Scary! No?

I’m at our family dacha now, outside the small village of Kizlukha, in Altai Krai, Russia.  We have decided to build a new banya here with some additional living space, in preparation for spending more time and longer periods outside of the city. The peacefulness of the countryside surrounds me as I write. The sights and sounds of pending collapse are a distant echo here by the forest edge, overlooking the Ob River. I am lending a hand with some of the work on the banya (digging dirt), while preparing for a five-week journey back to the heart of what DA calls ‘the Beast’… America!

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The Fairest Maidenhead of All

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OK, my friends, let’s dive right in.  Shall we?  Well, I don’t mean that literally, of course. Nevertheless, I begin this post by notifying all of you that we are entering generally forbidden territory given our well-manicured modern world.  So let my rant begin.

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As The World Turns: Eschatological Capitalism

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The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. (Gore Vidal, Selected Essays )

As the world turns, and we continue our free-fall into a surreal concoction of self-induced all-consuming avarice, the politics of business and the business of politics march on, unfazed and undeterred.  However, Gore Vidal’s above charge is a frank but sobering reminder of the metaphysical underbelly and transcendental justification for this beast we have created.

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The Imperial Will: Our Linguistic Straightjacket

It is May Day and another extended holiday has arrived in this central Siberian region of Russia, going right on through to Victory Day on May 9^th.  The rapidly advancing urban landscape gives way to primitive countryside villages, then to rolling steppe and finally to white birch forests. I am visiting my wife’s family’s dacha, enjoying the peace and plenty of the wilderness, and the unrefined naturalness of the surrounding terrain. The noise and commotion of the city is well behind me.

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Equilibrium and the Fall of Icarus

In his work over the past forty years, Professor Emeritus of History Marvin Bram sought to demystify the unraveling of that ‘subtle knot’ constituting the human condition prior to the emergence of civilization in the Middle East approximately six millennia ago.  Today, I would like to explore some of Marvin Bram’s discussion in more detail.  This may help shed light on terminology we have already encountered in our own conversations over the past few months, and help clarify the nature of our current predicament.

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Killing the Natives: The Ecology of Systematic Extinction

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As Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega summarized, it seems the USA was “isolated” — a regular persona non grata – at the Summit of the Americas this week in Columbia.  Nor were our military and Secret Service ‘dicks’ very good sports themselves at the Pley Club there in Cartagena.  It seems they wanted a reduction in the bill for services rendered. But that is not the only country in the Americas where the now globalized and increasingly rapacious tendencies of a dis-integrating Western curriculum are unwelcome.

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Now, There You Go Again! Of Money, Militias, and Madness

Obama signed a new “JOBS” bill this week.  And, wow! What a WHOPPER it is!!

This law gives the all-clear signal to any start-up company that wishes to raise money in the public markets. It pretty much nullifies significant regulatory and reporting requirements for the first five years on these new start-ups, particularly tech companies that are seeking to raise capital by selling stock to investors.  You can brush-up on this boner by reading …