In China, I periodically have problems with intestinal and stomach gas from time to time. You know, I do like the spicy food, and all the rest. And it can get to be a problem with the farting and the burping.
Rather than take medicine for it, or anything like that… I discovered that a tall glass of watermelon juice takes care of the entire problem. One glass and the problem goes away.
That is, however, if the origin of the gas is from the stomach.
Anyways… Surprised me!
Ah, this is a little trick and suggestion for you foodies out there. Instead of medicines. Please take the time to drink watery fruit juices. Watermelon seems to work. Don’t really know about the other fruit, though.
Watermelon juice.
Cures stomach gas.
Things you won’t hear anywhere else.
Metallicman.
LOL.
Today…
Mourabiedes
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups butter
- 2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/2 cup coarsely grated or finely chopped almonds
- 3 1/2 cups flour
- 2 pounds confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
- Heat oven to 275 degrees F.
- Cream butter until light and fluffy.
- Mix in the 2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar and egg yolk, creaming well. Beat in almonds. Stir flour; measure and gradually add just enough flour to make a soft dough that you can shape with your hands. Pinch off pieces of dough the size of a walnut and roll between your hands. Shape into half moons or stylized S shapes.
- Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes or until lightly browned.
- Remove from oven; let cool in pan until lukewarm.
- Sift confectioners’ sugar onto wax paper.
- Carefully transfer the cookies from baking sheet to sugared paper. Sift more sugar over the top, coating them at least 1/4 inch with sugar. Let stand until cool; then store in a cookie jar or crock.
Makes about 30.
Preparing For The Collapse Of Society
by Michael
Are you convinced that we are headed for societal collapse? If so, you are definitely not alone. Survey after survey has shown that faith in all of our major institutions is dropping, and there is a growing consensus that very challenging times are ahead of us. Here in 2024, we will be facing the most chaotic election season in our entire history, multiple wars are erupting all over the planet, economic problems are rapidly growing, destructive natural disasters are becoming more frequent, global authorities are warning us to brace ourselves for the next pandemic, and our cities are being absolutely overwhelmed by endless waves of new migrants. The stage is set for a societal implosion of epic proportions, and many Americans are feverishly preparing for a coming collapse that they believe is inevitable.
For a long time, many people had faith that the government would be able to keep society stable, but now that has changed. In fact, one recent survey discovered that a whopping 71.2 percent of all Americans “have no faith in the U.S. government to save them or prevent a doomsday event”…
According to a survey of 6,200 Americans conducted by BonusFinder.com, 71.2 percent of Americans say they have no faith in the U.S. government to save them or prevent a doomsday event. Even more unnerving, many respondents believe Doomsday could come within the next year.
If you actually believe that the government will be there to rescue you when things really start hitting the fan, you are just being delusional.
If it was equally divided up among the entire population, the emergency supplies that the government has on hand would last less than a day.
Many Americans are realizing that they will be forced to rely on themselves as society collapses, and so an increasing percentage of the population is spending significant money on emergency preparedness…
Last April, the financial-services firm Finder found that the number of Americans who said they’d recently spent money on emergency preparedness jumped from 20% in 2020 to 29% in 2023. They spent an average of $150 on items such as nonperishable food, medical supplies, and cases of water. Today you can’t turn on a streaming platform without catching recommendations for popular survivalist reality shows such as “Alone” or “Naked and Afraid,” and on social media, homesteading and disaster-prepping influencers have amassed millions of followers across various platforms.
Disaster preparedness is on the rise, in large part, because disasters are as well: from the supply-chain shortages caused by COVID-19 lockdowns to the climate crisis, from wars in Ukraine and Gaza to tech-driven loneliness, from runaway disinformation to intractable political polarization. More people are asking: Am I better off being hyperdependent on the global industrial economy? Would it be safer to grow my own food, store my own water, and not depend on complex systems I don’t understand?
I am glad that more people are waking up and getting prepared.
But spending a couple hundred dollars on some emergency preparedness items simply is not going to be enough to survive what is eventually coming.
In Missouri, one woman named Rowan MacKenzie has literally spent $90,000 to prepare her family for what she believes is ahead of us…
A woman who has built a doomsday bunker says the door will remain closed to anyone outside her home, including family.
Rowan MacKenzie, from Missouri, who became a social media phenomenon after revealing she’s been prepping her home for 12 years, believes it’s necessary to prepare for the end of the world.
She previously hit the headlines after revealing she spent over $90,000 on her hidden bunker stockpile.
The 38-year-old began stocking up her cupboards 13 years ago and initially, bought lifelong essentials, such as beans and rice, which she taught herself to preserve through trial and error.
Do you agree with her approach?
When things get really bad, will you shut your door to those that are requesting help?
Of course there are many that will just try to take whatever they need. Crime rates are already spiking all over the nation, and violent predators are seemingly everywhere. Earlier this week, Zero Hedge posted an excellent article about the vast hordes of psychopaths that are coming out of the woodwork these days…
Discussions on collapse often turn to signs and signals – The economy, politics and social tensions have become increasingly unstable for many years now, and much like adding more and more weight to a man standing on a frozen lake, eventually the ice is going to break. The question is, how do we know when that moment will be?
As cultural systems begins to dissolve due to political clashes and economic decline the real evil tends to slither out of the woodwork. It happens slowly at first, then all at once. A sure sign of accelerating collapse is the growing prevalence of psychopaths and psychopathic behavior in the open.
The US appears to have entered the middle stages of such a collapse with many sociopaths and psychopaths beginning to feel that they might be able to act out their worst impulses without consequences. They are beginning to test the waters to see what they can get away with.
Those paragraphs really resonated with me, because they are so true.
I am sure that you have noticed the same thing. Evil is literally growing all around us, and the inmates are taking over the asylum.
And I am entirely convinced that 2024 is going to be a historic turning point.
Are you ready for the tremendous chaos that is coming?
If you have not figured out where you want to be located during the chaotic years that are ahead, that is the first thing that you need to do.
Once you have settled on a location, then you need to store up enough food and supplies for yourself and for everyone that will be depending upon you for as long as you plan to stay alive.
Of course you will also need to determine how you will protect all of your food and supplies as well.
This is not a game.
The collapse of society really is coming, and most of the population will find themselves completely and utterly unprepared when it finally happens.
Doomed by decoupling
The West falls further behind
| Godfree Roberts Jan 29 2024 |
We are decoupling from China and, a fortiori, from its technology, and from the 130 countries in its currency, trade and defense alliances. Highlights from 2023 suggest that we are far behind – and the gap is widening.
Economy
In 2023, China’s economy grew by $1.6 trillion, more than the rest of the world’s combined – while the USA borrowed $3 trillion to fund $300 billion GDP growth. Real wages grew 4.7% and demographics will remain healthy through 2043. 21 million tourists flew during Golden Week and spent $3 billion in Xinjiang alone. Hangzhou hosted more athletes at the Asian Games than the Olympics and domestic brands Anta and Li-Ning outsold Nike and Adidas.
Research
Young Science became the world’s #3 journal and is rapidly overtaking incumbent leaders Nature and Science. With a $228 billion corporate R&D budget, 3 million Chinese scientists applied for almost as many patents as the rest of the world combined, and utterly dominated the top 1% of most influential papers. Huawei’s R&D budget alone is larger than the US CHIPS and Science Act.
Health
Researchers there cured thalassemia, reversed autism and aging, provided Covid immunization with a dry powder aerosol, curednasopharyngeal cancer, constipation, atherosclerosis and improved Alzheimer’s memory and functionality. They grew human kidneys in pig embryos and oversaw the first live birth of chimeric monkeys
Hard Tech
Scientists created the first graphene semiconductor, while Betavolt began shipping an atomic energy battery that powers consumer devices for 99 years.
Huawei mastered 7nm chip production (Intel still has not), replaced WiFi with 6x faster NearLink, took Apple’s #1 spot in the world’s largest market with a phone using 90% domestic components. Chinese chip foundries bought 62% of machinery equipment domestically this year, vs. 47% last year, and produced the first integrated neuro-memristor and the first 232 layer flash memory. Researchers set a record for high-rate quantum key distribution, showed off the first ambient superionic hydride ion conductor, the first primate brain-computer interface and an integrated neuro-memristor chip that will make circuit boards obsolete.
Macro inventions included the first waterless nuclear reactor, the most powerful solid-fuel rocket, the first liquid oxygen/methane rocket (it lifted 6 tonnes into sun-synchronous orbit), the world’s only Mach 30 wind tunnel, lasers generating high-energy beams indefinitely, and the first high-orbit Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite for 24×7 weather observation.
The country installed 80 million kW of PV and PV generated 300 billion kWh nationwide, 30% above 2022. CATL’s EV batteries get 400 km on 15 min. charge and 700 km. on a regular charge at all temperatures. In addition to installing 290,000 industrial robots – more than the rest of the world combined – it put AESA radars on $8,000 farm drones (only four countries can make them – for fighter jets). Its 800 million 5G subscribers are served by 3.2 million base stations and integrated 5G industry applications into 67 economic categories with 100,000 application cases. Tibet’s 5G service surpassed California’s.
Environment
In the wilderness that covers 42% of China’s landmass, conservationists counted 70,000 Tibetan antelopes, 3,400 Przewalski’s gazelles, 5,000 golden snub-nosed monkeys and 1200 Snow Leopards.
Wind powered 15% of China’s energy and PV generated 300 billion kWh, up 30% on 2022, and factories produce 30,000 tons of green hydrogen annually. Gasoline demand peaked in 2023, and diesel will peak this year.
Geopolitics
mBridge, the Hong Kong-based digital currency platform that allows countries to trade in their own currencies, completed its millionth international transaction. 152 countries signed BRICS agreements and boosted mutual trade by 19% and lifted 40 million people out of poverty. The BRI News Network began broadcasting to 107 countries.
Defense
A hypersonic missile flew around the planet, launching and retrieving a mystery vehicle. The world’s most powerful radar chip makes planes and ships visible off Australia coast and the first terahertz submarine detector tracks submarines’ bubbles
US users rush in as China opens its top quantum computer Origin Wukong to the world, state media reports
- US tops list of users from 61 countries to have accessed Origin Wukong remotely in 10 days, Science and Technology Daily reports
- Co-founder of firm that built machine cites notion of ‘scientific exploration without borders’, though ‘US quantum computers are not open to China’
China’s independently developed state-of-the-art quantum computer, Origin Wukong, was opened up to global users 10 days ago.
Since then, remote visitors from 61 countries have been able to access the superfast computer, with the United States topping the list, Chinese state media reported on Tuesday.
The Science and Technology Daily, published by the ministry of the same name, said the number of remote accesses to Origin Wukong had surpassed 350,000 as of 10am on Monday.
Users from Bulgaria, Singapore, Japan, Russia and Canada were among those who logged in, but the US led the tally, it said, without providing specific numbers.
The machine had completed 33,871 quantum computing tasks for global users since it became operational on January 6, the report added.
Named after the Monkey King of Chinese mythology, Origin Wukong is China’s first home-grown third-generation superconducting quantum computer.
Origin Quantum, the company behind the feat, was founded in 2017 by Guo Guoping and Guo Guangcan – leading quantum physicists at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in southeastern Anhui province.
“US quantum computers are not open to China,” Guo Guoping told the Post. “But, adhering to the notion of scientific exploration without borders, we are willing to open our services to users around the world, including the US, to jointly promote the concept of quantum computing for the benefit of mankind.”
Quantum computing is seen as a disruptive technology. It uses elementary particles called qubits, short for quantum bits, as its basic unit of information – equivalent to the digital bits used in traditional computing.
China and the United States are among major world powers racing to be No 1 in utilising the key technology, which has the potential to transform many fields, including healthcare, finance and data security.
Origin delivered its first superconducting quantum computer to the domestic market in 2020. The country’s first practical quantum computer was also from Origin – the 24-qubit Wuyuan second generation machine that was delivered to an undisclosed user in 2021.
The feat made China the third country – after Canada and the US – to gain the capability to deliver a complete quantum computing system.
The Wukong is powered by a 72-qubit home-made superconducting quantum chip, also called the Wukong chip.
Jia Zhilong, a director in charge of quantum chip research and development at Origin, said the launch of this locally made chip and computer was akin to an “entry ticket” to the field of superconducting quantum computer manufacturing.
He said it showed that China was capable of independently producing scalable quantum computer chips and systems of a certain size, local newspaper Anhui Daily reported earlier this month.
Kong Weicheng, another researcher at Origin, told the paper that the company’s latest powerful machine could send out and execute up to 200 quantum circuits at one time, giving it a greater speed advantage.
Despite these advances, the quantum gap between Chinese players and their Western counterparts remains wide.
In November 2022, America’s IBM launched its 433-qubit “Osprey” processor, the world’s fastest quantum computer at the time. In October last year, Californian start-up Atom Computing left the Osprey behind with the debut of its first quantum computer with more than 1,000 qubits. Two months later, IBM unveiled the Condor with 1,121 superconducting qubits.
Although having more qubits does not necessarily mean better performance, large numbers will be needed to build error-free quantum computers that would be more useful than today’s “noisy” research machines, involving a certain probability of errors during the calculation process.
Quantum computers offer a faster, more efficient method of calculation than traditional computers. Photo: Shutterstock
Chinese scientists acknowledge the gap with the West.
In late 2022, Zhang Hui, general manager of Origin Quantum, said China was at the forefront of global quantum science research but “relatively behind” in quantum computing.
The development of quantum computers involves many advanced engineering issues, Zhang told Chinese news outlet 观察者网. This includes the production of superconducting chips and traditional semiconductors – both crucial hi-tech areas where China lags behind the US and the West.
He added that there was a huge gap between China and the US in the industrial applications of quantum computing.
“Leading players such as IBM and Google started exploring industrial applications as early as the 1990s. But it’s only since the establishment of Origin Quantum in 2017 that we started exploring industrial applications,” Zhang said.
However, whether featuring 72 or more than 1,000 qubits – quantum computers are not about to replace conventional ones soon. At this stage, they can only perform very specific tasks for short periods of time in a protected environment.
Numerous technical challenges, such as the ability to correct errors, have led some scientists to forecast that a practical quantum computer is still years, if not decades, away.
9 People Reveal Their Frustrations Of Being Raised By Overbearing Asian Parents
By Nick Lee | January 22, 2024
1. I visited a family friend with my parents, and while we were on our way back, my dad said he was discussing with the other parents about how me and their child, and most Asian children in this generation aren’t decisive/willing to take risks at all. I literally exploded.
Like why the fuck do you think we are this way?
Don’t you think maybe if you guys weren’t so fucking stingy with compliments and over critical with every single little mistake we made growing up then we would be a bit more confident and not deathly afraid of making mistakes???
Kid grow up to reflect how they are raised, it’s not like all of the Asian kids had a secret meeting and we just all decided to be constantly insecure and anxious as fuck and afraid of making decisions/mistakes in our life.
No, our parents literally raised us to be fucked up and then complain about it like we decided to be fucked up. Asian parents literally have no fucking clue how raising a child works.
They raise their child toxically and then expect them to magically turn out like they were actually raised by mentally healthy and loving parents. Fuck you.
I turned out to be insecure and anxious and pessimistic and afraid of mistakes/decisions because you raised me this way.
I’m not even holding grudges, but stop acting like I chose to be like this, no one would choose to be like this.
2. Asian parent logic: I must berate and emotionally abuse my children. I will never apologize to my children for any mistakes, even if they are my fault. I will not respect their boundaries.
At the same time, I demand fearful obedience, financial support in old age, and unconditional devotion.
Asian parents expect children to adhere to a social code that they don’t even reciprocate. It is insane to abuse a child, rip away any sense of self worth from them and expect them to love you. How is a child suppose to even reciprocate or learn something that was never taught or shown??????????
God forbid I ever bring this up to the pea sized brains of my parents. I don’t want kids because I don’t want to perpetuate this toxicity. It can rot with my childless body when I die.
3. It amazes me that parents think doing the bare minimum as parents is deserving of lifelong gratitude.
“We fed you and housed you and bought you clothes and let you go to school”
You are literally supposed to do that for your children. Don’t have children if you don’t expect to do this as a parent, you idiots.
Like you feeding and clothing your kids make you an exceptional parent. I mean what was the alternative?
Child services being contacted was the only other option. You don’t get praised in school for getting 50%.
4. My mum is always comparing me to someone. This includes but is not limited to: my sibling, my cousins, distant relatives, my OWN friends, random news stories about 8 year old prodigies… Even Obama.
It’s gotten to the point where I’ve literally heard it all until today I was gushing about BTS and how proud I am of them for coming so far especially with their Grammy nomination, when my mum said this:
“Look at BTS working so hard. Why don’t you work as hard as them? They are so hard working. You’re not even worth BTS.”
5. Asian Parents sometimes like to say that we are “ungrateful” and “entitled”. I think the opposite. I think THEY are the ones who are ungrateful and entitled.
They assume we should be automatically happy after being provided a “roof on your head, food to eat, clothes to wear”. They assume that just because of these things, we should be willing to do anything and everything they want, exactly the way they want it, whenever they want it.
That’s called being entitled.
They don’t like the fact that we have our own emotions, our own plans. It means, in their eyes, that we are “ungrateful”. However, being called ungrateful is nothing more than an insult. It holds no weight, parents are just mad that their directions are not being followed. Instead of appreciating that you have a child who does even decently at school, or piano, or anything, you hold them up to these ridiculous standards, always expecting more than what they have.
That in my view, is called being ungrateful.
6. The problem with Asian parents is that they refuse to look at us as separate human beings with our own thoughts, emotions, etc.
They also want control over every aspect of their life, I guess this extends to control of their kids.
And THEN they act surprised when all this backfires. “Oh, WHY IS HE LYING TO US”. Maybe because you restrict fucking everything? Come on.
7. Expecting kids to behave according to cultural practices of a place 1000s of miles away goes against our nature as human beings
As a student of science and psychology specifically, it kills me to see asian parents expecting their children who came here young or were born here to follow norms of a country in some other continent. It literally goes against our nature to adapt to places that are NOT in our immediate environment. It is completely abnormal and dysfunctional to raise kids with the expectation. If you are westnerized and live in the west then that means you are showing signs of healthy human behavior. We are not meant to stay in one time and place or adapt to environments that are not ours. We’d not make it as a species if this were the case.
I’ve seen parents who have been here for decades (my own especially) who literally show immense pride for not changing and still being very cultured. That’s insane to me. If you’re in a country for 30 years and you still live like you were back home then there is something incredibly dysfunctional about you. That’s not normal and horrible for your kids and this is because there is all this pressure to adhere to a place that they’ve never lived in while telling them to actively reject the place that you do.
Don’t get me wrong, I think celebrating your culture is great and incorporating culture in your life if thats your thing is fine. However, celebrating your culture and imposing culture on kids are very different and often the culture being imposed is not even the current culture back home anyways. What really happens (and I’m basing this on my mom) is that people back home have changed and grown and she has stuck in some 1970s time capsule that she keeps telling me to believe is what our culture back home looks like now.
8. I am every tiger parent’s dream daughter, and I am miserable
Thin, youthful, physically attractive, athletic, near-perfect health. Attended a top U.S. engineering school. Software engineer at Google. On track to be top 1% income and top 6% wealth for my age group within a year.
Yet they treat me like shit. Constantly screaming. Criticizing my every purchase. Asking how much I paid for certain items (coffee, food, bicycle) and complaining that I spend too much money. Not to mention back when I was a child I was screamed at and beaten every day, despite being a pretty good daughter. I have accomplished everything a tiger parent could ask for, yet I am miserable and so are my parents.
9. Turning 30 next month. My entire teens and 20s up to 27 was wasted. The best years of my life, under the vice grip of my overbearing, manipulative parents.
I was forced to commute to university. Never had the uni experience. Just classes and back home. By the time I entered the work world I was extremely under developed socially.
I got a great first job at a famous brand but compared to all the other grads there I was so far behind in every sense of being a professional. They were all great at shmoozing and articulating themselves. Being fun without being creepy. Being assertive in meetings and presentations. Organizing after-work grad socials etc. Meanwhile, I was the complete opposite of all that.
Even just everyday conversations they were all so well versed in different topics. Meanwhile I was sooo sheltered I had nothing to add to a conversation or tell a story. Mate, even my vocabulary, and literally how I string sentences together was underdeveloped.
And when I tried to fit in it came across very contrived and probably very creepy. I quit the job a year in because it was easier to run than get “found out”.
I didn’t start dating til 22. Even this was half-hearted because of the mental programming by APs and forced to stay at home, curfew and general overbearingness by them.
They didn’t know I was dating. But whenever I would go out my mum would literally harass me with calls and shouting when I got back home it was just easier to be an incel than deal with her bullshit.
Had no hobbies, because these were all labelled a waste of time.
Normally I used the gym to block and drown these regrets and feelings of self-pity. But since lockdown and no gym I’ve been abusing drink and food to avoid these thoughts. I just cant get over it. And I know these feelings will get worse the older I get and more time distance from my 20s.
I feel like at 29 I am at the development level of where most normal 20 year olds are.
I absolutely resent my parents and myself. I have immense self hate because of this shit.
Gonzalo Lira Died for Pneumonia without Therapy in Prison for Months! How, Why Zelensky’s SBU Tortured US Journalist
The imprisoned blogger suggested that this was because Victoria Nuland hated him personally
By Fabio G. C. Carisio January 27, 2024
Ukrainian Jailers ignored Gonzalo Illness for Months
UPDATE ON JANUARY, 27
Chilean-American war commentator Gonzalo Lira died shortly before noon on January 11, 2024 at a hospital in Kharkiv, where he had been imprisoned for eight months since he was accused of justifying Russian war efforts in Ukraine.
«A note written by Lira and provided by his father to The Grayzone indicates his death came after a nearly three-month battle with pneumonia, a condition which was apparently ignored by his Ukrainian jailers until just weeks before his death. Lira’s death was revealed by his father, Gonzalo Lira, Sr., who had spent weeks pleading with the American embassy to intervene in his son’s medical emergency» reported The Grayzone.
Emails reviewed by The Grayzone show that after learning of his son’s illness, the senior Lira urged the embassy to intervene on January 3. In a message to US officials, he noted that Ukrainian authorities appeared to make an effort to conceal information about Lira Jr.’s health from his family and legal representatives. “The medical warden in the pre-trial jail in Kharkiv is not giving information as to the state of his health,” he wrote, concluding: “It has been 12 days since I knew his state.”
In Memory of Gonzalo, Victim of Dictatorship
POSTED ON JANUARY, 12
by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio
In every totalitarian regime, be it Nazi, Communist, Jihadist or Zionist extremism, the first enemy is those who try to reveal its hypocrisy, lies, corruption, ferocity and tyranny.
Because every government close to dictatorship, as those of Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel but also Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey are today, can only sustain itself on the illusion of hiding its true essence.
This is why the most feared adversaries are freedom of opinion and expression and therefore journalists, bloggers and whistleblowers.
This is how it is explained that an honest, intelligent and courageous journalist like the American of Chilean origins Gonzalo Lira was tortured to death by the tormentors of the Ukrainian Security Service, the ruthless intelligence managed directly by President Zelensky which has become famous for crimes surgical operations as brutal as they were shameless, comparable only to the brutal actions of the neo-Nazi and Satanist paramilitaries of the Azov Battalion.
Gonzalo is dead.
This is what the father says and two of the most important counter-information sites in the USA and the world support: The GrayZone of Max Blumenthal, arrested in October 2019 in Washington a few days after making public the SETA dossier on Operation MOM of the American counter-espionage of CIA for the supply of TOW anti-tank rocket launchers to Syrian jihadist groups, and Tucker Carson, removed from Fox News after the capital increase of BlackRock, financier of Big Pharma of Covid vaccines as well as of the Arms Lobby that profits from the war in Ukraine.
Russian news agency TASS confirmed the blogger’s death on Saturday, citing a response it received from the US Department of State.
“We can confirm the death of a U.S. citizen in Ukraine. We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss,” a representative of the Department of State told a TASS correspondent in response to a request to comment on the information that Lira died in jail.
On Saturday, US entrepreneur Elon Musk addressed Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, asking him to explain Lira’s arrest and incarceration. Musk voiced his opinion on the issue following Carlson’s post on the X platform asserting that Lira was being “tortured in a Ukrainian prison since July, for the crime of criticizing Zelensky.”
The Murdering Actions of Security Service of Ukraine (SBU)
It was precisely the masked men of Zelensky’s SBU who became the protagonists of the persecution of the priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, an act recently condemned by the UN, and of various assassinations.
The best known of which is certainly that of the Ukrainian banker and secret agent Denys Kyreyev who he was killed in March 2022 because as a member of the delegation for the peace negotiations between Kiev and Moscow he was trying to achieve the goal.
SBU kills member of Ukrainian Delegation at talks with Russia Kyreyev on Suspicion of Treason
While the Ukrainian president, servant of NATO, had the strict order to reject every peace agreement at the cost of having his soldiers and his people massacred as promptly happened, in a way limited only by the precise desire of the Russian president Vladimir Putin to avoid collateral damage to civilians as much as possible, contrary to what is happening in the planned genocide in Gaza.
UN condemns Ukraine’s Crackdown on its largest Christian church
Kyreyev was murdered in cold blood on the street – without trial, as he was accused of treason without evidence – with a mafia, Nazi, jihadist or Zionist execution, just think of the many Arab but also Western journalists killed in Palestine by the snipers of the Israel Defense Forces commanded by Netanyahu.
“Israel targets journalists intentionally”. Gaza reporters share their stories with RT
Real explosive terrorist attacks planned by Ukrainian intelligence instead caused the death of Russian blogger Vladlen Tatarsky and journalist Darya Dugina.
Then attempted to kill the Chief Editor of RT International News TV Channel Margarita Simonyan and journalist Ksenia Sobchak.
Not to forget “the mortar target practice” with which Italian reporter Andrea Rocchelli and his Russian colleague and interpreter Andrej Nikolaevič Mironov were killed in Donbass on May 24, 2014 by the paramilitaries of the Ukrainian National Guard of which the infamous Azov Battalion is part. .
Thanks to the influence of NATO and Italian politicians financed by George Soros, the only defendant Vitaliy Markiv was convicted at first instance but then acquitted by the Supreme Court due to a procedural flaw in the collection of the overwhelming evidence against him.
This is why Gonzalo’s case is not an arrest that ended badly by chance. But it is an act of repression of freedom perpetrated with lethal cruelty as a warning to those seeking truth and freedom of thought in Ukraine.
The fact that all this was allowed to the Zelensky regime financed by the complicity of the White House, of the NATO countries with the money of the American, British and European Peoples is a small example of the US and Western Democracy completely adrift in the same totalitarian regime that allowed the virologist Antony Fauci to censor the truth – now partially admitted before Congress – about the SARS-Cov-2 built in the laboratory and about all the obligations of the pandemic emergency.
Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio
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The imprisoned blogger suggested that this was because Victoria Nuland hated him personally
by Russia Today
Chilean-American blogger Gonzalo Lira has died in a Ukrainian prison, his family said on Friday.
Lira, 55 at the time of his death, lived in Kharkov and blogged as ‘CoachRedPill,’ but switched to YouTube commentary after the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022. He was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) last May and accused of “discrediting” the Ukrainian leadership and the military.
How the West Was Defeated
Pepe Escobar • January 18, 2024
• 1,800 Words
Emmanuel Todd, historian, demographer, anthropologist, sociologist and political analyst, is part of a dying breed: one of the very few remaining exponents of old school French intelligentzia – a heir to those like Braudel, Sartre, Deleuze and Foucault who dazzled successive young Cold War generations from the West down to the East.
The first nugget concerning his latest book, La Défaite de L’Occident (“The Defeat of the West”) is the minor miracle of actually being published last week in France, right within the NATO sphere: a hand grenade of a book, by an independent thinker, based on facts and verified data, blowing up the whole Russophobia edifice erected around the “aggression” by “Tsar” Putin.
At least some sectors of strictly oligarch-controlled corporate media in France simply could not ignore Todd this time around for several reasons. Most of all because he was the first Western intellectual, already in 1976, to have predicted the fall of the USSR in his book La Chute Finale, with his research based on Soviet infant mortality rates.
Another key reason was his 2002 book Apres L’Empire, a sort of preview of the Empire’s Decline and Fall published a few months before Shock & Awe in Iraq.
Now Todd, in what he has defined as his last book (“I closed the circle”) allows himself to go for broke and meticulously depict the defeat not only of the US but of the West as a whole – with his research focusing in and around the war in Ukraine.
Considering the toxic NATOstan environment where Russophobia and cancel culture reign supreme, and every deviation is punishable, Todd has been very careful not to frame the current process as a Russian victory in Ukraine (although that’s implied in everything he describes, ranging from several indicators of social peace to the overall stability of the “Putin system”, which is “a product of the history of Russia, and not the work of one man”).
Rather, he focuses on the key reasons that have led to the West’s downfall. Among them: the end of the nation-state; de-industrialization (which explains NATO’s deficit in producing weapons for Ukraine); the “degree zero” of the West’s religious matrix, Protestantism; the sharp increase of mortality rates in the US (much higher than in Russia), along with suicides and homicides; and the supremacy of an imperial nihilism expressed by the obsession with Forever Wars.
The Collapse of Protestantism
Todd methodically analyses, in sequence, Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Germany, Britain, Scandinavia and finally The Empire. Let’s focus on what would be the 12 Greatest Hits of his remarkable exercise.
1. At the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in February 2022, the combined GDP of Russia and Belarus was only 3.3% of the combined West (in this case the NATO sphere plus Japan and South Korea). Todd is amazed how these 3.3% capable of producing more weapons than the whole Western colossus not only are winning the war but reducing dominant notions of the “neoliberal political economy” (GDP rates) to shambles.
2. The “ideological solitude” and “ideological narcissism” of the West – incapable of understanding, for instance, how “the whole Muslim world seems to consider Russia as a partner rather than an adversary”.
3. Todd eschews the notion of “Weberian states” – evoking a delicious compatibility of vision between Putin and US realpolitik practitioner John Mearsheimer. Because they are forced to survive in an environment where only power relations matters, states are now acting as “Hobbesian agents.” And that brings us to the Russian notion of a nation-state, focused on “sovereignty”: the capacity of a state to independently define its internal and external policies, with no foreign interference whatsoever.
4. The implosion, step by step, of WASP culture, which led, “since the 1960s”, to “an empire deprived of a center and a project, an essentially military organism managed by a group without culture (in the anthropological sense)”. This is Todd defining the US neocons.
5. The US as a “post-imperial” entity: just a shell of military machinery deprived of an intelligence-driven culture, leading to “accentuated military expansion in a phase of massive contraction of its industrial base”. As Todd stresses, “modern war without industry is an oxymoron”.
6. The demographic trap: Todd shows how Washington strategists “forgot that a state whose population enjoys a high educational and technological level, even if it is decreasing, does not lose its military power”. That’s exactly the case of Russia during the Putin years.
7. Here we reach the crux of Todd’s argument: his post-Max Weber reinterpretation of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, published a little over a century ago, in 1904/1905: “If Protestantism was the matrix for the ascension of the West, its death, today, is the cause of the disintegration and defeat.”
Todd clearly defines how the 1688 English “Glorious Revolution”, the 1776 American Declaration of Independence and the 1789 French Revolution were the true pillars of the liberal West. Consequently, an expanded “West” is not historically “liberal”, because it also engineered “Italian fascism, German Nazism and Japanese militarism”.
In a nutshell, Todd shows how Protestantism imposed universal literacy on the populations it controlled, “because all faithful must directly access the Holy Scriptures. A literate population is capable of economic and technological development. The Protestant religion modeled, by accident, a superior, efficient workforce.” And it is in this sense that Germany was “at the heart of Western development”, even if the Industrial Revolution took place in England.
Todd’s key formulation is undisputable: “The crucial factor of the ascension of the West was Protestantism’s attachment to alphabetization.”
Moreover Protestantism, Todd stresses, is twice at the heart of the history of the West: via the educational and economic drive – with fear of damnation and the need to feel chosen by God engendering a work ethic and a strong, collective morality – and via the idea that Men are unequal (remember the White Man’s Burden).
The collapse of Protestantism could not but destroy the work ethic to the benefit of mass greed: that is, neoliberalism.
Transgenderism and the Cult of the Fake
8. Todd’s sharp critique of the spirit of 1968 would merit a whole new book. He refers to “one of the great illusions of the 1960s – between Anglo-American sexual revolution and May 68 in France”; “to believe that the individual would be greater if freed from the collective”. That led to an inevitable debacle: “Now that we are free, en masse, from metaphysical beliefs, foundational and derived, communist, socialist or nationalist, we live the experience of the void.” And that’s how we became “a multitude of mimetic midgets who do not dare to think by themselves – but reveal themselves as capable of intolerance as the believers of ancient times.”
9. Todd’s brief analysis of the deeper meaning of transgenderism completely shatters the Church of Woke – from New York to the EU sphere, and will provoke serial fits of rage. He shows how transgenderism is “one of the flags of this nihilism that now defines the West, this drive to destroy, not just things and humans but reality.”
And there’s an added analytical bonus: “The transgender ideology says that a man may become a woman, and a woman may become a man. This is a false affirmation, and in this sense, close to the theoretical heart of Western nihilism.” It gets worse, when it comes to the geopolitical ramifications. Todd establishes a playful mental and social connection between this cult of the fake and the Hegemon’s wobbly behavior in international relations. Example: the Iranian nuclear dear clinched under Obama becoming a hardcore sanctions regime under Trump. Todd: “American foreign policy is, in its own way, gender fluid.”
10. Europe’s “assisted suicide”. Todd reminds us how Europe at the start was the Franco-German couple. Then after the 2007/2008 financial crisis, that turned into “a patriarchic marriage, with Germany as a dominant spouse not listening to his companion anymore”. The EU abandoned any pretention of defending Europe’s interests – cutting itself off from energy and trade with its partner Russia and sanctioning itself. Todd identifies, correctly, the Paris-Berlin axis replaced by the London-Warsaw-Kiev axis: that was “the end of Europe as an autonomous geopolitical actor”. And that happened only 20 years after the joint opposition by France-Germany to the neocon war on Iraq.
11. Todd correctly defines NATO by plunging into “their unconscious”: “We note that that its military, ideological and psychological mechanism does not exist to protect Western Europe, but to control it.”
12. In tandem with several analysts in Russia, China, Iran and among independents in Europe, Todd is sure that the US obsession – since the 1990s – to cut off Germany from Russia will lead to failure: “Sooner or later, they will collaborate, as “their economic specializations define them as complementary”. The defeat in Ukraine will open the path, as a “gravitational force” reciprocally seduces Germany and Russia.
Before that, and unlike virtually any Western “analyst” across the mainstream NATOstan sphere, Todd understands that Moscow is set to win against the whole of NATO, not merely Ukraine, profiting from a window of opportunity identified by Putin in early 2022. Todd bets on a window of 5 years, that is, an endgame by 2027. It’s enlightening to compare with Defense Minister Shoigu, on the record, last year: the SMO will end by 2025.
Whatever the deadline, inbuilt in all this is a total Russia victory – with the winner dictating all terms. No negotiations, no ceasefire, no frozen conflict – as the Hegemon is now desperate spinning.
Davos enacts The Triumph of the West
Todd’s ample merit, so evident in the book, is to use history and anthropology to take Western society’s false consciousness to the divan. And that’s how, focusing for instance in the study of very specific family structures in Europe, he manages to explain reality in a way that totally escapes the brainwashed collective West masses lingering under turbo-neoliberalism.
It goes without saying that Todd’s reality-based book will not be a hit among the Davos elites. What’s happening this week in Davos has been immensely enlightening. Everything is out in the open.
From all the usual suspects – the toxic EU Medusa von der Leyen; NATO’s warmongering Stoltenberg; BlackRock, JP Morgan and assorted honchos shaking hands with their sweaty sweatshirt toy in Kiev – the “Triumph of the West” message is monolithic.
War is Peace. Ukraine is not (italics mine) losing and Russia is not winning. If you disagree with us – on anything – you will be censored for “hate speech”. We want the New World Order – whatever you lowly peasants think – and we want it now.
And if all fails, a pre-fabricated Disease X is comin’ to get you.
Inside the weird, shady world of click farms
- Monday 22 January, 2024
- Text by Isaac Muk
- Photography by Jack Latham
Jack Latham’s new photobook, Beggar’s Honey, is an unflinching look behind the curtain of the endless stream of content that dominates our lives.
Early in 2023, photographer Jack Latham was in Hong Kong, when he received instructions to visit a nondescript hotel among the city’s densely packed skyscrapers. Over the past four years, he had been searching for access to a click farm – shadowy operations that use large numbers of electronic devices to boost engagement online and manipulate algorithms – and after connecting with some people on hacker forums, he was now visiting one for the first time. Taking the elevator to the top floor, he was shown into a small room where hundreds of smartphones lined the walls, all connected to computers via a dense web of cables.
Eight people worked on the phones, sending thousands of likes and follows to content that they had been paid to promote. “It was quite strange, it almost felt like an office – I felt like I was at a young tech startup, I don’t think anybody there was older than 25, and they broke down the software and how it all works and what you can do,” Latham recalls. “These phones are connected to a main computer and when a client pops up, whether it’s Instagram, Facebook or TikTok, they then enter someone’s profile, which appears on every single phone simultaneously, and you press follow or like.”
The fast engagement artificially inflates the popularity of their posts, as well as tricking algorithms into boosting content more, giving clients the opportunity to go viral quickly. “Each phone is a different account, and each can change its IP address 20 times [a day],” he continues. “Each phone is technically 20 different phones, so you can see how it scales up.”
After that first visit, Latham sought out other click farms across Vietnam and Hong Kong, photographing what he found inside and even purchasing his own farm, which he keeps stowed in the living room of his London apartment. Those shots he took during his travels, showing the endless telephones laid out neatly in rows, are presented in his new photobook Beggar’s Honey, alongside obscured, surreal pictures he manipulated from people who reached out to him asking for boosts to their content.
“The way [the book works] is that you flick through foldouts that look like phones, and you have nothing but content that people have asked me to like on social media as a click farmer,” he explains, before detailing examples of the media he was asked to boost. “There was something about immigrants, other things like how to spot a fake Rolex, there’s lots of nudity, military propaganda and videos of armies, conspiracy videos about the Twin Towers and a conspiracy video about the vaccine.”
Within a landscape of misinformation and disinformation, it’s easy to see how click farms could be used dangerously. “It’s also been used for nefarious reasons, [a member of] the BJP Party in India was found to have been buying fake comments on social media,” he alleges. “I don’t think a lot of people share things on a big scale intentionally to fool people, but people just get fooled by it, and I think content is thrown at you so quickly these days that it’s almost impossible to take notes of what you’re seeing.”
Latham even manipulated the announcement of his book, which proved to be an effective way to engage his followers. “When we initially launched the book, the only time I used it is to promote my initial [Instagram] post,” he says. “So, within 30 minutes, I had 8,000 likes on the post – I could see in real time that this thing was growing and growing.
When I did a lecture one of the people in the audience said, ‘I saw you post it and I bought the book straight away because I thought this book looks incredibly popular, so I should probably buy it.’”
The pictures form a surreal, discomforting look behind the curtain of the endless stream of content that now dominates our consumption of media. Latham’s work helps unravel and interrogate the authenticity of what we view through our screens, while also raising questions about what success means in today’s hyper-online, personal branding driven world.
“I can certainly understand the proclivity for one thing to look popular – say you’re a local bookshop or bike repair shop and you make an Instagram account and it has zero followers and all of a sudden it doesn’t have the same kind of authority as something that maybe has 5,000,” he says. “So I think [using click farms] is incredibly common.
“There’s this need to appear more popular than you are as a form of validation and there’s certainly people in my industry I know who have purchased followers,” he continues. “I think we’re allowing the metrics of social media to infiltrate our self worth in a way that I think is quite fascinating.”
Beggar’s Honey by Jack Latham is published byHere Press.
The Death Of Pop
Note: A British man named Sam Melia has been convicted of speaking freely and faces prison time for it. He is a married man with a young family. If you feel inclined to kick in a few bucks to help him out, do so here. You can also buy something from his family’s online shop. Their tea is exceptional.
Heard a good new song lately? Given the demographics of this site the answer is most likely negative but there are some young people here. If their answer is yes, it is going to be something from the hip-hop genre. Of course, given the demographics of this site they would probably not admit to it. This was the number one hip-hop song last year, in case you are curious. This one was number two, suggesting that the worst form of music has managed to get worse.
When it comes to what most people reading this would call popular music, the results are not much better. This was the most played “rock” song of 2023. One cannot help but wonder if it was created by AI due to its generic power-pop sound. This is the second most played “rock” song, which is not terrible, but it sounds more like a country tune than a rock song. In fact, it was number three on the country charts. This song was the most played song on the country stations.
You can go through the music charts and listen to the top-10 in each category each year and find songs that are pleasant and songs that are hilariously terrible. Miley Cyrus should cut back on that five pack a day habit and spend the savings on some people who can write music that make some sense. The fun part about scanning these music lists is there are many comically stupid entries that got pushed into the top-40 by the mega corporations that control the music business.
When it comes to what most people reading this consider rock-and-roll, the landscape has been barren for a long time. Who is the best guitar player in a rock band that is under the age of forty? No one knows. He probably does not exist because rock music does not exist as a genre anymore. If you want to hear that sort of music you are going to be buying or streaming stuff from thirty, forty or fifty years ago. Even young people who want that style reach back to the oldies.
The question is why has the popular music landscape become a barren desert of corporate product? There are still plenty of young whites who would listen to knew guitar music. Blacks still like things like soul and rhythm and blues. Even blues music could have an audience if anyone bothered. This post by Brian Niemeier goes into the reasons why popular music, especially rock music, has collapsed. He did an earlier post on the same topic discussing different reasons.
Not discussed is the culture of the managerial class. The people running the music business are no different from the people running the other centers of cultural production in that they have had the antiwhite bug for a long time. The music industry went all in on hip-hop in the 1990’s. Part of it was the belief that it was a fresh market and part of it was cultural. For managerial types, hip-hop was cool because it was not white, while rock-and-roll was pale, male and stale.
One result of the money drying up for all forms of music that appeals to white people is white people stopped making that music. They stopped learning to play instruments, stopped forming garage bands and stopped cutting their teeth at clubs. Elementary school bands are full of Asian girls playing violin. There has been a steady decline in the sale of musical instruments over the last few decades, even though technology has made it easier to record at home and make it sound good.
For rock music, this has killed the feeder system for generating new sounds and new acts that made the genre possible. Even if young people were still dreaming of being a rock star, the clubs where they would learn how to perform have dried up. The culture around going to club to find new sounds and new acts has also dried up. When the music industry shifted to hip-hop and corporate pop, they also shut down the development system for creating various genres of rock music.
We are starting to see this in other areas. The military is worried that white guys from the South are no longer signing up as in the past. This decline in white participation is due to the same factors as the decline in white music. If you make your institution openly hostile to white people, they will politely avoid your institution. Before long, you will lose the ability to win them back. A good rule of life for institutions is that once you go black the whites are never coming back.
Race is not the only reason for the decline of rock music. As those Niemeier posts explain, the industry is suffering from systemic failure. There lies another useful example that applies elsewhere. The federal government failed in its duty to maintain a marketplace for music. They allowed corporate players to monopolize radio stations, which coincided with the consolidation of the music business. The result is a narrow system that operates as skimming operation.
We see this in tech. Microsoft has a monopoly on operating systems and office productivity products. Innovation is non-existent in this area. Apple and Google own the mobile telecommunications industry. Despite the hype, there has been nothing interesting in mobile computing for a decade or more. The whole tech space is consolidating to the point where every business will be forced onto one of a few clouds of the cloud computing leviathan.
Of course, all of this can be chalked up to the end of empire. Empires are the result of failed societies, not successful ones. The Roman Empire grew out of the rubble of the failed Roman Republic. For half of its existence the Roman Empire operated like a mafia bust-out operation. The same is happening with the American empire, which grew out of the republic that died at Gettysburg. The main difference with the American empire and prior empires is speed due to the state of technology.
The shame of it is that like the remaining passengers on the Titanic, most Americans would enjoy some good tunes as the empire sinks under the water. That is not looking like it is going to happen, given the state of music. Who knows? Maybe Miley Cyrus will get lucky and made a good song for end-stage America. Or more likely, maybe a cage full of monkeys with some instruments will be the new Oliver Anthony and create an authentic anthem for this age.
Is it weird with KFC the only thing special about what you are basically getting is the flavoured coating and the rest is just chicken which seems to taste the same as any old cooked chicken?
It’s the same with everything. I went to my favorite steak house and found out how they made steaks to die for. There were tricks to getting everything just right, but the defining flavor was from the dry rub, and grilling not frying the steak.
You can get a nice tender blah steak, or a great tender steak and the difference is all in the flavor on the outside of the steak.
Eating plain french fries is OK, but french fries with a salt flavoring are so much better, and depending on your tastes, ketchup, gravy, salt and vinegar, and poutine, are just flavorings on the outside of the French fries, that make a french fry great.
Baked potatoes. Cook up a great baked potato, and try and get anyone to eat it without a topping. Trust me, I have tried, people don’t actually like baked potatoes. They like, salt, pepper, butter sour cream, bacon bits and chives.
Well its the same with the chicken. KFC had a great recipe, they made their name, then bit by bit changed the recipe, so its no longer great. No more deep frying in lard, for example. But its still an awesome coating.
Respect the Accomplishments, Don’t Envy the Person
Posted January 23, 2024 by Ben Carlson
Thomas Edison was once called, “the world’s greatest inventor and the world’s worst businessman.”
A magazine editor dubbed Edison “the most difficult husband in America.”
No one has it all, I guess.
Edison helped push forward the light bulb, phonograph and motion picture camera. By most accounts, he was also a complex person who put his work above everything else in his life.
One story came from a friend who happened to be walking by Edison’s lab late one night. He found Edison dozing off at his desk in the lab.
“What time is it?” asked Edison.
“Midnight,” replied the friend.
“Is that so?” replied Edison who was still waking up from his nap. “By George. I must go home, then. I was married today.”
The guy was in the lab on his wedding night.
Here’s another story from The Wizard of Menlo Park that explains how difficult it was for his wife to get him to leave the laboratory:
A man who did odd jobs around the Menlo Park lab, for example, tells a story of how Mrs. Edison managed to get Mr. Edison home, where she “dolled him up in a fifty-dollar suit.” Edison stayed put for a short while “looking pretty,” then fled for the lab. In the tale, Edison was found at the lab two weeks later, still wearing the same suit, having not been home the whole week.
Edison probably didn’t need to work as hard as he did to achieve his goals. But his personality was such that cutting back on his work simply wasn’t an option. The traits that helped him excel as an inventor also made him a terrible husband.
When I was younger these kinds of stories about people who worked around the clock to create something magical were inspirational. Now that I’m older and my priorities have changed I find these stories sad.
I respect the accomplishments and innovations, but I don’t envy the person anymore.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy working. Striving to get better and work on interesting or challenging projects is important to me. But spending your entire life focused on work seems like a waste.
Maybe it’s a personality thing (I am not a type A at all) or just the stage of life I’m at with young children. I can’t imagine making work my sole priority in life.
Patrick O’Shaughnessy had Michael Ovitz on Invest Like the Best recently. Ovitz is the founder of CAA, the most dominant talent agency ever created in the entertainment business. Ovitz talked about what it takes to be a good founder:
I don’t know a founder that I’ve worked with anywhere that isn’t driven like the snow. And if you can’t keep that pace up for 20 years, and I mean that, there’s no business I’ve ever seen that can get up and running in under seven to 10 years. I don’t know why it’s that number. But if you look around and start seeing when did businesses hit critical mass, it’s seven to 10 years.
And if you don’t have the energy and the desire and that burning sensation in your gut and the fear of failing and a desire to make it for the right reasons, and it can’t just be financial, by the way. You got to want to do something with your gains that’s socially important. That’s a very important item for me, don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it. I’ve been blessed with meeting really great founders and working with some of the brightest young people in our country.
I think that if you don’t want to put the time and effort in and you don’t have a belief — if you don’t believe in your idea, don’t start a business. And if you can’t do momentum, I did 250 calls a day.
Ortiz talked about working 7 days a week, day and night, for 20 years straight to build his business.
This was a theme in Ovitz’s biography Who is Michael Ovitz? as well. I went back to my Kindle notes1 from the book and this passage stood out to me on review:
In 1979, when I was thirty-three, Ted Ashley at Warner Bros. took me aside and said, “I’m going to give you some great advice.” He grinned ruefully. “And, knowing you, you’re not going to take it. But here it is: I could have worked ten percent less, and it wouldn’t have made a difference in my professional success. But I would have been a lot happier.”
Ted was absolutely right on both counts–it was great advice, and I didn’t take it. I see now that I could have worked as much as 20 percent less, and it wouldn’t have cost me. If I’d worked even 10 percent less, across thirty years, that’s three whole extra years of life I’d have enjoyed.
The problem for type-A personality people is they probably can’t dial it back because their hard-charging nature is what got them where they are in the first place.
In his book, Ovitz shared a passage from his friend and former client, the late Michael Crichton:
If you want to be happy, forget yourself. Forget all of it–how you look, how you feel, how your career is going. Just drop the whole subject of you…People dedicated to something other than themselves–helping family and friends, or a political cause, or others less fortunate than they–are the happiest people in the world.
That’s great advice.
Unfortunately, Ovitz told Patrick that Crichton had trouble taking his own advice:
It’s a very, very difficult thing to address, and I’ll tell you why. Michael said that as advice to other people. The one thing about Michael is he was often in his own head and didn’t take his own advice.
It’s easy to be envious of uber-successful people but it’s important to remember no one has it all figured out.
Like most things in life, success is often in the eye of the beholder.
Luckily, there are many different definitions when it comes to finding success. You just have to find the one that suits your personality and circumstances.
What is the weirdest experience you’ve had at work?
I used to work at a construction company that had a building along the main street of town.
One day, a guy came in and explained that he had a meeting with the owner, and could I please get him.
I found the owner and told him a guy was there for a meeting, to which my boss responded, “I don’t have a meeting, but ok.”
Then shit got WEIRD.
My boss greeted the man and the following conversation ensued:
Boss: Hi there, are you—
Dude: Hey man! Sorry I’m such a mess, I just got off work. I had to clean up a crime scene. Lots of blood! Hahaha. Dude blew his brains out… it was a real shit show!
Boss: Uhhmm… who are you?
Dude: I’m the guy who’s going to buy this building!
Boss: The building isn’t for sale, I think you have the wrong place.
Dude: Haha! Good one! No, I talked to Larry earlier today.
Boss: We don’t have a Larry…
Dude: I mean, Josh.
Boss: We don’t have a Josh.
Dude: I mean, Kevin.
Boss: Nope.
Dude: Patricia?
Boss: Uh-uh.
Dude: Guess I better come clean. Truth is, I need a job. I’ve just been eating cans to get by.
Boss: Cans of what?
Dude: Just the the empty cans. It’s real hard on my teeth, you know.
Boss: Uhm. I don’t think—
Dude: Just give me a fucking job, man!! I need it! I’ll do anything! I’ll mop your floors! I’ll clean your windows! ANYTHING! I will literally do anything… if you catch my drift.
Boss: What the…
Dude: I need a job! And a couple of cats… I really need cats… but mainly the job thing. Wait- how many cats do you have for sale? Never mind, I need a job more.
Boss: We aren’t hiring. Sorry.
Dude: Let me talk to Larry, he’ll straighten this mess out.
Boss: *sighing* Dude. We don’t have a Larry and I think you need to leave.
Dude: I can mop blood, if you need me to. Got any blood laying around that needs a good moppin’?
At this point, my boss made the mistake of looking past the guy and making eye contact with me. I had to turn around because I was (silently) laughing so hard there were tears running down my cheeks.
This, of course, made my boss laugh and the crazy dude got upset and finally walked off.
I’m still completely baffled by the whole thing.
I hope he stopped eating cans.
It’s bad for your teeth, you know.
Why the U.S. Media Industry Is in Meltdown
Between the layoffs at Sports Illustrated, Pitchfork’s absorption into GQ, and many other hits to major news organizations, the U.S. news industry is in a dire situation
By Derek Thompson and Bryan Curtis Jan 23, 2024, 8:13am EST
Sports Illustrated layoffs. The demise of independent Pitchfork. Hundreds of millions of dollars in losses at major newspapers like The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. The state of the U.S. news industry is dire. How did we get here? Who knows the way out? The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis joins the show, with contributions from an interview with NPR’s David Folkenflik.
If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.
In the following excerpt, Derek and Bryan Curtis walk through what led to Sports Illustrated’s latest death and the general demise of the news media.
Derek Thompson: Great to see you. I want to do a few things in our time together. I want to talk about the news of the moment, this sad and strange cavalcade of bad news for the media business. And then second, I want to broaden the lens and get some context for why the 21st century has been such an unrelenting mess for media economics. And then finally, we’ll talk about bright spots and the lessons that we can glean from the bright spots. But I really want to start with Sports Illustrated because this is, again, a sad death, a strange death. It’s a very strange story. I think it’s weirdly emblematic of this awful moment in news economics.
Sports Illustrated holds a very special place in my heart. It might have been the first magazine I subscribed to. It’s definitely the first magazine I truly loved when I decided I wanted to become a journalist. You have an article up on TheRinger.com that points out that Sports Illustrated’s demise was really death by a thousand cuts. Can you explain who owns SI and how that strange ownership model contributed to its demise?
Bryan Curtis: I can certainly try, but you just have to walk me through this because I’m still making sure that I have my mind around it. They’re owned by Authentic Brands Group. Authentic Brands Group is a company that manages brands. Now, what brands, you might say, Derek? Well, that includes Muhammad Ali, that includes Dr. J’s brand, that includes Elvis, that includes Billabong and other companies that you might have been familiar with at a different age of your fashion. Authentic Brands Group then licenses Sports Illustrated to a second company, which is called the Arena Group. The Arena Group’s website says that they are an innovative technology platform and media company with a proven cutting-edge playbook that transforms media brands.
OK. So we got the brand-owning company that is licensing Sports Illustrated to the brand-transforming company. And the second of those companies failed to pay their licensing agreement, and so the agreement is dissolved. That’s where we are with Sports Illustrated.
Thompson: And I guess a slightly bigger story would be that Sports Illustrated used to be owned by Time Inc. Time Inc. sold Sports Illustrated, or at least the rights to publish Sports Illustrated and all of its archives, to the owners of the Muhammad Ali and Dr. J brand. And then they licensed out the rights to publish new articles under the SI brand to this other group that then failed to make its quarterly payments.
I mean, you don’t get into a mess like this if the economics work in the first place. And what’s so sad to me is that the very fact that Sports Illustrated had become something licensed, to be licensed, to be published, is emblematic of how far a storied brand like this, a storied magazine like this, has fallen in the last few decades. And clearly it’s not just SI; it’s not just Pitchfork. As I recounted in the open, it’s Vice, it’s Gawker—Gawker 1 and Gawker 2—it’s Jezebel, Condé Nast is laying off [5] percent, WNYC. Two of the biggest newspapers in the country, The Washington Post and the L.A. Times, reportedly lost a combined $150 million last year. Why do you think this moment, especially when the economy is growing, why do you think this moment has been so particularly gnarly for the news media?
Curtis: We almost need a list. It’s like an old-school Vulture ranking of problems, but I’ll throw a few out for you and you can put them in any order you want. Management missteps, no. 1. No. 2, probably the end of the Trump bump and, if you believe the Semafor article that came out yesterday, a new Trump bump that is not quite as big as the old one. I would also put on that list rich proprietors that are tired of losing money or at least tired of losing money on the scale that they’re losing it, especially in the case of The Washington Post and the L.A. Times. And then the fourth one I would say was, especially in the case of newspapers, the fact that The New York Times is gobbling up people that in another time line would be subscribing to their local newspaper. How’s that for a list?
Thompson: It’s a good list. There’s one biggie that I definitely want to talk to you about, and that’s technology, because there’s two stories that I think I could tell about the last 20 years. If someone said, “What’s the grand narrative here? Why is it not just one or two magazines or one or two newspapers that are struggling? It’s dozens of newspapers closing every year. It’s dozens of magazines failing every decade.” To me, you can tell this as a pure technology story, or you can tell it as a people story.
The technology story is that the internet comes along and really starts to pick up steam with Craigslist and Google in 2000, 2004, 2005. Facebook obviously takes over around the late 2000s, 2010s. And the internet does a few things. It increases supply. Suddenly anybody can become a blogger, can compete with old-fashioned newspapers for people’s attention. And when it comes to analyzing the news, writing about the news, no. 1, it increases supply. No. 2, it destroys local advertising monopolies, like The Washington Post. I grew up in Washington, D.C. The Washington Post had a local advertising monopoly for car ads, for apartment listings. Those monopolies are absolutely destroyed when the internet comes along and you can just go to Edmunds or cars.com to figure out what car to buy. You don’t have to buy a bundle that has news about Fallujah and also car advertisements in the back.
So it destroys local monopolies and the cross subsidies that they created. It also nationalized the news. I think there’s something about the internet that allowed people to—you’re living in St. Petersburg, Florida, you’re living in Peoria, and it’s easier to follow national news. And maybe as a result, more attention and more dollars flow to national publications, and that starves local media. So I’d say the internet does all these things—increases supply, destroys local monopolies. You could say it’s a tech-determinist story, or, and this is where your point comes back in, you could say, “No, Derek, tech is just a tool. It’s a story about people who use this tool badly. Newspapers were badly managed in America in a lot of different places: at the local level, at the national level on both coasts.” So when you think about the tech story and the people story, how do you fold those together?
Curtis: I think the answer is almost certainly both, but let’s go to the people story for starters. The thing people always point to as the great error of newspapers is that when they went online first in the late ’90s, early 2000s, that they were all free and they did not say, “Hey, guess what, folks? You got to pay for news. This is important. Put your credit card in here.” And we could argue that at that period of the internet, that would have been a weird thing to do to try to pay for news. We weren’t used to that. The New York Times was free at that point. So we might still have picked the glittering, big, fat, national newspaper over the skimpier local paper, but there was certainly some truth to that.
I think also, just the one thing I’d add to your technological story that’s so fascinating to me is I grew up in Dallas–Fort Worth. Not only did they have a local advertising monopoly, they also, the Dallas-Fort Worth newspapers, had a national news monopoly in Dallas. If I wanted to know about politics, I wasn’t reading The New York Times. I was reading them. If I wanted to read about international news, I was reading my local paper. So as soon as you stripped that away for all the reasons you elegantly laid out there, what was left? It’s that school board meeting that everybody cites. “Who’s going to cover the school board meeting? Who’s going to cover the mayor’s office?” Totally worthy beats, but a very, very tough sell when you’re trying to get people to pay for news.
This excerpt was edited for clarity. Listen to the rest of the episode here and follow the Plain English feed on Spotify.
Jupiter
Moussaka
Moussaka is the Grecian equivalent of lasagna.
Yield: 12 servings
Ingredients
Eggplant
- 1 large eggplant
- 1 pound ground beef or lamb
- Vegetable oil
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
- 1 1/4 cups canned tomatoes
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 2 egg whites
- 1/2 cup bread crumbs, divided
- 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Sauce
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 2 egg yolks
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- Eggplant: Pare eggplant and cut into 1/2 inch slices. Sprinkle with salt and set aside for 30 minutes.
- Rinse and dry thoroughly.
- Brown meat in vegetable oil with onions and garlic. Drain off the fat.
- Add salt, seasonings, parsley, tomatoes and wine. Cover and cook slowly for 30 minutes. Cool.
- Mix in unbeaten egg whites and half of the bread crumbs.
- Brown the eggplant slices in vegetable oil.
- Sprinkle bottom of a 13 x 9 inch baking dish with remaining bread crumbs. Cover with the eggplant. Spoon meat mixture over the eggplant. Pour Sauce over this mixture.
- Top with cheese and bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.
- Sauce: Melt butter. Add flour slowly, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Slowly stir in the milk. Return to heat and stir until the sauce thickens. Beat egg yolks well. Gradually stir yolks, salt and pepper into the sauce. Blend well.
I didn’t raise her this way…
How Can Anyone Possibly Claim That The U.S. Economy Is Doing Well With All Of This Going On?
by Michael
How in the world can anybody possibly claim that the U.S. economy is in good shape? Honestly, I don’t see how anyone can make a rational argument that this is the case. Actually, the only people that seem to be trying to claim that the U.S. economy is heading in the right direction are those in the upper tiers of the economic food chain. At this stage, those in the lower tiers of the economic food chain are very well aware of how much they are suffering. Poverty, homelessness and hunger are rapidly growing all over America right now. But if you still have plenty of money and those around you still have plenty of money, you may be wondering what all of the fuss is about. If you are one of those people, hopefully this article will be a wake up call for you.
Let’s start with the housing market. On Friday, we learned that sales of previously owned homes in December 2023 were 6.2 percent lower than they were in December 2022…
Sales of previously owned homes fell 1% in December compared with November to 3.78 million units on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales were 6.2% lower than in December 2022, marking the lowest level since August 2010.
For 2023 as a whole, sales of previously owned homes were the lowest that we have seen in 28 years…
Home sales fell to their lowest level in 28 years in 2023 as soaring mortgage rates and red-hot prices dampened buyer demand.
Figures from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) show sales of existing properties slid 19 percent last year to 4.09 million – their lowest level since 1995.
Can anyone out there come up with a way to put a positive spin on those numbers?
I certainly can’t.
Meanwhile, 2023 was a year when Americans got further behind on their credit card bills “in 49 of the 50 states”…
The number of people falling behind on their credit card bills increased in 49 of the 50 states last year, a sobering new report reveals.
As inflation took its toll on household budgets, Americans in their millions became delinquent on credit card debt – with some states much more badly affected than others.
According to analysis by WalletHub, the number of borrowers struggling to keep on track of their credit card bills has risen the fastest in Oregon. Between September 2022 and September 2023, delinquencies in the state soared by 51 percent.
Delinquency rates on all forms of credit have been steadily rising from coast to coast.
This will be an important trend to watch in 2024.
Meanwhile, large layoff announcements continue to pile up at a very frightening pace.
For example, Macy’s just announced that it will be laying off a total of 2,350 workers…
Department store chain Macy’s is planning to lay off about 13% of its corporate staff and close five stores in an effort to trim costs and redirect spending to improve the customer experience.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news on Thursday, adding that the job cuts will total about 2,350 positions, or about 3.5% of Macy’s overall workforce excluding seasonal hires.
And Wayfair is telling us that somewhere around 1,650 of their workers will soon be hitting the bricks…
Wayfair is cutting 13% of its global workforce as the digital home goods retailer continues its efforts to trim down its structure, cut out layers of management and reduce costs after going “overboard” with corporate hiring during the Covid pandemic, it announced Friday.
The company plans to lay off around 1,650 employees, including 19% of its corporate team, with a focus on people in management and leadership positions, Wayfair said.
I apologize in advance if there are some major layoff announcements that I miss in the days ahead.
We are witnessing such a large tsunami of layoffs now that it is virtually impossible to keep up with them all.
On the west coast, employees of the Los Angeles Times are extremely upset about the “massive” layoffs that are reportedly coming…
With “massive” and “significant” layoffs coming soon, “the L.A. Times Guild announced a one-day walkout from both its L.A. and Washington D.C. offices this Friday,” reports TheWrap.
Staffers are “abstaining from work for the entire day while also staging a rally. It’s the first union work stoppage in the newsroom’s history, according to the union, dating back to when it started printing in 1881.”
This act of suicide is called the “Rally to Save Local Journalism” and will take place Friday at noon.
And earlier today I was stunned to learn that the entire staff of Sports Illustrated is being terminated…
Following through on a warning earlier this month, Authentic Brands Group has revoked Sports Illustrated‘s license to publish due to a missed payment.
As a result of the move, the entire staff of the 70-year-old print and online publication was notified on Friday that their jobs were being eliminated.
“We appreciate the work and efforts of everyone who has contributed to the SI brand and business,” SI operator The Arena Group wrote in a memo to employees that set off outrage on social media.
Once upon a time, Sports Illustrated was a truly great magazine.
Sadly, those days are long gone.
There is so much bad news these days.
At this point the economic outlook is so troubling that even Google is getting ready to conduct yet another round of layoffs…
Google has laid off over a thousand employees across various departments since January 10th. CEO Sundar Pichai’s message is to brace for more cuts.
“We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year,” Pichai told all Google employees on Wednesday in an internal memo that was shared with me. “The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.”
So far, those “tough choices” have included layoffs and reorganizations in Google’s hardware, ad sales, search, shopping, maps, policy, core engineering, and YouTube teams.
Of course what I have shared with you above is just a small sampling of what is really going on out there. For many more recent layoff announcements, please see my previous article entitled “Alert! Here Is A List Of 20 Large Companies That Have Just Decided To Conduct Mass Layoffs”.
Before I end this article, I wanted to update all of you on the horrifying stock market crash in China.
Zero Hedge is reporting that Chinese stocks just experienced their “worst weekly loss since March 2023″…
Amid ‘snowball derivative liquidations‘, China’s stock market is falling faster than its population.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index crashed 6.5% this week – its worst weekly loss since March 2023 with Wednesday seeing the biggest daily loss since Oct 2022 as the index plummeted to key support levels around the Oct 2022 lows…
The phrase “snowball derivative liquidations” really got my attention, and a lot of you know why.
I have been warning about the derivatives bubble in my books for over a decade.
Derivatives are going to become a very hot topic the closer we get to a full-blown implosion of the global financial system.
We are in far more trouble than most people realize.
2024 is going to be such a tumultuous year, but many of the “experts” will continue to insist that everything is “just fine” for as long as they can.
Reminder
The Very Real Appeal Of Slow Parenting
Fewer obligations and more space for unstructured play and family time? This parenting style forces your hand — and deserves your attention.
For many parents, life’s pace is far too frantic. Family calendars are packed with playdates, music lessons, and sports practices. Even downtime at home can feel fast-paced as parents struggle to reign in the constant flow of information and entertainment options made possible in the digital age. But being run ragged isn’t the only option. A solution? Consider the more deliberate slow parenting style.
Slow parenting is a direct response to the more more more trap of modern parenting. It eliminates the idea that kids should be afforded every good opportunity. Instead, it abides by the the notion that they should be given meaningful experiences they have time and energy to process. Importantly, it stresses that parents shouldn’t give kids so much to do that they lack sufficient free time to explore their interests and the world around them. This allows kids to discover themselves, recuperate between organized activities, and have downtime to bond with family members.
Although it may not be for everyone, slow parenting is worth considering if parenting has become a race and you’d like to explore a more manageable pace of life, says marriage and family therapist Nadia Teymoorian, Psy.D., clinical director of the Moment of Clarity mental health facility in Orange County, California. In her work with families, Teymoorian has found that slow parenting principles are often valuable in helping parents increase the meaningful interactions they have with their children.
“When parents embrace a slower parenting style where they’re not feeling pressured to constantly entertain their children, kids learn to generate more ideas, explore their own interests, and find enjoyment in simple, non-stimulating activities,” Teymoorian says. “Slowing down can help cultivate patience and a sense of presence. This allows kids to see the world around them and develop a richer internal life.”
When parents embrace a slower parenting style, kids learn to generate more ideas, explore their own interests, and find enjoyment in simple, non-stimulating activities.
Slow parenting is an extension of the slow movement, started by Canadian journalist Carl Honoré nearly two decades ago when he pushed back on fast-paced life with his book In Praise of Slow: Challenging the Cult of Speed. The slow parenting movement blossomed with his second book Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting, wherein he honed in on the pitfalls of helicopter parents who micromanage and overbook their kids’ lives to the detriment of their mental health, resiliency, and independence.
So, how exactly does the slow movement play out in parenting? Well, as one might imagine, slow starts with the family schedule, but also bleeds into other aspects of life as parents look to create enough space to get some breathing room for themselves and their kids.
Here are four ways to embrace slow parenting and help the whole family take a deep breath and slow down.
1. Resist The Urge To Overschedule
Overscheduling comes at a cost — not just in terms of depriving kids of the opportunity to rest, but also in squeezing out valuable relational time that allows parents and kids to have closer relationships.
“When we resist the urge to overschedule our children, we force ourselves and our kids to prioritize what is most important,” Teymoorian says. “And when we cut activities, we aren’t just saying ‘no’ to things, but we’re prioritizing opportunities to connect to each other by spending more quality time together.”
Different types of downtime, including playtime and family time, play an important role in helping kids recover from the stresses of daily life. The rub is that when their friends are involved in multiple activities or there’s pressure to not fall behind in the great race to build resumes that colleges will find appealing someday, the pressure not to fall behind is intense.
Researcher and Stanford professor Denise Pope, Ph.D., recently shared with Fatherly what the process of building schedule boundaries looked like with her kids as her family took a hard line against overscheduling.
“Our kids wanted to be involved in a lot of activities,” Pope said. “So we actually sat down and looked at the schedule and said, ‘Okay, if you think you can do these activities and get your homework done and still get your 8 to 10 hours of sleep, we’ll allow you to try this schedule.’ But we also built in some escape clauses together in case that agreement couldn’t be met or if they started to get stressed to the point where it affected their ability to handle their schedule.”
In other words, you don’t have to rule with an iron fist when your kids are interested in a club or activity. But putting up boundaries that discourage overscheduling can help everyone from becoming overwhelmed.
2. Preserve Time For Free Play
Faced with the prospect of being home all day as a family, without any obligations to get to, lining up activities for the kids can keep everyone from driving each other bonkers. But there’s value in setting aside unstructured time for kids to play in ways that are voluntary, intrinsically motivated, and, most importantly, fun.
“Free play and imaginative activity without rigid rules foster creativity, problem-solving, and social skills in children,” Teymoorian says. “Kids grow in self-confidence as they are allowed to explore their interests, make decisions, and navigate play decisions.”
So, even if you have the perfect craft project lined up for the afternoon, it’s sometimes best to let the kids continue making a pretend meal or building a blanket fort with their siblings if they’re caught up in the moment. After all, it’s not like the work you’ve done to plan the craft has to go to waste. It’ll still be there for the kids to enjoy later in the day or the next time they have a day off from school.
3. Embrace Boredom
Despite the importance of unstructured play time, there will be days when kids counter opportunities for play with the dreaded “b” word. When they feel like they’re about to die of boredom, a slow parenting tactic is to hold the line and not bail them out with a list of curated activities. Because no child has actually ever died from boredom.
Although you may have to withstand some whining, bored kids will eventually learn to stretch their creative muscles and come up with something to do. But you don’t have to totally abandon them in their time of need. “There has to be a fun book on the shelf” or “see if you can invent an interesting game outside” are gentle suggestions that leave enough openendedness for kids to tap into their creativity and resourcefulness.
When left to their own accord, kids may come up with slightly risky ideas for play. Rest assured that such activities are a healthy antidote to boredom. Climbing a tree or trying to break rocks with a hammer might result in a minor scrape or bruise, but research indicates there are a number of ways such activities benefit kids’ development, such as developing executive functioning capabilities, risk-management skills, self-confidence, and independence.
4. Practice Digital Wellness
Even in the early days of the slow parenting movement, media consumption was flagged as a potential trap because of how advertising could drive kids toward the high of constantly buying the latest and greatest toy. Flashy ads also invited tension into the parent-child relationship through kids making incessant requests for the latest and greatest thing they saw on TV.
The media landscape has changed drastically since then, but the impact of screens is still powerful, going so far as to literally change young kids’ brains by increasing deficits in impulse control, attention span, executive functioning, and overall cognitive functioning.
Although parents can subscribe to are ad-free options for gaming and streaming at a premium price point to undercut some of the initial concerns of the slow parenting movement, incessant requests from kids for more screen time can still introduce a frantic and sometimes adversarial component to the parent-child dynamic, not so dissimilar to when kids beg for new stuff.
Thus, screen time remains a difficult problem for slow parents. Media abstinence just isn’t an option most families are willing to embrace. This is why Teymoorian advocates for a conscious consumption of media with a focus on digital wellness. She doesn’t recommend cutting out screens altogether, but instead focusing on empowering kids to use technology positively, with consideration for their overall well-being.
“Digital wellness for kids involves mindful and balanced use of digital media, focusing on learning and creativity rather than constant entertainment,” she says. For example, instead of mindlessly scrolling through YouTube Shorts, they can use an app that allows them to create digital art.
Additionally, parents should turn their attention inward. “Parents can foster healthier relationships with digital devices,” Teymoorian says, “by modeling responsible online behavior that helps children understand the importance of balancing screen time with other activities.”
As with most aspects of slow parenting, “mindful and balanced” is the key. Because just as frenzied parenting isn’t working for a lot of families, screeching-to-a-halt parenting isn’t a healthy option in the long term either as kids benefit from enriching activities like clubs, teams, community groups, and creative arts activities.
Taking steps to remain present in the moment is a key focus of the slow movement in general and slow parenting in particular. But be aware that it takes quite a bit of brake-tapping to get family life slowed down to a reasonable pace — and keep it there.
Contemporary Women Have Made Their Beds and Now Must Lie In it
I cry for women.
What the Fuck has America been doing? Everything in the USA is falling apart.