Sometimes you have to be a little bit bad-ass – just to be a decent person, and do what must be done to help and protect others. Gandhi was right: cowards can never be moral. Moreover, it is true: the world is a dangerous place, not because a few
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Writings of J. Todd Ring: Everything you need to know about covid-19
Worldwide there have been 321 cases of COVID-19, or Wuhan flu, per million people. There is the answer re: how infectious is it? Negligible. Gain of function over the flu, but still low. More importantly: Unless you are 80+, have a pre-existing illness, or are immune compromised, your risk
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: “Unprecedented” – Reality vs Delusion
Every year a tragic event happens. 300,000 to 500,000 people die globally of the flu. Most are very old, very ill, or immune compromised. In 2020 fewer people have died of a novel coronavirus (a new form within the cold and flu family of viruses) than from previous years typical
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Cutting through the crap, with Matt Taibbi
Along with John Pilger, Abby Martin, & the handful of honest journalists left standing, I love Matt Tabbi. Here he sums up what’s wrong with politics & the media, in a few short lines. “Klobuchar is a pure distillation of “electability,” i.e., a Washington reporter’s idea of what a Midwesterner
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The end of Bernie, the beginning of the Revolution
I was and am a supporter or Bernie Sanders, like Ron Paul before him, because he truly represents the interests of constitutional democracy, and the rule of the people, by the people, for the people, versus the Wall Street/Davos/Brussels/City of London oligarchy and their minions in the military industrial security
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Video Calls: Communication In A Hyper-Connected & Deeply Dissociated Society
Thoughtful commentators to the Smithsonian and BBC recently “recommended limiting video calls to only those that are necessary. Petriglieri adds that positioning the video screen to your side may make it feel like you’re in a nearby room instead of under scrutiny. University of Québec psychologist Claude Normand tells National
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Work and Workaholism: Puritanism, and A Day Off
This morning when I got up, feeling exhausted again from the on-going 30-year stint of sleeplessness and insomnia, I thought, I should take a day off – considering I pretty much never take a day off. (Some people imagine that writers and philosophers sit around all day staring at their
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Real Resistance: Lessons From History
It does not require a majority to defeat tyranny and defend liberty, but only a small and dedicated minority – as we saw in the American and French Revolutions, and in the defeat of the first wave of fascism, which arose in the 1930’s (and was greatly loved and
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Glenn Gould On Orwell
Yo, listen up, blokes! (He says, in order to mash and mangle and generally have fun with various voices, inflections, accents and colloquilisms, as Gould was fond of doing himself, rather playfully, but with very serious thought and musings injected into his playfulness – very much like the dark humour
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Covid & the Left: An open letter
It matters not what group it was this letter was addressed to. What matters is the content. Please read: (Note that WordPress randomly gets buggy on me and will not let me make paragraph spacing properly: hence the strange use of stars. * And WordPress strangely made my signature invisible
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Crisis Point: Leadership Needed From…Anywhere, Now
Imagine if real leadership from the grassroots comes now from the moderate, democratic/republican right, and not the centre or the left. Considering that the centre and left, almost without exception, have their heads up their asses, this mortifying development is entirely possible. Let us hope that basic sanity, in
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Cognitive Dissonance, Mass Insanity & Covid Hysteria
Check the numbers. The disease is not ravaging us, is not unprecedented, but has killed 1/3rd the death toll of a typical year of the common flu. DOES ANYBODY FACT-CHECK ANYMORE?! If 300,000 to 700,000 deaths per year from the common annual flu, which is typical, and happens every year,
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Neoliberalism & The Death Of The Middle Class
The death of the middle class is due to a very conscious, four decade class war, known as neoliberalism. (See Chomsky, Profits Over People, and, Requiem For The American Dream. See also, The Crisis of Democracy, the very first publication of the Trilateral Commission.) Offshoring of production, or corporate globalization,
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Nostalgia For Simpler Times
I generally am not one for nostalgia, having a strong preference for living in the present, and looking to the future. Further, I rarely write in conversational colloquialisms. But I must say this, as a short note: Holy shit do I miss the ’70’s! Things were fucked up and crazy
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Kindred Spirits: Tuscany, Navarre, and Captain Picard
I was curious about Navarre, after watching Star Trek TNG “Family”, and seeing that Captain Picard is from (outside) a small village in Navarre. What a fascinating place, rich in landscape and cultural history, with a long tradition of independence as well as diversity. Navarre has been independent for longer
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: De-cluttering The Mind – And Our “Civilization”
If we had only Socrates, Shakespeare, Montaigne and Thoreau as guides, to direct our course, and tell us about the world and how to live in it, I think we would do very well. If we also had the words of Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Shankara, the Buddha and Lao Tzu,
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Unplug: Nine Weeks To Basic Clarity
Important, extremely useful books here. A brain washing, in the sense of clearing away the fog and gaining some clarity and perspective, is critically needed, now more than ever. What Huxley and Orwell warned of is here. We need to read, reflect, and disconnect from the mediadrug. Shut off the
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Digital Dystopia & The Killing of Cash – and – Advice For Hard Times
Here is another aspect of the unfolding fascist power grab we are seeing globally in 2020 – along with sweeping powers for governments, suspension of all constitutional rights and freedoms, mass indefinite detainment, global surveillance, and accelerated economic warfare by the 0.1% elite against the 99.9%: fully digital currencies that
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: No Question: We Have Returned To The Dark Ages
Witch burning, anyone? Suspicion equals proof. Indefinite detention on suspicion alone. Maybe we should break out the rack, the Inquisition, and a little Hieronymus Bosch, and really get this party going. Or maybe we’d prefer a little sanity…. Listen to the world’s most reliable trend analyst: “Media Fear Machine
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Bridge of Montaigne; and The Roots of Our 21st Century Crisis
What a delightful bridge Montaigne has been, and is: not only between the present modern world and the Renaissance, which is stupendous treasure enough, but also, in another short span, to the ancients. And he takes us over the bridge with such immediacy that in an instant we are there!
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