Decline

 I'd like to strongly encourage folks to watch this 7-minute video of Patrick Bet-David having a discussion with Adam Stokes on the topic of the decline of America.

The point here that Patrick makes....the nation is headed toward a messy situation where people expect 'X' and the mechanism we are built upon....simply can't deliver 'X'.

If you gaze around at kids finishing college, and having a debt of $80k over student loans....things are pretty screwed up.

If you gaze around California and look at restaurants and pubs shutdown, with dismal recovery in the works....things are screwed up.

If you gaze at President Biden's tax chatter....things are pretty screwed up.

If you look at the hotel and airline industry, things are screwed up.

I would suggest for the next three or four years....it's a pretty dark period to emerge, and our patience will be tested to last the period.  

A Little Story

 Somewhere around the ninth-grade, I picked up Mary Shelly's book 'Frankenstein'.  After finishing it....I sat for about a week...off and on, thinking over the writing, the story, the good doctor's efforts, and the conclusion.

There's one single bit over the book and Shelly, that I didn't realize until the 1990s when reading through an article.  The book goes back to 1818.  A British gal....Shelly, then roughly 21 years....had a 'contest' brewing between her boyfriend (Shelley), and his buddy (Lord Byron).  

The 'contest'?  Who could write the better horror story?  During the contest period, she was traveling through Germany, and was in the region of the Odenwald Forest, near Darmstadt. Something 'clicked'.  

Amusingly enough....no one rarely mentions the two guys in this contest or what they wrote as a 'horror' story.  What Lord Byron attempted to write, was 'Fragment of a Novel', which was supposed to be a vampire story....but the manuscript was never finished.  As for Percy Shelly?  He made an effort but never got anywhere on the story business (remember, he was a poet at heart).

What can be said about the German landscape and Darmstadt?  This was the period where the Brothers Grimm were busy, and there were literally millions of tales or home-spun stories which were being told at pubs and homes.  Some were about enchanted women....some about demons....some about magical unicorns, and some related to crazed beasts.  

It was an era where travel was going on....a lot more people were engaged in idle chatter in roadside inns in the evening hours, and they were sharing stories they'd heard weeks or months prior.  Yes of course....a bit of booze probably helped to relax the mind, and the story being told was probably more 'gripping'.

The end result with 'Frankenstein'?  No matter how good the doctor's intent was....what emerged was some creature that could not be controlled or guided.  From the moment of creation....the creature was absolutely a threat.  Consequences?  You could write an entire book over this story, and the consequences that were laid out.  

It's an odd challenge that was laid out, and you to wonder.....why get into a competition about scary horror things?  Why not write a romance piece, or some unsolvable murder?  So this is the consequence of that one single evening....the challenge over a year to lead onto the creation of 'Frankenstein'.  

News

 I tried to watch forty-five minutes of CNN news yesterday.

Before November of 2020....you could make the case that vast majority of a one-hour show was a majority of some roundtable effort (five folks) whipping President Trump as much as possible.  There might have been five minutes talking over some climate disaster in Thailand, some Russian passenger jet crashing, and maybe some mention of pythons being found in the Everglades.....but it was mostly the anti-Trump hour.

So yesterday?  Some brief mention of Brazil President Lula being freed-up (out of prison).  Another mention of this Tanzanian President having died from Covid-19 (he had done daily presentations to the public to pray for people to recover).  There was some mention of Wall Street worry over inflation.  And some chatter of President Biden hyping that the government is part of the long-term solution to the virus.

To be blunt, watching CNN now (compared against summer of 2020) is like taking some antidepressants or watching it while have a four-star flu (feeling like it's running at three-quarters speed).

At the end of 45 minutes.....I hit the Netflix button, and watched two episode of Trailer-Park Boys.  It brought me back to life.   

I'm not going to dump a lot of criticism over CNN (they probably deserve it)....but the idea that there's plenty of news to get you hyped-up over a day?  That suggestion is a joke.  

I would imagine that several CNN folks quietly now wish that Trump was still around, and drilling down into the enthusiasm every single day.  

Trees Discussion

 This morning, I watched a 14-minute discussion via DarkHorse Podcasts (off YouTube)....with two PhD folks, and the topic was this new science study which says....trees are beneficial not only to your status in life, but to your mental positive feelings as well.

I would strongly recommend a viewing of it, and you might want to sit for a while and ponder over this.  

Weird study?  I would suggest that, but I don't think they were expecting the outcome to be this way.

A stamp of positive words over trees?  No.  It really invites more study, and probably gathering up 5k people....some who live in treeless communities and some living in rural areas surrounded by trees.

As a kid....I had a fascination with trees because of the four seasons and how trees were revolving calendar.  Around October, you had the yearly leaf raking....to the end of the yard, and then a fire on a windless day....to burn the leaves away.  Course today....folks get real hyped up if you do something like that.

In my late 30s....I spent a couple of years living in Tucson, Arizona.  To put it mildly.....it's the most treeless place that you can live.  Every couple of months, we'd drive up the mountainside....to the 'peak', where everything was covered with pine trees.  I always came back from this six-hour trip....charged up and feeling more positive.  

Something to this trees thing relating to positive feelings?  It wouldn't shock me at all.

The Interview

 I sat and watched the three clips of George Stephanopoulos doing the interview with President Biden.  

So I'll make four observations:

1.  George does lead off and ask the big question of the border chaos, and what you get is a marginal two-star couple of minutes of explanation.  There is no follow-up....no challenges....no in-depth discussion.  On the part of Stephanopoulos, I'd give him marginal scores how this was handled.

2.  The five minutes on the legislative agenda?  It's nifty talk and showing some path to the future.  Beyond that?  Getting any of it passed is a big question-mark.  

3.  On wit and cognitive skills....nothing stands out.  I admit....it did seem rehearsed to some degree, but at no point did Joe's wife have to step in to halt the interview.

4. Finally, if you brought out 'hyped-up' or 'thrilling'.....comparing against President Obama or President Clinton....Biden just doesn't rack up or compare at this point in his life to Obama or Clinton.  Look, folks didn't really vote for him to be the savior-President....he's just some replacement in their mind to President Trump.  That's the sales pitch....the reason you accept a 24-year-old car with 300k miles on it....because you have literally no real choices.

How long before the next interview?  I would make a humble guess that you won't see this type of interview done again until the summer vacation period comes up.  

Watching Video

I sat last night and watched raw video from the Texas border....around six minutes worth....with migrant 'kids' who've crossed the border.

So three things really stand out.  For each female you see (teenage female)....there's probably twelve male migrant 'kids'.  For male 'kid' age?  I'd put the bulk of males at ages fourteen to sixteen.  Finally....at least three 'kids' from this video collection...I'd put at age six to eight.  

A magnificent mess?  

You go and listen to the PhD guys do the numbers and they generally believe between now and the end of the year.....between 175k and 200k 'youths' will arrive at the border.  The Biden policy?  They won't be sent home.

So then you ask....how do you handle this?

My humble guess/scenario?

You go to one-hundred-odd communities around the US, and approach the city-child-services organization....more or less....stating that you will dump kids at their door-step.

In the beginning, it'll be a busload of sixty kids that they dump. A city like SF will hype up their acceptance, and the SF child-services agency will demand around $50,000 a year per kid....to cover maintenance, housing, food, medical care, English tutoring, and school costs.  

A month later (April)....another sixty passenger bus arrives.  The cost factor moves up a notch....$55k a year.  

A month later (May)....another sixty passenger bus arrives.  SF child-services now admit a problem in managing the young males (13-to-17 years old).  They admit that a quarter of their in-home managers have quit because of intimidation or threats. They up the cost factor to $65k a year.

A month later (June)....three sixty passenger buses arrive.  SF child-services is now in crisis mode and admitting that thirty of the 'kids' from the original bus have disappeared.  They also admit that five of the 'kids' are in juvenile detention, and legal help is costly.  They tell the US government (the Biden administration) that the new cost level is $95k a year.  

A month later (July)....nine sixty passenger buses arrive.  SF child-service has reached maximum crisis level and admitting that they have lost track of 150 of the kids delivered since March.  The new rate of cost?  It's reaching upwards to $125k per kid, per year.

Journalists in August from various bay area news outlets are now asking if the crisis can ever be brought under control.  

The mayor and city council by November...reach a stage where they tell the Biden administration that they've hit maximum capacity, and they want roughly $300k per year.  

That's just one single town on one single scenario.  Multiply it by 100.  

Fake

 Glenn Greenwald wrote a piece today.....where he's judging a number of news outlets that have created 'fact-checkers'.

So Glenn went and suggested that various fact-checkers are just stamping various stories as fact, with little to no research.  So they go and spread around a story....claiming such-and-such news source told some factual story, then weeks and months later....the 'facts' on the table area deemed 'fake'.  

You stand there....not only was the original source fraud....but the fact-checkers stamped once-over, and made it a second time fraud.

Added to this issue....part of the facts (originally made up)....were passed out via the FBI, State Department or CIA....which were fraudulent as well. Three times over....fake.

So you stand there....the consumer, and after forty-odd times of being faked-out, you start to wonder....on a weekly basis, how much is fraud?  Ten-percent?  Thirty-percent?  Fifty-percent?

At some point, you just give up, and avoid reading these sources (like WaPo or NY Times).  

A society that has limited or marginal trust?  The same society is dependent upon democracy to work, but it can't function in this type of circumstance?

It's like some fake reality show now.