The universe is vast. Why can’t we be humbled by that and work together to save our tiny planet? –
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe so far. Webb’s First Deep Field is galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, and it is teeming with thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared: NASA
The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sometimes I look out through the magic tube at what’s happening in the world and feel at once like a wise old owl, or Yoda, and at the same time totally hopeless and helpless.
The Force is cloudy and weak at best.
I want to stand up and scream and shout, “Stop what you are doing you idiots! Can’t you see you are making the problems worse?”
Remember the Sidney Lumet film “Network” that came out in 1976?
“I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!”
Have we progressed much since then? Or only grown even dumber?
Facebook is way worse than the network news, and all the while it and Google have destroyed the news business that was newspapers or news web sites, and thus we lost a shared cultural understanding of what constitutes a fact.
Related: What Humanity Needs: A Shared Narrative for the 21st Century
Do you think some podcast could makes things different? Why would you think that?
Let’s be honest. People would not listen anyway. People don’t really listen. No matter how much education they get, they don’t seem to learn much either.
It’s like human beings go through the motions of living. Scan the headlines on their phones on social media. Scan the books for classes. Watch the movies and shows for the entertainment value and to pass the time — and miss the point entirely.
Go on a trip to Greece to marvel at the broken down ancient architecture, and learn nothing of the meaning of one single lecture Aristotle delivered.
Everything is all about going and seeing. Not understanding. Or changing.
Some people will go to the end of the world to save a dying, feral cat. Then step over the homeless person sleeping in the street right in front of them, even if that person is a veteran or an out of work news worker.
We all just want to win the $600 billion lottery from a $2 ticket, or win the free car on “Let’s Make a Deal.”
And we all feel like we’re personally entitled to win it. Like it’s our divine right or Destiney.
In real life, when people get Zonked, they rarely say, “Thanks Wayne. It was just fun being on the show.”
Those who get on the show are coached to do this to make sure it’s “good television.”
Instead, in real life, people just get mad and madder.
And when they get mad, they take out the nearest .38 Special or AK-47 and let loose on the other guys who bullied them, laughed at them or seem to stand in their way of a living wage and a little health care, or maybe just a few minutes of peace and quiet.
In the case of a bully like Vladimir Putin in Russia, he unleashes an entire army on another country. Not just attacking the military in Ukraine, mind you. But sending cruise missiles to topple entire high rise apartment buildings full of innocent civilians. Taking over a nuclear power plant and threatening to nuke the world to an end if he can’t get his way to put the old Soviet Union back together again.
He must have never had a mother to share with him the nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty.
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again.”
This is NOT human behavior outside the norm. It IS the norm.
In the series Fargo based on the Coen Brothers’ movie of the same name, the good people of Minnesota are like the people often quoted on network news when violence or tragedy hits their small towns. They long for a quiet, peaceful little world where people helped their neighbors and you didn’t have to lock your doors at night.
Even when the small town sheriff is trying to explain to the people caught up in the violence and criminality that a dark, evil force is out to get them in an ongoing mob war and they should simply tell the truth, they can’t bring themselves to do it.
“Well, we didn’t do anything wrong. We are just trying to buy the butcher shop and build a life so we can have kids, yada, yada…”
Like the state cop told them, “You are dead already and you don’t even know it.”
They were.
I don’t think the Coen brothers made this movie just to entertain people, make some money, and pass the time. I think they were hoping to make a point and maybe people would sort of get the point that this is exactly what’s going on in their own lives. All the time. Every day.
Sharing a meme on Facebook saying, “Why can’t we stop the violence? Ban assault rifles.”
That’s not going to stop the violence in peoples’ hearts and minds, and neither is trying to force religion on them and the government.
George Wallace and judge Roy Moore down in Alabama told the poor people what they wanted to hear: Put god back in government, prayer back in schools, and you can stop the divorces, the abortions, and all the other social problems plaguing our world. It was never going to happen. It was just another lie by greedy politicians trying to gain power and money for themselves.
Putting a big, bad bully in charge of the government clearly didn’t help either. Donald Trump just made matters worse. People all over rural America really did used to be basically good people. Maybe a little conservative or religious, but willing to help their neighbors. Not anymore.
Trump didn’t just unleash the hidden racism across the land. He unleashed the worst in people, turning them mean and greedy just like him. Now they think this is Christianity.
You don’t believe me?
Try wearing a face mask to protect the people you come in contact with from covid, and watch as the tow truck driver refuses to tow your broken down car, and the auto mechanic refuses to fix it because you don’t war a MAGA cap and bow down to dictator King Trump.
President Joe Biden and the Democrats passed legislation and are spending billions to try to help people in rural America, but the news is not getting out, because no one is covering it. Certainly not Fox News, Newsmax, Breitbart News, Gatehouse Media newspapers or Sinclair Broadcasting stations.
One example: Biden Administration Invests $2.7 Billion to Improve and Expand Rural Electric Infrastructure
Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the conservative media empire that owns Fox News, acknowledged in a deposition that several hosts for his networks promoted the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, and that he could have stopped them but didn’t, court documents revealed.
But under oath, Murdoch said in response to direct questions about the Fox hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, according to a legal filing by Dominion Voting Systems, “They endorsed.”
“I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight,” he added, while also disclosing that he was always dubious of Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.
Asked whether he doubted Mr. Trump, Mr. Murdoch responded: “Yes. I mean, we thought everything was on the up-and-up.”
At the same time, he rejected the accusation that Fox News as a whole had endorsed the stolen election narrative.
“Not Fox,” he said. “No. Not Fox.”
Murdoch Acknowledges Fox News Hosts Endorsed Election Fraud Falsehoods
No, we didn’t run over the Kansas City mobster outside the Waffle Hut and start a gang war, the dingbat hair dresser said in Fargo. “We slipped on the ice and hit a tree.”
As the state cop told her, and I’m telling you, “You are dead already and you don’t even know it.”
I know this must seem like a contradiction.
The global population is projected to hit 9 billion people in the next 12 years.
Related: Global Population Reaches Eight Billion People: Is This Really Something to Celebrate?
But the vast majority of the growth in population will be in Africa and India, the poorest places on Earth where the next pandemic will arise.
At that point the planet and the world population will begin to crash. Many places will become uninhabitable — in 12 years.
Look how many people died of covid around the world. To date:
And scientists agree another pandemic is inevitably coming.
What about earthquakes?
The number of people killed by the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria earlier this month has now passed 50,000, according to the latest figures from both countries.
Death toll climbs above 50,000 after Turkey, Syria earthquakes
Climate Change
The thousand pound gorilla in the room is climate change due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels for energy and transportation.
Do you recognize this sentence? The New American Journal is the only news outlet in the world to say it like this. Google it if you don’t believe me. It didn’t come from ChatGPT. I wrote it.
Surely you have noticed the extreme weather this winter. I remember writing with surprise about tornadoes in the American South at Christmas. Now they are coming every other week in January.
Hurricane season is also getting longer and more pronounced into the fall.
Cattle ranches are going out of business all over the American West because there is no water or grass.
So the fast food companies look to the Amazon, where the entire rain forest is being cleared with fire to make cow pastures to produce the beef to keep McDonald’s in business, Trump’s favorite burger.
And the planet just grows ever warmer.
Trump got rid of regulations passed by the Obama administration to make trains safer, then went to Ohio to campaign for president again and people turned out in droves to see him, believing the massive train wreck that released a massive amount of toxic pollution into the air and water would not have happened if he had been king.
Ohio train derailment waste grows as EPA struggles to find disposal sites
Even the otherwise smart people in the Biden administration think it was a good idea to shoot down the spy balloon from China, to appear tough for American voters and Chinese Communist bureaucrats.
I’m here to warn you right now that we could NOT win a war with China. This is an American fantasy. Even the vaunted New York Times is too afraid to tell you the whole truth, all while running guest op-eds to give you a hint.
A War With China Would Be Unlike Anything Americans Faced Before
The author failed to mention it, but China holds the vast majority of America’s massive national debt. They make most of the cheap crap people buy at Walmart. If they wanted to disrupt American lives over night like Russia is disrupting and destroying life in Ukraine, it would not be hard for them.
No, it would not be in the interest of their people either, certainly not in the interest of the world, or human life on this planet.
But they are just as susceptible to egotism and narcissism as Trump and all his followers, as well as many people on Facebook.
They are human. The selfish gene has now been pumped up on steroids, while the altruistic gene has been weakened to the breaking point. It’s not your fault.
And it’s certainly not mine.
I’ve been writing about what was coming and trying to explain it to people for years.
Start here.
If Hate Trumps Love, and War Trumps Peace, Only Altruism Can Combat Selfishness
But I know people are not going to listen, or do anything to change things. How naive.
But the U.S. C.I.A. might be able to do something. If they would fucking listen to me and we could get the funding we need to counter what Zuckerberg is doing at Facebook, and what Elon Musk is doing at Twitter.
War in Ukraine Drags On: Is it Time for ‘Regime Change’ in Russia?
The universe is vast. Why can’t we be humbled by that and work together to save our tiny planet?
