after putting her phone number in.." 

Somehow, I think that got their attention at some level. 

I think they were Intimidated by the sound of so many "white" words, such as "void" and "purchase" and "credit it back to her card," why, those are like the high fa-looting things that the white managers who work the day shift use.. 

Erring on the side of caution, they began the process of fixing the situation. 

At 3 minutes past midnight, I had scanned all my items. and so I swiped my card, which went through. 

Hoisting my backpack onto my shoulders, I estimated that it weighed about 30 pounds. I was going to have to work for that root beer float, I thought. 

I started walking slowly towards Sacred Heart, a mile away, with the onus of the backpack, which suddenly seemed a half pint of ice cream too heavy. 

Rather than complain internally about having to tote 30 pounds for a mile, I opened one of the Celsius energy drinks I had gotten, and slugged it down. I soon welcomed the exercise of carrying the load, having just a mist of sweat breaking out, as if I was in a gym doing a moderate workout, back in 1998, perhaps. 

I decided that Celsius energy drinks are, as advertised, a good pre-workout drink. 

"Thank you," I said to myself (and God). 

No sooner had I uttered that when a Ford Ranger type vehicle had materialized by my side halfway across the Winn Dixie parking lot. 

"How far do you have to walk?" asked the lady behind the wheel. It was the hard of hearing lady whom I had helped with getting her discount. "Come on, I'll give you a ride..."
"Thank you."