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Last voyage of the Kitty Hawk: Aircraft carrier with deep ties to San Diego heads to scrapyard – The San Diego Union-Tribune

January 22, 2022 | Author: admin

SAN DIEGO

The aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk steamed into San Diego in the fall of 1961 with fanfare usually enjoyed by royalty, wrote the San Diego Unions Lester Bell in a story announcing the warships arrival. A swing band on a barge at the mouth of the newly-dredged harbor channel played California Here I Come, and fire boats spraying plumes of water escorted it to North Island.

The Kitty Hawk would call San Diego home for the next 37 years, before spending its last decade of operations in Japan. It was decommissioned in 2009. For the next 12 years, it would sit with other retired ships in Puget Sound, Wash.

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As is often the case, the men and, starting in 1994, women who served on the Kitty Hawk through the years came to see it as home, and many harbored deep attachments long after their service.

Im one of them; I served on the ship as an aviation electronics technician from January 2003 to January 2007, when it was based in Japan. We were always busy and always out to sea and the shared suffering forged lasting friendships among the crew.

Airman Apprentice Andrew Dyer in an aviation electronics shop on board the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk during operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

(Courtesy of James Loringer)

Veterans of the massive ship tried in vain to have it converted into a museum. The Navy was quick to reject the groups proposal and an appeal, saying the Kitty Hawk was slated for dismantling. But its longevity also may have worked against it; some potential competitors beat it to retirement. There are already five existing aircraft carrier museums, including the USS Midway Museum in San Diego. And other cities have other types of museums built around old ships, such as the Battleship USS Iowa Museum in Long Beach.

With these many museums already established, no candidate stepped up for the Kitty Hawk.

So it was that on Jan. 15 the Kitty Hawk was tugged out of Bremerton, Wash., for a slow tow around Cape Horn, Chile, en route to its final, ignominious end: a Brownsville, Texas ship breaker. Its 60,000 tons of steel will be sold off as scrap.

Ships are haunted they hold the soul of the crew. The attachment of a ship and a crew maybe transcends rational thought. You invest your energy, your emotion, your friends, your dead friends ... how many hugely emotional events in a sailors life are associated with the crew, with the Kitty Hawk?

Tom Parker, former commanding officer

The contract for the scrapping of the Kitty Hawk was awarded for 1 cent. A statement posted to Facebook by International Shipbreaking Port of Brownsville says that price is misleading.

We have received a flood of inquiries and messages regarding the Ex-Kitty Hawk.... the statement begins. ISL is providing a recycling service to the US Navy at the lowest cost possible to the US taxpayer (1 cent). The US Navy still owns both vessels and we will never have title.

Jason Chudy, a retired Navy chief living near Seattle, estimates that about 250,000 sailors served on the carrier during its lifespan. Chudy is the membership coordinator for the Kitty Hawk Veterans Association, and he was involved in the effort to save the ship from the scrapper.

We were surprised and extremely disappointed, Chudy said. The denial came back quick. We tried again, but all came to naught.

Airman Shawn Henderson waits to chain down an incoming fighter plane on the deck of the Kitty Hawk about 50 miles off the coast of San Diego in 1996.

(David Fitzgerald/The Los Angeles Times)

The Kitty Hawks keel was laid Dec. 27, 1956, at New York Shipbuilding in Camden, N.J. at a final cost of $178 million, or $1.7 billion in 2022 dollars. (Compare that with the $13 billion cost of the Navys latest carrier, the nuclear powered Gerald R. Ford.)

The Kitty Hawks 48 years of service life spanned 10 presidents and several overseas conflicts. The ship deployed multiple times to Vietnam, fought in the Gulf War and during the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq.

At times, unrest back home penetrated the vessels hull. In 1972, a race riot erupted on board as Black sailors, frustrated with racist attitudes among White crew members, roved the ship beating their fellow sailors with pipes and wrenches. The ships executive officer, Cmdr. Benjamin Cloud a San Diego-born airman and son of one of the citys first Black police officers is credited as being instrumental in quelling the violence by meeting with Black sailors during the riot. He died in El Cajon last August.

The violence on the Kitty Hawk was the worst example, but other Navy ships had similar incidents in the 1970s. The Kitty Hawk riot led to congressional hearings.

While not participating in combat operations, the Kitty Hawk patrolled the western Pacific at the height of the Cold War, often playing cat-and-mouse with Soviet and Chinese submarines.

David Thompson of San Diego was a Navy aircrewman who hunted submarines on Navy S-3 Viking jets. Although attached to an air wing and not the ship itself, Thompsons squadron operated from the Kitty Hawk from 1979 through 1981 and again from 1993 to 1994.

This was my first ship and theres a lot of memories, he said. In 81, just after pulling out of port, I got to hunt my first Russian submarine. Ive been on several ships and the Kitty Hawk is one of the most memorable.

In 1984, after Thompsons squadron had left the ship, it collided with a Russian submarine as the vessel surfaced near South Korea.

President Kennedy with Rear Adm. Paul Masterton, right, aboard the Kitty Hawk off San Diego on June 6, 1963.

(Thane McIntosh/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Although not the first so-called supercarrier, the Kitty Hawk was hailed at the time as the forerunner of a new and greatly improved line of carriers, by Adm. Arleigh Burke, then the chief of naval operations.

The Kitty Hawk was the next-to-last U.S. aircraft carrier built to run on diesel fuel. The nuclear-powered Enterprise was launched the same year and the Nimitz was commissioned in 1975, launching a new class of 10 reactor-fueled carriers. Two of them, the Abraham Lincoln and the Carl Vinson, are currently based in San Diego.

The Kitty Hawks diesel power plant became one of the most challenging aspects of keeping the ship operational, said Tom Parker, a retired Navy captain who was the ships commanding officer from 2003 to 2005.

My chief engineer told me once the steam plant on the Kitty Hawk is the most complicated machine ever built or maintained by human beings, Parker said. We had a problem finding engineers and were calling people back to active duty to help man the ship. We called it geriatrics for aircraft carriers.

Despite those challenges, the ship was instrumental in the U.S. military response after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Kitty Hawk, based in Japan, was the first carrier to deploy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. By mid-October, the ship was in the Persian Gulf operating as a staging base for Army Special Forces. It would again deploy to the Gulf in February 2003 and launched some of the first sorties against Iraq that March.

An F-14 Tomcat catapults off the bow of the Kitty Hawk in 2002.

(U.S. Navy photo by Photographers Mate 3rd Class Todd Frantom)

The more than 10,000 veteran-strong USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) Veterans Club group on Facebook saw an uptick in activity when the ship began its final voyage, as former crew members started sharing photos and stories. Many said they were looking for a way to see the ship one more time before its scrapped.

Tracking updates are shared frequently in the Facebook group. Gordon Shaw, a San Diego veteran of the ship, told the Union-Tribune hes considering chartering a boat to escort the ship past San Diego.

Saltchuk Marine, the company hired to tow the ship, said the Kitty Hawk will anchor off the coast of Long Beach on Monday and should be visible from the city and from Seal Beach.

Im disappointed San Diego and the Navy arent doing something to recognize the Kitty Hawk passing by one last time, Shaw said. Its awesome to be in touch with (other veterans) and know that their time on the Kitty Hawk was meaningful and that we have something in common.

Shaw was the Repair Division officer from 1974 to 1975. He only spent four years in the Navy. He said he had a low draft number, which pushed him to volunteer for the sea service rather than risk being sent to the jungles of Vietnam.

He checked aboard the Kitty Hawk shortly after an engine room fire took the lives of five sailors. The inferno injured at least three dozen others, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command. Shaw said connecting to other R-Division veterans, who were the ships primary firefighters, through the Facebook group made him appreciate what those sailors endured in the wake of the tragedy.

These young guys went through some really hard events by virtue of their jobs and, honest to God, in my mind, they are heroes, Shaw said. There were guys that thought the ship was going to sink. These guys saved the ship.

An aviator heads toward a post-flight briefing on the Kitty Hawk as it sails off the Southern California coast in August 1996.

(James W. Crawley/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Stephen Sherman, another San Diego Kitty Hawk veteran, worked in the Crash and Salvage division on the ships flight deck, the first responders for aircraft fires. On July 11, 1994, an F-14 Tomcat crashed onto the ships pitching flight deck, broke in two, and exploded into a fireball.

The two aviators on the jet ejected and landed on the flight deck one of them in the burning wreckage of the jet. Sherman and other sailors pulled the man out of the wreckage and, although he suffered burns, he eventually recovered, Sherman said.

It was my first and only command, he said. The ship literally brought me to San Diego and I never left.

All of the sailors who spoke with the Union-Tribune about the Kitty Hawk said they believed it held a unique place in the Navy compared with other ships that have been lost to the scrapyard. Maybe it has something to do with the sheer number of lives touched by the ship over nearly a half century, directly or through the family and friends of those who served on board.

But Parker, the former ships captain, said theres more to it than that.

Ships are haunted they hold the soul of the crew, he said. The attachment of a ship and a crew maybe transcends rational thought. You invest your energy, your emotion, your friends, your dead friends ... how many hugely emotional events in a sailors life are associated with the crew, with the Kitty Hawk?

With the San Diego skyline in the background, sailors aboard the Kitty Hawk salute while lining the flight deck in 1991, as the carrier arrives at North Island.

(Howard Lipin/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Meta’s ‘data2vec’ is a step toward One Neural Network to Rule Them All – ZDNet

January 22, 2022 | Author: admin

The race is on to create one neural network that can process multiple kinds of data -- a more-general artificial intelligence that doesn't discriminate about types of data but instead can crunch them all within the same basic structure.

The genre of multi-modality, as these neural networks are called, is seeing a flurry of activity in which different data, such as image, text, and speech audio, are passed through the same algorithm to produce a score on different tests such as image recognition, natural language understanding, or speech detection.

And these ambidextrous networks are racking up scores on benchmark tests of AI. The latest achievement is what's called "data2vec," developed by researchers at the AI division of Meta (parent of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp).

The point, as Meta researcher Alexei Baevski, Wei-Ning Hsu, Qiantong Xu, Arun Babu, Jiatao Gu, and Michael Auli reveal in a blog post, is to approach something more like the general learning ability that the human mind seems to encompass.

"While people appear to learn in a similar way regardless of how they get information -- whether they use sight or sound, for example -- there are currently big differences in the way self-supervised learning algorithms learn from images, speech, text, and other modalities," the blog post states.

The main point is that "AI should be able to learn to do many different tasks, including those that are entirely unfamiliar."

Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, offered a quote about the work and its ties to a future Metaverse:

People experience the world through a combination of sight, sound, and words, and systems like this could one day understand the world the way we do. This will all eventually get built into AR glasses with an AI assistant so, for example, it could help you cook dinner, noticing if you miss an ingredient, prompting you to turn down the heat, or more complex tasks.

The name data2vec is a play on the name of a program for language "embedding" developed at Google in 2013 called "word2vec." That program predicted how words cluster together, and so word2vec is representative of a neural network designed for a specific type of data, in that case text.

Also: Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL: Meta's AI simulates lip-reading

In the case of data2vec, however, Baevski and colleagues are taking a standard version of what's called a Transformer, developed by Ashish Vaswani and colleagues at Google in 2017, and extending it to be used for multiple data types.

The Transformer neural network was originally developed for language tasks, but it has been widely adapted in the years since for many kinds of data. Baevski et al. show that the Transformer can be used to process multiple kinds of data without being altered, and the trained neural network that results can perform on multiple different tasks.

In the formal paper, "data2vec: A General Framework for Self-supervised Learning in Speech, Vision and Language," Baevski et al., train the Transformer for image data, speech audio waveforms, and text language representations.

The very general Transformer becomes what is called a pre-training that can then be applied to specific neural networks in order to perform on specific tasks. For example, the authors use data2vec as pre-training to equip what's called "ViT," the "vision Transformer," a neural network specifically designed for vision tasks that was introduced last year by Alexey Dosovitskiy and colleagues at Google.

Meta shows top scores for the venerable ImageNet image-recognition competition.

When used on ViT to try to solve the standard ImageNet test of image recognition, their results come in at the top of the pack, with accuracy of 84.1%. That's better than the score of 83.2% received by a team at Microsoft that pre-trained ViT lead by Hangbo Baolast year.

And the same data2vec Transformer outputs results that are state-of-the-art for speech recognition and that are competitive, if not the best, for natural language learning:

Experimental results show data2vec to be effective in all three modalities, setting a new state of the art for ViT-B and ViT-L on ImageNet-1K, improving over the best prior work in speech processing on speech recognition and performing on par to RoBERTa on the GLUE natural language understanding benchmark.

The crux is that this is happening without any modification of the neural network to be about images, and the same for speech and text. Instead, every input type is going into the same network and is completing the same very general task. That task is the same task that Transformer networks always use, known as "masked prediction."

Also: Google's Supermodel: DeepMind Perceiver is a step on the road to an AI machine that could process anything

The way that data2vec performs masked prediction, however, is an approach known as "self-supervised" learning. In a self-supervised setting, a neural network is trained or developed by having to pass through multiple stages.

First, the network constructs a representation of the joint probability of data input, be it images or speech or text. Then, a second version of the network has some of those input data items "masked out," left unrevealed. It has to reconstruct the joint probability that the first version of the network had constructed, which forces it to create increasingly better representations of the data by essentially filling in the blanks.

An overview of the data2vec approach.

The two networks, the one with the full pattern of the joint probability, and the one with the incomplete version that it is trying to complete, are called, sensibly enough, "Teacher" and "Student." The Student network tries to develop its sense of the data, if you will, by reconstructing what the Teacher has already achieved.

You can see the code for the models on Github.

How is the neural network performing Teacher and Student for three very different types of data? The key is that the "target" of joint probability in all three data cases is not a specific output data type, as is the case in versions of the Transformer for a specific data type, such as Google's BERT or OpenAI's GPT-3.

Rather, data2vec is grabbing a bunch of neural network layers that are inside the neural network, somewhere in the middle, that represent the data before it is produced as a final output.

As the researchers write, "One of the main differences of our method [] other than performing masked prediction, is the use of targets which are based on averaging multiple layers from the teacher network." Specifically, "we regress multiple neural network layer representations instead of just the top layer," so that "data2vec predicts the latent representations of the input data."

They add, "We generally use the output of the FFN [feed-forward network] prior to the last residual connection in each block as target," where a "block" is the Transformer equivalent of a neural network layer.

The point is that every data type that goes in becomes the same challenge for the Student network of reconstructing something inside the neural network that the Teacher had composed.

This averaging is different from other recent approaches to building One Network To Crunch All Data. For example, last summer, Google's DeepMind unit offered up what it calls "Perceiver," its own multi-modal version of the Transformer. The training of the Perceiver neural network is the more-standard process of producing an output that is the answer to a labeled, supervised task such as ImageNet. In the self-supervised approach, data2vec isn't using those labels; it's just trying to reconstruct the network's internal representation of the data.

Even more ambitious efforts lie in the wings. Jeff Dean, head of Google's AI efforts, in October teased about "Pathways," calling it a "next generation AI architecture" for multi-modal data processing.

Mind you, data2vec's very general approach to a single neural net for multiple modalities still has a lot of information about the different data types. Image, speech, and text are all prepared by pre-processing of the data. In that way, the multi-modal aspect of the network still relies on clues about the data, what the team refer to as "small modality-specific input encoders."

Also:Google unveils 'Pathways', a next-gen AI that can be trained to multitask

We are not yet at a world where a neural net is trained with no sense whatsoever of the input data types. We are also not at a point in time when the neural network can construct one representation that combines all the different data types, so that the neural net is learning things in combination.

That fact is made clear from an exchange between ZDNet and the researchers. ZDNet reached out to Baevski and team and asked, "Are the latent representations that serve as targets a combined encoding of all three modalities at any given time step, or are they usually just one of the modalities?"

Baevski and team responded that it is the latter case, and their reply is interesting enough to quote at length:

The latent variables are not a combined encoding for the three modalities. We train separate models for each modality but the process through which the models learn is identical. This is the main innovation of our project since before there were large differences in how models are trained in different modalities. Neuroscientists also believe that humans learn in similar ways about sounds and the visual world. Our project shows that self-supervised learning can also work the same way for different modalities.

Given data2vec's modality-specific limitations, a neural network that might truly be One Network To Rule Them All remains the technology of the future.

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5 things to keep in mind when remodeling your home in Arizona – AZ Big Media

January 22, 2022 | Author: admin

For most of us, the idea of remodeling our homes can be very exhilarating. Giving your Arizona home a facelift is an uplifting experience and can completely refresh your living space. But remodeling a house can often be just as taxing as building a new one, so make sure not to rush the renovation.

Every little thing adds up when it comes to home renovation. For instance, you should consider if you plan to rebuild the house all at once or in parts. Not only will doing it all in one session be more expensive, but you will have to stay in a temporary location for an extended period, too.

So, if you want to save money and avoid staying in a rented apartment, we recommend rebuilding and redecorating it in segments. Additionally, you wouldnt be willing to sacrifice thequality by slashing corners on raw materials throughout the reconstruction.

Instead, you can save money without losing quality if you prepare ahead of time and consult with experts about the job. Before you dive head-first into your next renovation project, take a deep breath and take a look at these five tips that will make it go a lot easier.

The budget is the deciding aspect that will determine how expensive the remodeling will be. It is recommended to create a budget before developing a plan. It will allow you to analyze the remodeling process and make an informed conclusion.

Be sure to stick to your budget and get precise repair quotes before starting the remodeling work. Despite all the planning, unforeseen situations can occur, which will unexpectedly increase the budget.

Even though youve done your homework on how much your supplies, labor, and other remodeling components will cost, its safe if you keep some money aside. That way, youre prepared just in case the budget goes overboard.

Its far too easy to get carried away with unrealistic goals while planning for renovations. So, we recommend you to be realistic about what you can afford and avoid making emotional decisions.

Once youve finalized the budget, your next step is to look for contractors who will meet your requirements. The best approach to ensure that your improvements are finished to your satisfaction is to hire a competent contractor.

You should check at a contractors past work before onboarding them. Its always a good idea to start by looking at factors like years of experience, a contractors license, insurance certificates, andtestimonials before hiring.

You must do all necessary to find the best renovation team available; after all, remodeling is a substantial investment. You do not want to put the project in the hands of inexperienced people. Once you find a reliable team, develop a solid strategy that will act as a blueprint for the project.

Taking on a renovation project may lead to additional expenditures, stress, and even legal issues without proper planning. Youll be more confident in your decisions if youve done your research and prepared ahead of time.

Before you begin, make sure you understand the entire renovation process. Analyze each room in your house and decide what requires the most care based on your findings. If you cant decide on your own, you can hire professionals, as remodeling a home is a huge undertaking that should not be handled lightly.

Get a clear picture of what you need to do before you get started, and prioritize repairs instead of replacements, as it will save you some money. Start by creating a checklist of things that you need to address.

After that, use a planner or scheduler programto put the strategy into action. Make use of the tools you have at your disposal, such as a simple planner app. Itll help you stay on track with the project.

Once youve inspected the property and established a reasonable budget, youll need to know how long it will take to accomplish the repair. You and your contractor will have to figure out how long each part of the job will take. Make a plan for how long the project will take and which elements will be worked upon simultaneously.

Without a timetable in place, how can you tell if the refurbishment is progressing as planned? So, make sure to set a realistic timeline for the remodeling process; it will help keep track of things.

Planning a home makeover can certainly be difficult. At times, it may feel like there are too many moving components, but that doesnt mean that completing it is going to be impossible.

Instead, youll want to be fully prepared in the event of a budget shortfall or an unforeseen incident that delays the restoration of your property. Keeping this in mind, be sure to include extra days in your timeframe while planning to give yourself a little breathing room.

Additionally, before you start the project, be prepared to address any underlying electrical issues existing in your home. Unwired wires should not be left lying around, as they are dangerous. Rather, replace the old colored resistors with the new resistor color code labels clearly on them.

A house makeover may initially appear to be a simple operation, but it actually requires a lot of time and effort. Move forward with the project one step at a time and mark off the checklist as you go. This will serve as a motivator and help keep you on track.

Finally, be sure to consult with those in your social and professional circles who have already undergone house renovations, as their insights will be invaluable. And ultimately, we hope we were able to help you in any way with the remodeling endeavors. We hope your project goes well!

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How Anxiety Can Benefit Us – The New York Times

January 22, 2022 | Author: admin

Heres why.

Anxiety is an uncomfortable emotion, often fueled by uncertainty. It can create intense, excessive and persistent worry and fear, not just about stressful events but also about everyday situations. There are usually physical symptoms too, like fast heart rate, muscle tension, rapid breathing, sweating and fatigue.

Too much anxiety can be debilitating. But a normal amount is meant to help keep us safe, experts say.

The emotion of anxiety and the underlying physiological stress response evolved to protect us, Wendy Suzuki, a neuroscientist and the author of Good Anxiety, said.

In her book, Dr. Suzuki explains that managing stress may be more useful than banishing it. According to the Yerkes-Dodson Law, a theory that originated in the early 20th century from experiments on mice, increasing amounts of cognitive arousal, or stress, can improve performance but only up to a certain point. The theory, represented by a curve shaped like a mountain, shows that after the curve peaks, greater levels of stress cause performance to suffer.

When anxiety is turned up too high, Dr. Suzuki added, it tends to become less useful. The first step in taming anxiety that holds you back is to recognize when youre feeling overly anxious and try to dial it down.

My No. 1 tip is to activate the parasympathetic nervous system the neurons that can slow heart rate and help people feel more calm by deep breathing, she said. Its a very powerful tool to have in your back pocket.

Deep breathing can take place anytime or anywhere, she said, whether standing in a line, sitting in class, or, in my case, driving.

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The mechanics of memory are a mystery of the mind – Telegraph.co.uk

January 22, 2022 | Author: admin

Recently in this paper, Jean Cochrane made the observation, How wonderful is memory!. She was describing how, though not having touched a piano keyboard for 50 years, she was able to pick up almost where she left off playing Mozart sonatas and the easier works of Beethoven. A couple of others also reported a similar experience playing a tricky Chopin mazurka and a nocturne posing the fascinating question as to how skills and memories from the distant past are laid down to be retrieved decades later.

This is just the sort of issue that might be clarified by those sophisticated brain-scanning techniques that allow neuroscientists to observe the brain in action from the inside lighting up when performing one task or another.

Indeed, two types of memory are stored in discrete parts of the brain. Scanning the brains of volunteers asked to distinguish between photographs of famous people and the obscure identified a small area of the frontal cortex specialised for facial recognition.

Scanning the brains of Londons taxi drivers as they rehearsed their routes across the capital, meanwhile, reveals hot spots in the hippocampus involved in memorising spatial topography.

But beyond that the phenomenon of memory becomes much more inscrutable. So when, for example, volunteers are asked to recall two very different kinds of explicit memory for autobiographical events (being the Christmas star in a nativity play) or for facts (the names of different types of apple) both tasks involved billions of neurons across large and overlapping tracts of the brain.

More astonishing still, it would appear that over time memories are reallocated from one part of the brain to another. Whereas in the young the predominant area of brain activity when memorising is located in the left frontal cortex and then its subsequent recall is in the right itself an amazing finding the same functions in the elderly are distributed equally between the two hemispheres.

The capacity for human memory is a deep mystery notes Robert Doty, a neurobiologist. The facility to sort with alacrity through the experiences of a lifetime and their cascading associations defies credible clarification.

Further to the recent news of the potential merits of the sunshine Vitamin D in protecting the dark-skinned against the respiratory complications of Covid, consultant rheumatologist Dr Geoffrey Clarke points out that similar considerations apply to the elderly.

When tested, Vitamin D deficiency is one of the commonest things we find in this age group, writes Clarke, due to their limited exposure to sunlight. This can be corrected by taking a supplement of at least 10 micrograms (400 International Units) daily, particularly in the winter months.

While the primary role of the vitamin is facilitating the absorption of calcium necessary for healthy bones, low levels are also implicated as a cause of weakness of the muscles of the lower limbs.

Logically, then, taking Vitamin D supplements might also help to reduce the risk of falls and fractures by almost a quarter according to one study, though overall the evidence is equivocal.

More importantly, Dr Terry Aspray, of Newcastle University, pointed out that older people should ensure they get adequate sun exposure and take regular exercise to keep their bones and muscles as strong as possible.

Finally, this weeks medical query comes courtesy of Mr KC, from Perth, who has of late been troubled with bouts of palpitations two or three times a week, which are usually brought on when lying on his left side in bed at night.

These episodes last a couple of hours and are associated with the repeated need to pass what feels like bladder-fulls of urine, and the disturbed nights also leave him feeling exhausted the following day. His family doctor has arranged for him to have a 24-hour recording of his heart rhythm.

In the meantime, Mr KC wonders if anyone can account for these prodigious feats of urination and what to do about it.

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Terrorists also victims, let them speak out: What late Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh said in 2005 – ThePrint

January 22, 2022 | Author: admin

Author, poet, and Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh died Friday at the age of 95 in Vietnam.

This is the text of an NDTVWalk the Talk interview conducted by Shekhar Gupta in 2005, when Thich Nhat Hanh was visiting Delhi.

Shekhar Gupta (SG):As we stand in front of Gandhi Samadhi, I remember reading that when you corresponded with Martin Luther King, he invoked Gandhis way with you. How relevant is the Mahatma today?

Thich Nhat Hanh (TNH): He is still very relevant, if only you know how to continue, to help him continue. Whether he is relevant depends on our way of understanding and on whether we have enough desire to walk his talk, to walk his walk.

SG: And talk his talk, but thats tough in todays times.

TNH: The teaching of non-violence is to be applied to yourself first. You might realise that there is tension, stress and pain in your body. You might have done violence to your body, you suffer and thats why you have to address it first with utmost non- violence. Do something in order to relieve the suffering of your body. Breathe in mindfully, deeply. Release the tension in your body and that is the practice of non-violence addressed to your body. And if you succeed, you might be able to do it with the violence in you, your anger, fear, despair, irritation.

SG: All the time

TNH: Yes, and if you know the practice of non-violence, youd be able to address that mass of suffering within yourself.

SG: Because we talk today on Gandhi Jayanti, you may have seen traffic was blocked, lots of security. We have become very cynical our leaders come on Gandhi Jayanti for a few minutes, offer a few flowers, and then, we believe, forget all about him for the rest of the year.

TNH: We are not kind to the Mahatma. Because we want to only pay him lip service. We want to take him as our teacher, our companion on the path (but) we are not really trying to walk the talk.

SG: Thay, if I may address you as your disciples do, Thay for teacher. You are also the master of walking meditation. Tell us a bit about that.

TNH: Walking meditation is just mindful walking, where you enjoy every step you take. You concentrate on your in-breath, on your out-breath. You concentrate on the steps you take and you walk in such a way that you can release the past and the future. You may have sorrow or pain concerning the past and the past can be a prison, so you walk in such a way that you can be released from the past.

SG: From the prison of the past?

And also from the prison of the future because you may have fear, uncertainty and worries about the future that may make you unable to enjoy the present moment. Walking means you establish yourself fully in the present moment.

SG: So, what matters is this moment?

TNH: Yes, because life is available only in the present moment and if you can be in touch with the present moment, you can be in touch with the wonders of life. So simple.

SG: Can ordinary human beings do it? We know that a master like you can do it.

TNH: Everyone. Anyone who likes to train himself or herself will be able to do it.

SG: You dont have to be a monk to be able to do it?

TNH: No. I have seen children who are able to do it. In fact, children have more capacity to be in the present moment, more than old people.

SG: Older people have too much muck in their heads.

TNH: Yeah, so walking like that you become free, you become solid and you can get in touch with the refreshing and healing elements of life within and around. You get healing transformation, nourishment by walking. And walking like that you see the Kingdom of God; the pure land of the Buddha available in the now. And you are so happy, you dont want to run after your cravings like money, fame, sex and power.

SG: But you dont have to renounce any of that?

You dont have to renounce but you are happy enough not to be slaves of these things. You are free. And freedom is the foundation of true happiness.

SG: You can then find that happiness and joy in your walking meditation without any props? No music, no mantras, no chanting. No teacher at that moment.

TNH: You know what is wonderful about Mahatma Gandhi is that he was able to lead a simple life. He was not a victim of cravings for wealth, fame, power. If we consider ourselves to be a friend of his, a student of his, a continuation of him, we should also adopt that style of living.

SG: But he set too high a standard for us.

TNH: No.

SG: No?

TNH: I have many students, monastic as well as lay people, who lead simple lives and are much happier than those who have a lot of money and power. Because we believe we cannot be truly happy without a lot of money and power and fame, we cannot see the truth. Many of us who are capable of being happy in our daily lives have the time to take care of ourselves and to take care of our beloved ones. And thanks to their (students) capacity of living a simple life they can do so and the quality of their lives is much higher.

SG: Since not everybody can be a monk or a mahatma, is it possible for an ordinary human being to pursue money, pleasures of life, power, building economies, companies, markets, governments and yet lead a life of mindfulness as well. Can you have the best of both worlds?

TNH: I am not against having a lot of money or power or fame. If you are a free person, these things can be very helpful. I am against the cage where you become slaves, victims of these things. I have seen many people with plenty of money, power and fame who suffer very deeply. So, we should look around and recognise the fact that happiness is largely a matter of the mind. This is what Gandhiji said.

SG: We see today so many powerful CEOs in America suffering. They made money even though their companies have sunk and I can bet they are not the happiest of people.

TNH: Even after they have made a lot of money, they dont think it is enough. Theres is no end to it and by running like that they dont have the time to take care of themselves and to take care of their loved ones. Life without love, care and compassion cannot be a happy life.

SG: Because as people become more successful and rich and older, they have to eat less, they have to drink less. They have to bring many other disciplines in their lives. And God or whoever gives it to them, also takes away something from them

TNH: In fact, there is something called the goodness of suffering. If you know how to look deeply into the nature of your suffering, you get insight and understanding. You can find a way out, a way of transformation and healing but you dont need more suffering, you have enough suffering. What is essential is that you are capable of learning from suffering.

SG: Any time you mention the word suffering, you laugh.

TNH: Suffering to happiness is like the mud and the lotus flower. Because the lotus cannot grow on marble, it has to grow on mud. And if we dont suffer, how can we understand and be compassionate? How can we love?

SG: How can we understand someone elses suffering?

TNH: Look in your own suffering and look into the suffering of other people and understand. And from that understanding, you accept, you are compassionate and that is the foundation of your happiness.

SG: If I can push the envelope, have you learnt from your suffering?

TNH: I have learnt from my suffering, I have learnt from the suffering of my country, my people, the world and I am thankful for that. My practice is not to run away from suffering, my practice is looking deeply into the nature of suffering and learning from it.

SG: Will you give us some examples of you learning from your suffering?

Suppose you work your body too hard and if you have the time to get in touch with your body you recognise that there is tension, stress, pain. And you know that you should conduct your daily life in a way that you do not accumulate more pain. So because you have suffered in your body, you can learn from your suffering.

SG: You can bring it down

TNH: And you can change your way of life in order to not get more suffering into yourself and when you are able to do that, you can help other people to do the same.

SG: But your own life Thich, monkhood at 16, then exile for so long. Thats suffering, away from your country, your people.

TNH: We have gone through many wars and we have seen the suffering of the people. We have learnt that we have to do something to educate the people, the younger generation so that they know that they should not allow war to take hold of their country again. In the beginning (of being in exile) I longed to go back to my homeland but since they did not allow me I had to accept the hopelessness of trying to rush to that land.

SG: I read the conversations you had with Robert McNamara in the 60s. Could you have said what you told him to Donald Rumsfeld in these times?

TNH: Of course. Before I could go back to Vietnam (in 2007), Senator John McCain wrote a letter to the Government of Vietnam, urging them to allow me to go home.

SG: Senator McCain wrote that?

TNH: Even though I did not ask him to. And when I met him again in his office in Washington DC, I said, what you are doing in Iraq? And he said, exactly what you have done in Vietnam. It does not seem that America has learnt from the suffering in Vietnam. But I believe that from that time on he has reflected on that.

SG: Has he forgiven the Vietnamese for his experience in the POW camp or is he still bitter?

TNH: I think he is. He represents a portion of the American population and if he does not remember, his colleagues and his people can remind him. Thats how it is with collective consciousness. A leader is always conditioned by the desire, the thinking of the people that he leads and that is why collective thinking, the collective view of the people is very important.

SG: I remember you spoke in New York a couple of weeks after 9/11 and you were asked what you would tell Osama Bin Laden if you met him. You said you would listen to him first. Now we have a situation in India, where we are having this rash of bombings and people are scared and angry because they believe those who are carrying out the bombings are their brothers from their own country. Can these people be told to listen to those who are attacking them?

TNH: Terrorists are also victims. They are victims of the information they have got, they are victims of their own perceptions and that is why its very important that we try to understand them.

SG: They are angry

TNH: Their perceptions are not helpful to them that is why they get angry, violent, they want to punish. And that is why they need to be helped and not to be punished. One way to help them is to allow them to speak out.

They are those who believe that they are victims of discrimination and injustice and based on that kind of belief they have tried to do something but, so far, have not succeeded. No one has listened to them, done something for them and that is why they have taken recourse to terrorism. So, what we can do as a government, as a nation is to organise a session of deep, compassionate listening and invite them to come and to tell us what is in their heart, their suffering, their frustration. You can organise it in such a way that the session of listening is televised for the whole nation to follow. And if we have enough attention and compassion, we bring about relief. They feel that they are now understood, and they suffer less.

SG: It will be like a pressure valve getting released?

TNH: Yes, and if we repeatedly organise sessions of deep listening then I think after a few months the level of violence and hate will go down and that is what we have experienced in our community.

SG: I know you have a very busy schedule in India, but I cant let you go away without explaining to us complete illiterates the idea of mindfulness.

TNH: Mindfulness is a kind of energy that allows you to be aware of what is going on in the present moment everyone has the seat of mindfulness, even if that seat is very small. But if we practise mindful breathing, walking and acting, every time we touch that seat of mindfulness we will have the energy that helps us to go home to the present moment, to be fully alive and to take care of what is happening in the field of our body, emotions, perceptions. And you can take care of what is going on around us, in our family, in our society and in the world. Mindfulness is the energy of being there in the present moment.

SG: And not either fantasising about the future or brooding about the past.

TNH: That is the opposite. So, mindfulness helps you to live deeply the present moment, to get the healing, the nourishment from the wonders of life. Mindfulness helps us to be fully present in order to take care of our own pain and sorrow and that of the people around us. So, mindfulness is the heart of the practice of meditation. I think any spiritual tradition has mindfulness as the core practice, only they may use other words.

SG: I think a lot of the teachers would give the same message but very few can give it in as simple a way as you do and thats why your presence brings so much solace wherever you are. So, we are grateful you are in India. I hope you come again and to that extent I think its so much better that you are now a citizen of the world than just a citizen of your own country.

This transcript was originally published in The Indian Express in 2008.

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COLUMN: Finding food for your mind and heart – Cape Cod Times

January 22, 2022 | Author: admin

Lawrence Brown, Columnist| Cape Cod Times

Many Cape Codders are experiencing COVID-19 fatigue on steroids. Kids are still having to mask up. Grown-ups have to work, like it or not. But for our seniors, theres an affordable option for continuing education and excellent companionship.

Check out the Academy for Lifelong Learning (ALL) online and find a wide spectrum of courses, including perils of post-modernism, theology, great cities of the world, molecular biology, home improvement, American history, short-story writing and the poetry of Yeats, to name a few.

When I retired after 34 years at Cape Cod Academy, I was already old and it was time. But I suffered from The Bends rapid decompression and I missed my kids terribly. (I still do.) Thats when I was happily recruited by ALL. The program had classes at the community college. My senior students were bright, engaging, with a lifetime of experiences to share.I was hooked.

Then COVID-19 hit and our cohort had special reasons to take care. We retreated to Zoom. As the pandemic refuses to let up, were on it still.Compared to sitting around a big table together, Zoom has its share of disappointments. Our companions are credit-card-sized boxes on a screen.Much of the nuance of in-person conversation is stripped away. I know some folks have trouble adjusting to it.

But consider the alternative, which is nothing.When the pandemic first hit, our screens held the faces of men and women whod just lost marriage partners spanning most of a lifetime. What could be worse than grief wrapped in loneliness?Here, we had company.

The ALLprogram favors discussions over lectures. My last class was titled Becoming America.ALL offers six- and 12-week classes that meet once a week. I prefer the six-week rhythm.We looked at the historical and cultural currents that made us what we are.

To take one example: the stunning inventiveness of Americans.

In the 1800s, American farmers essentially had the same technologies available to them that farmers had in ancient civilizations: iron and wooden equipment with animal power.Typically, one farmer could feed six people so most people were farmers.

Then, with the same technologies, American farmers invented the horse-drawn combine and harvester, the steel-edged plow. Suddenly a farmer could cultivate up to 20 times as much land or feed 20 times as many people. Any civilization could have done it, but after all that time, Americans did it first.

Of course, there are less heroic chapters in our story, too. But for every cruelty, thereve been countless voices of protest insisting that to be great, America must be moral as well as mighty. History isnt just something we learn.History is something we have to wrestle with.So on our sixth and final session, two sections (almost 50 people) spent the whole time sharing the collected wisdom and perspective of the group.

Where might we be 25 years out?Optimists hoped the U.S. and China will have established some kind of dtente, short of war.Others worried that our internal divisions, fanned by social media and lying politicians, will have overwhelmed us.Some worried America could be driven into mediocrity by the very politicians who promised greatness.

Francoise, with a huge clan still in France, observed that while children and grandchildren were seeking livelihoods across the globe, none were coming here. Too dysfunctional. We do not always see ourselves as others see us.

We listed the elements that people thought made up our greatest strengths: Our system of higher education, our flare for innovation, the diversity that offers us multiple perspectives and a broad national palate … our democracy, freedom … and tied to the American Dream what Jo-Anne called the idea of America. Its still a powerful force around the world, she said.

But each class, independently, called out threats to the survival of each gift: a growing hostility to education and expertise … increasing hostility to cultural and racial diversity … the increasing concentration of wealth, and the death of social and political comity that despite differences of opinion has knitted us together into a single nation.

What we got was an unexpected warning from our elders that America was at risk of committing cultural and political suicide eyes wide shut and blinded by a mutually exclusive self-righteousness.Maybe well continue to blame each other all the way down.

But maybe not. There was still a deep pride in all weve accomplished together and an inability to believe we might really throw it all away.

Where else these days can we find opportunities for discussions like these?

Lawrence Brown of Centerville is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times.Email him at columnresponse@gmail.com.

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Who Is King of Florida? Tensions Rise Between Trump and Ron DeSantis – The New York Times

January 22, 2022 | Author: admin

For months, former President Donald J. Trump has been grumbling quietly to friends and visitors to his Palm Beach mansion about a rival Republican power center in another Florida mansion, some 400 miles to the north.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, a man Mr. Trump believes he put on the map, has been acting far less like an acolyte and more like a future competitor, Mr. Trump complains. With his stock rising fast in the party, the governor has conspicuously refrained from saying he would stand aside if Mr. Trump runs for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

The magic words, Trump has said to several associates and advisers.

That long-stewing resentment burst into public view recently in a dispute over a seemingly unrelated topic: Covid policies. After Mr. DeSantis refused to reveal his full Covid vaccination history, the former president publicly acknowledged he had received a booster. Last week, he seemed to swipe at Mr. DeSantis by blasting as gutless politicians who dodge the question out of fear of blowback from vaccine skeptics.

Mr. DeSantis shot back on Friday, criticizing Mr. Trumps early handling of the pandemic and saying he regretted not being more vocal in his complaints.

The back and forth exposed how far Republicans have shifted to the right on coronavirus politics. The doubts Mr. Trump amplified about public health expertise have only spiraled since he left office. Now his defense of the vaccines even if often subdued and almost always with the caveat in the same breath that he opposes mandates has put him uncharacteristically out of step with the hard-line elements of his partys base and provided an opening for a rival.

But that it was Mr. DeSantis a once-loyal member of the Trump court wielding the knife made the tension about much more.

At its core, the dispute amounts to a stand-in for the broader challenge confronting Republicans at the outset of midterm elections. They are led by a defeated former president who demands total fealty, brooks no criticism and is determined to sniff out, and then snuff out, any threat to his control of the party.

That includes the 43-year-old DeSantis, who has told friends he believes Mr. Trumps expectation that he bend the knee is asking too much. That refusal has set up a generational clash and a test of loyalty in the de facto capital of todays G.O.P., one watched by Republicans elsewhere whove ridden to power on Mr. Trumps coattails.

Already, party figures are attempting to calm matters.

Theyre the two most important leaders in the Republican Party, said Brian Ballard, a longtime Florida lobbyist with connections to both men, predicting Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis will be personal and political friends for the rest of their careers.

Mr. Trumps aides also have tried to tamp down questions about the former presidents frustrations, so as not to elevate Mr. DeSantis.

Still, Mr. Trump has made no secret of his preparations for a third run for the White House. And while Mr. DeSantis, who is up for re-election this year, has not declared his plans, he is widely believed to be eyeing the presidency.

Mr. Trump and his aides are mindful of Republicans increasingly public fatigue with the drama that trails Mr. Trump. The former presidents false claims about fraud in the 2020 election which Mr. DeSantis has not challenged and his role in the events leading to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol have some Republicans looking for a fresh start.

Mr. DeSantis is often the first name Republicans cite as a possible Trump-style contender not named Trump.

DeSantis would be a formidable 2024 candidate in the Trump lane should Trump not run, said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor. Hes Trump but a little smarter, more disciplined and brusque without being too brusque.

Notably, Mr. Trump, a longtime student of charisma and mass appeal, as well as an avid reader of polling, has refrained so far from publicly attacking Mr. DeSantis, who is a distant but potent second to him in polls on the 2024 G.O.P. field. His restraint is a break from the mockery and bullying he often uses to attack Republicans he perceives as vulnerable. Mr. Trump made no reference to the governor at a rally in Arizona on Saturday.

Mr. DeSantis has $70 million in the bank for his re-election, a war chest he stocked with help from the Republican rank-and-file and donor class, alike. He has raised his profile in the same spaces Mr. Trump once dominated. The governor is ubiquitous on Fox News, where he is routinely met with the sort of softballs that once arced toward Mr. Trump. And he frequently mixes with the well-tanned Republican donor community near the former presidents winter home in South Florida.

It was not always this way.

Mr. DeSantis was a little-known Florida congressman in 2017, when Mr. Trump, who was then the president, spotted him on television and took keen interest. Mr. DeSantis, an Ivy League-educated military veteran and smooth-talking defender of the new president, was exactly what Mr. Trump liked in a politician.

It wasnt long before Mr. Trump blessed Mr. DeSantiss bid for governor and sent in staff to help him, lifting the lawmaker to a victory over a better-known rival for the partys nomination.

Mr. DeSantis survived the general election and has often governed in a style that mirrors his patron, slashing at the left and scrapping with the news media. But that alone doesnt placate Mr. Trump. As with other Republicans he has endorsed, the former president appears to take a kind of ownership interest in Mr. DeSantis and to believe that he is owed dividends and deference.

Look, I helped Ron DeSantis at a level that nobodys ever seen before, Mr. Trump said in an interview for a forthcoming book, Insurgency, on the rightward shift of the Republican Party, by the New York Times reporter Jeremy W. Peters. Mr. Trump said he believed Mr. DeSantis didnt have a chance of winning without his help.

The former presidents expectation of deference from Mr. DeSantis is a reminder to other Republicans that a Trump endorsement comes with a price, a demand that could prove particularly consequential should he run again and have a stable of Republican lawmakers in his debt.

At times, Mr. Trump has sought to kindle his relationship with Mr. DeSantis. He has suggested the governor would be a strong choice for vice president. Similar courtship has helped win deference from other potential rivals. But Mr. DeSantis has not relented.

I wonder why the guy wont say he wont run against me, Mr. Trump has said to several associates and advisers, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Mr. Trump began the recent contretemps by attacking the governors refusal to acknowledge whether he had received a Covid-19 booster shot.

The answer is Yes, but they dont want to say it, because theyre gutless, Mr. Trump said in a television interview this month, referring only to politicians but clearly alluding to Mr. DeSantis. You got to say it whether you had it or not, say it.

Mr. DeSantiss response came on Friday in an interview on the conservative podcast Ruthless. Speaking in front of an in-person audience near St. Petersburg, Fla., the governor said one of his biggest regrets was not forcefully opposing Mr. Trumps calls for lockdowns when the coronavirus first began to spread in the spring of 2020.

Knowing now what I know then, if that was a threat earlier, I would have been much louder, Mr. DeSantis said. The governor said he had been telling Trump stop the flights from China but argued he never thought in early March 2020 that the virus would lead to locking down the country.

Mr. DeSantis then moved quickly to place blame on Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who advised Trump on the countrys Covid response, a much safer target with conservatives.

The former president did not immediately respond. Without a Twitter account, his hair-trigger retorts have become less frequent. A spokesman for Mr. Trump also did not respond to requests for comment. An adviser to Mr. DeSantis declined to comment.

Mr. DeSantis, however, has touched on a delicate issue, one of the few on which Mr. Trump is to the left of his partys hard-liners: the efficacy of the vaccine and deference to public health experts advice on how to curb the spread of the virus.

Mr. Trump has begun blasting warning shots at Mr. DeSantis and other aspiring Republicans, signaling he intends to defend the vaccines his administration helped develop. In an interview with Candace Owens, a right-wing media personality, the former president said the vaccine worked and dismissed conspiracy theories. People arent dying when they take the vaccine, he said.

Mr. DeSantis, though, has been much more eager to focus on his resistance to Covid-19 restrictions, past and present, than to make a robust case for vaccination and booster shots.

Notably, at his rally on Saturday, Mr. Trump did not promote vaccines and criticized so-called Covid lockdowns.

Mr. Trumps loudest antagonists are likely to continue to stoke the tension between the two men. Ann Coulter, the conservative commentator who has fallen out with the former president, delighted in the dust-up this week.

Trump is demanding to know Ron DeSantiss booster status, and I can now reveal it, Ms. Coulter wrote on Twitter. He was a loyal booster when Trump ran in 2016, but then he learned our president was a liar and con man whose grift was permanent.

In an email, Ms. Coulter, herself a part-time Florida resident, put a finer point on what makes Mr. DeSantiss rise unsettling for the former president. Trump is done, she wrote. You guys should stop obsessing over him.

Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting.

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Ann Coulter: Sordid tale of Jeffrey Epstein – The Bryan Times

January 22, 2022 | Author: admin

* Part 2 of 2. (Part 1 in the Jan. 15 The Bryan Times)

Last week, we reviewed our ruling class's strange lack of interest in Jeffrey Epstein's child molestation ring, in which so many of them played a part. The media cover-up is second only to the government cover-up ... in cases they've been forced to bring (by the police and the public) against the child molester.

This week, we'll look at the government's long record of zealously trying NOT to unravel the case.

The local police presented then-Palm Beach state attorney Barry Krischer with bales of evidence. They had affidavits from dozens of witnesses: girls abused by the pederast, the women who recruited them, the butler who cleaned up sex toys after the "massages," as well as records of Epstein's molestation appointments, one delayed because of a victim's "soccer practice."

Pretty much everything we know today about Epstein's sex ring was unearthed by the Palm Beach Police back in 2005 and handed to Krischer on a silver platter.

According to an extensive review by The Palm Beach Post, most of Krischer's 2,800-page investigative file on the case consists of dirt against the teens -- and against the police -- given to him by Epstein's lawyers.

According to Nexis, only one newspaper, The Palm Beach Post, reported at the time -- or ever -- that Palm Beach prosecutor Krischer gave Epstein probation for his years of child abuse.

At that point, the enraged Palm Beach chief of police took his evidence to a completely separate law enforcement agency -- the federal government, even though these were mostly state crimes. U.S. attorney Alex Acosta proceeded to make a deal with Epstein -- with Krischer essentially operating as Epstein's defense counsel ...

According to journalist Vicky Ward, Acosta later defended this sweetheart deal to the Trump transition team, explaining: "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone."

Most recently, the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York brought a gentle prosecution against Epstein's pimp and fellow child molester, Ghislaine Maxwell. Most notably, the Southern District did not call the star witness, Virginia Giuffre, who has openly named the rich and powerful men she says these creeps forced her to have sex with, including Prince Andrew, former Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, former New Mexico governor and presidential candidate Bill Richardson, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, French model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, and the hedge fund billionaire Glenn Dubin, among others.

Immediately after the Southern District accidentally won five guilty verdicts against Maxwell, the prosecutors quietly revealed that, weeks earlier, they'd dismissed all charges against the prison guards who failed to check on Epstein for more than eight hours the night he allegedly committed suicide -- despite an explicit directive that they check on him every 30 minutes.

The feds not only did not move Epstein to a super-maximum security prison as some observers recommended, but they also: The day before Epstein died, he was taken off suicide watch; against orders, his cellmate transferred elsewhere, leaving Epstein completely alone in his cell; all the cameras on Epstein's floor were mysteriously broken.

Even the footage of his earlier suicide attempt had been mistakenly erased and the backup footage destroyed "as a result of technical errors," according to assistant U.S. attorneys Jason Swergold and Maurene Comey.

Maxwell is facing up to 65 years in prison, and her brother has just admitted she can name names. Hello? SDNY? Any thoughts about applying some pressure?

Most strange, the ink wasn't dry on the guilty verdicts before one of the jurors ran to the press and announced that he'd lied on his juror questionnaire.

Are prosecutors even investigating any contact between Maxwell's representatives and the jurors?

However this ends, once it's over, we'll never hear about Epstein again -- unlike, say, Jan. 6, which we will never stop hearing about. If America got to vote, which story do you think they would find more interesting?

Doesn't the public have a right to know how big Epstein's sex/blackmail club was, who among America's ruling elite were compromised, and to what end?

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Why Does Bitcoin’s Price Rise and Fall? – TheStreet

January 22, 2022 | Author: admin

Bitcoin's price has gone from $32,983 on Jan. 22, 2021 to $35,811 on the morning of the same day one year later. In the year between, however, the price dipped below $30,000 in July and climbed above $69,000 as recently as Nov. 10.

On a five-year basis, things look a lot better for Bitcoin investors as shares have gone from just over $1,000 in 2017 to its current price that's hovering around $35,000. That's an incredible return when you consider that during the same five-year period Amazon (AMZN) - Get Amazon.com, Inc. Reportstock went from $835.77 to $2852.86 while Tesla (TSLA) - Get Tesla Inc Reportshares jumped from $50.59 to $943.90.

That means that for long-term investors, Bitcoin has been a better investment than Amazon or Tesla, and, honestly, it's not close. The difference, of course, is that Amazon and Tesla sell stuff and that gives investors some basis for their valuations (even if they sometimes don't seem rooted in reality).

Bitcoin has no product because it's the product. Its value tracks more like a collectible than a share in a company.

Image Source: TradingView.

Bitcoin trades based on how people feel about cryptocurrency. It's not tied to a metric like sales. Instead, it's a combination of fear of missing out and how investors view the currency at any given moment.

Prices also tend to fall or rise depending on the actions of regulators. When authorities indicate that they could ban or strictly regulate Bitcoin, prices go down. But when they are warmer or less firm prices go up.

"Rises are mainly down to positive perception in the media. Some news makes a lot of people think 'bitcoin really is the future! Im gonna get some and/or buy more!,'" wrote Rhys Thomas at The Face.

Drops happen for exactly the same reason. Bitcoin, like diamonds or gold, has a finite supply though the cryptocurrency has an actual cap while precious metals and gemstones exist in unknown quantities.

Roughly 19 million bitcoins of the hard total of 21 million have been mined, which means they can be bought and sold.

"It took 12 years for the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap to reach that goal after the first coins were mined on Jan. 9, 2009," wrote TheStreet's Tony Owusu in December. "However, it will take exponentially longer for the remaining supply to be mined due to bitcoin's halving schedule. The halving schedule is an inflationary control device where the reward for mining bitcoin is cut in half."

This process discourages mining because it raises the cost required to mine a bitcoin, which discourages people from doing it (especially when the price of the cryptocurrency has fallen).

Tristar Media/Getty/TS

The price of Bitcoin does not track based on any predictable data. It moves up or down based based on how people feel about the cryptocurrency at any given time. When buyers outnumber sellers the price goes up.

And, of course, influencers and celebrities have the ability to move the price of various cryptocurrencies. Sometimes that's for no reason at all (or because the famous person wants the price to go up or down) and sometimes for a semi-meaningful one like that a company will accept on form or crypto or another as payment.

Bitcoin, like any other cryptocurrency, collectible, and many rare items can be manipulated. In many ways, however, this works a bit like large-cap stocks versus penny stocks. Because penny stocks trade at lower volumes than large-cap stocks, they're harder to manipulate.

As the sort of king of crypto, bitcoin can't be manipulated as easily as smaller cryptocurrencies simply because it trades at much higher volumes.

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