Written by Russell Kirkland
This discussion of "Taoism" in classical China will begin with the observation that there was actually no such thing, at least not in the sense that is commmonly accepted among non-specialists. Both in Asia and in the West, many scholars, and their students, have ignored the many advances in Taoist studies since the 1970s, and have continued to cling to outdated stereotypes of what Taoism was/is. In particular, they often cling to simplistic notions about "philosophical Taoism" that now seem unable to withstand critical analysis, in light of recent advances in textual and historical research. The concept of "philosophical Taoism" is, to a large extent, a modern fiction, which has been developed and embraced by people around the world for specific and identifiable social, intellectual, and historical reasons.
Current research reveals that the so-called "Taoist school" of classical times was actually "a retrospective creation": it began as the reification of a Han-dynasty bibliographic classification, and it took its present form in post-Han times, i.e., in the third century CE.
The importance of these facts is that we need to press non-specialists to re-evaluate their commonly accepted ideas of what "Taoism" is. For most of this century, there has been nearly universal agreement among philosophers, historians, and the general public — in Asia and in the West — that "Taoism" could simply be equated with a set of ideas that are embodied (or are perceived to be embodied) in the Tao te ching and the Chuang-tzu. Current research has begun to demonstrate that that common understanding is far too simplistic.
To begin with, it is now clear to most specialists that those two texts were not, in fact, the expositions of two great philosophers, but rather the product of a prolonged period of accretion. That is, each contains ideas from a variety of minds generations or even centuries apart, not to mention different geographical regions. The Chuang-tzu probably originated in scattered jottings of a man named Chuang Chou ca. 320 BCE, and was developed into its present form over the following 500 years. The earlier layers of the Chuang-tzu were apparently composed by someone who had never seen the Tao te ching. For its part, the Tao te ching dates only to around the beginning of the third century BCE, i.e., to several decades after the Chuang-tzu began to be compiled. But once again, there is no evidence that the Tao te ching's compilers were aware either of the ideas of the fourth-century writer Chuang Chou or of the text that eventually came to bear his name. Though the provenance of the Tao te ching is still the subject of debate, one current line of research suggests that it may have emerged from the re-working of oral traditions of a community in the southern state of Ch'u. So far, research has been unable to shed virtually any light upon the identity of its compiler or redactor. And I certainly do not expect to establish that identity here. But what is, in fact, possible is to examine possible evidence of that redactor's familiarity with another ancient text, a text of which few today — even among scholars of Chinese thought or religion — have ever heard. That text is a brief work, about one-half the length of the Tao te ching, entitled the Nei yeh (or "Inner Cultivation").
There is little doubt that the Nei yeh is several generations older than the Tao te ching. It seems to date to some time in the second half of the fourth century BCE. That is, it may have been compiled by a contemporary of Chuang Chou, though again there is virtually no data as to the compiler's identity. The Nei yeh fell out of general circulation when it became incorporated into a larger collection, the Kuan-tzu, sometime before the middle of the second century BCE. After that, it was seldom noted by Chinese scholars or philosophers until the 20th century, and even today its thought and significance have barely begun to be explored.
For instance, though it has never, to my knowledge, hitherto been noticed, the influence of the Nei yeh on Chinese thought was profound and extensive. For example, it is here that one first encounters comprehensible references to the personal cultivation of such forces as ch'i ("life-energy"), ching ("vital essence"), and shen ("spiritual consciousness"). The cultivation of such forces became a central theme in certain versions of modern Taoism, as well as in Chinese medicine. But there is also evidence that the Nei yeh may have profoundly influenced the Tao te ching. In this essay, I attempt to identify basic thematic differences between the Nei yeh, the Chuang-tzu, and the Tao te ching, and to suggest certain interpretive strategies for understanding the relationship among them.
The primary difference between the Nei Yeh and the Tao te ching is signalled by the title of the former. Nei means "internal," and in ancient times yeh meant in one sense "cultivation/production" and in another sense "what one studies." Thus the work's title refers directly to "Inner Cultivation" or "Inner Development." Its contents provide the reader with instruction and advice for applying oneself to a task involving what is inside oneself. That is, it teaches the reader how and why to practice certain specific forms of biospiritual cultivation. In fact, unlike the Tao te ching, the Nei Yeh is concerned with virtually nothing else besides biospiritual cultivation.
The Teachings of the Nei Yeh
The teachings of the Nei Yeh are quite distinct from the ideas that most non-specialists associate with "philosophical Taoism." Its teachings will sound more familiar to people acquainted with the traditions of modern Taoism that focus on the cultivation of ch'i. The Nei Yeh indeed begins with the assumption of a powerful salubrious reality called ch'i, "life-energy." In the Nei Yeh, ch'i is present both within all things and all around them. Within each being, ch'i is centered in the "essence," ching — which Roth describes as "the source of the vital energy in human beings [and] the basis of our health, vitality, and psychological well-being." But the central focus of the Nei Yeh's teachings have to do more with how the individual manages his/her hsin, the "heart/mind." The "heart/mind" is the ruling agency in the individual's biospiritual nexus, i.e., in the entire personal complex of body/mind/heart/spirit). The Nei Yeh's principal teaching is that one should make sure that one's "heart/mind" is balanced and tranquil, without excessive cogitation or emotion. If one can maintain a tranquil "heart/mind," then one will become a receptor of life's salubrious energies, and will be able to retain them; without tranquility, those healthful energies will leave, and one's health, and very life, will become threatened.
In the Nei Yeh, the specific nature and identity of life's desirable energies are still some-what vague. One key term that it uses is shen, "spirit" or "spiritual consciousness." "Spirit" involves perception and comprehension: it is the basis for all higher forms of awareness. According to the Nei Yeh, the practitioner must align his/her biospiritual nexus with the unseen forces of the world in order to attract "spirit" and receive it into one's quietened "heart/mind." One's ability to succeed in this endeavor is called te. Te has often been dubbed a key concept in "philosophical Taoism," but the meaning of the term in the Nei Yeh hardly resembles any of the common descriptions of the term as it is used in the more familiar Taoist texts. In the Nei Yeh, the term te does retain the generic meaning of "the inner moral power of an individual," and even the archaic (Shang-dynasty) concept of te as "a proper disposition toward the unseen forces." But here, te is clearly not a force that is intrinsic to our natures, as many modern descriptions of Te in "philosophical Taoism" would have us believe. Rather, te, like "spirit," is something that we acquire when all elements of the body/heart/mind are completely peaceful and properly aligned. Here we can discern the full meaning of the traditional Chinese explanation that the word te meaning "inner power" may be understood in terms of the homophone te which is the common verb in both classical and modern Chinese for getting or acquiring. In the Nei Yeh, te may be termed "the acquisitional agency," for it is not just what we attract and receive, but that whereby we attract and receive the higher forces of life (e.g., ch'i and shen). What is more, in the Nei Yeh one is told that one's te is something that one must work on each and every day. (Once again, such teachings vary widely from the concept of what Te means in common notions of "philosophical Taoism.") The practitioner builds up his/her te by practicing daily self-control over his/her thought, emotion, and action. One who succeeds at these practices can become a sheng-jen, a "sage." The "sage" is described as being "full of spirit" and "complete in heart/mind and in body."
One might well ask what role the concept of tao plays in the Nei Yeh. The way the term is used in the Nei Yeh does not always coincide with the way it is used in the more familiar texts. In the Nei Yeh, the term tao is actually quite vague: it is sometimes used rather indiscriminately to refer to the salubrious forces of life that the practitioner is working to cultivate. For instance, one passage reads as follows:
The Way is what infuses the structures [of the mind] yet men are unable to secure it. It goes forth but does not return, it comes back but does not stay. Silent! none can hear its sound. Sudden! so it rests in the mind. Obscure! one cannot see its form. Surging! it arises along with me. We cannot see its form, we cannot hear its sound, yet we can put a sequence to its development. Call it "Way."
One also encounters a line that is virtually identical to passages in the Tao te ching: "What gives life to all things and brings them to perfection is called the Way." But otherwise, the term tao is seldom identified in the terms that are familiar to readers the Tao te ching or the Chuang-tzu. In the Nei Yeh, the term is generally used as an equivalent of its technical terms for the spiritual realities that the practitioner is being instructed to attract and retain by means of tranquillizing the heart/mind.
Thematic Contrasts between the Nei Yeh and the Familiar "Taoist Classics"
Clearly, the Nei Yeh has a specific and identifiable focus, articulated in terms comprehensible to the careful reader. But it is also clear that if we are intellectually honest, the teachings of this text are quite distinguishable from those of the more familiar texts of classical Taoism. For instance, while terms like te and tao appear frequently in all the texts, they are used in different senses in different texts, as well as in different passages of the same text. Neither term is thus a "basic concept" of some general philosophical system: each term carried a variety of meanings among the people who developed "Taoist" ideas across ancient China. We should thus beware the common tendency of assuming that certain teachings of the Tao te ching and Chuang-tzu were in any sense representative of a coherent ancient Chinese school of thought, much less normative for identifying "Taoist" beliefs and values in general.
Secondly, it should be noticed that the portrait of the Taoist life in the Nei Yeh is in some ways quite dissimilar to that which we generally encounter in the Tao te ching and Chuang-tzu. For instance, the key to life in the Nei Yeh is one's diligent effort to attract and retain spiritual forces named ch'i, ching and shen. While each of those terms does occur here and there in both the Tao te ching and the Chuang-tzu, seldom in those texts do we find the specific teachings that are so basic to the Nei Yeh.16 In particular, it is hard to think of passages from either of the more familiar texts that suggest that the thing called tao is a force that can come into or go out of a person, or that one it is necessary to engage in specific practices to get the tao to come or to keep it from going away.17 In the more familiar texts, the term tao generally seems to suggest a universal reality from which one can never really be ontologically separated.
In addition, the practices commended in the Nei Yeh are much more clearly physiological in nature than we are accustomed of thinking of Taoist practice as being. Indeed, one of the reasons that some of the teachings of the Tao te ching have become domesticated in Western culture is that the public believes those teachings to involve no regular, definable practices that involve one's physical existence. According to such beliefs, the Taoist life is essentially stative: it never involves specific practices that carry historical or cultural baggage, and certainly never involves any work.
It should also be noted that the Nei Yeh never presents the spiritual life in terms of "practicing wu-wei." Here, the Taoist life is not a stative life of "just being," or of "being spontaneous," but rather a very active life of specific practices, practices that must be carefully learned and properly performed if one is ever to come into possession of such elusive forces as tao. In this framework, the Taoist life involves personal responsibility, dedication to a life of constant self-discipline, and conscientious daily practice. Moreover, this practice involves the purification and proper ordering of one's body as well as one's "heart/mind." It would be excessive to say that the Nei Yeh teaches a "Taoist yoga," but it clearly does assume that the spiritual life involves practices that also have physical components, even extending to moderation in eating. I thus refer to such activities more broadly as "biospiritual practices."
Neither the Tao te ching nor the Chuang-tzu are so clearly focussed upon biospiritual practices. While they do contain passages that allude to such practices, their writers (or at least the editors) have many other teachings to convey, teachings that are generally absent from the Nei Yeh. For instance, as Rickett observed long ago, the concepts of yin and yang are nowhere seen in the Nei Yeh. Modern beliefs egregiously exaggerate the centrality of those concepts in the Taoist tradition. In reality, the concepts of yin and yang were never specifically Taoist. The terms do appear in the Tao te ching and the Chuang-tzu, though in quite minor roles. But the world of the Nei Yeh is a world quite devoid of yin and yang.
Other differences between the Nei Yeh and the more familiar texts seem not to have been remarked upon by other readers. For instance, there are few teachings in the Nei Yeh involving issues of government. Though modern conceptions commonly associate Taoism with the life of the individual rather than with social or political concerns, such was never really the case. Social and political concerns always played an important role in Taoism, from classical times into the later imperial period. The Tao te ching, for its part, contains dozens of passages discussing the problems involved with ruling a state. Indeed, some respected scholars have long characterized the Tao te ching as "a handbook for rulers." Such a characterization is actually something of an exaggeration, but the point here is that the Nei Yeh displays little interest in issues of government.
In addition, the Nei Yeh differs from both the Tao te ching and the Chuang-tzu in that it never critiques or ridicules the beliefs or practices of Confucians. Once again, there is a common misconception that "Taoism" arose as a reaction against Confucianism, and that Taoists always clearly differentiated their teachings from those of the Confucians. However, there is nothing in the Nei Yeh that criticizes Confucian teachings. In fact, there are clear and unmistakable continuities between the teachings of the Nei Yeh and certain elements of the teachings of the 4th-century Confucian known as Mencius. What is missing from the Nei Yeh is the Confucian emphasis upon saving society by reviving within one's personal life the principles of proper moral/social behavior known as li. The reader of the Nei Yeh is taught how to align him/herself with the forces at work in the world, because doing so is necessary for one's personal well-being. There is little trace of a belief that one is responsible for changing society. On the other hand, those who held such beliefs are neither faulted nor mocked. So while sections of both the Tao te ching and the Chuang-tzu were composed by opponents of Confucianism, such sentiments are not found in the Nei Yeh.
Another theme conspicuously absent is the idea that the ideal society is a small-scale community without civilized technology or complex socio-political institutions. That idea is most familiar to the modern audience from the 80th chapter of the Tao te ching, though there are other examples in the Chuang-tzu. Several scholars have recently begun referring to such ideals as a distinct "phase" or "voice" of early Taoism, to which they refer as "Primitivist." But as some of those scholars have already noted, the Nei Yeh is completely devoid of such ideals. Thus, the Rousseau-esque idea that Taoism consists of a rejection of civilization in favor of simpler ways of living is inaccurate. It would seem that a person could follow the teachings of the Nei Yeh within nearly any social context, and that it never occurred to the text's compilers that any one type of social setting might be preferable to any other. The Nei Yeh does not, therefore, provide the antidote to the Industrial Revolution that Westerns have sometimes claimed to find in "philosophical Taoism."
So if we have here a form of Taoism that is fundamentally disinterested in social issues, would it be correct to say that it is basically more concerned with our place in the universe? Well, in a certain sense, yes, but it is important to note that the Nei Yeh is also unconcerned with many of the cosmological issues with which modern readers are often so fascinated. For example, there is no real discussion of cosmogony in the Nei Yeh. Other Taoist texts sometimes discuss the origin of the world, in terms that sometimes seem to combine poetry with philosophy. But the Nei Yeh contains no such passages. It alludes to no "Non-Being" from which "Being" comes, and it posits no eternal reality ontologically prior to, or separate from, the present world — no "noumenon" to contrast with the "phenomena" of life as we know it. The closest thing to a cosmogonic passage in the Nei Yeh would seem to be its opening lines:
[The vital essence (ching) of all things — This is what makes life come into being: Below, it generates the five grains, Above, it brings about the constellated stars. When it flows in the interstices of Heaven and Earth, It is called "spiritual beings"; When it is stored up inside [a person's] chest, He is called "a sage."]
But here we are clearly dealing with a life-force that operates within the world, a force of generation that is spiritual in nature, and can be localized either within independent spiritual beings or within a person who successfully collects and stores it. But there is no suggestion here of any noumenal reality that has an ontological existence separate from the reality of which we are all a part. "Being" does not come from "Non-Being," and the composers show no interest in constructing any cosmological theories. These facts are brought home most clearly when we encounter the term tao in the text, for as noted earlier, in the Nei Yeh the term tao clearly refers to a transient reality that a person needs to attract and to retain. It is not some universal transcendent that one attains by developing some "mystical gnosis" qualitatively distinct from normal experience.
Nor is there any discussion in the Nei Yeh of the theme of "change." There is little trace, for instance, of the notion that there is un unchanging cosmic force beyond the world of change. Nor is there a poetic image of a sagely person who blissfully flows or drifts along with life's ongoing processes. The latter idea may be present in passages of the Chuang-tzu, but there is nothing like it in the Nei Yeh, any more than there is in the Tao te ching. In the Nei Yeh, one neither transcends change nor adapts to it: there is, in fact, no mention of life as a process of change or flux. Rather, the Nei Yeh teaches that there is a salubrious natural force, or set of forces, that are elusive: they are not ephemeral — they are enduring — but they do not stay in one place unless a person has transformed him/herself into an efficient receiver and receptacle for those forces. A good analogy for them might be radio waves, which are constantly flowing around and through us, but can only be held and put to use by a device that is properly tuned. To extend this metaphor a bit more, the Nei Yeh seems to suggest that we are radios that were all properly designed, and were originally fully functional; but now we experience interference in the form of excessive activity in the heart/mind, and we need to re-tune ourselves to eliminate that interference and begin functioning properly again. For these reasons, it would be correct to say that the Nei Yeh requires self-corrective activity, just as the other Taoist texts do, but that the Nei Yeh's model for understanding and practicing self-correction is fairly unique.
The Nei Yeh also gives the lie to yet other misconceptions of Taoism, including some held by thoughtful philosophers. One such misconception is that Taoist teachings are deeply iconoclastic, antinomian, even revolutionary. According to this view, the basic thrust of Taoism is to jolt the individual into a realization that he/she should reject traditional beliefs and values, condemning them as the artificial constructs of an oppressive society. This interpretation of classical Taoism is not just the conceit of 1960s Hippies who saw it as a condemnation of "establishment culture." Generations of Westerners — Americans in particular, perhaps — have read the Tao te ching, and parts of the Chuang-tzu, as a post-Enlightenment gospel of individual freedom, freedom from the uncomfortable aspects of "Society" in general, and of Western culture in particular.
One version of this modern concept of Taoism can be seen in certain recent analyses by the respected philosopher Chad Hansen. Hansen seems to perpetuate the notion that Taoism is essentially an attempt to undermine acceptance of "convention." He argues that the Tao te ching and Chuang-tzu both begin from a "linguistic skepticism (which) arises against a background assumption that language is a social mechanism for regulating people's behavior." Speaking of the composer of the Tao te ching, Hansen says, "His political and practical advice is almost invariably the reversal of conventional political and moral attitudes. He reverses conventional values, preferences, or desires..." Why? "All learning of distinctions comes with dispositions to prefer one or the other... (But) trained discriminations are not a constantly reliable guide to behavior. Culturally motivated preferences based on those distinctions are, on the whole, unreliable. And they control us in insidious, unnatural ways." While Hansen may be partly or wholly correct in his assessment of the role of culture in forming individuals' dispositions, it is dubious whether that assessment was present in the minds of the Taoists of classical China, particularly in the mind in the compiler of the Tao te ching. Most of Hansen's "Daoist theory of knowledge" is woven from certain themes in Chuang-tzu, where such issues do indeed seem to be addressed. But such intricate treatment of "knowledge," "language," "convention," etc., are not found in the Tao te ching, which addresses concerns that are quite distinguishable from those of the compiler(s) of the Chuang-tzu, especially a variety of moral and political concerns. And in the Nei Yeh, there is no trace of any critique of the relationship between culture and knowledge or desire. The Nei Yeh does not critique "conventional society" and urge us to reject it, nor does it critique language, nor does it urge us to beware socially-inculcated valuations.
There are yet other distinctive features to the teachings of the Nei Yeh. For instance, unlike the Tao te ching, it has nothing to say about issues of gender. There are several passages in the Tao te ching that commend a "feminine" attitude or behavior, such as humility or yielding. Such passages appear to imply that what is wrong with our normal attitudes and behavior is that they are excessively "masculine." Such ideas, however, are seldom seen in texts like the Chuang-tzu, and they are likewise absent from the Nei Yeh. The compilers of the Nei Yeh do teach that there are attitudes and behaviors that we should forego, but there is no gender imagery associated with them.
In this connection, one might ask whether the three texts share the same intended audience. Were any or all of them intended specifically for men? Well, one may infer that when the reader is given advice presumed useful for achieving political goals, the reader was presumed to be male, since, in ancient China, political participation by women was not an option (except for a spouse or immediate family member of a man who held a position of authority). As mentioned earlier, the Nei Yeh is comparable to most sections of the Chuang-tzu in that the reader is seldom assumed to be someone attempting to engage in political rule. It is also true that in ancient China women seldom achieved literacy, so one could argue that any written text was intended only for men. But such reasoning ignores other possibilities, such as that of a family or group that included both men and women, all interested in learning how to live from a text that few of them could actually read themselves. One should also note that the Nei Yeh (like much of the Tao te ching) is composed largely in verse, and that some scholars believe that certain sections "may have been borrowed from some early Taoist hymn."28 We must bear in mind that though ancient China did produce some written texts, it was still largely an oral society, in which most people of either gender acquired and dispensed information and advice primarily, if not exclusively, by word of mouth. The Nei Yeh is almost certainly a text containing teachings that originated in an oral tradition. And there is little in the content of those teachings that would seem to be either more or less practiceable by members of either gender.
Another distinctive feature of the Nei Yeh is that it seems to lack the idea of "Heaven" (T'ien) as a benign guiding force in life. Both the Confucians and the Mohists shared some version of that idea, reflecting more generally held beliefs that dated back to at least the end of the second millennium BCE. Today such ideas are not generally associated with Taoism, for Taoists, by modern definition, believe in an impersonal reality called "Tao" that transcends all other realities, including "Heaven." Such is not entirely the case, of course. Several chapters of the Tao te ching speak of "the Way of Heaven" (T'ien-tao or T'ien-chih-tao), a beneficent force that seems to have will as well as agency. But there is little trace of such ideas in the Nei Yeh.
Finally, we should address the issue of morality. Are the teachings of the Nei Yeh concerned solely with internal self-cultivation? Is there any evidence that the practitioner is ever to give any thought to anyone other than him- or herself? This is a key question, because virtually all modern interpreters, Chinese and Western alike, have accused Taoism of being inimical to the idea that a person should be concerned about others:
{Taoism pictures the person as a wanderer in the void, and perceives his happiness to lie in drifting with the stream, unanchored by the network of demands and responsibilities....[In Taoism, the] happiness one is concerned with is one's own, logically independent of the happiness of others....[The] follower of the Way is necessarily a loner....}
Elsewhere I have attempted to demonstrate that such accusations are wholly inaccurate, at least in regard to the Tao te ching. That text enjoins the reader to practice "goodness" (shan), which involves extending oneself toward others impartially so as to benefit them. In the Tao te ching, the Taoist life is one in which one achieves self-fulfillment as one is selflessly benefitting the lives of others.32 Do we find such ideals in the Nei Yeh? I can find little evidence of them. There are a few passages for which one might be able to make an argument that the reader is to think of providing benefits to others, but none that seems clearly to express such ideals. Certainly, as compared to the Tao te ching, the Nei Yeh lacks any clear moral concern, and does in fact give the overall impression that "the happiness one is concerned with is one's own."
Conclusion
It is clear that the Nei Yeh is quite distinct in content from either the Tao te ching or the Chuang-tzu, despite the texts' many similarities. The Nei Yeh, we should recall, was earlier than the Tao te ching, and could even be interpreted as an example of "the earliest Taoist teachings." The Tao te ching shows clear evidence that its compilers were deeply concerned with the social and political issues that concerned members of other schools of thought, particularly the Mohists and Confucians. One could thus reasonably even characterize the teachings of the Nei Yeh as "original Taoism," and the teachings of the Tao te ching as "applied Taoism." Though the Tao te ching may have, in some sense, emerged from the same general tradition that produced the Nei Yeh, its compilers were interested in the issues of living in human society as much as, if not more than, they were interested in the practice of "inner cultivation." Further attention to the differences among the assumptions and concerns of all these texts should provide greater insight into the divergent communities that produced such materials, and of the divergent models of the Taoist life that they envision.

My (27m) wife (25f) have been together for 6 years. On our first date we went out for a meal and some drinks in town. After a few cocktails she proceeds to say "Don't be mad but after I drink I always do something". When we leave the restaurant she reveals she "has to have a smoke after a drink" and lit up a cigarette. She could obviously tell that I looked a bit uneasy and so said "Oh don't worry, I've promised my family that I will quit by my next birthday' (Feb at the time, BD in Nov). I could already tell she was very special and I wanted to spend a lot more time around her, regardless of the smoking, so I took her promise at face value, and we proceeded to have a fantastic date and many more.
However, Nov rolls around, and she hasn't reduced the amount she smokes during the day in order to "quit by my next birthday" as she said. So I asked her, "Are you going to cold turkey smoking?". "God no" she said, continuing to say that she was trying to quit but work stress was very difficult to handle and she needed smoking as a coping mechanism. Fine.
Years go by, still no sign of quitting, but I love this girl more than anything in the world, and want to spend the rest of my life with her.
After 5 years together, we agreed to get married. Best day of my life, no doubt. And then to top it all off, a month after our honeymoon, we are able to announce to our friends and family that we are expecting!
Now, obviously, being pregnant and smoking is a complete no go, and she knows this, and so for the 9 months of pregnancy she didn't touch a cigarette, or drink any alcohol/recreational drugs etc. All of which I am incredibly proud of her for. Towards the end of the pregnancy we talked about how we were going to cope with the new-born in the attempts to prepare ourselves, and because of her using cigarettes in the past to deal with stress I asked about it, but she said she wasn't going to start again. However, the week after our beautiful baby girl was born, she was back on the cigarettes, smoking about twice as many as before she was pregnant. Before our child I was okay with it, but now she is smoking AROUND OUR CHILD.
After a few weeks I finally pulled her aside and said I wasn't happy with her smoking anymore now that we have a child and that smoking in close proximity to her was an absolute no go. She blew up to me, saying I've always "looked down on her" and I have no respect, and that the smoking was okay because it is being done outside.
I'm usually a 'suffer in silence' kinda guy, but when our new-born is involved I had to say something. However, I have clearly upset her greatly, and being this close after giving birth I have no idea what is going through her head/happening to her body. I don't know if what I've done was completely out of order due to it being so close after pregnancy. AITA?
​
EDIT: Seeing a comment about how much she smokes. Before our child, it was around 15 cigarettes a day, post child-birth closer to 30-35 a day.

Chapter 19

A short one to finish off the Book, putting everyone into/approaching their final places before the climax. Some good characterization occurs, and we get a title drop of sorts!

Epigraph

A poem titled Old Temple, written by Sivyn Stor (B. 1022) While I am well aware of the timeline shenanigans going on, that the author was born over 140 years ago is significant for reasons I'm about to get into. The text of the poem seems to pretty clearly refer to the K'Rul temple and K'Rul himself (although I believe the Maker of Paths title is new to me) yet the events, someone dying within the Old Temple and their blood being drunk by the stones, occur well after the expected lifespan of whomever wrote this. In a world where mage lifespans seem elongated and other races live who-knows-how-long, this is less of a big deal, but if we assume this text was written prior to Ch. 5, then K'Rul was being dishonest regarding how long it had been since he'd received blood. Just something to think about.
Now, regarding the "Maker of Paths" title, that seems more significant. If K'Rul is the "Maker of Paths" then that could mean one of two things in my mind. Either he's some god of fate, which could work considering his actions in the story, or he's something far scarier. The first time we're introduced to Warrens in this story is when Paran's internal narration refers to them as the "secret paths of sorcery." If K'Rul is the Maker of those Paths... This again gels with his previous actions, as I'd noted that odd joke he cracked, where the creation of Silverfox's body was "unknown to any man ... Including myself." He then immediately clarifies that "this sorcery belongs to the Moon." If he's some Mystra analog then that whole interaction makes sense. While that particular interaction stuck out to me because I considered it evidence for my "K'Rul is Hood's predecessor" theory, given that neither of my interpretations for the "Maker of Paths" title fit that, and this fits better I might jump ship on that prediction. That Darujhistan, a city founded on a rumor hunted after by power-hungry mages, would erect a temple to the guy would make sense in this paradigm as well.
Additionally, if I'm correct regarding K'Rul's impending fight with the Jaghut Tyrant, then him being either a deity of Fate or Magic makes this a really bad thing.
One last note: the author mentions that K'Rul was "never so thirsty//in youth..." but I'm not sure what to make of that aside from noting it.

The Chapter Itself -

Begins with Crokus chafing against his protections. Meese refuses to tell him who or what is protecting him for reasons that are not explained and leaves to find Irilta. Once alone, Apsalar asks Crokus why he killed a guard. He decides to spare her the knowledge that "she" was in fact the one who killed them. Crokus, knowing that none of this adds up, decides immediately to leave, and Apsalar agrees to go with him. He wants to speak with Challice once they've successfully hidden, despite believing her a traitor. Ah Crokus, a boner head to the last.
Serrat, meanwhile, has finally tracked Younghand to the Phoenix Inn and prepares to strike once the lad climbs to the rooftop. She's beaten back by an invisible assailant. Either Oppon's breaking cover to hedge everything on their last tool, (and to not die by Dragnipur), or something else odd is going on. This is her last attempt we know of this chapter. Crokus gets a brief sense that something just went down but discards the sensation. Apsalar climbs up as well, and they leave for the old K'Rul Temple.
Murillio, meanwhile, waits for news on whether or not his friends are dead. If Coll lives and Rallick dies, then he'll avenge both friends by taking on Councilman Orr himself. So I guess the plan was to challenge the Councilman to a duel? Kill him in the open, publicly destroy the Lady's allies, and begin the process of restoring Coll? Not a terrible plan, it's quite good, in fact, just a bit underwhelming if that's it. He wonders how the Eel knew of the scheme and why they elected to meddle within it, and begins speculating along similar lines as myself. Rallick Nom scrapes against the door and barely drags himself in. Rallick disapproves of Murillio taking his roll over, and while being inspected, reveals nothing other than an old scar. Some sort of healing factor produced by the powder? The powder itself has evidently been absorbed, and Murillio's scrutiny satisfies the audience that K'Rul didn't pull a Sorry. Murillio goes to confront Kruppe, the supposed Eel. Now that I think about it, the anti-magic powder likely shielded Rallick from any divine intervention (if it was even attempted). Whatever the effect on Nom was, it saved his life, let's just hope he didn't get any magic cancer.
... The powder is Otataral! I literally just put that together now. I was about to make a passing comment about how the side effects might explain why alchemists don't mass-produce the stuff, then it hit me. It's not made, it's a rare substance with an intrinsic effect, a rust-colored metallic substance with an intrinsic AoE anti-magic effect. We've seen this elsewhere and it's name is Otataral. Lorn even mentions the effects long-term Otataral exposure has had on her in this same chapter. It's not mass-produced because it's rare. I'm fairly certain this is where Erikson wanted the other shoe to drop for the reader, and if so, well done sir! I've been played expertly. This raises several questions, how does a Darujhistan High Alchemist have a substance which is apparently strongly associated with Malazan? and why would Baruk give out his supply in a consumable form to an employee? How big was the job RN did for him where that was adequate compensation? Who knows! Perhaps he's "anathema to sorcery" himself now? Back to the narrative...
Kruppe is in Baruk's study, waiting on his master to say anything after nearly an hour. The debriefing has long since ended, and the alchemist is in deep thought. He pleads with the man to let him go and enjoy the simple, humble pleasures of life and is interrupted for his troubles. Baruk reveals his correspondence with Circle Breaker, and his growing inclination to break the man's anonymity to find the Eel. Kruppe informs him that it will not be necessary, that he himself can contact the Eel and deliver a message, getting a response by tonight. Has Baruk figured it out? The roadwork clue was a pretty big tell, and someone who knows as much about Kruppe as the High Alchemist does should be able to put it together. Regardless of whether Baruk knows or not, the charade ends tonight. (I think..)
After being further caught up by Whiskeyjack, Paran comes to a realization, the Bridgeburners are here to claim Darujistan not for Malazan, but for Onearm. They'll act as terrorists, and Dujek will waltz in and establish a new peace, with the resources for resisting Laseen and Caladan Brood's descending armies. Whiskeyjack offers one correction, they don't care about Laseen. She's about to lose both major fronts to her conquest in a matter of days. It's the Pannion Seer who's the real threat. Evidently, there are rumors about this guy and his impending genocide will make the Imass' Jagut wars seem quaint. So nice to find out about him 400 pages in, lol. The BBs leave the Captain with Coll to make one final sweep for any sign of the Assassins Guild and carry out their roadwork scheme.
Lorn and Tool emerge from the barrow, Lorn has mostly healed, because Otataral provides a healing factor, and prepares to leave with the Finnest. Tool renounces his old name, and once again invites Lorn to accompany him once his own journey is done. The Adjunct leaves, her old reservations suppressed by her sense of impending duty. She regrets losing Paran, because apparently everyone is thirsty for the guy, and anticipates killing the Rope. With all this at stake, the Adjunct gallops off towards Darujhistan, a dazed Jaghut Tyrant behind her, rousing in response to the theft.
The chapter ends with Crokus and Apsalar, they've reached the temple, and begin ascending its steps. Crokus mentions offhandedly that the Elder god has been dead for thousands of years (please ignore my timeline grumbling) and encourages Aps into the structure. Her eyes adjust supernaturally well, her time under the Rope evidently providing her some residual benefits, such as darkvision. She mentions that there's a story painted along the wall, but we don't get to see what it is. They notice the blood, then once on the roof, the body. Crokus' dismissal of her concerns is an interesting touch, because of course, to him she's "only a girl" or some such nonsense. While I was worrying my credit to Oppon for K'Rul's awakening was misattributed, or perhaps overstated, the fact that both deaths upon the stones roughly coincided with the Coin Bearrer's arrival, I'm increasingly certain that Oppon is the one arranging this.
They worry about the body and the assassin's war, but Apsalar asks him to look at the moon. He petulantly looks at Moon's Spawn, noticing a reddish glow, and five winged shapes leaving for the Gadrobi Hills. Anomander Rake has moved, calling the dragons of Moon's Spawn (of which he may or may not be one) to respond to the Jaghut threat. Aps asks if he's seen the oceans, Garllin's Sea, along the moon. According to her, there's a series of underwater Gardens of the Moon, where after some eschatological event, mankind will live in peace. Its a haunting story, and one which Crokus is enamored. Or perhaps, enamored by the silhouette in front of him. Despite his pointed ignoring of her, his constant momentary lapses and noticing her long, dark hair and her deep, brown eyes have finally overwhelmed his reticence. "Why not?" he asks himself.
Crokus, as much as I begrudgingly love you, she deserves better.

Book 6: The City of Blue Fire

And there goes another one. Pretty much all buildup and consolidation of the key players. Ready for the catastrophic night of the Fête.
The Bridgeburners are readying their plans with the Moranth munitions, a large set of which are stationed outside the room where Baruk and Kruppe are about to meet. While Paran has promised to stand aside, I doubt that'll hold. Chance remains with him, and the Adjunct has much to answer for.
It seems Anomander Rake is indeed going to meet the Jaghut Tyrant head-on, or perhaps attempt to kill it off before he's fully awake. Either way, fireworks are about to go off. Lorn, meanwhile, is doing what she can to lead the Tyrant towards Rake, so we'll see what happens once the Adjunct crosses paths with the dragons. It'll also be interesting what effect the separation between the Finnest and its owner will have.
The Eel is preparing to out himself, I think, and what interactions he and the High Alchemist will have with the BBs remains to be seen. It might be good to clue them into the whole apocalyptic genocide brewing down south.
The Fête is tonight. Turban Orr, if things go well, will die. I suspect things will go poorly if Oppon has anything to do with it. That Book 7 is named after the event implies as much. Crokus intends to speak with Challice, who will be attending the event herself, that the Coin Bearer will be present, after hanging out in the Temple of a revived Elder god, in a space under an Oppon-influenced plan, bodes ill.
Caladan Brood marches south, Pale is coming apart at the seams. Dujek prepares one last gambit to gather resources to stop the monster far to the south who threatens the world.
Much of this was rooted in events well before Book 6, but I could have never guessed the shape of it all 3 chapters ago. I'm excited to watch as things twist even further, as this all slowly, inexorably, unfolds...

The use of log burners and hardwoods made of ash, beech, and oak adds charm and spark to the effectiveness of the heating and lighting. They work well, are readily available, and burn for a longer period of time in areas where less smoke and other dust are produced.
Read more-log burner installer near me

Credit to SpacePaladin15 for coming up with this amazing universe.
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Memory transcript: Starfreighter operator Cli! from Sillis, Date: [Standardized human time] September 10th, 2136
“You did what?!” I practically screamed in terror, at the explanation Ni!ita just casually dropped on us. ”You are a sick deplorable predator, who not only consumed innocent prey, but also your own children?”
“We did not consume our children, we ate defective offspring. Have you tried feeding a hive of 5 billion drones? It takes a lot of work to provide food for everybody in it, and considering most queens laid about 10 million eggs a year, the 23% defect rate was a lot of perfectly good food resource that we couldn’t afford to throw away.” Ni!ita explained. Her explanation sounded very disturbing, but it was terribly logical in its own, twisted way.
“I hate you for putting that thought into my mind.” I said.
“You said the hives were competing with each other.” Interjected !ar! “What happened to fallen soldiers, people who died of old age or accidents?”
“I am not sure, after your friend’s little fit a few moments ago, that you really want to hear my answer to that question.” Said Ni!ita, as if this entire topic was just a normal part of life, and we were the problematic party in this conversation.
“Lets change the subject Ni!ita, okay? Every new piece of information you’ve told us so far was disturbing on its own, but this, this was by far the worst. I am actually happy you are not here, with us, in flesh.”
“As you wish, little drone.” She said nonchalantly. “Where did you get this ship?”
“That is a long story, and I think it is a very boring…” Suddenly, a monotone voice drowned my train of thought, as orbital control connected with us.
“Sole trader A1-1, this is orbital control. You are clear for departure. Your departure vector for Serene Tranquillity is 15/208/164.”
“Orbital control, this is Sole Trader A1-1, I acknowledge the vector, manoeuvring to starting point. Thank you.”
„You are welcome. Transferring you to Interplanetary flight control.”
“As I was saying, this is a very boring and long story.” I tried to persuade her not to force the topic.
“I reckon we have the time for it, considering the travel time to our destination is what, a whole day? I believe that’s what you’ve said.”
“A paw is a day on Venlil Prime. But considering the weird astrodynamics of this planet, it does not represent what you would call a day. Their day is crazy long due to the fact that the planet is tidally locked to their sun, only slightly wobbling. If we want to calculate the travel time in Sillis context, it is close to 6 legs.”
“I’m sorry, to what it is close to?” Asked Ni!ita. I think she genuinely could not understand what a leg is.
“This is going to be a long flight, I can feel it.” I said, and began my explanation…
***
Memory transcript: Starfreighter operator Cli! from Sillis, Date: [Standardized human time] September 11th, 2136
The past day way exhausting. Ni!ita is a very curious creature, she would not stop with her questions. If I didn’t know she was 200 years old, I would think she was a teenager. She wanted to know everything, how the society on Sillis worked now, how the Tilfish government operated, what the Federation was. Everything.
“Now that we are here, what will you do?” Asked Ni!ita.
“We will land, the ship will be unloaded, and we will take on an other transport job, preferably not to Venlil Prime.”
As if they were listening in, orbital control contacted us right at the end of my sentence.
“Sole Trader A1-1, this is Serene Tranquillity flight control. You are cleared for approach. Proceed to waiting orbit LPO 1-5.”
“Flight control, this is Sole Trader A1-1, instructions acknowledged, approaching LPO 1-5”.
“Huh, it seems this is not a busy colony, they only have a single level of flight control” Mused !ar!. “I don’t think we will be stuck in a traffic jelly.” As if it was on cue, flight control continued.
“Your landing port is Sheercliff. Descend to altitude 5000, heading planetary west, after 2000 units turn planetary north, approach starport from the planetary south. Loading scaffold 2 is yours.”
“Thank you flight control.” I replied.
“Welcome to Serene Tranquillity.” Said the person on the other end of the line, then immediately disconnected.
The planet was your average colony world. Meadows dotted the landscape, which was dominated by agricultural fields. Huge, endless fields of stingfruit trees, firefruit trees, Ipsom grain swayed in the gentle breeze. In the distance, the silhouette of our destination was starting to come into view, the city of Sheercliff. We followed the maglev line heading there, which passed through the occasional silos and warehouses where maglev trains could be seen being loaded with freshly harvested produce. As we neared the settlement, a huge mountain started dominating the viewport which sat right behind the city. Its snowy cap reached for the skies, and its ridges stretched In all directions, where they gently dipped below the horizon. The slopes of the mountain were a stark contrast to the natural beauty of the fields below us. It was dotted with mines, ore refineries, smelters and a myriad other industries related to the processing of ores. Enormous open-pit surface mines stretched endlessly, where shallow metals were extracted, while far-off into the distance a large body of water could be seen, its shores brimming with lithium-extraction pools. Monstrous excavators tore up starship-sized chunks of stone and dirt, while the fruits of their labour were dumped onto conveyor lines, heading straight to the ore processors.
“Quite a contrast.” Said !ar!. “Endless fields of food next to industrial wastelands.”
“Indeed. Though I have high hopes these produce for export, so we will have a full load to transport.”
!ar! gently landed the ship on the loading scaffold, and I brought out my datapad to look for work.
“You said you wanted me to work.” Ni!ita interjected. “How can I help?”
“Well, we need to figure out a way to connect you to a datapad. Does your casing have any connections apart from the one we connected you with earlier?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Then we have to order a custom connector to be made.”
“There is supposed to be a spare connector in the compartment above CNCQ slot, take that with you, it should make your job that much easier.”
“There is a parts compartment in there?” I was floored. How did she know? How can an ancient queen know more of our ships than we do? “How do you know?” I asked from her.
“That was the standard setup on tilfish spaceships. Spares were stored where they were supposed to be needed”. Added Ni!ita, as if it was the most trivial thing since the dawn of time.
I started walking towards the CNCQ room. It is impossible we’ve missed an entire storage closet in there. While there, I’ve decided to investigate a bit further. “Well, on federation starships, spares are stored in a dedicated spare parts storage. So that people only have to look at single place if something is needed.”
“That is also a viable approach, though when there is a problem, time spent fetching the needed part can be the difference between life and death.” Ni!ita shot back.
“So, you are telling me that our ship is full of hidden compartments with spare parts inside? Spares that we had difficulty finding on the market?” I replied with disbelief. The solution to our problems can not be this easy. “Now, tell me, where should I be looking for the compartment?” I asked, just as I’ve arrived at the room.
“It Is supposed to be right above the CNCQ slot. It should be labelled “CNCQ spare parts storage”
“Well, there is no text here. Anywhere in the room, for that matter.”
“Describe to me what you are seeing, right above the slot”. Ni!ita asked me.
“It’s the same as all over this ship. I can see the edges between the panels on the wall forming squares, and weird meandering lines zigzagging all over the walls and the ceiling, going across panels. Also, there are these small spots, they look like stains of goo, on some panels. Some panel has more spots, some only 1.”
“Exactly, you are looking for the one which reads “CNCQ spare parts storage””. Said Ni!ita.
“Neither one has any text on it, why don’t you understand me?”
“You just said you can see the texts on them.”
“What, the meandering lines and the spots? Are you playing with me? I can not see any written language on the walls, my visual translator would translate every known written language for me.”
“Are you telling me you can’t reads tilfish?” Ni!ita asked with surprise in her voice. “How is that possible?”
“You are not joking with me, are you? These are ancient Tilfish texts all over the surfaces of the ship?”
“Yes, what you called spots are our written language. Push the one that looks like a…” Ni!ita trailed off. I bet she doesn’t know how to explain which I should be pushing. They all look so similar. Like solar systems with circles at various positions, or maybe webs with knots. I wonder how it works, it does not look very intuitive. “Look at the rightmost panel that is just above the CNCQ slot “Ni!ita continued”, the compartment you need to find has 7 symbols. Push the central motif on the middle symbol.”
I followed her directions, and lo and behold, a cover popped open, revealing a small dark compartment, with various parts inside. Well, this was unexpected. I instructed my translator to mark the middle symbol, as well as the string of 7 symbols as an equivalent of ‘spare parts’. I know they must have more elaborate meanings, but for now, this shall be enough. I was curious how many panels hid parts for the ship.
“Now this out of the way, we just need to find an electronics store. !ar!, do you want to tour the city?” I asked from my co-pilot.
“Sure, why not. Though I don’t think this place will look any different from other Venlil cities. If you have seen one, you have seen them all.”
***
Finding an electronics store proved to be difficult, but finding one which could build custom electronics turned out to be borderline impossible. Navigating the circular city was disorienting, most buildings looked similar enough that one could not tell them apart at first glance. Everything was covered in fine dust, no doubt the result of the heavy mining around the city. We must have walked around the city twice before we’ve managed to find the store we were looking for. Upon entering we were approached by the most average-looking venlil I have ever seen. Her wool was neither short, nor long, it wasn’t white but it wasn’t grey either. Her face was entirely emotionless and featureless.
“Welcome to Electronics Abound. We hope you will find whatever you are looking for. My name is Telbo, how may I help you?” She asked from us. I swear this poor venlil was dead inside. She stared at us with an empty eye, looking eerily similar to that venlil from that infamous The Exterminators episode about the mind-controlling predator.
“Hello, we would like to have a custom adapter to be made. We have a pre-made connector, and would like to adapt it to a datapad-standard Universal Parallel Train socket.” While I am saying this, I hand her the ancient tilfish gadget. She takes the connector into her paws, turns it over, looks at it from all angles, even shakes it a little, then holds it towards me.
“Sorry, we don’t deal with arxur tech, it is illegal to even touch it.”
“This is not arxur tech”, !ar! replies.
“We don’t deal with human tech either. Or yotul.” She replied with a so very monotone an indifferent voice, that I would swear she was devoid of all emotions inside. “Anyway, thank you for your visit, have a nice day.” She pushes the connector into my hands, then turns around and leaves. As I am putting the part away, I notice a small piece of crumpled paper pushed into the socket. !ar! plucks it out, unfolds it, and reads in a quiet voice. -Meet me in the back-.
We look at each other in disbelief. This is unexpected, what could be so strange about this connector that she could not speak about it in the store. I walked out the store with !ar!, and headed around the corner to the loading area. There she was, waiting for us, nervously pacing around.
“Finally! What took you so long? No, don’t answer. Anyway, you shouldn’t be showing off with that ancient piece of CNCQ connector, if words gets out someone has such a tech, the Protector save them from the exterminators.” She said while handing me an other piece of paper. “Go to this address, ask the exterminator-cut venlil for gold-pressed latinum. She will help you.” And just like that, the venlil turned around, and walked back into the store.
The address on the paper isnt far, but the way we were given this information did raise suspicion in us, questioning wether we should go there or not. But curiosity also motivated us to visit this location, curiosity about the secrecy around our spare par
***
The walk to the address given to us wouldn’t have been long, if we wouldn’t have been lost in the circular city, again. By the time we’ve arrived, the sun was setting, and the city was getting quieter. The place we’ve been sent to was a junk store, selling and buying anything and everything one can imagine. Do you need a strayu-mixer-spoon-cleaning-sponge-holder? You can choose from 5 different colours. But if you need a strayu-mixer, that you wont find here.
We walked up to the counter, behind which sat an elderly venlil woman, with short-shaved fur. There was a scar across her muzzle, but otherwise she looked a good deal younger than she probably was. Only her eyes gave away how much she has been through.
“Greetings, esteemed tilfish customers. I am Kelra, and this is my humble store, Junkyard. How may I help you?” She said with an enthusiasm in her voice that could mean nothing else than this was her dream job.
“Greetings Kelra, this is my co-pilot !ar!, and I am Cli!. We are looking for…”I hesitated for a second”…gold-pressed latinum.”
Kelra jumped down from her chair, and started walking towards the door. “Oh my, I did not expect such important visitors for today, let me close the store before I attend to your needs. Please, have a seat in the office right behind the counter, I will be with you in just a moment.” She replied in cheery, sugary tone. We walked into the office, and sat down in the chairs there. We could hear her rummaging in the store, looking for something.
“So, what are you fine gentlemen looking for?” We heard her voice behind us, as it increased in volume as she walked towards the office. “But before you dive into your stories, please keep the following in mind.” We both looked at her behind us, and immediately regretted landing on the planet. She was standing behind us, flamethrower in hand, pilot light burning, aimed directly at us. “If at any point you try to trick me, I will burn you to ashes.”

Good morning everyone. Once again, I tried AI puts. It opened yesterday near 41-42 and I tried 2 different puts and no fills… I hope we can see first hand how speculation/momentum take stocks to heights unforeseen! Reality after the bell… More losses… The company is forecasting sales near 300 million for the year.. On those sales losses from 50-70 million…. This is their forecast not mines…
4.5 billion dollars for this cash loser…
I was having a debate all yesterday on Twitter with a Furu with 310,000 followers. He has been pushing AI for weeks.. look, I cant blame anyone, same thing on NVDA .
I do my best to explain it…
The stock market is a live auction. Popularity, not fundamentals decides near term fate of a stock price.
It is simply supply and demand of shares… When a company like AI is short 30-40% it makes it easier for the stock to move higher, because as the price increases, the losses increase, and this can cause an automatic cover at brokerages…
YES! This is stock manipulation!
Because it worked for “Apes” does not make it right. I often said that 20+ years ago, people that did email bombs of stock symbols were fined/banned. Those email bombs contained 50-100 contacts…
Now some dufus on the internet can have 300K+ followers and they are pumping complete garbage… everyone can see it and they join the hype… then sad victims that actually did DD on AI take losses and are forced to cover…
AI went from 26 to 44 in 1 week check the chart…
The momentum on NVDA spilled over… Do you think it is fair and right that the bull herd causes massive short coverings on AI ?
To me, it is sad, and unfortunate, you can not turn off the internet… 2020/2021 it worked and made a ton of people money….
After the bell reality check?
Not really, based on the earnings and guidance for the full year AI is still speculative at 10…
10!
However, a lot of people are still brainwashed so it wont head there… not short term… I am on the fence if I want to bid on puts again on AI, I may wait….
M very bad guidance. I don’t like retail at the moment and would stay away from the sector, share wise… but I may be interested in small bets with CALL options. I have been on the fence with FL for the same reason. The guidance was also off a cliff bad… The PE is so low, it can go lower, of course, but small bets? M still is guiding for near 3 dollar profits full year. If it gets tagged I may get calls….. TITN did drop under 25 yesterday.. but I was busy bidding on AI puts…
Also, I do not fell compelled to get in any trade.. I don’t like the way the market is trading. It is extremely irrational, but out of my control. As I have said before, either the market comes down hard.. or earnings/sales start to fly again… The market isn’t going anywhere, and no one is forcing me to trade. I am in 90% cash and just waiting…there is no FOMO here.
5 trade ideas:
M – It was down to 12.40 pre market… I wouldn’t buy the shares.. but like LL FL I may want call options… TITN is agriculture, I may want shares
AI – I am on the fence if I will bid, that would have been amazing if any of my puts would have filled. I was trying 30, 35 and 37.50 again!
AAL – This dipped under 14.50 a share yesterday, I did not place a bid. They revised up for the full year, the airlines, for the most part have impressed
ARCO – I have been watching this closely since they slammed earnings 5/17/2023, this Mcdonalds franchisee hit a 52 week high after earnings of 9.26. Yesterday, it fell to 8.40. Earnings have been good for many quarters in a row. Will this pull back to 8.10-8.25?
HOG – This bike maker has fell from 34 to just under 31 the last few days.. They have had very strong earnings the last 2 quarters. I may be forced to buy shares at 30?
The contents of this post are for information and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, accounting, or legal advice. ... By choosing to make a trade you are responsible for your own actions. Please do some due diligence. These are trades I am making and you can follow along. If you make a winning trade, I do not even expect a bravo or thanks but that’s fine, if you lose on a trade the same difference.. I do not even expect an upvote or reward… The Elite team is aware of the risks and volatility in the market.
Good luck everyone let’s make money. Share trades, ideas here during trading hours. Our main goal here is to make money so I hope we can help eachother. I will be in and out of here as well.

In 8 days I turn 16, in 8 days it's also the 2 year anniversary of when I was sexually exploited. In 8 days I'm finally done with 15, the age of which I tried to take my own life on Halloween night and again on November 1st. The year of my life which was wasted sobbing and hurting myself, smoking, drinking, getting high and wasting my potential so I could forget I had to feel for a few hours. I'm not happy that I'm making it to 16 in fact thinking about it makes me want to give up. Stop myself from another wasted year of sobbing and the fear of relapsing. Im scared. I'm scared ill give up but I'm also pretended that I won't. Death doesn't scare me nearly as much as living does. "Seasonal depression" doesn't really seem to be so seasonal it actually feels pretty life long now.

Jackie Jensen, "The Golden Boy", was a superstar athlete in the 1940s who seemed destined for greatness as the heir to Joe DiMaggio... only to be supplanted by a different golden boy, the great Mickey Mantle.
Jensen would eventually live up to the hype, but with the Red Sox -- but his career prematurely because, as baseball expanded to the west coast, his fear of flying made road games unbearable!
The Yankees between 1947 and 1964 were utterly dominant, winning 15 pennants and 10 World Series. And it wasn't just the major league team that was successful. The Yankees of this era were loaded up and down the system, from Rookie ball to their two Triple-A teams!
With such a loaded major league roster, the Yankees had many talented players stuck either on the end of the bench or in the minors who would eventually find an opportunity with other teams, including Bob Cerv, Vic Power, Gus Triandos, Lew Burdette, Jerry Lumpe, Bob Porterfield, and Bob Keegan, who would all be All-Stars with other teams. Clint Courtney would be the 1952 A.L. Rookie of the Year runner-up after the Yankees traded him to the Browns, and Bill Virdon was the 1955 N.L. Rookie of the Year with the Cardinals (and then Yankee manager from 1974 to 1975!).
But the most talented player who just couldn't find the playing time in New York was Jack Eugene Jensen, born March 9, 1927, in San Francisco. His parents divorced when he was 5, and he grew up poor, his mother working six days a week, 12 hours a day. Jensen said the family moved 16 times between kindergarten and eighth grade -- "every time the rent came due."
After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Jensen went to the University of California in 1946 on the G.I. Bill. There he became one of the most famous college players in the country, leading Cal to the Rose Bowl. In 1947, he was the starting fullback as well as the team's top defensive back, and in 1948, he rushed for 1,000 yards and was an All-American.
He also was a tremendous two-way baseball player, pitching and hitting for the Golden Bears in 1947 as the won the very first College World Series, beating a Yale team that had George H.W. Bush playing first base. In 1949, he was an All-American in baseball, too.
His blond hair, good looks, and athletic accomplishments earned him the nickname "The Golden Boy."
Halfway through his junior year, Jensen left Berkeley to turn pro. Jensen would later say he couldn't risk playing a career-ending injury playing for free while teams -- baseball and football -- were trying to sign him to big-money contracts.

"There was a money tree growing in my backyard. Why shouldn't I pluck off the dollars when I wanted to?"

Jensen considered a number of offers, including from the Yankees, before signing a three-year, $75,000 contract with the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League. Jensen said he thought he'd face better competition in the Pacific Coast League, the top minor league of the era, than he would at the bottom of the Yankee farm system. He was right about it being more of a challenge -- he hit an unimpressive .261/.317/.394 in 510 plate appearances with the Oaks.
At the end of the year, the Oaks sold his contract (and that of Billy Martin, another Northern California kid) to the Yankees.
That same year, Jensen married his high school sweetheart, Zoe Ann Olsen, an Olympic diver. (By age 18, she had won 14 national diving championships and a silver medal in the 1948 Olympics.) "Together they looked like a Nordic god and goddess," Sports Illustrated reported. Nicknamed "the sweethearts of sports," they were the Dansby Swanson and Mallory Pugh of their era. More than 1,000 people attended their wedding.
Jensen would start the 1950 season not in the minors but in the Bronx. He joined the Yankees in a time of flux. They though they'd won the 1949 World Series, the Yankees knew they had to make some changes, with 35-year-old Joe DiMaggio nearing the end of his career. And their heir apparent was not Mickey Mantle -- at the time an 18-year-old shortstop playing in the Class C league, the equivalent of A-ball today -- but the 23-year-old Jensen.
But Jensen disappointed, hitting just .171/.247/.300 in 70 at-bats, and only starting in 13 games. Watching from the bench most of the season, Jensen would later lament the lost year of development, saying he'd have been better off playing every day in the Pacific Coast League.
The Yankees won the pennant for a second straight year, and in the World Series he once again was left on the bench. His only action was as a pinch runner in Game 3 as the Yankees swept the Phillies. That "Moonlight Graham" appearance would be his only taste of the post-season in an 11-year career.
The following year would be DiMaggio's last, and Mantle's first. Jensen began the year as the Yankees' starting left fielder and proved he belonged, hitting .296/.371/.509 through the end of July... and then, shockingly, was demoted to Triple-A and replaced with previously forgotten Yankee Bob Cerv.
I can see why they called up Cerv -- the University of Nebraska stand-out was tearing up Triple-A, leading the American Association in batting average (.349), home runs (26), triples (21), RBIs (101), and total bases (261) -- but why demote Jensen, who had a 140 OPS+ in the majors? Maybe the Yankees felt the brash 23-year-old needed to be taken down a peg. In any event, Cerv hit just .214/.333/.250 in August and was sent back to Triple-A, but Jensen also was left down there. He hit .263/.344/.469 and was recalled after the Triple-A season ended, only getting into three games (he went 3-for-9).
Mantle, too, had started the season with the Yankees, and after hitting .260/.341/.423 through the middle of July, was sent down to Triple-A. But he hit .361/.445/.651 in 166 at-bats, and unlike Jensen was back in the bigs by August 24. He would play pretty much every game the rest of the season, hitting .284/.370/.495 in 95 at-bats.
The torch had clearly been passed -- Jensen was no longer the heir apparent to DiMaggio. In the World Series that year, Mantle was the starting right fielder, and Jensen wasn't even on the post-season roster.
Jensen was so disappointed with how the Yankees had treated him in 1951 that he talked to the San Francisco 49ers about switching to pro football, but ultimately decided to stick with baseball.
Never shy about what he said to reporters, Jensen told The Sporting News on October 24, 1951:

"I felt so badly about the treatment that I received from the Yankees that, although I was in New York at the end of the season, I didn't feel like sticking around to even watch the club play in any of the World's Series games."
"I do not feel the Yankees were justified in sending me to the minor leagues. When I was shipped to Kansas City, I was doing as good a job as any Yankee outfielder and better than some of them. I was hitting .296, which was ten points better than Hank Bauer and 30 points better than Joe DiMaggio, Gene Woodling and Mickey Mantle. Yet Casey Stengel didn't give me the chance I felt I deserved."

Despite blasting his manager in the press, Jensen was still the property of the Yankees. That off-season, teams were circling, hoping to pry away the talented but disgruntled outfielder. There were newspaper reports of offers from the St. Louis Browns, the Detroit Tigers, the Philadelphia Athletics, the Washington Senators, the Cleveland Indians, and the Boston Red Sox -- with one rumor being Ted Williams to the Bronx in exchange for Jensen and several other players. (A Red Sox scout called the rumored deal "a lot of hogwash.")
Sportswriters spent the off-season speculating whether DiMaggio would retire, and if he did, whether Jensen or Mantle would take over as the center fielder, as there were still concerns that Mantle, who had hurt his knee in the 1951 World Series, wouldn't be fully recovered by the start of the season.
On Opening Day, April 16, 1952, it was Jackie Jensen in center and Mickey Mantle in right. Jensen went 0-for-5 with a GIDP; Mantle, 3-for-4 with a double, a walk, and a stolen base! Seven games into the season, Jensen was 2-for-17 (.118) and found himself on the bench. He'd never play for the Yankees again. On May 3, the Golden Boy was traded to the Washington Senators along with Spec Shea, Jerry Snyder, and Archie Wilson in exchange for Irv Noren and Tom Upton.
In two years with the Senators, Jensen hit an impressive .276/.359/.407 (112 OPS+), but the team was terrible, and Jensen wasn't happy. Still just 26 years old, he later said he had almost quit after the 1953 season... particularly after a harrowing flight to Japan for a series of exhibition games with a squad of All-Stars that included Yankees Yogi Berra, Eddie Lopat, and Billy Martin. That experience gave Jensen a lifelong fear of flying, a phobia that became so intense eventually he could only fly with the help of sleeping pills... and a hypnotist!
He might have quit if not for the trade on December 9, 1953, that sent him to the Boston Red Sox for pitcher Mickey McDermott and outfielder Tom Umphlett. He was homesick, he hated flying, and he now had two little kids at home. Red Sox general manager Joe Cronin convinced Jensen to come to the Red Sox, telling him that Fenway Park was tailor made for his swing. Cronin was right: Jensen was a career .279/.369/.460 hitter, but .298/.400/.514 at Fenway.
It was in Boston that Jensen finally lived up to the hype, becoming a two-time All-Star and winning the A.L. MVP Award in 1958 and a Gold Glove in 1959. During his seven seasons in Boston, he hit .282/.374/.478 in 4,519 plate appearances. In his MVP season, Jensen hit .286/.396/.535 (148 OPS+) with 31 doubles, 35 home runs, and a league-leading 122 RBIs. During his peak with the Red Sox, 1954 to 1959, Jensen's average season was .285/.378/.490 (127 OPS+) with 28 doubles, 26 home runs, 111 RBIs, 14 stolen bases, and 3.6 bWAR. During those six seasons, no one in the American League -- not Mickey Mantle, not Ted Williams, not Al Kaline -- had more runs batted in than Jackie Jensen.
Of course, Mantle was the far better player -- even in Jensen's MVP season, Mantle had more runs, hits, home runs, walks, and a 188 OPS+ -- but Jensen's 127 OPS+ between 1954 and 1959 would have been an upgrade over the aging Hank Bauer's 110 OPS+ in right or the left field merry-go-round of Norm Siebern (113 OPS+), Irv Noren (107 OPS+), Enos Slaughter (103 OPS+), and previously forgotten Yankee Hector Lopez (101 OPS+). Casey Stengel would later say the Jensen trade was the worst one the Yankees had made while he was manager.
Despite his success, Jensen was sometimes booed by the Boston fans, just as they sometimes booed Ted Williams. There even was an article in Sport magazine, "What Do They Want From Jackie Jensen?", taking Red Sox fans to task for their unreasonably high demands from the Golden Boy. In 1956, in a game at Fenway Park against the Yankees, the hometown fans were razzing Jensen so much that teammates had to restrain him from going into the stands after a fan. Later that same game, Williams misplayed a wind-blown fly ball from Mantle, and the fans booed lustily. The very next play, Williams made a leaping catch at the scoreboard to rob Yogi Berra of a double. But Williams, still furious, spit into the crowd. He was later fined $5,000.
And Jackie was unhappy to be away from home. He and Zoe Ann had bought a house near Lake Tahoe, where they could both ski and golf year-round, as well as hit the casinos. They also had a home in Oakland, and a restaurant there, and each year Jensen hosted a pro-am golf tournament. But the marriage was struggling. Zoe Ann, once nationally known for her Olympic exploits, was frustrated to be a stay-at-home mom in the shadow of her famous husband, and Jackie became angry if she engaged in her favorite outdoor hobbies, suspecting there were men around.
Jensen's fear of flying also had become even more intense. Sometimes he was so drugged up that he had to be carried on and off the plane, fueling rumors that he was a drunk. Other times he took trains or even drove while his teammates flew.
Once again Jensen was talking about retirement, and in Spring Training 1957, the Red Sox allowed him to train with the San Francisco Seals, Boston's Triple-A team, rather than having to go to Florida. But he was still miserable. That year, he told Sports Illustrated:

“In baseball you get to the point where you don’t think you have a family. It just looks like I’m not built for this life like some ballplayers. You are always away from home and you’re lonesome, and as soon as I can, I intend to get out.”

The 32-year-old Jensen announced his retirement after the 1959 season, and he spent 1960 home with Zoe Ann and their children and running his restaurant. But he returned in 1961. After hitting just .130 in April, Jensen took a train from Detroit home to Reno, determined to quit once again. After a week away, he rejoined the team and had six hits in his next 10 at-bats. By the end of the season he was at .263/.350/.392, and this time he quit for good.
After leaving baseball, Jensen invested in real estate and a golf course, but lost most of his money. He then got a job working for a Lake Tahoe casino, was a national spokesman for Camel cigarettes, Wonder Bread, and Gillette, and even tried selling cars. Ironically, Jackie found himself on the road almost as much as he had been as a ballplayer. In 1963, he and Zoe Ann divorced, remarried, and then divorced again.
In 1967, Jensen became a TV sportscaster, married his producer Katharine Cortesi, and eventually teamed up with Keith Jackson calling college football games for ABC and a college baseball coach, first at the University of Nevada-Reno and then at the University of California, and he managed the Red Sox team in the New York Penn League in 1970. In 1977, Jackie and Katharine moved to Virginia and started a Christmas tree farm while he coached baseball at a military academy. About five years later, on July 14, 1982, he died of a heart attack at age 55.
You Don't Know Jack(ie):

• How good would Jackie Jensen have been as a Yankee? Maybe not great. He was a career .279/.369/.460 hitter, but just .238/.326/.398 at Yankee Stadium, which -- especially in that era -- was famously death on right-handed batters. Fenway Park was much more to his liking!
  
• Born in San Francisco in 1927, it's no surprise Jensen's favorite player as a kid was Joe DiMaggio, who made his debut with the San Francisco Seals when Jensen was a 5 years old. When Jensen made his major league debut, on April 18, 1950, DiMaggio went 3-for-6 with a triple in a 15-10 win over the Red Sox. Two weeks later, on May 3, Jensen made his first start, playing left field and batting second, and DiMaggio was in center and batting fourth.
  
• Jensen wore #36 at Cal. When he came up with the Yankees, he was first issued #40, then switched to #27, and finally to #25. (With the Senators, he wore #8, then #4; in Boston, he first wore #30 but primarily wore #4.) Currently, #40 is worn by Luis Severino. Other famous 40's include Chien-Ming Wang (2005-2009), Andy Hawkins (1989-1991), and Lindy McDaniel (1968-1973). #27 has been worn by Giancarlo Stanton since 2018; prior to him, it was worn by Austin Romine (2016-2017). It also was the number worn by Bob Wickman (1993-1996), Butch Wynegar (1982-1986), and Woodie Held (1954-1957). Gleyber Torres has worn #25 since 2018; it also was worn by Mark Teixeira (2009-2016), Jason Giambi (2002-2008), Joe Girardi (1996-1999), Jim Abbott (1993-1994), Tommy John (1979-1989), and Joe Pepitone (1962-1969).
  
• Jensen is one of six major leaguers to graduate from Oakland High School, but the only Yankee. Cal has sent 83 players to the majors, including twenty Yankees -- most notably, early 1990s pitcher Chuck Cary, 1930s infielder Lyn Lary, and 1990 A.L. ROY runner-up Kevin Maas.
  
• The Yankees during spring training in 1951 tinkered with the idea of using Jensen into a pitcher. Jensen had been a star pitcher at Cal, including pitching in the 1947 College World Series, and had pitched in a winter league that off-season. But he was bombed in a handful of spring training innings -- while crushing as a hitter -- and the Yankees decided to leave him in the outfield.
  
• College teammates said Jensen wasn't afraid of flying at Cal. His second wife Katharine said the phobia came from a near-miss experience on a flight early in his baseball career -- he looked out the window and saw another plane coming straight at him! The two planes managed to avoid each other, but he was never comfortable on a plane again.
  
• Billy Martin, who also had grown up in Northern California and was Jensen's teammate on both the Oakland Oaks and the Yankees, was merciless when it came to teasing Jensen about his fear of flying. In 1953, on a flight from Okinawa to Honshu to play a series of exhibition games in Japan, the plane ran into a bad storm and was bouncing pretty hard. Jensen, who wouldn't get on a plane without the help of tranquilizers, was blissfully sleeping through the turbulence. Martin found a lifejacket and put it on, then stood over Jensen and shouted "We're going down!"
  
• Arthur Ellen, a hypnotist that Jensen had used to try to cure his fear of flying, believed Jackie wasn't aerophobic at all. It was really a fear of losing his family. "Subconsciously, it developed as a good reason to leave the Red Sox and go home," the hypnotist said.
  
• Jensen is featured prominently in Norman Rockwell's famous 1957 painting, The Rookie. Jensen is the one seated on the bench tying his shoe in the middle of the painting. Standing behind him is Ted Williams, and sitting on the bench next to him is pitcher Frank Sullivan (#18). Wearing the catcher's mitt in the foreground is Sammy White, and the player with his hand over his mouth to the far right is Billy Goodman. Jensen, Sullivan, and White had gone to Rockwell's studio in Massachusetts to pose for the painting; the images of Williams and Goodman were based on photos. The shirtless player was one of Rockwell's assistants, and "the rookie" holding the suitcase was a local high school student!
  
• Boston sportswriters named Jensen the team's MVP in 1954, when he hit .276/.359/.472 with 25 home runs and 117 RBIs. I guess they were tired of giving the award to Ted Williams, who hit .345/.513/.635 that year, albeit in just 117 games as he had broken his collarbone in spring training. Williams didn't qualify for the batting title that year because he had only 386 at-bats... mostly due to his league-leading 136 walks. The rule was subsequently changed from at-bats to plate appearances.
  
• After Jensen was acquired by the Washington Senators, manager Bucky Harris -- who managed the Yankees when they won the 1947 World Series -- pulled him aside and told him he was the right fielder and he'd hit third. "No pep talk, no nothing, but he made it sound like I was the right fielder and third place hitter for a long time to come," Jensen later recalled. "It made me feel good." The 1950s Senators had a number of ex-Yankees and several of them told reporters that Harris was a much more low-key, hands-off manager than Casey Stengel, and Jensen agreed. "With Stengel it was always 'watch for that curve ball' or 'watch for that change up'," Jensen said. "Bucky leaves you on your own up there." But Jensen would later say Stengel was the smartest manager he'd ever had.
  
• Stengel obliquely mentioned Jensen in his famously long, rambling testimony before the Senate Anti-Trust and Monopoly Subcommittee on July 8, 1958. Asked about legislation that would exempt baseball from federal anti-trust laws, Stengel said about 7,000 words without really saying anything. The hearing was held the day after the All-Star Game -- the Stengel-managed A.L. All-Stars won, 4-3 -- and in the American League starting lineup were Jensen and two other ex-Yankees, Bob Cerv and Gus Triandos. Stengel was asked if the Yankees were going to continue to "monopolize" the World Series, and his confusing answer: "Well, I will tell you. I got a little concerned yesterday in the first three innings when I saw the three players I had gotten rid of [Jensen, Cerv, and Triandos] and I said when I lost nine what am I going to do? And when I had a couple of my players I thought so great of that did not do so good up to the sixth inning I was more confused but I finally had to go and call on a young man in Baltimore that we don't own and the Yankees don't own him and he is doing pretty well and I would actually have to to tell you that we are more the Greta Garbo-type now from success. We are being hated. I mean from the ownership and all we are being hated. Every sport that gets too great or one individual -- but if we made twenty-seven cents and it pays to have a winner at home why would you have a good winner in your park if you were an owner? That is the result of baseball. An owner gets most of the money at home, and it is up to him and his staff to do better or they ought to be discharged." After befuddling the committee with answers like that for 45 minutes, Stengel was excused and Mickey Mantle called upon. His opening statement: "My views are just about the same as Casey's."
  
• Casey Stengel later said Jensen plus Spec Shea, Jerry Snyder, and Archie Wilson to the Senators for Irv Noren and Tom Upton was the worst trade the Yankees made during his tenure. But in reality it was pretty much a wash for the Yankees. Jensen, in two seasons, would be worth 4.9 bWAR for the Senators before being traded. Shea, a right-handed pitcher who had been an All-Star with the Yankees as a rookie, pitched four years in Washington and was worth 2.9 bWAR. Snyder was a good-glove, no-hit infielder worth -0.1 bWAR in seven seasons with the Senators. (You must have a really good glove to last seven seasons with a 55 OPS+!) Wilson, at one point seen as a good prospect but now a 28-year-old minor league journeyman, only played 26 games in Washington before being traded. In exchange, the Yankees received the 27-year-old Irv Noren, an outfieldefirst baseman who played five years in New York and was an All-Star in 1954; he was worth 7.9 bWAR, making the trade essentially even by bWAR. (The other player the Yankees received, minor league infielder Tom Upton, never made it back to the bigs.) Prior to the 1957 season, Noren was traded to the Kansas City Athletics as part of a monster 13-player trade that included Clete Boyer, third baseman of the early 1960s dynasty!
  
• The two players Washington got from Boston for Jensen, Mickey McDermott and Tom Upton, were both future Yankees. McDermott was a left-handed pitcher whose father, Maurice McDermott, had played in the minors with Lou Gehrig. Mickey was just 25 years old at the time of the trade but had been in the majors for six seasons, going 48-34 with a 3.80 ERA (114 ERA+). In two years with the Senators, McDermott went 17-25 (but with a 3.58 ERA), then prior to the 1957 season was traded to the Yankees as part of a seven-player deal; he went 2-6 with a 4.24 ERA as a swingman, and closed out the Game 2 win in the 1956 World Series. After that one season in New York, he was part of the trade with the A's that brought back Clete Boyer.
  
• Umphlett, a 22-year-old infielder, was traded back to the Red Sox in 1955, and then the Red Sox traded him to the Yankees in 1962 for infielder Billy Gardner. He would spend 1962 and 1963 in Triple-A for the Yankees, then ended his career in the minors with the Minnesota Twins -- the team that had been the Senators until 1961.
  
• In 1956, the anthology television show Cavalcade of America had an episode called The Jackie Jensen Story. Jackie had a cameo as the adult version of himself, but the 30-minute episode was focused on Jackie's teenage years and the influence of his middle high school coach, a man named Ralph Kerchum who became a father figure. The coach was played by Ross Elliott, a Bronx native whose most memorable role might have been as the director in the Vitameatavegamin episode of I Love Lucy.
  
• Jensen's MVP in 1958 broke a string of four straight MVP awards for Yankees -- Yogi Berra in 1954 and 1955 followed by Mickey Mantle in 1956 and 1957. Nellie Fox of the White Sox won it in 1959, and then the Yankees won it four years in a row again -- Roger Maris in 1960 and 1961, Mantle in 1962, and Elston Howard in 1963. Then a long drought -- the next Yankee to win it would be Thurman Munson in 1976.
  
• Going by bWAR, Mantle should have won it a third straight year in 1958 -- his 8.7 bWAR led the league, followed by Frank Lary at 6.7 and Al Kaline at 6.5. Jensen's 4.9 was 10th that year. Of course, they didn't have bWAR back then!
  
• Jackie won a Gold Glove in 1959; it was just the third year of the award's existence, or he might have won more. "Right field in Boston is a bitch, the sun field, and few play it well," Ted Williams said. "Jackie Jensen was the best I saw at it." Jensen was renowned for his throwing arm -- he twice led the league in assists, and twice led the league in double plays as an outfielder. One Yankee scout said he had the best arm he'd seen since previously forgotten Yankee Bob Meusel, usually said to have the best cannon in baseball history until Roberto Clemente came along.
  
• Jensen was well known for his brashness, especially compared to Mantle's aw shucks attitude. Mantle, asked if he thought he could beat out Jensen to replace DiMaggio in center field, humbly replied that there were three positions in the outfield and he hoped to win any one of them. Jensen, on the other hand, vowed he'd "out-run, out-hit, and out-throw" Mantle, an arrogant answer that didn't go over well with teammates. Joe DiMaggio, asked what he thought of the duel for his old job, quipped that Mantle was "out-quoting" Jensen.
  
• When Mantle was asked what he thought about Jensen's quote, he replied: "I don't know what to make of that guy." Jensen would later say he was misquoted, but reports of his cockiness would follow him throughout his Yankee years. Later in life, Jensen said people mistook his shyness and anxiety for arrogance and rudeness.
  
• According to Sports Illustrated, Jensen is the only player to have played in the East-West football game, the Rose Bowl, the World Series, and the Major League All-Star Game. I'll take their word for it!
  
• As a freshman at Cal, the first time Jensen touched the ball -- on a punt return -- he ran it back for a 56-yard touchdown. Cal quarterback Charles Erb said they'd never seen anything like it. "He was all over the field, dodging and leaping over guys. The rest of us just stood there on the sidelines with our mouths open. Finally somebody said, 'Who in the hell is that guy?' "
  
• Jensen is one of two "forgotten" Yankees in the College Football Hall of Fame -- the other is 1960s catcher Jake Gibbs. (Other Yankees in the College Football Hall of Fame include John Elway, who was in the Yankee minor league system before joining the Denver Broncos, and Deion Sanders, who was on the Yankees in 1989 and 1990.) Jensen also is a member of the Cal Hall of Fame, the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame, and... ugh... the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame.
  
• Despite his speed -- Jensen led the league in triples in 1956 and in stolen bases in 1954, and was in the top five in stolen bases in six seasons -- Jackie also was prone to grounding into double plays, leading the league in 1954, 1956, and 1957. His 32 GIDPs in 1954 was the major league record until Boston's Jim Rice hit into 36 in 1984, which is still the single-season record. Rice also had 35 in 1985. Jensen's 32 is tied for third with four others. The most by a Yankee? Dave Winfield with 30 in 1983, which is tied for 14th.
  
• Jensen lost most of his baseball earnings through a series of bad investments. His ex-wife, former Olympian Zoe Ann, later became a blackjack dealer in Reno to pay the bills.
  
• Jensen had four appearances on the popular show Home Run Derby, and set a record for most home runs in one match when he defeated Ernie Banks, 14-11, in Episode 24. The 25 combined home runs also was a record. He took on Mickey Mantle in Episode 3, with Mantle winning, 9-2, then defeated Rocky Colavito, 3-2, in Episode 25. He rematched against Mantle in Episode 26, with Mantle winning again, 13-10. Jensen set another record in that contest when he became the only player to hit four home runs in a row, and then a fifth home run in a row. That episode was supposed to be the season one finale, but it turned out to be the last episode of the series: The show's host and producer, Mark Scott, died of a heart attack at age 45, shortly after the last episode aired, and two months later the show's 64-year-old director Benjamin Stoloff also died. Rather than replacing them, the show was cancelled.
  
• Jensen's last game came against the Yankees, on October 1st, 1961, at Yankee Stadium. He appeared as a pinch hitter and popped out to shortstop Tony Kubek. In the 4th inning of that game, Roger Maris hit his 61st home run, breaking Babe Ruth's single-season record!
  
• Jackie and Zoe Ann had two sons, Jon and Jay, and a daughter, Jan. Jay's son, Tucker Jensen, was a pitcher in the Blue Jays farm system in 2011 and 2012.
  

In 1958, Jensen told Sports Illustrated that the biggest thrill of his career wasn't being an All-American or an All-Star, it wasn't winning an MVP or a World Series. "The biggest is having played in the same outfield with both DiMaggio and Williams."

Oh man.
This has to be the most difficult thing I have ever done. For context, I am a college student who has smoked consistently, nearly every day, for the last two years. In high school, I was pretty good about keeping away from weed, only allowing myself to partake in the summer. With COVID, everything changed, and the time spent indoors turned to boredom, which turned to dependence.
Before quitting, I would pack nearly three bowls a day. It was not uncommon for me to buy about an ounce every week. I loved being high. But then I failed a semester. And then another. And then I couldn’t afford rent this month. I lost motivation to get out of bed, to go to work, and to survive. Again, this was before quitting.
It’s now Day 3, and I can’t tell if the mental or physical symptoms are worse. I’ve not been able to stomach a single bite of food. The little that I do eat, I can barely taste it. And then, I’m lucky if I can even keep the food down and not throw it up. Last night, I took my partner out to dinner. Just staring at the food and smelling it made me nauseous. I got to my car, started to tingle in my fingers and face, and passed out.
I can’t sleep. Most days I’d smoke before crashing, drifting off in a cozy daze. I stared at my ceiling for a good hour before finally crashing, only to wake up an hour later with stomach pains. When I smoked regularly, I found it hard to wake up before 10 a.m. These last few days, I’ve gotten up no later than 7:30 (and I don’t like it!).
My brain feels like it wants to pop. I try to be a calm and collected person, but these withdrawal symptoms have sent me on a rampage, driven by irrational anger. I threw my phone against the floor, breaking the camera, after reading a text message that set me off.
I’ve been lurking for a couple days now. I understand this is a process that takes time, but lately I’ve been contemplating admitting myself to the hospital due to the severe reactions I’m having. I may be malnourished to some degree, but I’m drinking plenty of water and Gatorade and taking vitamins.
I visit family this weekend, family who all have a notorious weed habit. My brother tends to be my greater contributor when in town, and I’m trying to find the strength to tell him no when he offers, but I’m afraid that I won’t be able to. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).
As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.
These are mostly chronologically ordered. Here we go:

Quality Contributions in the Main Motte

@ControlsFreak:

• "No one thinks that when you go to the grocery store, or go to buy a TV, a refrigerator, or car, or anything else, that you should first have to just give them all your financial information so that they can tailor your price."

@OracleOutlook:

• "A definitive list of Catholic Dogmas and their teaching weight has been made, yes."

@DaseindustriesLtd:

• "High-performing brains ride the edge of metastability and wrangle representations easily; low-performing ones waste power fending off chaos and lose track of the context."

@Ethan:

• "Coed settings have their own dynamic."

@gattsuru:

• "A lot of gatekeeping discourse in trans spheres reflected practices based around WPATH SoC v6; while this officially only ran from 2001-2011 (most of that under the name Harry Benjamin International Genders Dysphoria Association), it had a pretty significant foundational effect..."

@Unsaying:

• "So it seems to me that if I'm to be a Christian, this directly implies feeding my child to the dogs. And if I'm to do otherwise, this fully generalizes to Hitler."

@netstack:

• "That’s why, whenever a demagogue starts to gesture at the Other, we think of Hitler. He demonstrated that full arc, from growth to apex to disaster."

@ymeskhout:

• " But ultimately, how scary is it to know your deeply held convictions are subject to materialistic opportunism?"

Contributions for the week of May 1, 2023

@Quantumfreakonomics:

• "The purpose of empathy is to approximate good decision theory."

@ApplesauceIrishCream:

• "I've been trying to get myself to do a writeup of Walter Russell Mead's four traditions of American foreign policy..."

@FiveHourMarathon:

• "A world where Bud Light's customers do at least a little critical examination of what they consume will probably improve the world."

@RandomRanger:

• "Steal money, buy compute."

@Primaprimaprima:

• "Covid didn't really teach us anything new. But I do think it was possibly the first example that showed how spectacularly easy it is to manipulate mass sentiment in the social media age."

@raggedy_anthem:

• "Tourist pamphlets play up Louisiana’s French-ness. In reality, the Creole elite has not been in the driver’s seat since Reconstruction, and arguably since before the Civil War."

@Goodguy:

• "No, we should not allow insane people to roam the subways threatening others. But there are many possible solutions between 'do nothing' and 'kill them all'."

@Felipe:

• "tl;dr - recently I did a flyout for a humanities job in the US, and wow, it put me off returning to US academia in a big way."

@coffee_enjoyer:

• "Christians are not golems designed to do good for outsiders continually."

Contributions for the week of May 8, 2023

@self_made_human:

• "An Indian Abroad in Thailand"

@Folamh3:

• "American cultural exports"

@naraburns:

• "More than 77% of all sex discrimination complaints filed with the OCR are filed by a single person, at a rate of about 20 complaints per day..."

@FiveHourMarathon:

• "Shakespeare, Honor, Unitary Leadership, and How To End the Culture War"

@MadMonzer:

• "Interestingly, I think the difference between the Special Olympics and the Paralympics is a very good intuition pump for the trans and intersex in women's sports issue."

@ymeskhout:

• "Defamation Bear Trap"

@cjet79:

• "Our legal system increasingly resembles a system of 'might makes right' if you have enough powerful people on your side then the law can literally be what you want it to be."

Contributions for the week of May 15, 2023

@Pasha:

• "So yesterday Turkish Presidential and Parliamentary elections took place. I wanted to give an overview of the main characters and themes."

@huadpe:

• "The ironic outcome of this is that for advocates of increased densification, you end up trying to make a fundamentally capitalist argument (less regulation will make us richer) on terms of anything but capitalism."

@Primaprimaprima:

• "I think those high-falutin' art snobs do get some things right (it would be weird if they were so dysfunctional that they got everything exactly wrong)."

@Soriek:

• "Consolidated Markets in Healthcare"

@FCfromSSC:

• "The reason Anheuser-Busch being boycotted is that they got dragged into the culture war."

@FarNearEverywhere:

• "[T]here are people who shoplift because they genuinely have no money and are hungry or their kids are hungry. The vast majority are not these cases."

@raggedy_anthem:

• "You could call Rangel an unwitting pawn of white supremacy, but then you would have to explain the other 95% of his career."

Contributions for the week of May 22, 2023

@ymeskhout:

• "What are the limits of the weak man?"

@cjet79:

• "I sort of lean towards weak-manning not being a thing, and any view that anyone holds is fair game."

@DaseindustriesLtd:

• "I suspect that the biggest intellectual deficit of the rationalist culture is precisely this preoccupation with the meta."

@SecureSignals:

• "The point here is that Holocaust Revisionism went from being a quirky movement of libertarian-adjacent autists to a genuine political dissident movement."

@Soriek:

• "International Updates"

@hydroacetylene:

• "Texas politics update: Articles of impeachment are being floated against attorney general Ken Paxton, the most important culture war figure you don't think of very often."

@urquan:

• "We rarely agree on things, but I absolutely agree with you that the gay and trans movement is motivated by the same impulse that motivates individualist, get-the-government-out-of-my-wallet libertarian conservatism."

@erwgv3g34:

• "Most of what you think you know about sex/romance/dating is a feminist lie, fed to you through a combination of the education system and the media, or people repeating falsehoods they themselves learned from school and movies and TV shows."

@felis-parenthesis:

• "One of the rival positions is monocensorship. The other position is bicensorship."

@HlynkaCG:

• "As I've said before I feel like the left's dominance of academia and traditional media has effectively left a Hobbes-and-Burke-shaped hole in the discourse."

@FCfromSSC:

• "Our established systems are failing en masse, and there's a blatant disconnect between the way things are hypothetically supposed to work, and the way they actually work."

Contributions for the week of May 29, 2023

@ryandv:

• "The message of reddit is no longer the actual thoughts of its users: it's the message of reddit as medium - that is, a highly restrictive diet of information curated by those wanting to impose a particular reality tunnel on its users."

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).
As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.
These are mostly chronologically ordered. Here we go:

Quality Contributions in the Main Motte

@ControlsFreak:

• "No one thinks that when you go to the grocery store, or go to buy a TV, a refrigerator, or car, or anything else, that you should first have to just give them all your financial information so that they can tailor your price."

@OracleOutlook:

• "A definitive list of Catholic Dogmas and their teaching weight has been made, yes."

@DaseindustriesLtd:

• "High-performing brains ride the edge of metastability and wrangle representations easily; low-performing ones waste power fending off chaos and lose track of the context."

@Ethan:

• "Coed settings have their own dynamic."

@gattsuru:

• "A lot of gatekeeping discourse in trans spheres reflected practices based around WPATH SoC v6; while this officially only ran from 2001-2011 (most of that under the name Harry Benjamin International Genders Dysphoria Association), it had a pretty significant foundational effect..."

@Unsaying:

• "So it seems to me that if I'm to be a Christian, this directly implies feeding my child to the dogs. And if I'm to do otherwise, this fully generalizes to Hitler."

@netstack:

• "That’s why, whenever a demagogue starts to gesture at the Other, we think of Hitler. He demonstrated that full arc, from growth to apex to disaster."

@ymeskhout:

• " But ultimately, how scary is it to know your deeply held convictions are subject to materialistic opportunism?"

Contributions for the week of May 1, 2023

@Quantumfreakonomics:

• "The purpose of empathy is to approximate good decision theory."

@ApplesauceIrishCream:

• "I've been trying to get myself to do a writeup of Walter Russell Mead's four traditions of American foreign policy..."

@FiveHourMarathon:

• "A world where Bud Light's customers do at least a little critical examination of what they consume will probably improve the world."

@RandomRanger:

• "Steal money, buy compute."

@Primaprimaprima:

• "Covid didn't really teach us anything new. But I do think it was possibly the first example that showed how spectacularly easy it is to manipulate mass sentiment in the social media age."

@raggedy_anthem:

• "Tourist pamphlets play up Louisiana’s French-ness. In reality, the Creole elite has not been in the driver’s seat since Reconstruction, and arguably since before the Civil War."

@Goodguy:

• "No, we should not allow insane people to roam the subways threatening others. But there are many possible solutions between 'do nothing' and 'kill them all'."

@Felipe:

• "tl;dr - recently I did a flyout for a humanities job in the US, and wow, it put me off returning to US academia in a big way."

@coffee_enjoyer:

• "Christians are not golems designed to do good for outsiders continually."

Contributions for the week of May 8, 2023

@self_made_human:

• "An Indian Abroad in Thailand"

@Folamh3:

• "American cultural exports"

@naraburns:

• "More than 77% of all sex discrimination complaints filed with the OCR are filed by a single person, at a rate of about 20 complaints per day..."

@FiveHourMarathon:

• "Shakespeare, Honor, Unitary Leadership, and How To End the Culture War"

@MadMonzer:

• "Interestingly, I think the difference between the Special Olympics and the Paralympics is a very good intuition pump for the trans and intersex in women's sports issue."

@ymeskhout:

• "Defamation Bear Trap"

@cjet79:

• "Our legal system increasingly resembles a system of 'might makes right' if you have enough powerful people on your side then the law can literally be what you want it to be."

Contributions for the week of May 15, 2023

@Pasha:

• "So yesterday Turkish Presidential and Parliamentary elections took place. I wanted to give an overview of the main characters and themes."

@huadpe:

• "The ironic outcome of this is that for advocates of increased densification, you end up trying to make a fundamentally capitalist argument (less regulation will make us richer) on terms of anything but capitalism."

@Primaprimaprima:

• "I think those high-falutin' art snobs do get some things right (it would be weird if they were so dysfunctional that they got everything exactly wrong)."

@Soriek:

• "Consolidated Markets in Healthcare"

@FCfromSSC:

• "The reason Anheuser-Busch being boycotted is that they got dragged into the culture war."

@FarNearEverywhere:

• "[T]here are people who shoplift because they genuinely have no money and are hungry or their kids are hungry. The vast majority are not these cases."

@raggedy_anthem:

• "You could call Rangel an unwitting pawn of white supremacy, but then you would have to explain the other 95% of his career."

Contributions for the week of May 22, 2023

@ymeskhout:

• "What are the limits of the weak man?"

@cjet79:

• "I sort of lean towards weak-manning not being a thing, and any view that anyone holds is fair game."

@DaseindustriesLtd:

• "I suspect that the biggest intellectual deficit of the rationalist culture is precisely this preoccupation with the meta."

@SecureSignals:

• "The point here is that Holocaust Revisionism went from being a quirky movement of libertarian-adjacent autists to a genuine political dissident movement."

@Soriek:

• "International Updates"

@hydroacetylene:

• "Texas politics update: Articles of impeachment are being floated against attorney general Ken Paxton, the most important culture war figure you don't think of very often."

@urquan:

• "We rarely agree on things, but I absolutely agree with you that the gay and trans movement is motivated by the same impulse that motivates individualist, get-the-government-out-of-my-wallet libertarian conservatism."

@erwgv3g34:

• "Most of what you think you know about sex/romance/dating is a feminist lie, fed to you through a combination of the education system and the media, or people repeating falsehoods they themselves learned from school and movies and TV shows."

@felis-parenthesis:

• "One of the rival positions is monocensorship. The other position is bicensorship."

@HlynkaCG:

• "As I've said before I feel like the left's dominance of academia and traditional media has effectively left a Hobbes-and-Burke-shaped hole in the discourse."

@FCfromSSC:

• "Our established systems are failing en masse, and there's a blatant disconnect between the way things are hypothetically supposed to work, and the way they actually work."

Contributions for the week of May 29, 2023

@ryandv:

• "The message of reddit is no longer the actual thoughts of its users: it's the message of reddit as medium - that is, a highly restrictive diet of information curated by those wanting to impose a particular reality tunnel on its users."

starts coughing stops mid cough vapes/smokes* - average teenager near me.

I posted this in a smaller sub but didn't get any discussion going and have some new information that could be related. I will call myself today to see if BBBYQ is transferrable back in to Fidelity from AST (at least for me). I wonder if this related to the chill list or global lock here https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/dtc-chills-a-big-conspiracy-or-just-fraud-30815 with excerpts further below.
A chill can prevent deposits or withdrawal of chilled securities. I read that as they can do things one way but not necessarily always both. The other thing that stood out to me is "only the company can direct its transfer agent to issue free trading shares" - Curious peoples thoughts on that. My thinking is if BBBYQ is to receive some dividend and it's on the chill list, is it possible to receive such a dividend outside of being held at the transfer agent AST without delays like some Dole shareholders saw?
​
SEC chairman Gensler tweets on May 25th https://twitter.com/GaryGenslestatus/1661760275370979328 about how a cow ended up burning down the whole town of Chicago ( u/scarebearz7). And of course this is happening near the time that u/realpulte who has been tweeting a lot about going after corruption, tweets a pic of Cohen on top of a cow /bull/ steer of all things (all credit to Plur / u/scarebearz7 ).
The same building Citadel is in appeared to have had a fire happen there within the past year (see further below for more smoke if there's actually a fire here so to speak). https://twitter.com/Chicago_Scannestatus/1622616443299811333
Gensler mentions a fire can happen in financial markets as well. Now recently the market maker Virtu has been served several lawsuits and u/taynethebetasequence did an excellent exploration of how this could be talked about somewhat cryptically but in plain site with Cohen tweeting at the Panthers. If you've been following, Vincent at Virtu, a market maker, isn't the only one involved with the Panthers.
https://www.nhl.com/panthers/info/douglas-cifu
Earlier in 2022 Virtu filed a FOA request to see just who the SEC was talking to that could lead to actions designed to benefit retail investors (what was later implemented in part). https://ir.virtu.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2022/Virtu-Financial-Announces-Commencement-of-Lawsuit-Against-the-Securities-and-Exchange-Commission-to-Compel-Compliance-with-Freedom-of-Information-Act-Request/default.aspx
Their ceo is still hitting back at the Sec in public as of April 18th of this year.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/virtu-ceo-slams-gensler-reforms-as-democratic-plan-to-curb-retail-trading-2ea1daf0
Not to mention his personal Twitter page. With the lawsuits that I've looked over not even addressing the apparent siphoning of funds from Virtu stock investors... It makes me wonder.
The security breach and trade secrets that were exposed by former Virtu employees and sued by Virtu - Well the SEC found Virtu at fault - https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-05-01-2023/card/virtu-stock-falls-after-disclosure-of-potential-sec-enforcement-action-w8oxzdAvCUYsPpvvpSDn which is what the slew of lawsuits in the past few days against Virtu for shareholders of their stock seem to be related to.
While everyone has focused much of their attention on one market maker Citadel, is Virtu a big piece of the equation as well?
With the pieces that u/region-formal , u/life_relationship_77 and others have put out regarding share count being traded as if it was much higher than in actuality, this all seems pretty interesting.
--------------------------------------------

Other Citadel fire

There was a fire in the building before Citadel moved in. Just seems a bit odd to mention Citadel in the story and the timing. From 2019 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-28/fire-breaks-out-at-midtown-office-tower-slated-to-house-citadel
Secure storage facility where Citadel may have held documents? Or Virtu? Both? Went up in flames. Apparently the fire fighters decided on a controlled burn at some point.
From early Feb last year in Chicago https://youtu.be/wf4Pamtj56U?t=71
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8sw-l8aW80

Excerpts from chill and global lock webpage

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
​
"DTC staff may discover (previously undetected) illegal free trading share issuances or other fraudulent activity that will persuade them to limit or suspend its services. In these instances, DTC may make referrals to appropriate regulators including the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. "
​
"When DTC eligibility is lost, issuers will often tell their stockholders, they have no idea what happened. Since only the company can direct its transfer agent to issue free trading shares, most often it knows exactly why DTC limited or suspended its services".
Only the transfer agent to issue shares? I suppose that would include dividends and new shares?
"A DTC Chill restricts DTC’s services, including limiting a DTC participant’s ability to deposit or withdraw chilled securities."
"DTC does not always disclose the reason for a chill or Global Lock, nor does it suggest how long it will be in effect."

Hi! I would like to share and get advice for what I've been noticing these past month. To begin I was diagnosed with Scoliosis in 2011 it was just 25+ degrees upper part of the spine from what I remember, Fast forward around July 2015 my X-Ray result revealed the upper part was now around 42 degrees and my lower part of the spine near pelvic has curve too but the doctor was too lazy to measure it and just pointed it out like it's casual. It was significantly tilted to be honest but I don't know why the doctor only focused on the upper spine curve. Today I've been having frequent lower back pain while sitting and moving around in some positions. The pain is in the spine area in the middle of my lower back. The weird thing I found out that my height decreased from 5'11 to 5'9 in just 8 months. But from what I've recall last month I measured my height was still 5'11 and this Tuesday morning I'm only 5'9. How on earth would someone shrink that fast? I started to also have fatigue. I can move around for 2 hours max and then I feel like not able to control/move my body normally, My lower back is numb aching, arms are hard to lift and my feet feels really heavy I trip a lot. I feel like laying on the bed and can't go on.
In 2011, I was 13 years old, got body brace but the doctor said I no longer need to wear them after 2 years. I can't sleep and be human wearing those, It presses the soul out of me and heavy as well.
In 2015 , I was 17, stopped wearing brace at 15. I also remember I was 5'11 at the age of 17.
Around October 2022 I still measured 5'11. I didn't grow a inch in age 17-21?
Today My height is just 5'9, lost 2 inches and lost 5KG in 6 months without even trying. What's happening to me?
Thank you in advance for advices.

I own land in Klamath county Oregon, in a “town” of less than 100. I’ve lived all over the west coast and the mountain regions, but this was different.
During fire season, things got odd. This was in 2020/2021 especially. I noticed many fires within a short period. It would be a regular occurrence to wake up to smoke billowing over my land from a new fire.
These fires were all visible to me from my home sometimes over a hill, sometimes I could see flames. One night I had a dream of a wall of fire at the edge of my land and within a few days my closest neighbors old property in the woods burned down. He wasn’t there, nobody was.
When the fire fighters came, they had new fires starting when the other fire was being put out in my neighborhood, but the little ones were going against the direction of the wind and blocked by hills, rocks and trees, etc. and shouldn’t have been spread by the previous fire. so they had to do extra investigations and couldn’t figure out how it would be possible to naturally spread like that when the fire clean up was already finishing up.
They used a water tanker airplane on my neighbors property because it was already putting out 3 other forest fires started within 24 hours, in the same area within a few miles
Sometimes there would be up to a dozen large fires nearby, within a week. Often times by the river down the road and also westward towards crater lake area.
I also noticed a lot of these were in a line visually, not an exact line but a general geographical line on a large scale meaning it’s like they were being burnt methodically for periods of time. Over a large area.
The military has a base in Klamath falls nearly 60 miles away and fly over often, also the trails in the sky sometimes were at insane levels during this period. (No idea if they’re related with fire)
The explanation of these fires varied, often times there would be a controlled burn, then they’d repost the same story but say it was a forest fire and it was a surprise. Which I thought was odd. Some were possible arson or garbage burning.
The weirdest moments for me were when they were saying it was caused by lightning on sunny blue days with very few clouds.
An area nearby where I go for solitude in nature, was nearly complete burnt in the bootleg fire. It is a very secluded area away from anything. It just so happens to be where a monument is for the only world war 2 enemy bombing site in mainland usa. when a bomb took out school kids outside in the forest during world war 2.
Now I only mention those details to explain that this area gets very weird mysterious vibes and I’m not very superstitious but something just seemed and still seems … off and bad about the situation. Which is why I’m still thinking about it.
Thoughts?

1. The X-Files

SUMMARY: Two FBI agents named Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigate strange unexplained phenomena that the rest of the FBI ignores, such as UFOs, secret government conspiracies, the paranormal, and other things that defy explanation. All the while secret agencies in the shadows try to cover up the truth.
RATING: 9/10, my favorite show of all time, the two characters are so great and memorable, and every episode has an intriguing mystery you won't imagine. It's one of the few shows that treat conspiracy theories and cryptic stuff in real life seriously, and the grounded realistic tone helps the mood and sets it apart from other similar shows.
​

1. Twin Peaks

SUMMARY: After the murder of high school student, Laura Palmer, an FBI agent named Dale Cooper is called to the small mountain town of Twin Peaks to investigate her death, but he soon finds out that the town and the mystery surrounding her death go much deeper than anyone could have thought.
RATING: 9/10, this is the show that changed television as a storytelling medium, and easily one of the weirdest TV shows you'll ever see (as common with David Lynch). This show mixes every genre you can imagine into one pot, and it all blends really well into a world that you can't help but be fascinated by, and every single character is so likable and memorable. Despite being pretty simply made, it really manages to convey a feeling of otherworldliness. The villain in this show is one of the most terrifying in TV history. Also, expect to be confused a lot.
If there's one thing I have a gripe about this show, it's that after the death of a certain character in season 2 (you'll know who I mean), the show really derails its plot for the remainder of the season. But in the final episode of season 2 and for season 3 (The Return), the show becomes amazing again. Oh, and the prequel movie "Fire Walk With Me" and the deleted scenes compilations movie "The Missing Pieces" is great too, check those out as well.
​

1. Aqua Teen Hunger Force

SUMMARY: We follow the misadventures of a trio of sentient fast food items including the mean and foul-mouthed Master Shake, the straight-thinking and smart Frylock, the lovable but idiotic Meatwad, along with their fat grouchy neighbor Carl, getting into random weird situations in their bland and pathetic everyday lives.
RATING: 8/10, this is easily my favorite animated show, definitely one of the funniest, and it never gets boring to watch. In the middle of shows with fantastical larger-than-life ideas, it's fun to watch a show where every single character is a pathetic deadbeat idiot and lives a very bland life that just happens to have weird fever-dream stuff in it. It's a funny silly show to just turn off your brain to and enjoy.
​

1. Project Blue Book

SUMMARY: Based on the real-life Project Blue Book, this show follows the cases of Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Captain Michael Quinn of the US Air Force as they investigate sightings of UFOs and aliens around the country.
RATING: 8/10, this is the next X-Files, except more UFO-focused. The characters here are all great, especially the two leads, they're both really likable and enjoyable and it's fun seeing the progress and growth of their friendship. The mystery of this show is also pretty intriguing despite being the usual UFO and government coverup mystery like X-Files. Still upset it got canceled on a cliffhanger, hopefully, it'll continue.
​

1. Poirot

SUMMARY: A murder mystery show following a short Belgian gentleman named Hercule Poirot, solving some of the most heinous and complicated crimes with his little grey cells.
RATING: 9/10, one of my favorite murder mystery shows, a big part to the character of Poirot, who is so sweet and endearing but also very calculated, intelligent and filled with faith-based struggle on human condition. The side characters are great too, such as Poirot's best friend, Captain Hasting, Chief Inspector Japp, and Miss Lemon. This is a show that actually gets better with each season, and has one of the best and saddest endings to any TV show.

1. Father Brown

SUMMARY: A priest named Father Brown who lives in the village of Kembleford, solves gruesome murders with his close companions that the incompetent inspectors fail to solve with the intent of saving the sinners' souls.
RATING: 8/10, another of my favorite murder mystery shows, once again the characters are all really likeable here, with Father Brown being a kind understanding man who only wishes to help people, even those who committed murder or are discriminated in 1950s society. The cast are all very endearing, and it's always fun seeing their dynamic and seeing Father Brown help people, even in the most grizzly murder cases.
​

1. The Chosen

SUMMARY: A modern serial adaptation of the story of Jesus, with a more grounded, historically accurate, and more relatable down-to-earth characters and interpretation of the story, being told from different perspectives of the people Jesus recruits.
RATING: 9/10, easily my favorite adaptation of the story of Jesus after "Jesus of Nazareth" (1977). I really like how this show attempts to be a lot more historically accurate and have a more realistic feel to it. The show also really succeeds in making the characters relatable and likeable, since in most adaptations you mostly just follow along with them without feeling to much about them, so it's nice this show gives every single character a more defined personality. Also, this is the only interpretation I've seen where Mary Magdelane is one of the disciples, so huge plus for that.
​

1. The Twilight Zone

SUMMARY: An anthology series following different characters across different settings and time periods and situations where strange unexplainable events happen in mix of science fiction, horror, comedy, fantasy, superstition, and others.
RATING: 9/10, if you love shows where weird supernatural stuff happens, this is the show for you. Every single episode is different and really great, offering something different, it can be funny, weird, heartwarming, depressing, and even horrifying, you never know what you're gonna get. Despite every episode being 22 minutes and having a different character each time, the show manages to make every single character relatable, likeable, and sympathetic in a pretty short amount of time, and you really do get worried, feel sorry, or root for them. Definitely a must-see.
​

1. Midnight Diner

SUMMARY: An anthology series about the owner of a small alleyway diner that opens from midnight to dawn as he meets and learns the life story of different people who different people who come into the diner as he cooks whatever food they request.
RATING: 9/10, it's a very nice slice-of-life show with a pleasant little setting, you get to watch the delicious-looking cooking while also learning and sympathizing with the different people who eat at the diner.
​

1. Samurai Gourmet

SUMMARY: A recently retired man named Takeshi learns to appreciate life differnetly than he ever did before, especialy for food. He also develops a samurai alter ego in his mind that represents his inner warrior, who does what he wants or what he should do, an ideal self in a way.
RATING: 8/10, a feel-good show like Midnight Diner, the main character is just really heartwarming, and watching him experience life in a new way in a stage of life a lot of people consider to be the end is a really nice message. The show is also really funny, and the food looks great. Definitely worth checking out.
​

1. Xavier: Renegade Angel SUMMARY: A weird, faun-like shaman guy named Xavier, who rambles the world in order to ponder deep questions and help others to reach spiritual enlightenment using deep philosophical ideas of life. Problem is, he doesn't actually understand any of the stuff he preaches, is a huge narcissist, looks for trouble and help people where there is no trouble, and ends up destroying everything in the end.

RATING: 9/10, easily one of the funniest shows I've ever seen, there's not one single scene or line of dialogue in this show that isn't funny or memorable. This is a very one of a kind show, and it's easily one of the weirdest shows you'll ever see in your life. The animation looks ugly and terrible, but it was done on purpose and it's part of the charm. The show somehow manages to be stupid yet genius at the same time, it's clear the writers of this show are very smart, and every single episode is stuffed with at least fifty jokes a minute, that it's possible to watch the same one-minute clip from the show, and discover a joke you didn't notice until your fifth viewing. It also has a lot of smart satire on spirituality and New Age spiritualism, and mocking the people who preach them through the character of Xavier. This show is only twenty episodes long and every episode is only eleven minutes long, and it's really worth checking out, clips and episodes are available on YouTube. Also the theme song, listen to the theme song.
​

1. Columbo SUMMARY: A seemingly ditzy, slow and easily distracted police lieutenant named Columbo, gets into cases of near-perfect murders committed by people of very high-intelligence. But Columbo isn't as slow or distracted as he seems, and he always gets the killer to reveal themselves.

RATING: 9/10, easily one of my favourite and best detective murder mystery shows out there. But what makes this show different from every other murder mystery is that there is no mystery. Every episode follows the killer's story, not Columbo, from their background, their motivation, and how they committed the crime and cover it up. Columbo never seems like a competent officer or serious threat, which always leads to the killers underestimating him, and Columbo knows these guys are smart, and it's near impossible to prove the crime by the usual means most of the time. But Columbo is good at reading people, noticing little flaws in their innocent act, which allows him to tell something's off about someone. Because the crime is near-perfect, Columbo doesn't always gather one damning piece of evidence, rather he tricks the killer into revealing themselves by placing them with the main evidence and gets themselves to accidentally reveal themselves as the killer. It's a very unique, funny, and enjoyable show and worth checking out.
​

1. Rome SUMMARY: The show follows two Roman soldiers named Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo and their intertwining lives of trouble with all the major events in ancient Rome, all the way from the rise and death of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, to the rise of Augustus.

RATING: 9/10, this show was essentially HBO's Game of Thrones before Game of Thrones actually came out. The show runs for two season, but is filled with every drama, action, and tragedy of ancient Rome you can imagine. The two (closest things to) protagonists, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus are a very enjoyable duo, and you always root for them to be in a better situation despite both of them doing pretty terrible things. The drama involving the more major historical characters is also great, from Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Atia of the Julii, and Caesar's nephew, Octavian. All the characters in this show are as grey as can be, as Rome is a society where all sorts of terrible things are normal. The characters can go from decent to despicable and from hateable to being sort of admirable so many times, and you can shift a lot from liking a character to hating them and vice versa. The only disclaimer is this show has a lot of violent and sexual content, and I do mean a lot. Otherwise, go check it out, it'll be worth it.

I've been a fan of trap/rap since 2018 but never got into Juice WRLD. Whenever I went to give his music a chance, I'd listen to Lucid Dreams and for some reason it never hit for me so I never dived into his catalogue. My best friend (who has a very similar music taste to me) has been crazy into Juice since 2021 or so and was always trying to get me into him but it never clicked with me. I even remember when Juice died and thinking it was tragic but it didn't affect me much as I wasn't into him much, I only heard the song Bandit at that stage and thought it was pretty bangin.
Around late March this year, my friend mentioned above sent me Relocate which I digged on first listen so this led me to SoundCloud where I found DRFL and decided to throw it on from the start for shits n giggles. After the first 5 tracks or so, I went back to listen to Empty again as I liked it a lot on first listen. It was at this time when my obsession begins. Ever since that day where I threw on DRFL, I have been enthralled in the world of Juice WRLD. Obsessed is too small a word, I've listened every day since to the point where nearly all other music genres were irrelevant to me (and I'm into a lot of different kinds of music). His flow, lyrics, melodies & harmonies were all just amazing - really blew me away. It was almost overwhelming how good his music is.
So me and my friend were both (and still are) obsessed with Juice so he was all we talked about and listened to when we hung out and smoked weed. Just talked about his music, watched his music videos and his freestyles which were a whole nother level to his talent. At first, I was so mind blown watching him free style for 1hr on Westwood. He really is the freestyle and deservedly so.
At this point, I haven't even stepped foot into GBGR apart from the main hits like Lean With Me or All Girls. I read a Reddit comment that said something like "DRFL has some misses whereas GBGR is all bangers" so I was like 'damn, I need to check out the rest of this album'. I listened from I'll Be Fine onwards and fuck me, every track has a different vibe, beautiful melodies and deep ass lyrics. Scared Of Love and I'm Still are two of my favs still. He goes so hard and puts so much emotion into his lyrics it's very different to how other rappers approach music I feel. GBGR is honestly one of the best albums I've come across in my life (extremely unpopular opinion here, I know, but Luicd Dreams is my least favourite track on the album - still hasn't hit to this day and I've given it many a chances, sorrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyy)
Then there are the unreleased tracks where there is just this whole other WRLD of gold to come across, it really is neverending. I read that there are up to 3,000 unreleased Juice WRLD tracks which is hard to comprehend how much music that actually is. I come across new unreleased Juice tracks everyday most of which I end up loving and playing in the car all the time. There is a Juice track for every mood you're in. The fact that nearly all of his lyrics are freestyled makes it all the most fascinating. Some of my favourite unreleased tracks gotta be Friends Die, 2019 my year, Journey, Animal, Rental, K like a Russian, On the regular, arctic tundra, Floor it, Maserati and so so so so many more. The list just never ends, it's insane.
I think what drew me into Juice the most was how he did all of this and achieved an unbelievable amount all by the time he turned 21. Not only that, but with nearly all of his lyrics being about his drug use and how he struggles with his mental health and that he ended up dying due to his drug addiction is just so so sad. It seems like he's struggled bad with drugs since his early teen years, especially since he's been doing percocets for so long it'd seem almost impossible, from his point of view, to ever get off of them - from what I've heard, opioid addiction is one of the hardest things to overcome. They just consume your whole life. I remember watching that TV series Dopesick which is about the opioid epidemic in America back in the 90's and the struggles people went through when they got hooked on opioids was devastating to watch.
There is just this aura around Juice and his music, it's almost like he knew his time was short. He knew his drug addiction was killing him and that one day he could end up overdosing or dying in his sleep but he was so wrapped up in his addiction and the lifestyle he was living that he probably felt helpless and felt there was nothing he could do about it. I'm just glad he was able to do what he loved through it all and create all of the music that he did. So much of his lyrics are warning signs and cries for help, it's just tragic he couldn't get the help he needed in time. Lyrics where he mentions his mother like in Feeling "I told my mama I'm here to stay no she won't catch me dead" or in Syphilis "I can't go out like that, ain't tryna make my mama cry" is just heartbreaking considering what ended up happening.
I know I'm a new Juice WRLD fan (only 2 months now lol) but safe to say he is up there with one of my all time favourites now, I only wish I got into him sooner but hey, that's how it goes sometimes. He is just a different being who had immense talent and potential. I will listen to him for the rest of my days (I'm only 25, I can imagine myself still listening in my 60's). His music will live on forever and he will go down in history as an absolute legend.
Just wanted to share this. Share what you think below. Sorry if I got anything wrong in the above. Big love to you all.
RIP Jared Anthony Higgins
#LLJW

My (28F) husband (31M) has struggled with alcohol and also has not stop smoking marijuana since I met him nearly 9 years ago. The alcohol has caused some serious issues in our relationship. He used to drink daily and I eventually asked him to stop because it was leading him to be untrustworthy, I didn’t want my kids growing up thinking this was normal, and his behavior was wrong on so many levels (being rude, sleeping when I needed help with kids etc and sometimes borderline cheating). He has a medical card as well for marijuana and refuses to stop. He told the doctor he had anxiety and chronic hand pain, neither of which he ever complained about to me. I had to beg him to stop actually smoking it because of the changes it also caused in his behaviors. Now he just vapes and I’ve caught my toddler with it or it fell out of his pocket on many occasions. I have decided to also abstain from alcohol to be supportive and I also just do not enjoy it. It caused problems in my life as well when I was younger.
My husband has been hiding drinking from me, even though I catch him nearly every time because I see the behavior change or notice it on his breath. Last night when I called him out he insisted I was crazy, yet he went in to use mouth wash within 5 minutes and I found his cup in the car full of beer, a grocery bag with empty cans and small bottle of liquor. I brought them inside and when he came back from his walk, he pretty much said I can’t control him and he could care less. He has done so much to deceive me under the influence I can’t just let a tall boy a night go. I am due with our 3rd child in 3 weeks and his mom was supposed to come help us with our two other kids (one is his step child). I decided enough was enough. I texted her and told her to spare herself from coming and he can just be with the kids. I will give birth alone. I feel like he doesn’t deserve to be there and I don’t want someone like this in my space during such a vulnerable time. I am supposed to go unmedicated for the first time because we chose a birth center and he has also failed to prepare himself or make me feel comfortable in anyway. He was extremely mad at the text and told me I could just be in my own and leave.
I don’t know what to do here. I know all the advice will be just leave but I am a SAHM. I have no family or friends here. I don’t feel as though scrambling to find a job after giving birth is the best option but he does not want to change and I can not live with the fact that he is taking advantage of the situation because he knows I am unable to leave.