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Welcome to this week’s show!
Stuff we talked about.
The date of this week’s show is a palindrome, i.e., a number or series of characters that is the same forwards and backwards. Could it be auspicious? We’ll see…
–Steve
P.S. We want to hear from you! Listeners can participate live during the show using the chat box on our show page at Radio Free Berkshires or message us on Twitter @RadioFreeBerks.
LIGHT (OR NOT)
- Scientists have discovered that birds have a “quantum sense” that enables them to sense the Earth’s magnetic field, among other things. We’ll do our best to wrap our heads around the science (neither one of us was a Physics major) and talk about some of the implications.
- Why would anyone doubt that ET does some weird shit to us once he gets us up in that flying saucer? “Lucy in the Sky with Dolphins”
https://www.patreon.com/posts/lucy-in-sky-with-11876648 AND, to show this was a real thing: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-dolphins-lsd-communitcate-them-experiment-talk-john-lilly-margaret-howe-lovatt-a7787556.html And then read this: Octopuses Rolling on MDMA Reveal Unexpected Link to Humans https://getpocket.com/explore/item/octopuses-rolling-on-mdma-reveal-unexpected-link-to-humans?utm_source=pocket-newtab
LOCAL
- One of the cooler obits we’ve ever read. Frederick Wyatt “Fritz” Lord, a graduate of Dartmouth and the Harvard Business School and whose vocations over the years here in the Berkshires included attorney, massage therapist, and semi-professional singer, died earlier this month at the age of 91. Give it a read:
- <The Last Hurrah. These last years (since 2012) living on Vinalhaven – shared with my beloved wife Penelope and our much loved dog Abigail – have provided the most fulfilling contentment in my whole life. But now it is time to move on. I have begun my journey of transition from incarnate life to the welcoming embrace of DivineMystery: unknown, but anticipated with joy. Here on Vinalhaven, I have been able to concentrate more on “Being” rather than on “Doing”. My education began in my small town’s public schools followed by a BA from Dartmouth, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a JD at age 47 from Boston College Law School.
My vocational Doing life – mostly in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts – has included attorney, ballet company general manager, encounter group facilitator, Ensign, USNR (Korean War), insurance and real estate broker, massage therapist, mediator/counselor, middle school teacher, non-profit financial administrator, and semiprofessional singer. Indeed, singing has been a prime non-vocational pleasure for me from age 8 in the boys’ choir onward through church choirs, choruses of both large and small, and community lyric theater productions. In the great outdoors, I have greatly enjoyed skiing, hiking, swimming, boating and bicycling, along with reading, language, cooking, wining and dining with friends and dancing. I am the founder and Abbot of “The Free Lance Disciples of DivineMystery”. My love of laughter connects me to the universal Cosmic Joke, of which I have been an avid adherent. Dear sisters & brothers, if we – and all the other animals – will survive our ruthless and violent destruction of Gaia and ourselves, we shall have to move from being the planet of materialistic knowledge and “tribal” delusions to being the planet of all encompassing love. For many years now, I have been working with this quotation from William Blake: ” We are placed on this earth for a little space of time to learn to bear The Beams of Love.” I have treated this as a Tendai Buddhist koan. So presently, it shall become clear. Hurray! I leave my beloved family: Penelope, my wife of over 31 years, my son David and his partner MoonSong, my daughter Rebecca and her wife Janita, my daughter Julia and her husband Lee, along with their twin sons: my grandsons Gabriel and Samuel; my sister Melissa; my nephew Erick; my niece Sarah; my two step-sons, Geoffrey and Alexis; my former wife Eleanor – the mother of our children; and William Delmolino, my best of all time friend. I consider my sexuality as a special gift. Most would call it “bi”. I prefer to call it osmotic. This quality has been of prime importance in forging my connections interacting with incarnate life from a loving intent. Love is the eternal essence, which I am now going to rejoin wholly within DivineMystery. LOVE ONE ANOTHER AMATE>
- The Berkshire Eagle is reporting that BHS, the parent company of our monopoly health care provider here in Berkshire County, has booked a loss of $35 million for fiscal year 2020. The COVID pandemic has revealed foundational flaws in the way we obtain health care in the US. When an American woman working in Iceland found a lump in her breast, she discovered that there are other, way better ways of running a health care system.
THE COMMONWEALTH
- After seeing her mother, uncle, and aunt on video assaulting a black woman aduring the riots at the Capitol, a Massachusetts teen turned them in to the FBI. It makes us wonder what Vito Corleone, a/k/a the Godfather, would have to say about this.
- The more contagious variant of the coronavirus discovered in the UK has arrived in Massachusetts. The CDC has said that this variant could become the dominant source of new infections as early as March. Meanwhile, Charlie Baker and his administration have totally screwed up the vaccine rollout, even though Moderna, which developed one of the vaccines, is a Massachusetts company.
NATION
- Brazilian journalist (and frequent RT commentator) Pepe Escobar has written a chilling analysis of 1/6. Is civil war really in the cards here in the US? Escobar fears the worst.
- The Capitol insurrection exposed the depth of the connections between far-right, white supremacist groups and law enforcement. These authors make a good case for rooting out police officers affiliated with such groups. Here’s what one police department in Orange County is doing to address the problem.
OUR GUEST THIS WEEK
- Joining us this week is John Getchell, who purchased the beloved Blue Benn diner in Bennington and is currently in the process of reopening it. John is also a writer, humorist, and performance artist. His book, “Sign of the Apocalypse: Ruminations and Wit from an American Roadside Prophet,” was published in 2017 by Skyhorse Publishing.
WHO WE’RE READING AND LISTENING TO THIS WEEK
- Friend of the show Eoin Higgins on demilitarizing the police.
Have you ever stopped to think about how creepy the phrase “human resources” is? Canadian political economist Blair Fix breaks down the concept and reveals its links to discredited theories like eugenics and Nietschze’s ubermensch.
TLC Episode 97
