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Welcome To Vilcabamba
"The Sacred Valley of Longevity"


This Is A Privately Circulated Blog, scribbled exclusively for Friends & Familiars, that peers into and pontificates about Expat life in the hinterlands of South America. If your eyesight is less than optimal (like mine), then just click the type size up a notch on your browser..


Here you will find a series of curmudgeonly commentaries that I've posted from atop my rickety old soapbox for the past few years. And yes, there are indeed political rantings, so place your seats in the upright position and fasten your seat belts .... it may be a bumpy ride.






12/26/16

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year



Christmas is here again - almost without fanfare this year. Probably due to the raucous noise of the election having dominated our thoughts these past several months.

We are all of us saturated by news events from both mainstream and alternative sources, some “fake” and some not. It seems to require a high degree of discernment or a well-honed bullshit meter these days to tell the difference.

I must admit that I paid a certain amount of attention to the North American political circus through the long-distance lens of a foreign expat presently residing in the Ecuadorian Andes. I didn’t however cast a vote.

To my own surprise, after 100% of the nation’s media and most of the pollsters indicated that Hillary Clinton would be the winner, Donald Trump emerged victorious. And now a nation that is still deeply divided and unsettled is inching ever so slowly towards some kind of equilibrium, even though the Democratic partisans still cannot come to grips with their loss.

Only time will tell whether or not the “deplorables” were correct in their faith in Mr. Trump as their president. It is, however, a proven fact that the professional politicians who have been governing ‘We The People’ have been doing a really lousy job of it, so I’m willing to give the new President Elect and his cabinet appointees some elbow room before passing judgement. As they always say - actions speak louder than words.

And so I wish all my friends, familiars and readers a heartfelt Happy Holidays.

12/12/16

The Lost Interview of Steve Jobs



Here's a little treat for all you 'hippy/computer nerds', a just-found interview of Steve Jobs that was lost in shipment from London back to the U.S. It is one of the most thoughtful and introspective interview of Jobs ever conducted. Click link below.

Steve Jobs Interview

11/16/16

Who Is The Immigrant ....



Hm-mmmm ... this might be a little too subtle for at least a few of my eight readers, but think in terms of Melania Trump as the immigrant. (A tip of my hat to the Admin of "The Burning Platform").

11/8/16

Hallelujah

The perfect ending to a horrific, tumultuous, divisive US election. Click below:

Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah sung by K.D. Lang

10/29/16

Newest Clif High Bombshell

There is a web link that is worth clicking on, just to see what is going on within the Deep State of the USA, especially the current political election.

The guest on the Greg Hunter USA Watchdog show is the Internet data mining expert Clif High of www.Halfpasthuman.com. To view click on:

Clif High Youtube Post

10/27/16

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouching toward us … drawing nigh.

One can easily insert one or the other’s names of our hapless presidential contenders to the paraphrase of William Butler Yeats’ poem. Rough beasts indeed.

But this is an election that I will sit out, voting for neither one of these two would-be “leaders of the free world”. No matter who ‘wins’ this contest, at least half the citizens of North America are the losers. Not much of an election mandate is it?

I must admit that were I to cast my vote it would probably be for Donald J. Trump ... just to see all the professional politicians freak out in fear of what The Donald would do in the way of draining the swamp that is Washington, DC.

10/22/16


After watching the final presidential debate (North American version) I found myself outraged at the politicizing and pussyfooting around the serious issues in this U.S. election. Both candidates were equally to blame, as anyone other than a dyed-in-the-wool supporter would be forced to admit. Snarky rejoinders and hurled barbs took the place of statements about substantive issues that divide the electorate.

Were this clown circus not simply meant as 'entertainment' for the ill-informed, it would have been a complete disaster for the purpose of providing a proper context for what ails the United States of America.

And the clock is ticking. There is less than mere days remaining until the election itself, yet the nation is still hopelessly divided. How is it possible that the country of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson has put forth two such disliked and tainted individuals to serve as the heads of their respective political parties? How is it that this once-great country has sold itself so cheaply.


10/13/16

Bonfire Of The Vanities



The one thing that this election cycle proves is that my beloved former country is in the midst of crashing and burning ... spectacularly.

Never in all of my 87 years have I witnessed this level of spite and angry vituperate remarks from one candidate to another as from Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. It is simply well beyond the bounds of the usual political devisive discourse of previous elections.

Regardless of the outcome of this political battle, the United States of America itself will desolve into a bloody class civil war. How sad!


10/2/16

I will probably receive a lot of heat for this post, but I would only ask that you read it in full before passing judgement, The editor/administrator of one of my most often read internet blogs, Jim Quinn of "The Burning Platform", has absolutely nailed it with regard to our current electoral circus. Check it out at:

The Burning Platform

8/3/16

Here is a partial quote from Martin Armstrong of Princeton Economics, a rebel-rousing debunker of anything governmental. Armstrong is someone I read daily in my meager "media briefings".

".... Hillary’s pick for Secretary of the Treasury will be Larry Fink, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BlackRock. He will get to sell all his stock in Black Rock tax free. This is why these people take these positions in addition to ego. They have to sell their shares and the law allows them tax-free status because this is a requirement. Why do you think Robert Rubin and Hank Paulson from Goldman Sachs took that position. Besides helping Goldman, they get to cash out tax free."

Hm-mmm, I didn't know THAT. Did you?

ARMSTRONG ECONOMICS.COM

7/6/16

USAEXIT







A Note To Those Who Still Remain Behind:


We are deep into The End Of The World as we know it). The Dark Days are upon us. The inescapable truth is that the world is almost certain to experience change (both good and bad) of such a magnitude that will have a massive impact for the majority of the unsuspecting world’s population for years and probably decades to come. It is, alas, the coming reality of humanity's Great Regression.

We are the generations that must adapt to these painful changes. And there is no short term action taken by any of our governments that can alter the bad outcomes. They have tried, and failed. And that, as even those who are slumbering in denial would admit, is something that everybody already knows.

Our politicians, those who would lead us, those who make the laws that govern our lives, have mostly sold out to the lobbyists and peddlers of graft and corruption. As we see daily, those with the deepest pockets with which to buy the votes are those who reap the vast rewards of these ill-gotten gains. The rest of us, and the 47% as they are so dismissively called, cannot win this lopsided political game of exploitation. This is not conspiracy theory run amock, this is the sad reality of our lives today.

However, simply escaping from oppression is not really what it's all about. What is needed is finding a place where you and yours can practice and enjoy peace, harmony and gratitude in the company of like-minded people in these protracted hard times ahead.

Those who have 'Eyes To See and Ears To Hear', will act. Those who don't, well ……...

There is more. Check out: Vilcabamba Healthy Living.






7/2/16

NEWS ..... THAT YOU WILL ACTUALLY LOVE!

I just stumbled upon a news link that blows away all the competition. It is where the new generation of information gatherers go for their perusal of "what's up" in our world.

WWW.OZY.COM

Try it. You'll love the 21st Century graphic interface .... Guaranteed!

5/19/16

The Times They Are A-Changin'

.... Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won’t come again And don’t speak too soon For the wheel’s still in spin And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’ For the loser now will be later to win. For the times they are a-changin’

Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don’t stand in the doorway Don’t block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’ It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. For the times they are a-changin’....

Bob Dylan

5/3/16

Ayn Rand Nails It .......

“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed.”

Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand

(p. 413 ; Francisco d’Anconia to Bertram Scudder)

4/18/16

Earthquake Here In Ecuador

About the earthquake. We are fortunately far from the coast, which suffered most of the damage and loss of life …. now reported in the hundreds. Our little village of Vilcabamba felt a brief but stomach-churning trembling and both Loja and Cuenca received little or no structural damage. Strangely enough, although Japan had a similar 7 point quake a couple of days before ours, there was less damage and loss of life there than here.

4/5/16

A Thousand Cuts ....

This brief YouTube video clip says everything to be said.

The person speaking will perhaps surprise you. Listen and learn who it is.

3/4/16

Who Is Walter O'Brien?

While listening to a Podcast that often offers interesting interviews (Tim Ferris of “The 4 Hour Workweek fame”) I came across a conversation with Walter O’Brien during which O’Brien mentions that to his mind Bill Gates was one of the most successful people he knew ..... and why.

Now, dear reader, let me state my own personal bias about this matter of the PC versus Apple. My first introduction to any computer was a Kaypro II back in 1984. It was also the machine upon which I learned to code. A year later I purchased my first Mac, the Apple IIe. Since then I have never owned any other computer than a Mac.

In fact for many years, and even now to some degree, I have always bought into the whole marketing rivalry of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and the founder of Microsoft Bill Gates. Of the two machines I always found Apple to be more elegant and intuitive to use than Microsoft’s. Bill Gates was simply, to my mind, the ‘nerd computer freak’ versus Steve Jobs as a master salesman/inventor/artist.

But damned if Walter O’Brien wasn’t right about Gates being the most successful of the two men .... and the richest.

In the last 12 years of his life, Jobs did reinvent himself and his business not once but several times, and finished far ahead of his rival. He built the most valuable business in the world--creating more than half again as much wealth for his shareholders as Microsoft.

As Walter Isaacson writes in his highly readable biography, Jobs "revolutionized six industries"--personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing--and he "reimagined a seventh"--in creating the stores that became shrines to his memory in the days and weeks following his death from pancreatic cancer.

But in the end, much like the old fable of the “Tortoise and the Hare”, it was Bill Gates who crept into first place on the totem pole of success, with not only the financial benefits but with his wife Melinda Gates philanthropy as well.

Oh, and just who is Walter O’Brien? He is the Irish born, 197 IQ president and founder of Scorpion Computer Services ..... which you really ought to Google and get acquainted with him.

2/19/16

Beauty and the Beasts

Shown above is a photo of Nomi Prins, a VERY bright woman who has been a managing director at Goldman Sachs, ran the international analytics group as a senior managing director at Bear Stearns in London, and worked as a strategist at Lehman Brothers and analyst at the Chase Manhattan Bank. Nomi Prins is also a renowned journalist, author and speaker. She is currently at work on a new book, "Artisans of Money", that will explore the recent rise of the role of central banks in the global financial and economic hierarchy. Her last book, "All the Presidents' Bankers", is a groundbreaking narrative about the relationships of presidents to key bankers over the past century and how they impacted domestic and foreign policy.

In short, the lady knows whereof she speaks. The effected 'Powers That Think They Be' don't even attempt to contradict her assertions of their "dirty deeds", she blows them out of the water every time. Remember this woman .... she brings important information to the table.

1/15/16

The REAL Reason Psychedelics Are illegal

“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”

– Terence McKenna (American philosopher, psychonaut, ethnobotanist, lecturer, writer and author of several books. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, culture, technology and the theoretical origins of human consciousness.