Words for Our Times
Grey eminence - behind the scenes powerful decision maker
Svengali - person with evil intent who dominates, manipulates, and controls others
Camarilla - group of influential favorites surrounding a ruler; cronies
Complot - conspiracy
Covin - confederacy, collusive agreement, trickery
Ochlocracy - mob rule
Misprision - the deliberate concealment of one's knowledge of a treasonable act or felony
Obsequious - full of or exhibiting servile compliance; fawning; promptly obedient or submissive to the will of another; dutiful; showing a mean readiness to fall in with the will of another; cringing; sycophantic
Veridical - 1. truthful; veracious 2. corresponding to facts; not illusory; real, actual, genuine
Anhedonia - the inability to feel pleasure
Obstreperous - 1. resisting control or restraint in a difficult manner; unruly 2. noisy, clamorous, boisterous
Randomish Quotes
"Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history." - Hannah Arendt
"How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? - Plato
"Billions of years ago, a single, fluke, self-copying cell learned how to turn a barren ball of poison gas and volcanic slag into this peopled garden. And everything you hope, fear, and love became possible." - John Muir
"There is a common saying in Arabic, 'When the people go hungry, they will eat their leaders.' Unfortunately, it is not true. People will not attack the politicians' fortresses. They will rob from their fellow citizens while politicians continue to feast." - Shakeeb Al-Jabri (@LeShaque)
"Their world is like the one that George Orwell depicted in his novel. I'm sure you realize that there are plenty of people who are looking for exactly that kind of brain death. It makes life a lot easier. You don't have to think about difficult things, just shut up and do what your supervisors tell you to do. You never have to starve." - Haruki Murakami
"Ignorance often inspires courage at a time for caution, and caution in a time for courage. - Alessandro Manzoni
"The cup is only being filled for the chance to have it spilled." - Robert Pollard
Randomish Religion
A psychopomp is a creature, spirit, or deity responsible for escorting the souls of the dead to the afterlife. They are guides, not judges.
Anubis is an ancient Egyptian psychopomps. Anubis oversees the Weighing of the Heart Ceremony that determines whether a person is worthy of entering paradise.
Charon is a psychopomp in ancient Greek mythology who escorts the souls of the dead across the rivers Styx and Acheron. Hermes is a psychopomp who guides the dead to their final resting place in the underworld. Thanatos and Hecate are also Greek psychopomps.
St. Peter and Michael the Archangel are psychopomps in Christian mythology.
Daena is a Zoroastrian psychopomp who appears as a beautiful young maiden to those who deserve to cross the Chinvat Bridge (the bridge of judgment) or a hag to those who do not. The latter are dragged to the House of Lies, a place of eternal punishment like Christian Hell.
Other psychopomps include Yama (Hinduism), Valkyries (Norse), Xolott (Aztec), Vanth (Etruscan), Heibai Wuchang (Chinese), among many others.
Randomish History
The Amarna Letters were diplomatic documents written in Akkadian between the Canaanites and Egypt during the New Kingdom, which included Akhenaten's reign. In some of the letters, the king of Byblos, Rib-Hadda, begged Akhenaten for military aid against the Hittites to the north and the Hebrews in the south. Akhenaten, who was generally uninterested in war, refused. Rib-Hadda ended up either exiled or killed.
Akhenaten, the monothiestic pharaoh whose queen was Nefartiti, was himself eventually ousted. There is some evidence that Moses of biblical fame was a priest of Akhenaten - or even Akhenaten himself - who had to flee when the polytheists overthrew the pharaoh.
The world has always been at war because of the stupidity of tribalism and land envy.
Randomish Econocrap
Dollar stores are indicators of neglect and markers of a geography of the places that America has written off.
From 2017 - 2021, there were more than 200 violent gun incidents at Family Dollar stores and nearly 50 deaths. Thirty-one employees were shot in robbery attempts and seven were killed.
The rising crime at dollar stores is partly explained by changes in the social environment that lowered the risk of getting caught. Owners don't care; there is no real security.
The founder of Dollar General got rich profiteering off the Great Depression.
Executives know that widening income inequality is driving their growth. Said one, "The economy is continuing to create more of our core customers."
Dollar stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress...they're a cause of it.
Books I'm Reading
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (7th or 8th reading)
Gilded Age by Mark Twain
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer (3rd reading)
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (2nd reading)
All the Names by Jose Saramago
It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (2nd reading)
Language and Social Identity (compilation)
Understanding Intercultural Communication by Stella Ting-Toomey and Leeva C. Chung
Randomish Thoughts
Americans are so lazy that even their Christianity is lazy. They think they can have salvation without doing anything except saying words about accepting Jesus into their lives.
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