The homestead here is in need of another female voice, so Turd has graciously allowed me to share some of my thoughts with all of you. Let me briefly introduce myself - and what you'll see here is only a small portion of the entirety of who I am - I have had many hats, including writer, life coach, yoga instructor and website wrangler.
Don't worry, I'm not going to regale you here with cheery self-help mantras and mindless affirmations. In fact, one of the reasons I moved away from life coaching was that I had a hard time putting on a chipper facade all the time. I would like to take the opportunity here to dig into some deep issues. There's a lot going on in the world right now.
As a complete disclosure, I help Turd out with the website (I am, in fact, the lady who built it along with help from the man known as "admin"). Let me just say that while I have never met Turd face to face, I have spoken to him many times, and he's an upstanding fellow. (And unlike some other people in this industry who shall go nameless, he always pays his bills! Yay!) He's a super sweet guy and people who are bashing him are probably just jealous.
I am not a financial expert, nor am I a trader, so I don't intend to write about financial markets that are so well covered by Turd and other fine folks here. Instead, I would like to focus on trends and issues that are often brought up in the community and that I hope you will find of interest. Sometimes I might just share various odd news bits or interesting tidbits here and there.
I titled this blog "The Panopticon," because it not only speaks to the ever-increasing eye of the hybrid corporate super-state upon the people, but the "panoptics" are in reverse here too, as we take a bird's eye view of events and trends to see the bigger picture. (Cue Alan Parsons Project:)
One of the greater themes of this blog is "the future" and what it's going to look like. Since I am a technology person, I am taking great interest in the tsunami of new technology coming out, much of which has very serious consequences for our personal privacy and future freedom. (Google Glass? No thank you!)
Speaking of tsunamis, things at Fukushima are heating up (literally) and I intend to pass along information about this very serious situation that the mainstream media is almost entirely ignoring. Steam is pouring out of the planet, fish die-offs are reported in the Pacific, and a big plume of radioactive seawater is converging upon the California coast. (If you have not heard it yet, I would highly recommend listening to the Coast to Coast AM Fukushima Special from November of 2013, hosted by the fantastic John B. Wells. It may be from two months ago, but is still worth a listen.)
Speaking of California, and as a point of interest perhaps, I had an awful feeling about my living in Los Angeles prior to "bugging out" and moving to Texas six months before the Fukushima earthquake hit. The feeling I had then in Los Angeles was a feeling of impending doom and a smell of death. I am relieved I got out before all that radiation hit the West Coast. (If you are still in California, I hope you have some iodine on hand!) For whatever the reason, I feel Texas is the place I need to be for the moment. That may change in the future, but for now, this is where I will be if things go nutty in 2014.
I share this just to give you a heads up that sometimes I work "intuitively" - but don't worry, I'm not going to be running a psychic hotline here. If you don't believe in that sort of thing, you can roll your eyes, that's fine with me. All I can tell you is, it seems like things are speeding up and we all may need to just buckle in for the ride.
As I write this, the wind is howling outside as an Arctic cold front is pushing its way across the United States. This inevitably leads to jokes about our impending "global warming." Yet, I'm inclined to think, if anything, we are headed for another mini-Ice Age, ala "The Day After Tomorrow." (Does anyone else have a strange fascination with disaster movies? I do.)
2014 is poised to be a big year, and a crazy one.
PS Please feel free to PM me with story suggestions and news tips. I apologize in advance if I am unable to respond to all messages, or respond in an untimely fashion when I do get around to writing back, but I will greatly appreciate any (constructive) suggestions. Thank you!
Stephanie blogs sporadically at a number of websites, including Freeople and Free Thinking Christianity.
