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Now He Tells Me
The reality of everyday life is taken for granted as reality. It does not require additional verification and beyond its simple presence. It is simply there, as a self-evidentnt and compelling facticity. I know that it is real. While I can engage in doubt, as I routinely exist in everyday life. This suspension of doubt is so firm that to abandon it, as I might want to do, say, in theoretical or religious contemplation, I must make an extreme transition. The world of everyday life proclaims itself and, when I want to challenge the proclamation, I must engage deliberate, by no means easy effort. The transition from the natural attitude to the theoretical attitude of the philosopher or scientist illustrates this point. However, not all aspects of this reality are equally unproblematic. Every day life is divided into sectors that are apprehended routinely, and others that present me with problems of one kind or another. Suppose that I am an automobile engineer for Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft (BMW) who is highly knowledgeable about all German-made cars. Everything that pertains to the latter is a routine, unproblematic facet of my everyday life. However, one day someone appears in the garage and asks me to repair his Buick. I am now compelled to enter the problematic world of American-made cars. I may do so reluctantly or with problems that I have not yet routinized. At the same time, of course, I do not leave the reality of everyday life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 32
Indeed, the latter becomes enriched as I begin to incorporate into it the knowledge and skills required for the repair of American-made cars. If what appears as a problem does not pertain to a different reality altogether (say, the reality of theoretical physics, or of nightmares), the reality of everyday life encompasses both kinds of sectors. If the routine of everyday life continues without interruption, they are apprehended as unproblematic. However, even the unproblematic sector of everyday reality is so only until further notice, that is, until its continuity is interrupted by the appearance of a problem. When this happens, the reality of everyday life seeks to integrate the problematic sector into what is already unproblematic. Commonsense knowledge contains a variety of instructions as to how this is to be done. For instance, if they perform their familiar, taken-for-granted routines—say, typing away at desks next to mine in my office, the others with whom I work are unproblematic to me. If they interrupt these routines—say, huddling together in a corner and talking in whispers, then they become problematic. As I inquire about the meaning of this unusual activity, there is a variety of possibilities that my commonsense knowledge is capable of reintegrating into the unproblematic routines of everyday life: they may be consulting on how to fix a broken typewriter, or one of them may have some urgent instructions from the boss, and so on. #RandolphHarris 2 of 32
On the other hand, I may find that they are discussing a union directive to go on strike, something as yet outside my experience but still well within the range of problems with which my commonsense knowledge can deal. It will deal with it, though, as a problem, rather than simply reintegrating it into the unproblematic sector of everyday life. If, however, I conclude that my colleagues have gone collectively mad, the problem that presents itself is of yet another kind. I am now faced with a problem that transcends the boundaries of the reality of everyday life and points to an altogether different reality. Indeed, my conclusion that my colleagues have gone mad implies ipso facto that they have gone off into a world that is no longer the common world of everyday life. Any person living that way is bound to feel he is guilty. He is always on the lookout for somebody else to solve his problems instead of turning to himself and his own resources. There is profound wisdom in this analysis, and I certainly agree with the concept applied in it. However, I think it is incomplete. It does not consider the futility of the self-accusations, their merely condemnatory character. It leaves out the attitude towards his guilt and how it is, in its turn, unproductive. It is so because he deals with it in the spirit of self-hate. This too is unconscious; he does not feel that he accuses himself mercilessly. The whole process is externalized. #RandolphHarris 3 of 32
Finally, a person may accuse himself of actions or attitudes which, viewed objectively, seem harmless, legitimate, or even desirable. He may brand taking sensible care of himself as pampering; enjoying food as gluttony; considering his own wishes instead of blindly complying as hard-boiled selfishness; considering analytic treatment—which he needs and can afford—as self-indulgence; asserting an opinion as presumptuous. Here, too, we must ask which inner dictate or which pride is offended by a pursuit. Only a person taking pride in asceticism would accuse himself of “gluttony”; only a person proud of self-effacement would brand an assertive move as egotistical. However, the most important thing about this kind of self-accusation is that it often concerns the fight against the emerging real self. They mostly occur—or, more precisely, come into the foreground—in later phases of analysis, and are an attempt to discredit and discourage moves toward healthy growth. The viciousness of self-accusations (as in any form of self-hate) calls for self-protective measures. And we can observe these clearly in the analytic situation. As soon as the patient is faced with one of his difficulties, he may go on the defensive. He may respond with righteous indignation, with feeling misunderstood, or by becoming argumentative. #RandolphHarris 4 of 32
He points out that it was true in the past, but is already better; if his wife did not behave the way she does, the difficulty would not exist; if his parents had been different, it would not have developed in the first place. He may also develop counterattacks and find fault with the analyst, often in a threatening manner—or, on the contrary, become appeasing and ingratiating. In other words, he reacts as if we had hurled at him a severe accusation too frightening for him to be able to test it out quietly. He can fight it blindly, according to the means at his disposal: by wriggling out of it, by blaming somebody else, by pleading guilty, by going on the offensive. We have here one of the major delaying factors in psychoanalytic therapy. However, also, apart from analysis, it is one of the main causes preventing people from being objective toward their problems. The necessity to ward off any self-accusation stunts the capacity for constructive self-criticism and thereby mars the possibility of learning from mistakes. Through chronic lying to others and himself, a person may develop a self-structure radically estranged from the reality of spontaneous experiencing. He may believe that he is a devoted husband (self-concept), he may approve of his attitude toward his wife (conscience), and he strives to get his wife to see him as a devoted spouse by the way he speaks to her (public self). Yet his wife may act in ways that infuriate him, and he may be carrying on an affair. #RandolphHarris 5 of 32
If he acknowledged the anger that his wife’s actions engendered in him, it might threaten his sense of identity and undermine his self-esteem. If he evaluated the moral significance of his infidelity, it might make him feel guilty and embarrassed by repressing the unpleasant dimensions of his experience. To the extent that a person represses aspects of his experience, we can assert that he is alienated from his real self. He is pretending to be someone other than his real self; he can believe his own pretense only because he continuously represses his experience. The patient must find a spiritual solution, not without the well-timed help of a therapeutically clever superior in the Augustinian order. His solution must be roughly bridged with a political and psychological vacuum which history has created in a significant portion of Western Christendom. Such a coincidence, if further coinciding with the deployment of highly specific personal gifts, makes for historical “greatness.” We must follow the man through the crisis of his youth, and the unfolding of his gifts, to the first manifestation of his originality as a thinker, namely, to the emergence of his life philosophy, which was not perceived as a radical innovation either by him or his friends and family. What happened to him after he had acquired an identity is what we need to investigate to help him. #RandolphHarris 6 of 32
As clinicians, we have learned that we cannot lift a case history out of history. Human nature can best be studied in the state of conflict; and human conflict comes to the detailed attention of interested recorders mainly under special circumstances. One such circumstance is the clinical encounter, in which the suffering, for the sake of securing help, has no other choice than to become case histories; and another special circumstance is history, where extraordinary beings, by their own self-centered maneuvers and through the prodding of the charismatic hunger of mankind, become (auto) biographies. We have learned by going back and forth between a person’s present life and their history. This helps clinical as well as historical scholars develop a special awareness of their patients. For those who are more comfortable thinking that their patients have “weak egos,” at my very first encounter with a group of psychiatric in-patients, even very disturbed ones, after only a very short period of preparation and getting acquainted (say, thirty minutes), I would not doubt of the beneficial effects from getting to know a patient in the present, after reviewing his medical history. During the first interview, the therapist makes sure he gets the script background, unobtrusively as far as possible, swinging along with the patient’s conversation; but, later, if there are omissions, he makes a clear point of filling them in. #RandolphHarris 7 of 32
First, the clinician gets a medical and psychiatric history. During this, he asks for a dream—any dream, because that is the quickest way to get a picture of the patient’s script protocol and his worldview. Then, he asks about each of the previous therapists: why the patient went to him, how he selected him, what he learned from him, why he left, and under what circumstances. From these inquiries, the script analyst gets many clues. He follows some of them up by asking about other activities: how Jeff selects jobs or spouses, and why and how he quits or gets divorced. If this is done competently, the patient will not terminate therapy prematurely, as he often does if the therapist is apprehensive about the transference and hides his fear behind a poker face (a facial expression that is blank and hides his real emotions), a ritualistic courtesy, or a tape recorder. Nothing is as reassuring as competence. A common situation is where the patient is obviously collecting failures in therapy and elsewhere to justify a psychotic or suicidal script payoff, and quits with, “Now He Tells Me”; that is, by springing some major surprise without previous discussions, and quitting without notice. At the end of the thirtieth session, to further highlight this illustration, when everything appears to be going well and Jeff is making “progress,” he may say casually as he rises to leave: “By the way, this’ll be my last visit because I’m going to commit myself to the State Hospital this afternoon”—something he has not previously brought up. #RandolphHarris 8 of 32
If Dr. Harris has taken a careful history, he will abort this in the third session by saying: “Now what I think you are heading for is to come here for six months or a year, and then quit suddenly.” If Jeff objects, Dr. Harris responds: “But that is what you did on your two last jobs, and with three of your former therapists. If you want to go through with it, it is all right because I can always learn something meanwhile, but if you really want to get well, that is the first thing we must talk about. Otherwise, you will just waste six months or a year of your life. However, if we can thrash it out right now, you will save that much time, and we can go ahead.” Alcoholics who crave absolute control or complete surrender are most likely to take umbrage at this abortion of their games, while patients who want to get well will be grateful. If the patient nods or laughs, the prognosis is very good. Now, how did man’s need for individual identity evolve? Before Dr. Darwin, the answer was clear: because God created Adam in His own image, as a counterplayer of His Identity, and thus bequeathed to all man the glory and the despair of individuation and faith. I admit to not having come up with any better explanation. The Garden of Eden, of course, has had many utopian transformations since that expulsion from the unity of creation—an expulsion which tied man’s identity forever to the manner of his toil and of his co-operation with others, and with technical and communal pride. #RandolphHarris 9 of 32
A certain New Englander was once working in the garden of The Winchester Mystery House when a parson walked by and congratulated him on what God and he had wrought together as evidence in such a commendable yield. “Yep,” the man said, “and you should have seen it when God had it all to Himself.” In such a story, God is not dead, just put in His place. Each cultural consolidation around a state of technology has its way of creating familiarity with the Unfamiliar. Technological and enlightened man, however, seems to flatter himself more than any man before him that he has the universe to himself and that an experimentally inclined God, very much made in man’s image, is glad to step aside for him. At any rate, I have heard very clever men (but never a woman) claim that in principle there is nothing in nature that man cannot now learn to understand. “Death, too?” I heard a woman ask one of these metaphysical technocrats, and he nodded with an enigmatic smile. And man, he continued, therefore can, in principle, change anything in nature or in his own nature to fit my blueprint. “Whose blueprint?” the woman asked. Another smile. Thus, it is part of today’s consolidation that man reinteralized the eternal Identity whom he had projected on the (now, in principle, conquerable) heavens, and tries to remake himself in the blueprint of a manufactured identity. In conjunction with the fact that man also can now totally unmake himself, however, an all-human identity becomes an inescapable goal. #RandolphHarris 10 of 32
In this, however, revived forms of humanisms and libertarianisms will not do. Their original proponents, we must remember, did not know of the two objects already mentioned, the gigantic bomb and the tiny pill, which, if they do not give man power over life and death, certainly give him the decision as to whose life and death it shall be—decisions which will call for new “political” forms. For man’s need for a psychosocial identity is anchored in nothing less than his sociogenetic evolution. It has been said (by Dr. Waddington) that authority-accepting is what characterizes man is what characterizes man’s sociogenetic evolution. I would submit that identity formation is inseparable from this, for only within a defined group identity can true authority exist. Man, as a species, has survived by being divided into pseudospecies. First, each horde or tribe, class, and nation, but then also every religious association has become the human species, considering all the others a freakish and gratuitous invention of some irrelevant deity. To reinforce the illusion of being chosen, every tribe recognizes a creation of its own, a mythology and later a history: thus, loyalty to a particular ecology and morality was secured. One never quite knew how all the other tribes came to be, but since they did exist, they were at least useful as a screen of projection for the negative identities which were necessary, if most comfortable, counterpart of the positive ones. #RandolphHarris 11 of 32
This projection, in conjunction with their territoriality, gave men a reason to slaughter one another in majorem gloriam. If, then, identity can be said to be a “good thing” in human evolution—because good things are those which seem to have been necessary for what, indeed, has survived—we should not overlook the fact that this system of mortal divisions has been vastly overburdened with the function of reaffirming for each pseudospecies its superiority over all others. Maybe we and our youth are turning to thoughts of identity precisely because the world wars have shown that a glorification of the pseudospecies can now spell the end of the species, wherefore an all-inclusive human identity must be part of the anticipation of a universal technology. It is this anticipation, also, which will unite some of the majority and of the minority among our youths in one universe. However, this places all older identities in deadly danger. “Prejudiced” people, wherever they are, may therefore fight a murderous rear-guard battle; and ascending nations and even ancient ones endangered in their “young” national identities may well delay and endanger a worldwide identity. The pseudospecies, then, is one of the more sinister aspects of all group identity. However, there are also “pseudo” aspects in all identity which endanger the individual. For man’s development does not begin or end with identity; and identity, too, must become relative for the mature person. #RandolphHarris 12 of 32
Psychosocial identity is necessary as the anchoring of man’s transient existence in the here and the now. That it is transient does not make it expendable. If, to those who seek an identity, Norman Brown advocates “Get lost” and Timothy Leary “Drop out,” I would suggest that to get lost one must have found oneself, and to drop out, one must have been in. The danger of all existentialism which chooses to remain juvenile, is that it shirks the responsibility for the generational process, and thus advocates an abortive human identity. We have learned from the study of lives that beyond childhood, which provides the moral basis of our identity, and beyond the ideology of youth, only an adult ethics can guarantee to the next generation an equal chance to experience the full cycle of humanness. And this alone permits the individual to transcend his identity—to become as truly individual as he will ever be, and as truly beyond all individuality. We realize, then, the widening context of the problem of identity. Beginning with veterans of war and severely disturbed young people, we have come to formulate a normative crisis in individual development. From that of delinquent and violent upheavals, we have come to suspect a significance of identity in the whole scheme of sociogenetic evolution. And from the social boundness of identity, we have come to envisage its own transcendence. #RandolphHarris 13 of 32
When it comes to central aspects of man’s existence, we can only conceptualize at a given time what is relevant to us for personal, for conceptual, and for historical reasons. And even as we do so, the data and the conclusions change before our eyes. Especially at a time when our conceptualizations and interpretations become part of a historically self-conscious scene, and when insight and conduct influence each other with an immediacy that hardly leaves a pause for any new “tradition” to form—in such a time all thinking about man becomes an experiment in living. The newness of man’s self-awareness and of his attention to his awareness has, at first, led to a scientific mythology of the mind or to a mythological use of scientific terms and methods, as if social science could and would repeat in a short time, and in view of immediate practical goals, the whole long progress of natural science from nature philosophy to pure and applied science. However, man, the subject of psychosocial science, will not hold still enough to be divided into categories both measurable and relevant. When we look at human nature during the Russian Revolution of 1905, the rebels at the frontier on which they stand united, teach us, to the sound of exploding bombs, that rebellion cannot lead, without ceasing to be rebellion, to consolation and to the comfort of strict and rigid doctrines. Their only evident victory is to triumph at least over solitude and negation. #RandolphHarris 14 of 32
In the midst of a world which they deny and which rejects them, they try, man after man, like all the great-hearted ones, to reconstruct a brotherhood of man. The love they bear for one another, which brings them happiness even in the desert of a prison, which extends to the great mass of their enslaved and silent fellow men, gives the measure of their distress and of their hopes. To serve this love, they must first kill; to inaugurate the reign of innocence, they must accept a certain culpability. This contradiction will be resolved for them only at the very last moment. Solitude and chivalry, renunciation and hope will only be surmounted by the willing acceptance of death. Jeliabov, who organized the attempt on Alexander II in 1881 and was arrested forty-eight hours before the murder, had asked to be executed at the same time as the real perpetrator of the attempt. “Only the cowardice of the government,” he said, “could account for the erection of one gallows instead of two.” Five were erected, one of which was for the woman he loved. However, Jeliabov died smiling, while Ryssakov, who had broken down during his interrogations, was dragged to the scaffold, half-mad with fear. Jeliabov did this because of a sort of guilt which he did not want to accept and from which he knew he would suffer, like Ryssakov, if he remained alone after having committed or been the cause of a murder. #RandolphHarris 15 of 32
At the foot of the gallows, Sofia Perovskaia kissed the man she loved and her two other friends, but turned away from Ryssakov, who died solitary and damned by the new religion. For Jeliabov, death in the midst of his comrades coincided with his justification. He who kills is guilty only if he consents to go on living or if, to remain alive, he betrays his comrades. To die, on the other hand, cancels out both the guilt and the crime itself. Thus, Charlotte Corday shouts at Fouquier-Tinville: “Oh, the monster, he takes me for a human value that stands halfway between innocence and guilt, between reason and irrationality, between history and eternity. At the moment of this discovery, but only then, these desperate people experience a strange feeling of peace, the peace of definitive victory. In his cell, Polivanov says that it would have been “easy and sweet” for him to die. Voinarovsky writes that he has conquered the fear of death. “Without a single muscle in my face twitching, without saying a word, I shall climb on the scaffold. And this will not be an act of violence perpetrated on myself, it will be the perfectly natural result of all that I have lived through.” Very much later, Lieutenant Schmidt will write before being shot: “My death will consummate everything, and my cause, crowned by my death, will emerge irreproachable and perfect.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 32
Kaliayev, condemned to the gallows after having stood as prosecutor before the tribunal, declares firmly: “I consider my death as supreme protest against a world of blood and tears,” and again writes: “From the moment when I found myself behind bars, I never for one moment wanted to stay alive in any way whatsoever.” His wish is granted. On May 10, at two o’clock in the morning, he walks towards the only justification he recognizes. Entirely dressed in black, without an overcoat, and wearing a felt hat, he climbs the scaffold. To Father Florinsky, who offers him the crucifix, the condemned man, turning from the figure of Christ, only answers: “I have already told you that I have finished with life and that I am prepared for death.” Yes, the ancient value lives once more, at the culmination of nihilism, at the very foot of the gallows. It is the reflection, historic on this occasion, of the “we are” which we found at the termination of our analysis of the rebel mind. It is privation and at the same time enlightened conviction. It is this that shone with such mortal radiance on the agonized countenance of Dora Brilliant at the thought of him who died for himself and for tireless friendship; it is this that drives Sazonov to suicide in prison as a protest and “to earn respect for his comrades”; and this, again, which exonerates even Nechaiev on the day when he is asked to denounce his comrades by a general, whom he knocks to the ground with a single blow. #RandolphHarris 17 of 32
By means of this, the terrorists, while simultaneously affirming the world of men, place themselves above the world, thus demonstrating for the last time in our history that real rebellion is a creator of value. Thanks to them, 1905 marks the highest peak of revolutionary momentum. However, from then on, a decline sets in. Martyrs do not build Churches; they are the mortar, or the alibi. Then come the priests and the bigots. The revolutionaries who follow will not demand an exchange of lives. They accept the risk of death, but will also agree to preserve themselves as far as they can for the sake of serving the revolution. Thus, they will accept complete culpability for themselves. Acquiescence in humiliation—that is the true characteristic of twentieth-century revolutionaries, who place the revolution and the Church of man above themselves. Kaliayev proves, on the contrary, that though the revolution is a necessary means, it is not a sufficient end. In this way, he elevates man instead of degrading him. It is Kaliayev and his Russian and German comrades who, in the history of the world, really oppose Hegel, who first recognize universal recognition as necessary and then as insufficient. Appearances did not suffice for him. When the whole world would have been willing to recognize him, a doubt would still have remained in Kaliayev’s mind: he needed his own form of acquiescence, and the approbation of the whole world would not have sufficed to silence the doubt that a hundred enthusiastic acclamations give rise to in the mind of any honest man. #RandolphHarris 18 of 32
Kaliayev doubted to the end, but this doubt did not prevent him from acting; it is for that reason that he is the purest image of rebellion. He who accepts death, to pay for a life with a life, no matter what his negations may be, affirms, by doing so, a value that surpasses him in his aspect of an individual in the historical sense. Kaliayev dedicates himself to history until death and, at the moment of dying, places himself above history. In a certain way, it is true, he prefers himself to history. However, what should his preference be? Himself, who he kills without hesitation, or the value he incarnates and makes immortal? The answer is not difficult to guess. Kaliayev and his comrades triumphed over nihilism. Even men of much experience find it hard, at times, to arrive at beneficial decisions on worldly matters, especially without a belief in God, when these offer as many arguments for one conclusion as for a different one. Even their matured minds may sway back and forth, unsettled and uncertain at such a time, until they decide to wait for the turn of events to give them a beneficial direction what to do. If judgment is withheld on what appears to be fantastic claims, it bespeaks a well-matured, well-balanced mentality to wait until they have been investigated. A statement which holds a half-truth because it is based on a selected half-fact removed from a contradictory context, can neither be accepted nor denied. It must be analyzed and its parts carefully measured, until it is truth and its falsity are likewise properly revealed. Time will either develop or deform this idea. #RandolphHarris 19 of 32
That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, indeed, without a doubt, is a real superhero. Researchers from a variety of fields continue to explore the causes and limits of altruism. Extraordinary altruists have different beliefs about humanity. Altruists score lower on the Belief in Pure Evil scale compared to others. This includes items such as, “Some people are just pure evil” and “Evil people harm others for the joy of it.” The researchers found that even after “controlling for empathy and religiosity, for every one-unit decrease in belief in pure evil, the odds of classification as an altruistic organ donor increased by 31 percent.” Pure altruism is a genuine form of ethical commitment. Many of the superheroes who work with the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department are purely altruistic. Many of their behaviors are driven by genuine concern for the well-being of others, without any expectation of anything in return. In the winter, oftentimes, water-soaked and half-frozen, firefighters return to the station, where they do not stay long before the alarm sounds again. On one particular morning, at 6 a.m., a fire had broken out in the basement of a home. The family escaped with only the clothes on their backs as they rushed out into the icy night. #RandolphHarris 20 of 32
The fire department arrived to find the fire burning in the basement and spreading to the first floor and kitchen near the rear of the home. When the water at the hydrant was turned on, firemen found that the pressure was not enough to get the stream to the roof. While a fireman was in the building, he had succeeded in making his way to the back of the first floor near the kitchen. Suddenly, the fire burst through the ceiling, and the firefighter did not have enough pressure to spray the ceiling. He then jumped out of a window as conditions had deteriorated rapidly around him, making it impossible to stay in the house. A strong wind had begun to blow, and the fire spread rapidly as the ice-coated firemen fought the flames from the outside of the house. Their efforts were futile, and only the four outside walls remained after the fire was finally extinguished. The fire department was brought under intense scrutiny after the blaze because of the low pressure in the mains, but they countered by saying the engineer had been called and had increased the pressure. City aldermen were asked to investigate the matter, but no further findings were offered. The Sacramento Fire Department depends on an adequate water supply to fight fires. Low water pressure during a fire is primarily caused by municipal water systems being overwhelmed by unprecedented demand from large-scale wildfires, leading to the depletion of water tanks and stretching the infrastructure beyond its limits. This insufficient water supply and distribution capability cannot meet the high flow rates needed for extensive firefighting, especially compared to the demands of fighting a structural fire. #RandolphHarris 21 of 32
If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency, and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire firefighters are getting back into their vehicle, and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals; sometimes emergency vehicles are in motion, albeit slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other people’s problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation, and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 22 of 32
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now considered low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes, and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes items such as food, automobile insurance, homeowners’ insurance, and electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century-old laws that discourage home sales and encourage higher rents. #RandolphHarris 23 of 32
Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all our jobs and money, has more than 50 ghost cities, with 65 million vacant homes. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett-Packard are among the names on that list. Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500, and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. California also has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 5.4 percent, while the national average is 4.1 percent. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages, and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American border open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security-relevant alerts, such as the end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 24 of 32
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure are the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalination plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia, is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. As we see gangs fighting with federal law enforcement, states and cities refusing to honor federal laws, and politicians showing an utter disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, anarchy is becoming increasingly common. Anarchism is a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Derived from the Greek root anarchos, meaning “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval. The anarchist denies man-made laws, regards property as a means of tyranny, and believes that crimes are merely the product of property and authority. #RandolphHarris 25 of 32
However, the anarchist would argue that their denial of constitutions and governments leads not to “no justice” but to the real justice inherent in the free development of human sociality—the natural inclination, when unfettered by laws, to live according to the principles and practice of mutual aid. Anarchism is also a form of treason. Treason, the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security. In English law, treason includes the levying of war against the government and the giving of aid and comfort to the monarch’s enemies. In the United States of America, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. Treason against the United States of America “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” which is something that many politicians are currently guilty of. The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them before the situation becomes a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state, or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 26 of 32
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care for its infrastructure, provide adequate resources, or end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last are considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. As a result, the American automobile trade deficit with Japan was $39 billion. The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. The mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 a month or $88,724.00 annually, and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. #RandolphHarris 27 of 32
Home prices in Sacramento County are rivaling the Bay Area. Historically, homes in the Bay Area have been more expensive because they have higher-paying jobs, a larger population, and the Bay Area is a tourist destination. Contributing to the housing affordability crisis is Gavin Newsom, who has been lavishing illegal immigrants with taxpayer-funded resources and cash aid. The State of California has a budget deficit of $12 billion because Governor Gavin Newsom granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care, which costs taxpayers $3 billion annually. At the same time, Newsom cut vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled, and the homeless. Additionally, Newsom seems to be uneducated about economics and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which would eliminate environmental reviews and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. To further highlight this illustration, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. #RandolphHarris 28 of 32
Drug cartels have been threatening the health and safety of Native American communities. The trafficking of dangerous and illegal drugs into their territories is leading to a second genocide. The overdose rate for Indigenous people is 42 percent higher than the national average. A recent bust on Montana’s Blackfeet Nation’s Tribal Reservation resulted in the seizure of more than 700,000 fentanyl pills, which was the largest bust in Montana history. Recently, the Blackfeet Nation had to declare a state of emergency after facing 17 overdoses in just one week. There are only 6.8 million Native Americans left in the world, which is 2 percent of the American population. We should be doing more to protect these proud and honorable people; they should not want for anything. People rush and give away resources to illegal immigrants, but totally disregard the Indigenous people of this land, as their race silently fades away into extinction. We must secure our borders and increase federal funding to Native American tribes so we can save this precious population. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law-abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage, and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded, and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. He has also totally ignored the cartel problems on American lands. Clean air, water, land, and preserving our heritage are extremely important. We cannot just allow criminals to kill off the people who are native to this land and do nothing about it. Wars have been started over governments that tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution. #RandolphHarris 29 of 32
Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and can support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrate to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in America, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 30 of 32
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in America which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the national debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by sending more money overseas. Buying American-made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human mind to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 31 of 32
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. As of 31 August 2025, President Trump has brought $8 Billion in Tariff revenue into America and hundreds of thousands of new jobs. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes, as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrive at this fullness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason, where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, please teach your children to love America and be patriotic citizens, and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Also, to make sure they have all the resources required, please donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to help improve our national security. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 32 of 32
According to locals, over a century ago, the land that houses The Winchester Mansion had been vacant forever. Then, sometime in the early afternoon of Saturday, March 13, 1886, Sheriff Angel Camilio began getting reports that a massive castle made of wood had suddenly appeared. Gables rose, towers peaked into the sky as the mansion mushroomed into a labyrinth overnight.
The house’s sudden manifestation had been both disconcerting and fascinating to the community. Some felt dark curses flowing from the estate, and things moving around in the darkness. Others saw a fairytale castle glimmering in the spring sunlight. Perhaps this is why there are no records of construction, no blueprints, and no permits filed with the county. Come and see what secrets this so-called, “Winchester Mystery House” may hold.
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California, which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After the tour, there will be time to enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal at Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, which once spanned 740 acres, all the way down to Stevens Creek Boulevard; wander through the miles of hallways in the world’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available for purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs, not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
Ah, yes. The BMW 3 Series. Happy 50th birthday to the most iconic BMW ever! It is really hard to decide on a BMW model. However, the 3 series is a favorite of everyone. All the upper-class suburban families had one in the 1980s and 1990s; everyone from teenagers and housewives to executives and diplomats. Now that they are larger in size, but still sporty and luxurious, the audience has grown tremendously. These are very stylish and reliable cars, which is why BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space.
With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands. BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. This is why BMW is known as the Ultimate Driving Machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Building strong and lasting client relationships is crucial for a successful legal career. Many lawyers mistakenly believe that mastering legal skills alone ensures success, but law is fundamentally a service industry—our job is to solve problems through the time we sell. To build long-term relationships, attorneys must focus on three core elements: knowing their clients, understanding how their legal issues fit into a larger context, and consistently delivering exceptional service.
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax-deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. Trust is the cornerstone of any client relationship. Ultimately, my clients feel they are in capable hands with someone who genuinely understands their problems and goals. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
Park Haven
Rancho Cordova, CA | low $500s
Now Selling!
Welcome to Cresleigh Park Haven; the newest home community in Rancho Cordova.
Nestled in the heart of Rancho Cordova, Park Haven is a thoughtfully planned community offering 71 homes —perfect for those seeking comfort, convenience, and more time to enjoy life. Located adjacent to the beloved Exploration Park, this neighborhood blends modern living with outdoor adventure right at your doorstep.
Choose from five beautifully crafted floor plans ranging from approximately 1,342 to 2,547 square feet, with options for 3 to 5 bedrooms, flexible living spaces, and open-concept layouts designed for today’s lifestyles.
Whether you’re a first-time buyer, growing family, or looking to simplify without sacrificing style, Park Haven offers a home that fits your needs.
Enjoy the ease of a maintenance-friendly yard, the charm of a close-knit community, and the everyday convenience of nearby parks, trails, shopping, and top-rated schools. At Park Haven, you’ll find more than just a house—you’ll find your place to thrive.
Our team of experienced professionals at Cresleigh Homes can help you select the perfect location for your dream home, guide you through the site planning, design and construction process.
The quality in each of the homes we build speaks volumes about the culture of our company. We’re relentless in our pursuit to create beauty that lasts and we’re as passionate about serving our customers as we are about building the finest homes.
We pride ourselves in clear communication and strong company ethics, so your expectations are always met or exceeded. Just ask our past and current clients — after all, they’re living in real-world examples of our dedication to relationships and a job well done. https://cresleigh.com/park-haven/
“My Cresleigh Home is the treasure chest of living. I’m grateful knowing that at this moment, all I have is all I need.” -Angelika Jurgen
Welcome to the Golden Age of America!
I am confident that we will literally be called upon to make an account before God concerning how we have used [our resources] to bless lives and build the kingdom. Accepting responsibility is not always easy. It can be tempting to try to shift blame or make excuses. However, doing so will only prevent us from learning from our mistakes and growing as individuals. When we accept responsibility for our actions, we take ownership of our mistakes and commit to doing better in the future. There are many benefits to accepting responsibility. First, it allows us to learn from our mistakes. When we take ownership of our mistakes, we can begin to understand what went wrong and how we can avoid making the same mistakes in the future. Second, accepting responsibility builds trust. When others see that we are willing to take responsibility for our actions, they are more likely to trust us and believe that we are genuine. Third, accepting responsibility can help us to feel better about ourselves. When we know that we have done wrong, it can weigh heavily on our conscience. However, when we accept responsibility and take steps to make things right, we can start to feel better about ourselves and move on from our mistakes. However, Ordinary blameworthiness is robust; it is not undermined by consideration of formative circumstances. It is only the realm of detached blame that is shrinking as we conceptualize more things as illness, and perhaps that is no bad thing: our talk of evil usually does not bring much of value to anything. #RandolphHarris 1 of 30
Ordinary blame depends on a shared moral community. Once we enter the realm of detached blame, we have already taken a step away from genuine interpersonal engagement. Someone who is not part of our moral community is not eligible for ordinary blame; our attitude towards them can only be a sort of detached blame: it cannot involve normative expectations, gratitude, or resentment. In detached blame, we stand back and disapprove, disdain, despise, disavow; we do not engage, or at least, not with the aim of reciprocity. Detached blame can involve a modification of the relationship, but in a one-sided way: we avoid such people, and not just for prudential reasons, it is done for its own sake. Detached blame can be fierce, but it can also be undermined. Reflecting on the way that an agent was caused to be the way they are draws us towards the truly objective stance. When we see people from a truly objective stance, we cease to see them as agents at all, and the notion of blame becomes inapplicable. There are many ways to make amends. Sometimes, the best way to make amends is to simply apologize. A sincere apology can go a long way in healing relationships and restoring trust. In other cases, we may need to do more than just apologize. We may need to make amends by offering to fix the damage that we have caused, or by providing support to the person we have wronged. #RandolphHarris 2 of 30
Making amends can be a difficult and humbling experience. However, it is also an incredibly rewarding one. When we make amends, we not only restore harmony in our relationships, but we also heal ourselves. By taking responsibility for our actions and making amends, we can move on from our mistakes and create a more positive and fulfilling life. Therefore, be honest with yourself. The first step to accepting responsibility is to be honest with yourself about your mistakes. This means acknowledging that you made a mistake and understanding the impact of your actions. Apologize sincerely. Once you have accepted responsibility for your actions, the next step is to apologize sincerely to the person you have wronged. Your apology should be genuine and heartfelt. It should not be conditional or full of excuses. Many say that the gospel is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comforted. However, the rich, the poor, and all of us in between have things that we need to overcome. When it comes to overcoming being greedy, selfish, and overly indulgent, we all need a lot more help. President Trump said: “The worst fear I have about these people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and Hos people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church. My greater fear is that they cannot stand wealth.” Our prosperity brings some real challenges because many are getting rich, more of us are waxing fat, and because of greed, selfishness, and overindulgence, we could lose the Spirit and literally lose our souls. #RandolphHarris 3 of 30
Money and material things are on the minds of almost everyone. The great question of the twenty-first century is, “How can I acquire wealth?” No question occupies a larger place in the minds and hearts of people today than this. This is true of men in every situation in every walk of life. Money, in and of itself, is not an evil. However, as Pau taught Timothy, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. There are some of the wealthy who deal with their prosperity very well, using their resources to bless others and build the kingdom. For many, however, wealth presents major difficulties. As we deal with the materialism that threatens us, there are some things we need to consider. Belonging to a perpetrator group can induce a distressing threat to the collective moral identity of the community. A victim sees the group that they belong to as being in a disadvantaged position of the self or the ingroup, and the perception of the disadvantage as unfair, and believes that better conditions are deserved (for the self or the ingroup), thereby provoking anger and resentment because there were no cries of alarm, no disapproval and virtually no support. Nonetheless, as humanitarian witnesses, we expect victims to feel bad. In fact, that is sometimes why people are victimized. When people are viewed as superior, having an advantage, being successful and virtuous, those without power or authority want these individuals to suffer. Victims, as a result, feel the same kind of rancor appropriate to those who are unjustly punished. #RandolphHarris 4 of 30
However, many victims of injustice continue to see themselves as unlucky, compared to other potential victims, without feeling any resentment toward perpetrators and beneficiaries. Some victims feel lost. Being lost, having losses, losing—as negative states, these are all ways of feeling bad. So, too, are forms of trauma associated with the infliction of violence, pain, or both, of which the victim seems presently unaware. Victims who do not yet feel bad are often said to be traumatized. When trauma is present, the mind becomes split or dissociated and is unable to register the memory of the event. As a result, the traumatized individual is unable to consciously recollect and integrate the traumatic experience and is haunted by intrusive memories. The experience of trauma becomes frozen in time: it is not represented as past, but rather reexperience repeatedly as a traumatic event in the present. High levels of emotional activation can lead to strong conditioned responses while also impairing the memory processes. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a timeless phenomenon that interrupts the ordinary continuum of the past, present, and future. In PTSD patients, intense memories of the trauma coexist with disorganized and incomplete narrative memory. The most common kind of recall of traumatic memories consists of flashbacks, which are usually vivid and yet involve a disruption of the sense of time. They are usually triggered involuntarily and imply the person’s avoidance of stimuli that can be reminders of the trauma. Trauma is timelessly preserved in memory—a fact that might account for the long-term effects of PTSD. Trauma is not part of a declarative or narrative memory, but remains implicit and non-declarative, encoded in bodily memories and conditioned responses lying outside the verbal domain of cognitive function. #RandolphHarris 5 of 30
By far, the most common contributor to suicide is the strain in social relationships. There can be no question that life insurance to the would-be suicide victim’s beneficiaries may be an advantage rather than a loss. The Metropolitan Life, during 1923, paid out $24,738,900.47 (2025 inflation-adjusted) on account of suicide claims against $9,001,439.60 (2025 inflation-adjusted). In four years, the company had paid out $15,737,406.87 million, suggestive of the pecuniary interests that some people have in not supporting victims of crime. Suicide is quite profitable for some people. What is fueling the culture of victimizing and terrorizing people is not only to make oneself feel superior, but also avarice or greed. Avarice is defined as an excessive, unsatisfying, and insatiable desire for wealth or gain. If you have hundreds, you are not satisfied until you get thousands, and when you get thousands, you are not satisfied until you get millions, and as soon as you get millions, of course, now you want billions. And so not only is it greed that is the driving force behind the notorious victimization of strangers, our friends, and even our families, but it is also the driving force of the American economy. Our banks and investment firms are all driven by greed, and when their greed gets them in trouble and their profits are marginalized, the federal government rides in on a $700 billion bailout horse to rescue these greedy corporations. For greedy families, they can simply hope and pray for one to get sick and capitalize on a life insurance policy, or they can try to kill a family member off or push that person to suicide. And that is why some families sit back and watch their relatives suffer, while offering no assistance. #RandolphHarris 6 of 30
Nearly every therapist likes to think that the patient chose him and his profession because, in this choice at least, he was rational, intelligent, and discriminating, no matter how confused he might be about everything else. This feeling of being chosen on merit—the merit of one’s profession and personal merit as well—is a healthy one, and is one of the rewards of our vocation. Every therapist, therefore, is entitled to bask in it and to enjoy it to the utmost—for about five or seven minutes. After that, if he wants the patient to get well, he should put it on the shelf with his other trophies and his diplomas and forget it permanently. Dr. Q may be a very good therapist, and he may have the diplomas and the reputation and the patients to confirm it. He may think that is the reason the patients come to him, or the patient may tell him so. He should be sobered, however, by the thought of all the patients who do not choose him. According to the available statistics, forty-two percent of troubled people go first to their clergyman, and not to a psychiatrist, and nearly all the rest go to their family doctors. And only about one patient out of five disturbed people do not choose psychiatry as their treatment, even though in almost all cases it is available at the state hospital, if nowhere else. In addition, a very large percentage of patients who have a choice deliberately choose the second-best therapist rather than the best, and a quite large percentage choose the worst. #RandolphHarris 7 of 30
The same thing happens in other branches of medicine. It is also well known that many people spend more money destroying themselves with liquor, drugs, and gambling than they would on the psychotherapy that might save them. Given a free choice, the patient will choose a therapist according to the needs of his script. In some places, he has no choice but must go to the local witch doctor, shaman, warlock, sorcerer, or angakok. In other places, he has a choice between a traditional doctor and a modern one, and will choose the magic of tradition or the magic of science according to local custom and political pressure. In China and India, traditional and modern approaches are often combined, as in the mental hospitals in Madras where Ayur-Vedic medicine and Yoga exercises were used in conjunction with modern treatments for psychoses. In many cases, his choice is forced by financial considerations. In America, most patients do not have a free choice of therapists, but are referred or assigned by various “authorities” to one type or another: psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, psychiatric nurses, counselors, and even sociologists. A patient in a clinic, social agency, mental hospital, or government hospital may be assigned to any of these professions. A schoolboy is sent to the school counselor, and a person on probation is sent to a probation officer who may have no therapeutic training at all. If the patient has no prior knowledge or fantasies about psychotherapy and he likes his first therapist, he will often favor that therapist’s profession if he seeks treatment elsewhere. #RandolphHarris 8 of 30
It is in private practice where free choice does exist that the “scripty” selections begin to emerge, particularly in the choice between psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, and psychiatric social workers, and between the competent and the incompetent members of these professions. Christian Scientists, for example, if they do go to a medical therapist, often choose a less competent one, since their scripts prohibit them from being cured by a medical person. There are also subdivisions and schools in these professions to choose from. Among psychiatrists, for example, there are types colloquially called “shock treaters,” “drug-givers,” “shrinks,” and hypnotists, and if the patient makes his own choice among these, as he often does, he will choose the one that suits his script. If he is referred by the family doctor, the doctor may well choose the one that fits in with his own script. This is most clearly seen when the patient seeks or is referred to a hypnotist. If he calls a psychiatrist to request hypnosis and that psychiatrist does not use hypnosis, the ensuing conversation becomes very scripty as the patient insists that he must be put to sleep before he can get better. Some people automatically (id est, by script directive) go to the Mayo Clinic and others to the Menninger Clinic. Similarly, in choosing a psychoanalyst, some, for script reasons, select the most orthodox one possible, others prefer more flexibility, and still others go to “analysts” belonging to splinter schools. #RandolphHarris 9 of 30
Sometimes the age of gender of the therapist is important for scripty reasons, such as a need to seduce or a fear of seduction. Rebels often go to rebellious therapists. People with failure scripts pick the worst possible therapists, such as chiropractors or outright quacks. The only relics of Dr. Darwinian natural selection left in America, where everyone is “take care of,” are chiropractors, because the more widely they are allowed to practice, the more quickly will unfit members of humanity be eliminated by their treatment. There are clear indicators that three factors are determined by the patient’s script directives. Whether he seeks help at all, or just lets things run their course; the choice of the therapist, where there is a choice; whether the therapy is destined to be successful. Thus, a person with a loser’s script will either not go to a therapist, or may choose an incompetent one. In the latter case, when the treatment fails, he not only remains a loser, as his script calls for, but also has various other satisfactions from his misadventure; for example, he can blame the therapist, or obtain a Hemostatic satisfaction from being the “worst” patient, or boast that he had ten years of therapy with Dr. X at a cost of Y thousands of dollars with no benefit. Yet, if the major part is gold, we may still call it gold. If, in advising a friend, the major motivation is a friendly intention of constructive help, we may well be satisfied. Not so the person in the clutches of faultfinding. This is deceptive just because there are grains of truth in such reasoning. #RandolphHarris 10 of 30
It is hard to shake the neurotic loose from his self-hate. His error in judging the entirety of a situation is clearly shown. He may see that he overfocuses on certain aspects and ignores others. Nevertheless, he sticks to his verdict. The reason is that his logic operates on different premises from those of a healthy person. Since the advice he gave was not the absolute of helpfulness, the whole action was morally objectionable, and so he starts to beat himself down and refuses to let himself be dissuaded from his self-accusations. These observations refute the assumption sometimes made by the psychiatrists that self-blame is merely a clever device to elicit reassurance or to escape blame and punishment. That, of course, does occur. On the part of children, or of grownups, toward intimidating authorities, it may be nothing but a strategy. Even so, we must be careful with our judgment and should examine the need for so much reassurance. To generalize about these instances and to regard self-accusations as such as serving only strategic ends means a total failure to appreciate their destructive power. Self-accusations, furthermore, may focus on adversities that are outside the individual’s control. These are most conspicuous in psychotics, who may accuse themselves, for instance, of a murder they read about, of responsibility for a flood in the Middle West six hundred miles away. Seemingly absurd self-accusations often are the outstanding symptoms in melancholic conditions. However, the self-accusation in neurosis, while less grotesque, may be no less unrealistic. #RandolphHarris 11 of 30
Why do people manipulate? Many do so because they are beset by fear, fear of others, and fear of expressing the truth of their feelings and desires. They are afraid that if others know the truth of their feelings and desires, they will be at the mercy of others. However, manipulators are often selective about what they fear. Some who fear anger avoid conflict and confrontation with others. Others who fear love avoid closeness with others. And some fear being weak, while others fear being strong. It is the denial of what we fear that defines our manipulative style or pattern. If you are afraid of love, you may be avoiding it with phony expressions of anger. You are predominantly aggressive in your dealings with others and play the role of the blamer and attacker. In doing so, you avoid closeness with others, but you also lose touch with your authentic anger. If you are afraid of anger, you may be avoiding it with phony expressions of love. You play the role of pleaser and placater in the belief that you can get what you want from others without confrontation and conflict. This allows you to avoid feeling and expressing genuine anger, but you also lose touch with your authentic love. If you are afraid of being weak, you may avoid any hint that you are “just a human being” with phony expressions of superiority. You play the role of controller and dictator. By refusing to allow others to be strong, you enhance only the appearance of your own strength. You thereby lose both the power of genuine strength and the opportunities for closeness with others that authentic vulnerability (weakness) brings. #RandolphHarris 12 of 30
If you are afraid of being too strong, you avoid responsibility with phony expressions of incompetence, weakness, and humility. You play the role of avoider and withdrawer, avoiding opportunities to display adequacy and withdrawing from participation with others. You fear that someone might expect more from you than you are willing to give. In doing so, you never have to perform (be strong). You are also seldom able to achieve, and you often overlook your genuine feelings of weakness. Examples of manipulation: Fear and Denial of Lead to Phony Expressions of Lead to Phony Expressions of: Genuine Love….Blaming and Attacking. Genuine Anger….Pleasing and Placating. Genuine Weakness….Controlling and Dictating. Genuine Strength….Withdrawing and Avoiding. Since manipulation is learned by experience in actual encounter with the world, it is important to overcome manipulation by similar methods. The methods cannot be simply intellectual, but must be experiential as well. Self-affirmation. A healthy conscience is not experienced as an “alien power” within the total personality structure, a power compulsively obeyed out of dread. Rather, it is composed of a set of ideals and taboos, each of which has been examined by the person and affirmed so that it became a true part of the real self. A self-affirmed conscience is one to which the person conforms because he or she wants to, not through fear of disobeying. Another way of saying this is to assert that the person feels he or she owns the conscience. The individual has had a voice in determining the rules by which he or she will live, like the citizen in a democracy who does not mind conforming with the rules that the person has helped formulate. #RandolphHarris 13 of 30
A healthy conscience is based upon general values and ideals that remain fixed throughout life or that change only with difficulty. However, the specific behavior that these values call for is not rigidly defined. The person can challenge these self-demands when they are no longer relevant to his or her present life circumstances. For example, a student may have been trained to believe that premarital pleasures of the flesh relationships are evil and destructive of love. In his college career, he may live with a girl and enjoy intimacies involving pleasures of the flesh within the context of a loving relationship. He discovers that no harm befalls the young lady or himself. He may change one of the taboos that is at the root of his conscience. Another student who once believed that premarital pleasures of the flesh were permissible may change and accept a taboo against the practice. If the conscience is not authoritarian, this openness to change is most possible. Persons with a healthy conscience are living among other people, and so they will be obliged to share at least some of the other people’s ideals and taboos. This is not to say that their conscience must be congruent with social mores. These persons may find their values more ethical than the prevailing mores, and so they will follow their conscience rather than the moral expectations of their peers. It may be necessary for persons with a healthy conscience to resist the efforts of others to make them conform to their moral precepts. They may even have to leave home because of moral-ethical differences and seek a group more congenial to their outlooks. #RandolphHarris 14 of 30
It is not implied that a healthy conscience will be highly lenient, permitting any antisocial behavior. Indeed, it may be difficult to conform to the precepts of a healthy conscience. Dr. Fromm has stated that the voice of a humanistic conscience may be only dimly heard because it is readily masked by the authoritarian elements of the conscience. As Dr. Fromm puts it, conscience “is the voice of our true ‘selves’ which summons us back to ourselves, to live productively, to develop fully and harmoniously—that is, to become what we potentially are.” He points out further that guilt arising from violation of a healthy conscience may be difficult to identify; we might feel guilt arising from our authoritarian conscience when we ignore its demands to pursue the requirements of a healthy conscience. There have been several theories to explain why humans exhibit altruistic behavior. These include: evolutionary perspectives involving kin selection and reciprocal altruism; social exchange theory; and the empathy-altruism hypothesis. In Dr. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, he postulated that traits that aided humans to survive and reproduce were more likely to be passed on from one generation to the next. It would appear at first glance that genes promoting selfish behavior would likely be passed on. One way that evolutionary psychologists attempt to explain how a trait such as altruism could be passed on through kin selection. #RandolphHarris 15 of 30
Kin selection is the idea that behaviors that help a blood relative would be favored by natural selection. Not only can one pass on their genes by having children, but also by ensuring that their relatives have children. Evolutionary theorists also use the norm of natural selection to help explain altruism. This is the expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future. It is posited that groups that learned to cooperate were more likely to survive than selfish and isolated individuals. The emotion of gratitude may have evolved to facilitate reciprocity. That is, if someone is helped, they feel grateful, which motivates them to return the favor in the future. For the people of the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department, helping others is rewarding. It is an investment in the future, not unlike reciprocal altruism. It can feel distressing just to observe someone in pain. Helping that person can then relieve our own discomfort. This, in turn, can help us gain social rewards like approval from others and greater feelings of self-worth. From this perspective, altruistic acts only occur when the perceived gains of helping outweigh the perceived risks. One morning, at nearly 1 o’clock, a saloon was discovered to be on fire. By the time the fire department arrived, the entire structure was ablaze. The nearest building on the east, a carpenter shop, was quickly set ablaze as well from the intense heat and flames. A small dwelling house was also set ablaze. #RandolphHarris 16 of 30
The winds then changed to a westerly direction, spreading flames to another home. Another carpentry shop was thought to be next to succumb to the heat, but the Sacramento Fire Department managed to save the building through hard work. It must have been an incredible feat, for the building was only two feet from the previous home that had just caught fire. The losses on all the buildings added up to between $4 million and $6 million. The newspaper stated that “the fire department did as good a job as could be expected under the circumstances.” New firefighters are trained to take orders from their first day at the academy. They learn to trust their officer’s judgment and follow his or her lead the first time they enter a burning building. Providing them with the latest protective gear on their back and having an officer with years of experience escorting them, the sense of security the Sacramento Fire Department gives trainees far outweighs their worries of self-preservation. They are taught that what they had previously perceived as fear is both normal and exciting, and they cannot wait to impress their peers and instructors. The Sacramento Fire Department pushes firefighters, EMTs, and paramedics through dangerous scenarios repeatedly, and they emerge unscathed each time. As they gain more experience, their armor grows thicker and their confidence builds through recognition-primed decision making. Sure, the Sacramento Fire Department teaches them building construction and lightweight trusses and the dangers of collapse in the classroom, but then it is back to the burn building where they are victorious again, and nothing falls down. Eventually, they become firefighters, EMTs, and paramedics. During their career, they learn to pick up on the visual clues that allow them to make decisions for themselves. #RandolphHarris 17 of 30
If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency, and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire firefighters are getting back into their vehicle, and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals; sometimes emergency vehicles are in motion, albeit slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other people’s problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation, and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 18 of 30
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now considered low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes, and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes items such as food, automobile insurance, homeowners’ insurance, and electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century-old laws that discourage home sales and encourage higher rents. #RandolphHarris 19 of 30
Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all our jobs and money, has more than 50 ghost cities, with 65 million vacant homes. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett-Packard are among the names on that list. Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500, and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. California also has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 5.4 percent, while the national average is 4.1 percent. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages, and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security-relevant alerts, such as the end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 20 of 30
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure are the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalination plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia, is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. As we see gangs fighting with federal law enforcement, states and cities refusing to honor federal laws, and politicians showing an utter disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, anarchy is becoming increasingly common. Anarchism is a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Derived from the Greek root anarchos, meaning “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval. The anarchist denies man-made laws, regards property as a means of tyranny, and believes that crimes is merely the product of property and authority. #RandolphHarris 21 of 30
However, the anarchist would argue that their denial of constitutions and governments leads not to “no justice” but to the real justice inherent in the free development of human sociality—the natural inclination, when unfettered by laws, to live according to the principles and practice of mutual aid. Anarchism is also a form of treason. Treason, the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security. In English law, treason includes the levying of war against the government and the giving of aid and comfort to the monarch’s enemies. In the United States of America, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. Treason against the United States of America “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” which is something that many politicians are currently guilty of. The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them before the situation becomes a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state, or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 22 of 30
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care for its infrastructure, provide adequate resources, or end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last are considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. As a result, the American automobile trade deficit with Japan was $39 billion. The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. The Mortgage lenders at Cresleigh Homes must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00, and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. #RandolphHarris 23 of 30
Home prices in Sacramento County are rivaling the Bay Area. Historically, homes in the Bay Area have been more expensive because they have higher-paying jobs, a larger population, and the Bay Area is a tourist destination. Contributing to the housing affordability crisis is Gavin Newsom, who has been lavishing illegal immigrants with taxpayer-funded resources and cash aid. The State of California has a budget deficit of $12 billion because Governor Gavin Newsom granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care, which costs taxpayers $3 billion annually. At the same time, Newsom cut vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled, and the homeless. Additionally, Newsom seems to be uneducated about economics and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which would eliminate environmental reviews and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. To further highlight this illustration, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. #RandolphHarris 24 of 30
However, Mexico’s pollution of California has become a severe public health crisis as the population of Tijuana has drastically increased in recent years, and the waste treatment plants are no longer usable. Some of the beaches in San Diego have been closed for more than three years, and evidence suggests that even breathing the air may be harmful, as toxic particles in the water can become airborne. Yet, even though Gavin Newsom has been governor for six years, he has not rushed into action to stop this very preventable environmental disaster. Why? Because he is not getting kickbacks from China and Mexico, not being gifted mansions and cars, and he cannot tax the struggling California taxpayers to clean up this mess. Simply, it is not profitable for him. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and no mind for business, and he should be impeached as soon as possible. He has criminalized poverty, increased taxes, increased taxes on gas, and insurance rates so high that people are struggling to survive. In addition to Gavin Newsom’s increased gas prices starting on 1 July 2025, the war between Iran and Israel is going to further exacerbate the prices of gas and cause more inflation and economic hardship for people in California. While everyone is making war over America and who belongs here and who she belongs to, so many people forget about the people who are Indigenous to this land. Open borders have allowed hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives to infiltrate reservations across the United States of America and use the isolated lands as havens to traffic fentanyl pills and other drugs into the country without protection from federal authorities. #RandolphHarris 25 of 30
Drug cartels have been threatening the health and safety of Native American communities. The trafficking of dangerous and illegal drugs into their territories is leading to a second genocide. The overdose rate for Indigenous people is 42 percent higher than the national average. A recent bust on Montana’s Blackfeet Nation’s Tribal Reservation resulted in the seizure of more than 700,000 fentanyl pills, which was the largest bust in Montana history. Recently, the Blackfeet Nation had to declare a state of emergency after facing 17 overdoses in just one week. There are only 6.8 million Native Americans left in the world, which is 2 percent of the American population. We should be doing more to protect these proud and honorable people; they should not want for anything. People rush and give away resources to illegal immigrants, but totally disregard the Indigenous people of this land, as their race silently fades away into extinction. We must secure our borders and increase federal funding to Native American tribes so we can save this precious population. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law-abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage, and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded, and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. He has also totally ignored the cartel problems on American lands. Clean air, water, land, and preserving our heritage are extremely important. We cannot just allow criminals to kill off the people who are native to this land and do nothing about it. Wars have been started over governments that tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution.#RandolphHarris 26 of 30
If Gavin Newsom is not stopped, next he will euthanize the poor and sterilize the disabled. Under Governor Gavin Newsom, California has the highest car theft rate in the United States of America. Violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people have overtaken cities. Wars and fires are breaking out on the streets. This monster is unfit to be governor and must never be allowed to be President of America! Stop Gavin Newsom now! Save California and impeach this unreasonable man. Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease. He is restoring law and order, starting in Washington D.C., and he just signed the “HALT Fentanyl Act” into law, which permanently classifies the narcotic as a “Schedule I drug” under the “Controlled Substances Act.” Also, President Trump recently secured $10 trillion in investments for the United States of America. Additionally, in May of 2025, the United States of America collected a record $100 billion in tariff revenue, and that number will increase to $300 billion by the end of 2025. Also, President Trump has just sealed a $550 billion deal with Japan. This means Japan will invest $550 billion in the United States of America. Furthermore, President Trump has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for making Iran and Israel cease fire. As you can see, President Trump is creating solutions and remediating problems to protect America and the American people, while Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, is making life hard on American citizens and causing economic hardship, and totally ignoring Mexico’s polluting beaches in San Diego. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowners’ insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. #RandolphHarris 27 of 30
Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and can support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrate to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in America, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 28 of 30
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in America which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the national debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by sending more money overseas. Buying American-made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human mind to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 29 of 30
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes, as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrive at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason, where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, please teach your children to love America and be patriotic citizens, and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Also, to make sure they have all the resources required, please donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to help improve our national security. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 30 of 30
On Friday, September 5th, we invite you to join us in honoring Sarah Winchester on the 103rd anniversary of her passing.
The gardens will be open with free admission that day, and guests are welcome to enter the Front Parlor to offer their respects to Sarah. The bell will ring at the 13th hour (1:00 PM) in remembrance of her life. We hope you will take this opportunity to honor the life and legacy of the woman behind the mansion. 🌹 🖤https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs, not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
Ah, yes. The BMW 3 Series. Happy 50th birthday to the most iconic BMW ever! It is really hard to decide on a BMW model. However, the 3 series is a favorite of everyone. All the upper-class suburban families had one in the 1980s and 1990s; everyone from teenagers and housewives to executives and diplomats. Now that they are larger in size, but still sporty and luxurious, the audience has grown tremendously. These are very stylish and reliable cars, which is why BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space.
With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands. BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. This is why BMW is known as the Ultimate Driving Machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Building strong and lasting client relationships is crucial for a successful legal career. Many lawyers mistakenly believe that mastering legal skills alone ensures success, but law is fundamentally a service industry—our job is to solve problems through the time we sell. To build long-term relationships, attorneys must focus on three core elements: knowing their clients, understanding how their legal issues fit into a larger context, and consistently delivering exceptional service.
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax-deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. Trust is the cornerstone of any client relationship. Ultimately, my clients feel they are in capable hands with someone who genuinely understands their problems and goals. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
Magnolia Station at Cresleigh Ranch
Rancho Cordova, CA | 4 Bedrooms – 3.5 Bathrooms – 3,377 sq. ft. – $796,485.
Homes built by Cresleigh Homes are made to last. Throughout each community you will find thoughtful design crafted with YOU in mind. We offer homes for any lifestyle and stand by our construction quality – it’s why we’ve been in the business for over 30 years.
Welcome to 770 Havenwood, where Residence Four, the largest floor plan offered in the community offers an impressive 3,377 square feet of thoughtfully designed living space. This expansive two-story home features four bedrooms, including a private suite on the first floor, three and one-half bathrooms, and a true three car garage to meet the needs of growing families or multigenerational living.
Inside, you’ll find four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and a generous three-car garage. A versatile den provides the flexibility to be used as a private study or converted into an optional fifth bedroom. The thoughtfully designed kitchen and dining area create a seamless flow, making entertaining effortless.
A covered porch welcomes you into a warm and inviting entry, where the dining room is thoughtfully placed just off the foyer. The gourmet kitchen connects seamlessly to the dining area through a convenient butler’s pantry, providing both elegance and additional storage.
Upstairs, the spacious loft and generous great room offer flexibility for entertainment, relaxation, or work from home needs, easily adapting to your lifestyle. With no HOA fees, complimentary solar, and up to $41,000 in Flex Cash to be used toward closing costs or interior upgrades on select homes, this residence presents a rare opportunity for exceptional value.
Every Cresleigh home includes the All Ready Connected smart home package, designed to simplify and enhance your daily life. Enjoy integrated features such as a video doorbell, digital deadbolt, smart switches, USB outlets, and a connected home hub that allows you to create personalized scenes and routines. As a bonus, your home also comes with a Google Home Hub and Google Home Mini to help you stay connected and in control. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/move-in-ready-homesite-5/
The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of Cresleigh Homes. There is a magic in that little world, of my Cresleigh Home; it is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never known beyond its hallowed limits.
Discover a home built with your future in mind. Schedule your private tour today.
Heavenly Father, please guide our steps as a nation. With grace and great discernment, lead us in the direction that aligns with Your will. Grant America the strength to overcome challenges and persevere in our endeavors. Lord, let Your favor be upon us. Open doors of opportunity and bless the work of our hands. In Jesus’ name, Amen. Happy 250 Years, America.
Void of Faceless Faces, of Soundless Voices Lying Outside History
Identity in America is a formation highly dependent on the cultural conditions of a sedentary, middle-class society. However, the revolutionary minds of the middle-class of the nineteenth century: Jesus Christ, by telling us to love each other and not to sin; Dr. Darwin, by making man’s very humanity relative to his animal ancestry; Marx, by exposing the middle-class mind itself as class bound; and Dr. Freud, by making our ideals and our very consciousness relative to an unconscious mental life have all determined what chances we fruitfully take with it. Since then, there have been national wars, political revolutions, and moral rebellions that have shaken the traditional foundations of all human identity. If we wish to find witnesses to a radically different awareness of the relation of positive and negative identity, we only must change our historical perspective and look at the most marginalized writers in America today. For what if there is nothing in the hopes of generations past nor in the accessible resources of the contemporary community which would help to overcome the negative image held up to a member of a marginalized population by the “compact majority”? Then, so it seems, the creative individual must accept the negative identity as the very baseline of the recovery. And so, we have in our American writers, who have been marginalized in this country, the almost ritualized affirmation of inaudibility, invisibility, namelessness, facelessness—a void of faceless faces, of soundless voices lying outside history. #RandolphHarris 1 of 30
However, the responsible writers who are marginalized in America continue to write and write strongly, for fiction even in acknowledging the depth of nothingness can contribute to something akin to a collective recovery. This is a universal trend among the exploited. It is no coincidence that one of the most telling autobiographic documents of India’s liberation as a nation also bears the “negative” title Autobiography of an Unknown Indian. No wonder that in young people not included in literary reflection, such deep-seated negative identities can be reabsorbed only by a turn to militancy, if not violence. A less well-known figure than Bakunin, still more mysterious, but more significant for our purpose, Nechaiev pushed nihilism to the farthest coherent point. His thought presents practically no contradiction. He appeared, about 1866, in revolutionary intellectual circles, and died, obscurely, in January 1882. In this short space of time, he never ceased to suborn the students around him, Bakunin himself, the revolutionary refugees, and finally the guards in his prison, whom he succeeded in persuading to take part in a crazy conspiracy. When he first appears, he is already quite sure of what he thinks. If Bakunin was fascinated by him to the point of consenting to entrust him with imaginary authority, it is because he recognized in that implacable figure the type of human being that he recommended and what he, in a certain manner, would have been if he had been able to silence his heart. Nechaiev was not content with saying that one must unite with “the savage of the world of bandits, the true and unique revolutionary environment of Russia,” nor with writing once more, like Bakunin, that henceforth politics would be religion and religion politics. He made himself the cruel high priest of a desperate revolution; his most recurrent dream was to found a homicidal order that would permit him to propagate and finally enthrone the sinister divinity that he had decided to serve. #RandolphHarris 2 of 30
He not only gave dissertations on universal destruction; his originality lay in coldly claiming, for those who dedicate themselves to the revolution, an “Everything is permitted” and in permitting himself everything. “The revolutionary is a man condemned in advance. He must have neither romantic relationships nor objects to engage his feelings. He should even cast off his own name. Every part of him should be concentrated in one single passion: the revolution.” If history is, in fact, independent of all principles and composed only of a struggle between revolution and counterrevolution, there is no way out but to espouse wholeheartedly one of the two and either die or be resurrected. Nechaiev pursues this logic to the bitter end. With him, for the first time, revolution is going to be explicitly separated from love and friendship. The consequences of an arbitrary psychology set in motion by Hegel’s method can be seen, for the first time, in of minds could be accomplished in love. He would not, however, give a place in the foreground of his analysis to this “phenomenon,” which, according to him, he found “had not the strength, the patience, nor the application of the negative.” He had chosen to demonstrate human minds in blind combat, dimly groping on the sands, like crabs that finally come to grips in a fight to the death, and voluntarily abandoned the equally legitimate image of beams of light painfully searching for one another in the night and finally focusing together in a blaze of illumination. #RandolphHarris 3 of 30
Those who love, friends or lovers know that love is not only a blinding flash but also a long and painful struggle in the darkness for the realization of definitive recognition and reconciliation. After all, if virtue in the course of history is recognized by the extent to which it gives proof of patience, real love is as patient as hatred. Moreover, the demand for justice is not the only justification throughout the centuries for revolutionary passion, which is sustained by a painful insistence on universal friendship, even—and above all—in defiance of an inimical heaven. Those who die for justice, throughout history, have always been called “brothers.” Violence, for every one of them, is directed only against the enemy, in the service of the community of the oppressed. However, if the revolution is the only positive value, it has the right to claim everything—even the denunciation and therefore the sacrifice of the friend. Henceforth, violence will be directed against one and all, in the service of an abstract idea. The accession to power of the possessed had to take place so that it could be said, once and for all, that the revolution was more important than the people it wanted to save, and that friendship, which until then had transformed defeats into the semblance of victories, must be sacrificed and postponed until the still invisible day of victory. Nechaiev’s originality thus lies in justifying the violence done to one’s brother. He decided, with Bakunin, on the terms of the Catechism. However, once the latter, in a fit of mental aberration, had given him the mission of representing Russia as a European Revolutionary Union, which existed only in his imagination, Nechaiev in effect came to Russia, founded his Society of the Ax, and himself defined its regulations. #RandolphHarris 4 of 30
There we find again the secret central committee, necessary, no doubt, to any military or political action, to whom everyone must swear absolute allegiance. However, Nechaiev does more than militarize the revolution from the moment when he admits that the leaders, to govern their subordinates, have the right to employ violence and lies. Nechaiev lies, to begin with, when he claims to be a delegate of a central committee that is still nonexistent and when, to enlist certain skeptics in the action that he proposes to undertake, he describes the committee as disposing of unlimited resources. He goes still further by distinguishing between categories of revolutionaries, with those of the first category (by which he means the leaders) reserving the right to consider the rest as “expendable capital.” All the leaders in history may have thought in these terms, but they never said so. Until Nechaiev, at any rate, no revolutionary leader had dared to make this guiding principle of his conduct. Up to his time, no revolution had put at the head of its table of laws the concept that man could be a chattel. Traditionally, recruiting relied on its appeal to courage and to the spirit of self-sacrifice. Nechaiev decided that the skeptics could be terrorized or blackmailed and the believers deceived. If they were urged on systematically to perform the most dangerous deeds, even pseudo-revolutionaries could still be used. As for the oppressed, since they were going to be saved once and for all, they could be oppressed still more. What they would lose, the oppressed of the future would gain. #RandolphHarris 5 of 30
Nechaiev states, in principle, that governments must be driven to take repressive measures, that the official representatives most hated by the population must never be touched, and that finally, the secret society must employ all its resources to increase the suffering and misery of the masses. Bravery consists of attacking the whole problem of human destiny and finding its solution using the dynamic slogan and the clinical principle. The dynamic slogan of transactional and script analysis is “Think sphincter.” Their clinical principle is to observe every movement of every muscle of every patient at every moment during a group meeting. And their existential motto is “Transactional analysts are healthy, happy, rich, and brave, and get to travel all over and meet the nicest people in the world, and the same when they are home treating patients.” Script analysis is then the answer to the problem of human destiny, and tells us (alas!) that our fates are predetermined for the most part, and that free will in this respect is for most people an illusion. For example, R. Allendy points out that for everyone who faces it, the decision to commit suicide is a lonely and agonizing, and autonomous one. Yet, whatever vicissitudes it goes through in each individual case, the “rate” of suicide remains relatively constant from year to year. The only way to make (Darwinian) sense of this is to consider human destiny to be the result of parental programming, and not of individual “autonomous” decision. #RandolphHarris 6 of 30
What, then, is the responsibility of the parents? Script programming is not their “fault,” any more than an inherited defect is, such as scoliosis or clubfoot, or an inherited talent for music or mathematics. They are merely passing on the dominants and recessives they got from their parents and grandparents. The script directives are being continually reshuffled, just as the genes are, by the fact that the child requires two parents. On the other hand, the script apparatus is much more flexible than the genetic apparatus and is continually being modified by outside influences, such as life experience and the injunctions inserted by other people. It is only rarely possible to predict when or how an outsider will say or do something that alters a person’s script. It may be a casual remark accidentally overheard at a carnival or in a corridor, or it may be the result of a formal relationship such as marriage, school, or psychotherapy. It is a common observation that spouses gradually influence each other’s attitudes toward life and people, and that these changes are reflected in the tonus of their facial muscles and their gestures, so that they come to look alike. A parent who wishes to change his script so that he will not lay on his children the same directives that were laid on him should first become familiar with the Parent ego state and the Parental voices he carries around in his head, and which the children learn to “cathect” by appropriate trigger behavior. Since the parent is older and presumably wiser in some ways than his offspring, it is his duty and responsibility to control his Parental behavior. Only if he brings his Parent under the control of his Adult can he accomplish this. Beyond that, he is just as much the product of his Parental upbringing as his children are. #RandolphHarris 7 of 30
One difficulty is that children represent facsimile and immortality. When his children respond the way he does, every parent is openly or secretly delighted, even when they follow his worst characteristics. If he wishes his children to adapt to the solar system and all its ramifications better than he himself did, this delight is what he must forgo under Adult control. There is a lot of conflict in adult relationships because of competition between spouses. In our culture, women have been made so insecure about the man-woman relationship that they often compete for reasons they themselves do not understand. A woman’s competitiveness may reflect this culturally induced sense of insecurity. It may be more difficult for her, as a female, to make the perfectly rational assumptions that some men make—that, after all, it is okay to let your wife be the dominant spouse in the relationship. Perhaps if the women’s equality movement achieves its potential for social change, women will be relieved of some of this insecurity. Many think that Women’s Lib takes the whole concept of women’s place in society and turns it upside down. A lot of the roles that are called into question are biological roles. However, a lot of others are strictly social roles. These are questions that a man has to deal with when he is married to a woman who is attempting to find her own real identity—her true self, and not her sociological self. It is extremely difficult for both partners in the marriage. #RandolphHarris 8 of 30
Of course, several couples are in transition, and that is always hard on the people who are caught up in it. Sometimes, there is something about Women’s Lib that can be threatening to a man. Some men think it may be a potential for a marriage breaking up because a woman might come to see that marriage is essentially a false relationship between a man and a woman. Or that a woman may decide to do something on her own. However, the women’s movement does not necessarily mean that marriage concepts are false. Yet, it does mean that there must be a greater sense of reality between the two people in the marriage. In other words, they must make more of a marriage than just leaning on the legality of it. Consider this: if a woman is always putting herself last in the marriage, she is depriving her husband of the opportunity of saving her soul. If she is always protective of him and always gets there first, he does not have a chance! I am talking now about people who always have a pressing need to do the giving and thereby cheat themselves of the pleasure of receiving—and cheat others of their chance to experience the pleasure of giving. Culturally, this translates into the gender stereotype of the woman giving pleasure to the man. And all of us tend to think that we must be responsible for our emotions. Nothing is further from the truth. How we feel is how we feel, and no one, least of all our marriage partners, has the right to make us accountable for those feelings. We are accountable only for what we do because of those feelings. #RandolphHarris 9 of 30
You are entitled to your feelings, and it can be dangerous to ignore them, for you and others around you. You are entitled, and your partner does not have the right to interpret or evaluate or judge your feelings. On the other hand, it is your responsibility to express your feelings and thoughts as clearly as you can. Making your partner guess is asking for trouble. And the more comfortable you are in expressing those feelings and the more comfortable your partner becomes in accepting the feeling as an honest reflection of where you stand at that moment, the easier it is to communicate. Besides, many should show their self-destructive character in their very contents. As an illustration, I should like to refer to three should, all of which operate in the condition of morbid dependency and which will be elaborated in that context: I should be big enough to mind absolutely nothing that is done to me; I should be able to make her love me; and I should sacrifice absolutely everything for “love”! The combination of these three shoulds is indeed bound to perpetuate the tortures of a morbid dependency. Another frequent demand of a person is that he assume full responsibility for his relatives, friends, pupils, employees, etcetera. He should be able to solve everyone’s problems to everyone’s satisfaction. This implies that anything that goes wrong is his fault. If a friend or relative is upset for any reason, complains, criticizes, is discontented, or wants something, such a person is forced to be the helpless victim who must feel guilty and set everything right. He is, to quote a patient, like the harassed manager of a Pink Flamingo summer hotel: the guests are always right. Whether or not any of the mishaps are his fault does not matter. #RandolphHarris 10 of 30
This process is well described in a French book The Witness. The main character and his brother are out boating; the boat leaks, a storm comes up, and they are capsized. Since his brother has a badly injured leg, he cannot swim in the violent water. He is doomed to drown. The hero tries to swim ashore, supporting his brother, but soon realizes that he cannot do it. The alternatives are that both drown or that the hero saves himself alone. Clearly realizing this, he decides to save himself. However, he feels as if he were a murderer, and this is so real to him that he is convinced everybody else will regard him as a murderer. If he operates on the premise that he should be responsible in any case, his reason is of no avail and cannot be effective. To be sure, this is an extreme situation. However, the hero’s emotional response illustrates exactly what people do feel when driven by this particular should. An individual can also impose tasks upon himself which are detrimental to his whole being. A classic example of this kind of should is to be found in Dostoevski’s Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov, in order to prove to his Napoleonic qualities, felt that he should be able to kill a human being. As Dostoevski shows us in unmistakable terms, despite Raskolnikov’s manifold resentments against the world, nothing was more distasteful to his sensitive soul than to kill. He had to beat himself into doing it. What he actually felt is expressed in a dream in which he sees a scrawny, underfed little mare forced by drunken peasants to try pull an impossibly heavy cartload. It is brutally and mercilessly whipped and finally beaten to death. Raskolnikov himself rushes to the mare in an upsurge of deep compassion. #RandolphHarris 11 of 30
This dream appeared at a time when Raskolnikov was engaged in a violent inner struggle. He felt both that he should be able to kill and that it was so utterly distasteful that he simply could not do it. In the dream, he realized the senseless cruelty with which he was beating himself into doing something that was impossible for him, as it was for the mare to pull the heavy cartload. And from the depth of his being emerged a profound compassion for himself over what he was beating himself up over, what he was doing to himself. Having thus experienced his true feelings, he felt more at one with himself after the dream and decided against the killing. However, this Napoleonic self soon afterward again got the upper hand, because at that time his real self was as helpless against it as the underfed mare was against the brutal peasants. The third factor which renders the shoulds self-destructive and which, more than others, accounts for their coerciveness, is the self-hate with which we may turn against ourselves when we violate them. Sometimes this connection is clear or can be established easily. A person has not been as all-knowing or all helpful as he feels he should be, and, as in the story The Witness, is filled with unreasoning self-reproaches. More often, he is not aware of such a violation but, seemingly out of the blue, feels low, uneasy, fatigued, anxious, or irritable. #RandolphHarris 12 of 30
Let us recall the example of the woman who was suddenly scared of the dog after having climbed to the mountain top. The sequence here was as follows: first, she experienced as a failure her sensible decision to give up the climbing—a failure in the light of a dictate telling her that she should manage everything (and which remained unconscious). Next followed her self-contempt, which likewise remained unconscious. Then came the response to her self-berating, in the form of feeling helpless and scared, the first of the emotional process that reached awareness. If she had not analyzed herself, the scare of the dog would have remained a puzzling incident, puzzling because it was disconnected from all that preceded it. In other instances, a person experiences in conscious awareness only the special ways in which he automatically protects himself from his self-hate, such as his special ways to allay anxiety (eating sprees, drinking or shopping sprees, etcetera), his feeling victimized by others (passive externalization), or irritable at others (active externalization). We all have ample opportunity to see from various viewpoints how these attempts at self-protection operate. We can usually find refuge from the world of action by taking to the world of books. Then, stress and turmoil left behind, and restfully ensconced in a chair or bed, pictured scenes may be enjoyed, or ideas received, which act like a holiday. Live in the atmosphere that great books bring, their truer and wider ideas, their finer, exalted ideals. Most men are not yet built to wait in the silence for the visitation of the spirit of truth. It must be described in words for them, by the intellect for their intellect. Conscience is acquired gradually through identification. Identification is the process of ascribing to oneself the characteristics of another (usually admired) person. As one identifies with and takes on more traits of the valued model, intrafamilial resemblances in behavior, values, gestures, attitudes, and morals are acquired. #RandolphHarris 13 of 30
Children come into the world with only the capacity to develop a conscience. They act by their momentary needs and feelings, and their parents are usually watching them closely, making moral judgments about their behavior. If they act in ways that violate the parents’ concepts of what is right, the parents will punish the children for behaving in that way. The parents appear huge, powerful, and admirable from the children’s standpoint; they want to become like the parents. To avoid punishment, to retain the parents’ love, and to acquire their wonderful attributes, children strive to become like them in many ways. They identify with their demands and expectations; these gradually become their expectations of themselves. In short, they come to forbid in themselves what their parents forbade. They come to demand of themselves what their parents demanded. They come to expect of themselves what their parents expected. In this manner, the conscience commences. We declare a bright and glorious view of God and man to all who will hear, a view revealed in illuminated by the restored light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We testify of God’s loving goodness and of his eternal respect for each of us, for us as individual children of God and for what each of us may become. God has a plan for the benefit and blessing of us, His children. Basic to that all-important plan is our free agency. The right of choice runs like a golden thread throughout the gospel for the blessing of His children. We all existed and had our identities and our agency, long before we came to this world. #RandolphHarris 14 of 30
One central function of emotions is to enable the formation, maintenance, and negotiation of attachments and relationships and thereby to structure social life. Emotions inform our choices of who to affiliate with, distance from, praise, blame, dominate, or submit to. Admiration, a social emotion that attracts us to exemplars and motivates us to promote the virtues possessed by them, might be conceived of as the most fitting emotional response to heroes. Adolescents describe how heroes help them to do good or be a better person. However, where a young person selects a hero with dubious moral standards, this relationship may result in “bad” behavior where the young person models their behavior on an unsuitable target. Young people describe how heroes protect them from physical and psychological harm. Specifically, heroes were described as offering emotional support, social support, instrumental support, resources to develop self-efficacy, social control, and physical protection from danger. However, young people also cautioned that someone might become over-reliant on a hero, asking for help rather than taking personal responsibility. Young people believe that heroes play a role in helping them to experiment with their own sense of self and develop greater clarity about their authentic sense of self. Heroes can represent a person’s ideal self-influencing career paths and life decisions. #RandolphHarris 15 of 30
Adolescents gravitate toward heroes while navigating challenges in their own lives. Many people look at the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department as heroes. The representations of heroes and heroines represent formal elements which are used to create an affective appeal and to encourage an audience to consider the individual in question as heroic. As heroes, people are enticed by the Sacramento Fire Department because they use various forms of intensification through suspense, communication of increased danger, or heightened antagonism. Particularly effective in the view of viewing the Sacramento Fire Department as heroes is the light, radiance, and reflection they produce. Firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs stand in the spotlight and are singled out by (quasi-) divine illumination. Ancient, medieval, or early modern heroes have shining armors or they are placed in a beam of light coming from the heavens. Napoleon in Antoine-Hean Gros’ oil painting La Bataille des Pyramides (1810) is both elevated above his generals by his rearing horse, and he is placed in the center of light. The Sacramento Fire Department has these big, fancy red trucks with chrome wheels, chrome fender wall trim, and all these beautiful lights. Then the heroes get out of the truck and rush to save you from danger. The ambulances are essentially red box trucks with chrome wheels, fancy lights, and when the back doors open, bright white light glares out, and there is technology and personnel there to save your life. #RandolphHarris 16 of 30
The elevation of these heroes is displayed with lens flares to combine an aura of light and mystery, which gives the characters almost divine attributes, especially in combination with the sirens. An excess of light both singles out the heroes and partially obscures the details of their bodies because it is too bright. This popular combination between radiance and partial blinding also produces the ambivalence that is characteristic of heroes: they inspire emulation, and yet they remain inimical. The inapproachability, produced by the light or distance, contributes to the sense of awe and wonder that the heroic image of the Sacramento Fire Department inspires. The classic aesthetic trope that evokes awe in the recipient is the sublime. From the eighteenth-century aesthetic theory onwards, especially under the influence of Burke and Kant, the sublime combines the experience of terror and pleasure, the paradoxical experience of feeling at once overwhelmed and exalted, fearful and fascinated, as we are when we see the vast expanse of the ocean or a towering mountain. The experience of the sublime offers a feeling of transcendence even in a secular context and it helps us to reach beyond ourselves. The hero or heroine themselves are the source of the sublime, but also the setting contributes to the affective arrangement: Sacramento Fire Department in action in large scale, terrifying surroundings (confronted with a wall of fire in a burning building), gain a type of grandeur that is much more difficult to achieve in, let us say, a cluttered sitting room with a flowery wallpaper and lace doilies on Rudolf I King of Germany furniture. All these forms of expression are aimed at drawing attention and appealing to an audience to evoke admiration, veneration, and, ideally, imitation. These wished-for responses are evoked not through rational argument but through the engagement of the responses. #RandolphHarris 17 of 30
If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency, and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire firefighters are getting back into their vehicle, and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals; sometimes emergency vehicles are in motion, albeit slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other people’s problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation, and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 18 of 30
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now considered low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes, and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes items such as food, automobile insurance, homeowners’ insurance, and electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century-old laws that discourage home sales and encourage higher rents. #RandolphHarris 19 of 30
Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all our jobs and money, has more than 50 ghost cities, with 65 million vacant homes. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett-Packard are among the names on that list. Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500, and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. California also has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 5.4 percent, while the national average is 4.1 percent. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages, and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security-relevant alerts, such as the end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 20 of 30
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure are the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalination plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia, is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. As we see gangs fighting with federal law enforcement, states and cities refusing to honor federal laws, and politicians showing an utter disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, anarchy is becoming increasingly common. Anarchism is a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Derived from the Greek root anarchos, meaning “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval. The anarchist denies man-made laws, regards property as a means of tyranny, and believes that crimes is merely the product of property and authority. #RandolphHarris 21 of 30
However, the anarchist would argue that their denial of constitutions and governments leads not to “no justice” but to the real justice inherent in the free development of human sociality—the natural inclination, when unfettered by laws, to live according to the principles and practice of mutual aid. Anarchism is also a form of treason. Treason, the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security. In English law, treason includes the levying of war against the government and the giving of aid and comfort to the monarch’s enemies. In the United States of America, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. Treason against the United States of America “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” which is something that many politicians are currently guilty of. The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them before the situation becomes a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state, or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 22 of 30
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care for its infrastructure, provide adequate resources, or end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last are considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. As a result, the American automobile trade deficit with Japan was $39 billion. The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. Mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00, and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. #RandolphHarris 23 of 30
Home prices in Sacramento County are rivaling the Bay Area. Historically, homes in the Bay Area have been more expensive because they have higher-paying jobs, a larger population, and the Bay Area is a tourist destination. Contributing to the housing affordability crisis is Gavin Newsom, who has been lavishing illegal immigrants with taxpayer-funded resources and cash aid. The State of California has a budget deficit of $12 billion because Governor Gavin Newsom granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care, which costs taxpayers $3 billion annually. At the same time, Newsom cut vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled, and the homeless. Additionally, Newsom seems to be uneducated about economics and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which would eliminate environmental reviews and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. To further highlight this illustration, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. #RandolphHarris 24 of 30
However, Mexico’s pollution of California has become a severe public health crisis as the population of Tijuana has drastically increased in recent years, and the waste treatment plants are no longer usable. Some of the beaches in San Diego have been closed for more than three years, and evidence suggests that even breathing the air may be harmful, as toxic particles in the water can become airborne. Yet, even though Gavin Newsom has been governor for six years, he has not rushed into action to stop this very preventable environmental disaster. Why? Because he is not getting kickbacks from China and Mexico, not being gifted mansions and cars, and he cannot tax the struggling California taxpayers to clean up this mess. Simply, it is not profitable for him. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and no mind for business, and he should be impeached as soon as possible. He has criminalized poverty, increased taxes, increased taxes on gas, and insurance rates so high that people are struggling to survive. In addition to Gavin Newsom’s increased gas prices starting on 1 July 2025, the war between Iran and Israel is going to further exacerbate the prices of gas and cause more inflation and economic hardship for people in California. While everyone is making war over America and who belongs here and who she belongs to, so many people forget about the people who are Indigenous to this land. Open borders have allowed hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives to infiltrate reservations across the United States of America and use the isolated lands as havens to traffic fentanyl pills and other drugs into the country without protection from federal authorities. #RandolphHarris 25 of 30
Drug cartels have been threatening the health and safety of Native American communities. The trafficking of dangerous and illegal drugs into their territories is leading to a second genocide. The overdose rate for Indigenous people is 42 percent higher than the national average. A recent bust on Montana’s Blackfeet Nation’s Tribal Reservation resulted in the seizure of more than 700,000 fentanyl pills, which was the largest bust in Montana history. Recently, the Blackfeet Nation had to declare a state of emergency after facing 17 overdoses in just one week. There are only 6.8 million Native Americans left in the world, which is 2 percent of the American population. We should be doing more to protect these proud and honorable people; they should not want for anything. People rush and give away resources to illegal immigrants, but totally disregard the Indigenous people of this land, as their race silently fades away into extinction. We must secure our borders and increase federal funding to Native American tribes so we can save this precious population. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law-abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage, and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded, and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. He has also totally ignored the cartel problems on American lands. Clean air, water, land, and preserving our heritage are extremely important. #RandolphHarris 26 of 30
We cannot just allow criminals to kill off the people who are native to this land and do nothing about it. Wars have been started over governments that tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution. If Gavin Newsom is not stopped, next he will euthanize the poor and sterilize the disabled. Gavin Newsom has wars and fires breaking out on the streets, but goes out of his way to arrest people who have no place to live. This monster is unfit to be governor and must never be allowed to be President of America! Stop Gavin Newsom now! Save California and impeach this unreasonable man. Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease. President Trump just signed the “HALT Fentanyl Act” into law, which permanently classifies the narcotic as a “Schedule I drug” under the “Controlled Substances Act.” Also, President Trump recently secured $10 trillion in investments for the United States of America. Additionally, in May of 2025, the United States of America collected a record $100 billion in tariff revenue, and that number will increase to $300 billion by the end of 2025. Also, President Trump has just sealed a $550 billion deal with Japan. This means Japan will invest $550 billion in the United States of America. Furthermore, President Trump has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for making Iran and Israel cease fire. As you can see, President Trump is creating solutions and remediating problems to protect America and the American people, while Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, is making life hard on American citizens and causing economic hardship, and totally ignoring Mexico’s polluting beaches in San Diego. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowners’ insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. #RandolphHarris 27 of 30
Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and can support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrate to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in America, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 28 of 30
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in America which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the national debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by sending more money overseas. Buying American-made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human mind to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 29 of 30
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes, as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrive at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason, where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, please teach your children to love America and be patriotic citizens, and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Also, to make sure they have all the resources required, please donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to help improve our national security. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 30 of 30
President Donald J. Trump is keeping his promise to secure our borders and make America safe again. In July, Border Patrol reported just 4,399 apprehensions along our southern border—a new monthly record. That is an average of only 141 per day across nearly 2,000 miles. For the third month in a row, not a single illegal immigrant has been released into the United States. This is not just progress—it is a total reversal. Under the last administration, more than 300,000 illegal immigrants attempted to cross the border in a single month. The results speak for themselves. For the first time in at least five decades, the United States is on track to see negative net migration. Stopping illegal immigrants from entering our communities creates safer neighborhoods, protects taxpayer resources, and ensures more jobs and opportunities for American citizens. After 4 years of record-breaking illegal entries, this is the turnaround our Nation needs. President Trump will never stop fighting to end this invasion once and for all. He is working every day to secure our borders and restore the rule of law. Illegal immigrants who commit heinous crimes are being deported, loopholes are being closed, and sanctuary policies are being dismantled for good. Under the Trump Administration, America is safer and stronger than ever before. To learn more, visit www.WhiteHouse.gov.
According to locals, over a century ago, the land that houses The Winchester Mansion had been vacant forever. Then, sometime in the early afternoon of Saturday, March 13, 1886, Sheriff Angel Camilio began getting reports that a massive castle made of wood had suddenly appeared. Gables rose, towers peaked into the sky as the mansion mushroomed into a labyrinth overnight. The house’s sudden manifestation had been both disconcerting and fascinating to the community. Some felt dark curses flowing from the estate, and things moving around in the darkness. Others saw a fairytale castle glimmering in the spring sunlight. Perhaps this is why there are no records of construction, no blueprints, and no permits filed with the county. Come and see what secrets this so-called, “Winchester Mystery House” may hold.
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California, which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After the tour, there will be time to enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal at Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, which once spanned 740 acres, all the way down to Stevens Creek Boulevard; wander through the miles of hallways in the world’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available for purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs, not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
Ah, yes. The BMW 3 Series. Happy 50th birthday to the most iconic BMW ever! It is really hard to decide on a BMW model. However, the 3 series is a favorite of everyone. All the upper-class suburban families had one in the 1980s and 1990s; everyone from teenagers and housewives to executives and diplomats. Now that they are larger in size, but still sporty and luxurious, the audience has grown tremendously. These are very stylish and reliable cars, which is why BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space.
With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands. BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. This is why BMW is known as the Ultimate Driving Machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Building strong and lasting client relationships is crucial for a successful legal career. Many lawyers mistakenly believe that mastering legal skills alone ensures success, but law is fundamentally a service industry—our job is to solve problems through the time we sell. To build long-term relationships, attorneys must focus on three core elements: knowing their clients, understanding how their legal issues fit into a larger context, and consistently delivering exceptional service.
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. Trust is the cornerstone of any client relationship. Ultimately, my clients feel they are in capable hands with someone who genuinely understands their problems and goals. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
Millhaven Homes luxury construction is our specialty. We are second to none in our ability to sacred places of hidden wishes that our clients desire. We believe that building your custom home or undertaking a major remodeling project should be an exciting and rewarding experience. Through our fully transparent process, you remain in control of every detail, from custom design selections to sustainable building materials and smart home technology integration.
Millhaven Homes offers Design + Build services for luxury homes in various styles and locations in Utah. See their portfolio of projects, services, development, and contact information. https://millhavenhomes.com/portfolio/
Be a Good Girl, and When You are Tempted, Pray!
We are at the dawn of an American gratitude renaissance. Unprecedented interest in Christianity, American cars, American companies, American educational institutes, and the American Dream is so welcome because this is what gives us the strength and determination to make life better for ourselves and countless others around the world. The rebirth of Americana has caused many to express a feeling of gratitude. Gratitude is not just a nice sentiment, a warm cozy feeling, or an expression of happiness. Gratitude is the truest approach to life. When we express gratitude, we understand that it is a feeling of appreciation and thankfulness for the blessings or benefits we have received. As we cultivate a grateful attitude, we are more likely to be happy and spiritually strong. We should regularly express our gratitude to God for the blessings He gives us and to others for the kind acts they do for us. The Lord has promised, “He who receive all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious.” Gratitude is an uplifting, exalting attitude. People are generally happier when they have gratitude in their hearts. We cannot be bitter, resentful, or mean-spirited when we are grateful. The effects of showing gratitude are sustainable and quantifiable, and the practice of gratitude is readily accessible, available to everyone. You are never too old, too young, too rich, too poor, to live gratefully. #RandolphHarris 1 of 35
We should be thankful for the wonderful blessings that are ours and for the tremendous opportunities we have. We can be thankful to our parents, family, friends, and teachers. We should express appreciation to everyone who has assisted us in any way. Gratitude is not information, but enthusiasm and commitment. The enlightenment that can ignite a trend toward global gratitude is the seal of men and women who discover that grateful living makes life meaning and fulfilling. So, living in gratitude is living in touch. It is the most accurate and honest approach to life. Yet the grateful state of mind, as accessible as it is, can be fleeting, difficult to sustain over the long-term unless it is practiced with attention and intention. We should thank our Heavenly Fathers for His goodness to us by acknowledging His hand in all things, thanking Him for all that He gives us, keeping His commandments, and serving others. We should especially thank God for His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, for the Savior’s great example, for His teachings, for His outreaching hand to lift and help, and for His infinite Atonement. As we have seen, Human nature is characterized by polarities. Humans are active and passive, weak but strong, independent yet dependent, affectionate yet aggressive. They are both dominate with great authority and marginalized with little recognition. We would like to introduce two more general terms—conservative and liberal—chosen because of their universal usage and because of their non-moralistic connotations. #RandolphHarris 2 of 35
The two-party system of politics in America is a good example of the importance of giving credence to opposing viewpoints. In Great Britain, the part out of power is referred to as “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.” In every one of us there is a similar two-party system, each with its loyal opposition, sometimes in power and sometimes not. We use the terms liberal and conservative to describe these several “me’s” because they imply the truth, which is that both are parts of a potential unity. Too often people would repress or destroy one side or the other of this polarity. The truth is that ultimate mental health requires retaining, valuing, and living with both sides of ourselves. The two sides of our psychological nature may be thought of as parallel to the two sides of our physical nature. We have right and left eyes, right and left ears, and so on. Recently a patient came in, complaining that her husband was unfaithful. She was afraid that he was about to leave her, and she wanted to save their marriage. As she talked, it became obvious that the left side of her body was paralyzed. She made every gesture with her right hand, while her left hand lay limply in her lap. She had been referred, she said, by her family physician, who could find no physical ailment to explain her disability. This woman, who for twenty years had been a kindergarten teacher, has been quite conventional and very conservative. It became quite clear that her entire orientation was “right.” She always did the “right thing,” said the “right thing,” and never expressed a “different” point of view. In effect, she was dull and lifeless. #RandolphHarris 3 of 35
It is said that an art student can learn to “seduce” his or her right hand to more expressiveness by drawing with the left. Use of the left hand seems to release the right hand to greater freedom. Therapy for this woman, then, is to help impart new life to her thinking and, hence, her body, which had become as rigid, stiff, and unresponsive as her thinking. When she is free to express both sides of her nature, which we describe as her conservative and liberal sides, she will be more interesting to her husband and to herself. This is not to say that conservatism means complete control and liberalism means complete license. Rather, when we use both eyes and both ears, we see and hear in depth. The actualizing person dances between the right and left complementary polarities, and in this process, there is a natural restraint, rather than an artificial one, as demonstrated by our school teacher. Suppose we regard our organism as a dynamic, ever-changing unit, yet bipolar in its potential for expression. A person in balance is one whose see-saw is moving continually in dynamic interplay between his or her conservative and liberal potentials. One side goes up, and that side comes into awareness; the needs of that ide of nature dominate. Circumstances change, and the other end of the personal see-saw goes up. If we continue to live by the law of expression (expressing what we feel by behavior or verbal expression) then we will continue to be in balance. Neither the conservative nor the liberal tendencies will dominate or become fixed. #RandolphHarris 4 of 35
One of the basic needs of every person is to take responsibility for his or her own balance. Now here is the ethic we want to suggest: Responsibility in this sense means accepting responsibility for oneself and one’s own natural rhythmic balance, not depending on anyone else to establish controls for behavior. We all have liberal and conservative sides. The conservative must accept her or his liberal side just as the liberal must accept her or his conservative side. In the open expression of both sides of one’s nature, the individual has a natural means by which to live life with ease, combining challenge with a minimum of artificial controls imposed from the outside. External systems of morality may be seen as blankets of artificial control requiring to keep immature people from behaving unwisely. As parents and spouses, we feel that we need to impose such systems on our children and our mates because, usually, we really do not trust our own balance and, therefore, cannot trust the balance of those we love. An internal system of bipolar expression is, of course, the alternative to the external system of control. This has been described as a system of organismic self-regulation. Instead of simply controlling or braking one’s natural expression, one focuses instead on an understanding of one’s potentialities. I have still to see a case of neurosis which is not due to over-control, and to its aggravation by the nagging of friends to “pull yourself together.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 35
The overcalled person behaves exactly like a car which has many controls. The brakes are only one of them. The experienced driver understands how to handle all the controls, the more efficiently will the car function. However, if her drives with the brakes permanently on, the wear and tear on the brakes and engine will be tremendous…and sooner or later there will be breakdown. The overcontrolled person experiences this same type of pressure as the inexperienced driver. He knows no other means of control than the brakes—than repressions. Because of increased stress and anxiety, a person may experience avoidance in many different specific matters. Thus, a person may avoid speaking in public, participating in sports, telephoning. If somebody else is around to do the telephoning, to decide, or to deal with the landlord, he will leave it to them. In these specific activities, he is most likely to be aware of shirking something, while in the larger areas the issue is often more befogged by an attitude of “I cannot” or “I do not care.” Examining these avoidances, we see in operation two principles which determine their character. One is, briefly, safety through restricting one’s life. It is safer to renounce, to withdraw, or to resign than to take the risk of exposing one’s pride to injury. Perhaps nothing demonstrates so impressively the overwhelming importance of the pride in many instances as the willingness, for its benefit, to restrict one’s life to an often-cramping degree. #RandolphHarris 6 of 35
The other principle is: It is safer not to try than to fail. This latter maxim gives the avoidance the stamp of finality because it deprives the person of the chance of gradually overcoming whatever difficulties he has. It is even unrealistic based on the neurotic’s premises, for he has not only to pay the price of unduly restricting his life but in the long run his very recoiling damages his pride more deeply. However, of course he does not think in long-rage terms. He is concerned with the immediate danger of trial and error. If he does not try at all, it does not reflect on him. He can find an alibi of some sort. If he had not tried, at least in his own mind, he can have the comforting thought that he could have passed the examination, secured a better job, won a woman. Often it is more fantastic: “If I applied myself to composing or writing, I would be greater than Chopin or Balzac. In many instances, the avoidances extend to reaching out in our feelings for anything desirable: in short, they may encompass our wishes. I mentioned people who feel it a disgraceful defeat not to attain something they wish to have. The mere wishing then entails too great a risk. Such a check on wishes, however, means putting a lid on out aliveness. Sometimes people also must avoid any thought that would hurt their pride. The most significant avoidance on this score is shunning thoughts about death, because the idea of having to get older and having to die like any other mortal is unbearable. Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray is an artistic presentation of the pride in eternal youth. #RandolphHarris 7 of 35
As psychoanalysis came into its own, it pushed aside much valuable work that had been done previously. Thus, free association replaced the centuries-long tradition of introspection. Free association was concerned with the contents of the mind, leaving it to the psychoanalyst to figure out from this how the mind worked. This could only be done when it did not work smoothy. If it works perfectly, there is no way to figure out how a closed machine (a “black box”) works. If it makes mistakes, or is induced to make a mistake by throwing a monkey wrench into it, only then can this be found out. Thus, free association is only as good as the psychopathology behind it: the switches, the intrusions, the slips, and the dreams. Introspection, on the other hand, takes the cover off the black box, and lets the Adult of the person peer into his own mind to see how it works: how he puts sentences together, which direction his images come from, and what voices direct his behavior. Almost everyone has said “to himself” at some time: “You should not have done that!” and he may even have noticed that he answers “himself”; “But I had to!” In this case, it is the Parent saying, “You should not have done that!” and the Adult or Child saying: “But I had to!” This exactly reproduces some actual dialogue of childhood. There are three “degrees” of such internal dialogue. In the first degree, the words run through Jeder’s head in a shadowy way, with no muscular movements, or at least none perceptible to the unaided eye or ear. In the second degree, he can feel his vocal muscles moving a little so that he whispers to himself inside his mouth; in particular, there are small abortive movements of the tongue. #RandolphHarris 8 of 35
In the third degree, he says the words out loud. The third degree may take over certain disturbance conditions so that he walks down the street talking to himself, and people turn their heads to watch and are likely to think he is suffering from psychosis. There is also a fourth degree, where one or other of the internal voices is heard as coming from outside the skull. This is usually the voice of the Parent (the voice of his father or mother) and these are hallucinations. His Child or may not answer the Parental voices, but in any case, they affect some aspects of his behavior. Because people who “talk to themselves” are thought to be suffering from psychosis, nearly everyone has an injunction against listening to the voices in his head. However, if the proper permission is given, this is a faculty which can be quickly recovered. Then, almost anyone can listen in on his own internal dialogues, and that is one of the best ways to find out the Parental precepts, the Parental pattern, and the script controls. A young woman, who was tempted by pleasures of the flesh, started to pray in her head so that she would be able to resist her boy friend’s seduction. She clearly heard herself directed by the Parental precept: “Be a good girl, and when you are tempted, pray.” A man got into a fight in a bar and was very careful to fight skillfully. He clearly heard his father’s voice saying: “Do not telegraph your punches!” which was part of his father’s pattern: “Here is how to fight in a bar.” He got into the fight because his mother’s voice said provocatively: “You are just like your father, some day you will get your teeth smashed in a bar fight.” At the critical moment, a stock-market speculator heard a demonic whisper telling him: “Do not sell, buy.” He abandoned his carefully planned campaign, and lost his entire capital—“Ha ha,” he said. #RandolphHarris 9 of 35
The Parental voce exerts the same kind of control as a ventriloquist. It takes charge of the person’s vocal apparatus, and he finds himself saying words which come from someone else. Unless his Adult steps in, he then follows the instruction given by this voice, so that his Child acts exactly like a ventriloquist’s dummy. This ability to suspend one’s own will, usually without realizing what has happened, and to let someone else take charge of the vocal muscles and the other muscles of the body, is what enables the script to take over at the appropriate time. The remedy for this is to listen to the voices in one’s head, and let the Adult decide whether to follow their instructions or not. In this way, the person frees himself from the control of the Parental ventriloquist, and becomes master of his own actions. To accomplish this, he requires two permissions which he can give himself, but which may be more effective coming from someone else, such as a therapist. 1. Permission to listen to his internal dialogue. 2. Permission not to follow the directive of his Parent. If he dares to disobey the Parental directives, there is some peril in this undertaking and he may require protection from someone else. Thus, if they act independently of their ventriloquist Parents, the one job of the therapist is to give his patients protection and try to be real people instead of dummies. It should be added that while Parental voices tell him what he can or cannot do, it is Child pictures that tell him what he wants to do. Desires are visual, and directives are auditory. #RandolphHarris 10 of 35
We Instruct Others on How We Wish Them to See Us. People attribute to the “others” the traits and qualities that they believe define them. Thus, the parents of a student who consulted me told him many times: “You are such a nice, obedient boy. You always do what you are told. Ever since you were a baby, you wanted to please us.” Under such a hypnotic and persuasive regime, he came to believe he was nice and obedient, eager to please others. Once he formed his concept of himself, his way of relating to others functioned as an invitation to them to view him as he had come to view himself. It seems strange, but persons’ self-concepts represent an answer to the question, “Who am I?” that their parents first answered. If they accept their answer, they transmit it to others who want to know who they are. They tell others who they are, in every relationship that they enter. If you and I are no more than carriers of a view of ourselves that our parents gave us as a kind of legacy, how odd. We define ourselves in terms provided by our parents, say, and confirm that definition by our actions, which invites and persuades others to believe we are that way. The student I saw in psychotherapy told me that for years his father had been saying, “You take after your uncle Billy. He started many things, but always gave up halfway through.” His father was defining him as essentially a failure, and he believed that was how he was. He tried to persuade me that he was, essentially, a failure, and there was little anyone could do about it. #RandolphHarris 11 of 35
Of course, I refused to see him that way. Instead, I attributed strength to him and the capacity to overcome self-doubt and the difficulties of study. The student did change his concept of himself under this continuous “invitation” to change it. After having had competence attributed to him, the student not only changed his self-concept, but invited others including his father, to change their views of him. This cycle of having one’s identity defined by others, believing it, and then persuading others to view oneself in the way say is continuous throughout life. It is the basis for personal growth, and it also can be the basis for endless confirmation of a sense of identity that is defeating. I open the Old Testament and encounter the sentence: “There is nothing new under the sun.” This judgment, made thousands of years ago, is echoed in memory by the more recent one of Jean de la Bruyere: “Everything has been said.” Yet books keep on pouring, like a flood, from the presses. So, old thoughts circulate in new minds. Most people look to the West for living representatives of this knowledge and to ancient or medieval literature for written records of it. They fall into the faith that the distant is better, and the dead are wiser. Is he to remain the prisoner of his own past thinking or is he free himself from it? Is he to remain faithful to everything he once believed even after he has found it to be no longer true or only partly true? Has long habit so committed him to certain ideas that he can no longer escape into better and larger ones? #RandolphHarris 12 of 35
These people pulled down the blinds over their minds soon after reaching maturity, because they did not desire to see any horizon wider than the strict and rigid doctrines which they possessed. The independent-minded seeker will welcome truth from any quarter, any era, will be avid for whatever fragments of it he can find, and wherever he may find it. Why hide views which a wide experience and wider study have forced into supremacy? I respect what the past has bequeathed us but this must not be allowed to enchain us to them alone. He should take those old texts and render their ideas more intelligible to his own generation. If the work and discoveries or others are ignored, the search for the spiritual truth and the spiritual self cannot be economically done, in terms of energy and time. So, the records left by past men and the experiences of present ones are worth our study. They give it a spiral pattern; it moves around through them, turns, and climbs higher. When Herzen, in making his apology for the nihilist movement—only to the extent, it is true, that he sees in it a still greater emancipation from ready-made ideas—writes: “The annihilation of the past is the procreation of the future,” he is using the language of Bielinsky. Koteiarevsky, speaking of the so-called radicals of the period, defined them as apostles “who thought that the past must be completely renounced and the human personality must be constructed to quite another plan.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 35
Stirner’s claim reappears with the total rejection of history and the determination to construct the future, no longer regarding the historical spirit, but to coincide with the man-king. However, the man-king cannot rise himself to power unaided. He has need of others and therefore enters a nihilist contradiction which Pisarev, Bakunin, and Nechaiev will try to resolve by slightly extending the area of destruction and negation, to the point where terrorism finally kills the contradiction itself, in a simultaneous act of sacrifice and murder. The nihilism of the of the 1860’s began, apparently, with the most radical negation imaginable: the rejection of any action that was not purely egoistic. We know that the very term nihilism was invented by Turgeniev in his novel Fathers and Sons, whose hero, Bazarov, was an exact portrayal of this type of man. Pisarev, when he wrote a criticism of this book proclaimed that the nihilists recognized Bazarov as their model. “We have nothing,” said Bazarov, “to boast about but the sterile knowledge of understanding, up to a certain point, the sterility of what exists.” “Is that,” he asked, “what is called nihilism?” “Yes, that what is called nihilism.” Pisarev praises Brazarov’s attitude, which for the sake of clarity he defines as thus: “I am a stranger to the order of existing things, I have nothing to do with it.” Thus, the only value resides in rational egoism. #RandolphHarris 14 of 35
In denying everything that is not satisfaction of the self, Pisarev declares war on philosophy, on art, which he considers absurd, on erroneous ethics, on religion, and even on customs and on good manners. He constructs a theory of intellectual terrorism which makes one think of the present-day surrealists. Provocation is made into a doctrine, but on a level of which Raskolnikov provides the perfect example. At the height of this fine transport, Pisarev askes himself, without even laughing, whether he is justified in killing his own mother and answers: And why not, if I want to do so, and if I find it useful?” From that point on, it is surprising not to find the nihilists engaged in making a fortune or acquiring a title or in cynically taking advantage of every opportunity that offers itself. It is true that there were nihilists to be found in advantageous positions on all levels of society. However, they did not construct a theory from their cynicism and preferred on all occasions to pay visible and quite inconsequential homage to virtue. As for those we are discussing, they contradicted themselves by the defiance they hurled in the face of society, which was the affirmation of a value. They called themselves materialists; their bedside book was Bucher’s Force and Matter. However, one of them confessed: “Every one of us was ready to go to the scaffold and to give his head for Moleschott and Darwin,” thus putting doctrine well ahead of matter. Doctrine, taken seriously to this degree, has an air of religion and fanaticism. #RandolphHarris 15 of 35
For Pisarev, Lamarck was a traitor because Darwin was right. Whoever in this intellectual sphere began talking about the immortality of the soul was immediately excommunicated. Vladimir Veidle is therefore right when he defines nihilism as rationalist obscurantism. Reason among the nihilists, strangely enough, annexed the prejudices of faith; choosing the most popularized forms of science-worship for their prototype of reason was not the least of the contradictions accepted by these individualists. They denied everything but the most debatable of values, the values of Flaubert’s Monsieur Homais. However, it was by choosing to make reason in its most limited aspect, into an act of faith that the nihilists provided their successors with a model. They believed in nothing but reason and self-interest. However, instead of skepticism, they chose to propagate a doctrine and became socialists. Therein lies their basic contradiction. Like all adolescent minds, they simultaneously experienced doubt and the need to believe. Their personal solution consists in endowing their negation with the intransigence and passion of faith. What, after all, is astonishing about that? Veidle quotes the scornful phrase used by Soloviev, the philosopher, in denouncing this contradiction: “Man is descended from monkeys, therefore let us love one another.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 36
Pisarev’s truth, however, is to be found in this dilemma. If man is the image of God, then it does not matter that he is deprived of human love; the day will come when he will be satiated with it. However, if he is a blind creature, wandering in the darkness of a cruel and circumscribed condition, he has need of his equals and of their ephemeral love. Therefore, keep in mind that gratitude is a Spirit-filled principle. It opens our minds to a universe permeated with the richness of a living God. Do you know of any place on the face of the Earth, where human beings have more liberty, and where they enjoy such high and glorious privileges as they do here, as American citizens” I bear witness that the people of American do enjoy grand and glorious privileges. Gratitude requires awareness and effort, not only to feel it but to express it. Frequently we are oblivious to the Lord’s hand. We murmur, complain, resist, criticize; so often we are not grateful. In the Book of Mormon, we learn that those who murmur do not know “the dealings of that God who created them.” The Lord counsels us not to murmur because it is then difficult for the Spirit to work with us. Gratitude is a Spirit-filled principle. It opens our minds to a universe permeated with the richness of a living God. Through it, we become spiritually aware of the wonder of the smallest things, which gladden our hearts with their messages of God’s love. This grateful awareness heightens our sensitivity to divine direction. #RandolphHarris 17 of 35
We are all grateful for the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department. Emergency scenes are where the rubber meets the road, and the results of safety culture pay off. After a high-stress emergency call, responders sometime claim that they really did not think about what to do or how to do it. They say they did not really think about the danger either—they just did what needed to be done, what they were trained to do. If we have spent our nonemergency time practicing a culture of safety, when the emergency does come, then safety is already second nature. Take running a chainsaw, for instance. If safety glasses are an afterthought at the station, you will not remember them at an emergency when stress levels are up. The best way to perform emergency scene duties safely is to not know how to perform them unsafely. Learning the aspects of personal accountability is a skill needed to develop a safety culture, as well as to grow as a person. Looking back on your best mentors, teachers, or leaders, you will see aspects of personal accountability. Likewise, if you ever worked for a great company, department, or division, your probably saw what organizational accountability looks like. Because these people and organizations are led by human decisions, even the best will trip up occasionally. Virtually, every time this happens, lack of accountability is at the root. If it happens, simply recognize it for what it is, pick yourself up, and take responsibility. If fire and emergency services are going to be truly accountable for health and safety, these attributes are vital. #RandolphHarris 18 of 35
When we think of line-of-duty death, an emergency situation is usually the first location that comes to mind. The dynamic changes that occur during an emergency incident put a constant stress on emergency responders. Additionally, the chance of injury or death is increased due to a genuine or perceived urgency in managing the incident. This feeling of compressed time creates additional stresses and forces quick decisions. Many times, the decisions are based on unknown factors and unknown dangers. The weakest link in the system is the human decision. In a documentary, author Joseph T. Hallinan claimed that humans make hundreds of mistakes every day. The brain is too “clogged up,” with attempting to decipher all the messages it’s receiving, especially when multitasking and considering options. Unfortunately, an emergency scene is a breeding ground for such mistakes. One effective way to maintain a safety culture on emergency scenes is to treat each job with a risk versus benefit analysis. Risk-benefit analysis is simply the weighing of the facts by determining the advantages and disadvantages of a certain activity. For risk-benefit analysis to be effective, all the possibilities must be considered. Unfortunately, creating a list of all the possibilities is time-consuming in the initial stages of an incident, and sometimes the list lacks all the information necessary. #RandolphHarris 19 of 36
Preincident plans allow the Sacramento Fire Department to create “boilerplate” lists when time is not an issue. Many they instead rely on their experience and training to complete risk-benefit analysis. Take, for instance, that the captain one is assigned to a heavy-rescue company stationed downtown when you receive a call for a motor vehicle crash on an interstate overpass that involves a tractor-trailer. While en route, dispatch updates the responding companies that the truck is hanging from the “high-bridge.” The responder knows the “high bridge” refers to the uppermost bridge of an area where two bridges cross the interstate below. The first-due engine company reports that they are stuck in traffic approaching the high bridge and that a black smoke column is around the bridges. They call for another alarm, with the best approach from the opposite direction. The responder decides the best route will take one under the crash on the second bride, where one can pass underneath and backtrack to the high bridge. As one arrives “under” the crash, the responder is the first fire apparatus close to the scene. The responder reports that there is a semi-truck on the high bridge with the tractor hanging off the edge 25 feet above the bridge he is on. There is also a fire above, but he cannot tell what is involved or how many people are trapped or injured. One can talk to the driver from his position and it is clear he is unhurt but ready to jump. He tells the responder that he is carrying an enclosed trailer with pallets of 5-gallon pails containing hydraulic oil. He has already removed his seat belt and is half out the window; he is cared his truck is going to blow up and fall. It is time for a risk-benefit analysis. #RandolphHarris 20 of 35
Fire and emergency responders of the Sacramento Fire Department have been completing risk-benefit analyses in their heads and on-the-fly for a long time. Unfortunately, the analysis is only as good as the person completing the assessment. Experience goes a long way to success, but it only comes with the expense of making mistakes. Mistakes while learning are okay when they do not cause damage, but the risk-benefit mistakes the Sacramento Fire Department is talking about here can kill someone. As stated earlier, everyday emergency scenes are not necessarily the ideal location to pull out a pad of paper and a pen to list all the hazards. Some emergency responders might believe that they are proficient at (mental) risk-benefit analysis and that the method is sufficient. However, that is not always the case, and this is something one learns with experience. “I always knew we were underpaid, but we never know how much until we saw the figures of what everybody else is making. In Sacramento the cost of living is high. There shouldn’t be that much disparity of pay, but there is. Pay and equipment. Sacramento is changing, and we are getting a lot more equipment. After my injury and a colleague’s injury, we had two lieutenants who died, and the fire department went out and purchased those personal alert devices which give a signal if you’re pinned. We never had them before. One of the lieutenants was blown down into a basement and burned, and a floor collapsed under the other one and he fell into the fire. I’m not saying it would have helped them, but it might have helped my other colleague and myself. #RandolphHarris 21 of 36
“There are little things that they’re buying now that they probably never would have bought years ago. It was a big fight with the unions over the air mask. They city wanted to stay with the old filter mask, and the union wanted the self-contained air mask. You have to have something like a union say to the city, ‘If you can’t afford to pay us the money, at least give us the tools and the proper equipment to do to job.’ But the city holds the salary down, and they hold the equipment down. You look at the firefighters from Placer County, I’m not trying to put them down, but these don’t get the fires that the people in Sacramento do. They have one-story ranch houses, and they’re running around with top-notch gear. It’s unreal. The chief of the fire department does the best he can for us, but from there on up nobody gives a care about the firemen. The mayor sees a fire on TV, and he’ll show up and say, ‘Oh, these firemen are great.’ We had a nine-alarm fire a little while ago. The manning and the equipment in the city is so low that we need more resources. The city is trying to save money here, and here it is as an expense. It’s the taxpayer who’s going to be hurt, and the fireman is breaking his back more.” First arriving companies set the groundwork for how well the incident will be controlled. This occurs primarily by picking a strategy. Realize that choosing an offensive strategy without sufficient personnel to reinforce that strategy could ultimately cause the operation to fail. If adequate personnel are not assembled when the strategic decision is made, consider holding the incident in check with a defensive strategy while preparing a plan and the necessary equipment until help arrives. #RandolphHarris 22 of 35
If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire fighters are getting back into their vehicle and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals, sometimes emergency vehicles are in motions, albeit, slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 23 of 35
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now consider low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruze, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes things like food, automobile insurance, homeowner’s insurance, electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century’s old laws that discourage homes sales and encourage higher rents. #RandolphHarris 24 of 35
Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all our jobs and money has more than 50 ghost cities. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard are amongst the names on that list. Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500 and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 25 of 35
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. As we see gangs fighting with federal law enforcement, states and cities refusing to honor federal laws, and politicians showing an utter disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, anarchy is becoming increasingly common. Anarchism is a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Derived from the Greek root anarchos meaning, “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval. The anarchist denies man-made laws, regard property as a means of tyranny, and believe that crimes is merely the product of property and authority. #RandolphHarris 26 of 35
However, the anarchist would argue that their denial of constitutions and governments leads not to “no justice” but to the real justice inherent in the free development of human sociality—the natural inclination, when unfettered by laws, to live according to the principles and practice of mutual aid. Anarch is also a form of treason. Treason, the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security. In English law, treason includes the levying of war against the government and the giving of aid and comfort to the monarch’s enemies. In the United States of America, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. Treason against the United States of America “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” which is something that many politicians are currently guilty of. The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state, or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 27 of 35
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. As a result, the American automobile trade deficit with Japan was $39 billion. The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. Mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00 and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. #RandolphHarris 28 of 35
Home prices in Sacramento County are rivaling the Bay Area. Historically homes in the Bay Aera have been more expensive because they have higher paying jobs, a larger population, and the Bay Area is a tourist destination. Contributing to the housing affordability crisis is Gavin Newsom who has been lavishing illegal immigrants with taxpayer funded resources and cash aid. The State of California has a budget deficit of $12 billion because Governor Gavin Newsom Granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care, which cost taxpayers of $3 billion annually. At the same time, Newsom cut vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled and the homeless. Additional, Newsom seems to uneducated about economics and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which would eliminate environmental reviews, and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. To further highlight this illustration, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach, and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. #RandolphHarris 29 of 35
However, Mexico’s pollution of California has become a severe public health crisis as the population of Tijuana has drastically increased, in recent years, and the waste treatment plants have no longer usable. Some of the beaches in San Diego have been closed for more than three years, and evidence suggests that even breathing the air may be harmful, as toxic particles in the water can become airborne. Yet, even though Gavin Newsom has been governor for six years, he has not rushed into action to stop this very preventable environmental disaster. Why? Because he is not getting kickbacks from China and Mexico, not being gifted mansions and cars, and he cannot tax the struggling California taxpayers to clean up this mess. Simply, it is not profitable for him. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and does not have a mind for business and should be impeached as soon as possible. He has criminalized poverty, increased taxes, increased tax on gas, and insurance rates so high that people are struggling to survive. In addition to Gavin Newsom’s increased gas prices starting 1 July 2025, the war between Iran and Israel is going to further exacerbate the prices of gas and cause more inflation and economic hardship for people in California. While everyone is making war over America and who belongs here and who she belongs to, so many people forget about the people who are Indigenous to this land. Open boarders have allowed hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives to infiltrate reservations across the United States of America, and use the isolated lands as havens to traffic fentanyl pills and other drugs into the country without protection from federal authorities. #RandolphHarris 30 of 35
Drug cartels have been threatening the health and safety of Native American communities. The trafficking of the dangerous and illegal drugs into their territories is leading to a second genocide. The overdose rate for Indigenous is 42 percent higher than the national average. A recent bust on Montana’s Blackfeet Nation’s Tribal Reservation resulted in the seizure of more than 700,000 fentanyl pills, which was the largest bust in Montana history. Recently, the Blackfeet Nation had to declare a state of emergency after facing 17 overdoses in just one week. There are only 6.8 million Native Americans left in the world, which is 2 percent of the American population. We should be doing more to protect these proud and honorable people; they should not want for anything. People rush and give away resources to illegal immigrants, but totally disregard the Indigenous people of this land, as their race silently fades away into extinction. We must secure our boarders and increase federal funding to Native America tribes so we can save this precious population. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. He also has totally ignored the cartel problems on American lands. Clean air, water, land and preserving our heritage extremely important. #RandolphHarris 31 of 35
We cannot just allow criminals to kill off the people who are native to this land and do nothing about it. Wars have been started over governments who tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution. If Gavin Newsom is not stopped, next he will euthanize the poor and sterilize the disabled. Gavin Newsom has wars and fires breaking out on the streets, but goes out of his way to arrest people who have no place to live. This monster is unfit to be governor and must never be allowed to be President of America! Stop Gavin Newsom now! Save California and impeach this unreasonable man. Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease. President Trump just signed the “HALT Fentanyl Act” into law, which permanently classifies the narcotic as a “Schedule I drug” under the “Controlled Substances Act.” Also, President Trump recently secured $10 trillion in investments for the United States of America. Additionally, in May of 2025, the United States of America collected a record $100 billion in tariff revenue, and that number will increase to $300 billion by the end of 2025. Also, President Trump has just sealed a $550 billion deal with Japan. This means Japan will invest $550 billion into the United States of America. Furthermore, President Trump has been nominated for a Noble Peace Prize for making Iran and Israel crease fire. As you can see, President Trump is creating solutions and remediating problems to protect America and the American people, while Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, is making life hard on American citizens and causing economic hardship and totally ignoring Mexico polluting beaches in San Diego. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowner’s insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. #RandolphHarris 32 of 35
Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and can support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 33 of 35
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 34 of 35
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again,” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrived at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Also, to make sure they have all the resources required, please donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to help improve our national security. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 35 of 35
Park Haven
Rancho Cordova, CA | low $500,000.00s
Now Selling!
Welcome to Cresleigh Park Haven; the newest home community in Rancho Cordova.
Nestled in the heart of Rancho Cordova, Park Haven is a thoughtfully planned community offering 71 homes —perfect for those seeking comfort, convenience, and more time to enjoy life.
Located adjacent to the beloved Exploration Park, this neighborhood blends modern living with outdoor adventure right at your doorstep.
Choose from five beautifully crafted floor plans ranging from approximately 1,342 to 2,547 square feet, with options for 3 to 5 bedrooms, flexible living spaces, and open-concept layouts designed for today’s lifestyles.
Whether you’re a first-time buyer, growing family, or looking to simplify without sacrificing style, Park Haven offers a home that fits your needs.
Enjoy the ease of a maintenance-friendly yard, the charm of a close-knit community, and the everyday convenience of nearby parks, trails, shopping, and top-rated schools. At Park Haven, you’ll find more than just a house—you’ll find your place to thrive.
Cresleigh Park Haven is an inviting community of single-family detached residences that blend classic and contemporary styles.
Plenty of options are available to you to let you personalize your new home, including a main level guest suite with full bath, lower level expanded rec room, and lower-level bedroom and flex room and much more. https://cresleigh.com/park-haven/
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages. Or, perhaps you will see Mr. Hansen, Mrs. Winchester’s head foreman.
Although the actual mansion is much older, we wish to wish the Winchester Mansion a Happy 102 years of giving tours, and express our gratitude to our families, ancestors, spirits, and friends and to our many associates and clients, whose lives touched our lives and whose ideas helped us to grow. We would also like to thank our employees and care takers for putting the technical ideas of this estate into conversational style, and we are, of course, extremely thank to all of our patrons for helping to keep the legacy of the Winchester Family alive. The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.) https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Go beyond the velvet ropes with the woman who knows the mansion best 🔍
Join Janan Boehme – official house historian and curator – for a rare and intimate 2-hour tour through the Winchester Mystery House. With a small group, you’ll go past ropes and through locked doors, gaining a deeper understanding of the house’s construction and ongoing preservation efforts. All from the foremost expert on the property 📖
For the first hour and 20 minutes, your group will have the mansion entirely to yourselves… no other guests in sight.
This limited experience takes place select Saturday mornings in August. Tickets are on sale now, link in bio. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/tours/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs – not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
Ah, yes. The BMW 3 Series. Happy 50th birthday to the most iconic BMW ever! It is really hard to decide on a BMW model. However, the 3 series is a favorite of everyone. All the upper-class suburban families had one in the 1980s and 1990s; everyone from teenagers and housewives to executives and diplomats. Now that they are larger in size, but still sporty and luxurious, the audience has grown tremendously. These are very stylish and reliable cars, which is why BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space.
With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands. BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. This is why BMW is known as the Ultimate Driving Machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Building strong and lasting client relationships is crucial for a successful legal career. Many lawyers mistakenly believe that mastering legal skills alone ensures success, but law is fundamentally a service industry—our job is to solve problems through the time we sell. To build long-term relationships, attorneys must focus on three core elements: knowing their clients, understanding how their legal issues fit into a larger context, and consistently delivering exceptional service.
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. Trust is the cornerstone of any client relationship. Ultimately, my clients feel they are in capable hands with someone who genuinely understands their problems and goals. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
I Do Not Love Him Anymore
Dr. Freud once said, “Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.” The pernicious character of neurotic pride lies in the combination of its being virtually important to the individual and at the same time rendering him extremely vulnerable. This situation creates tension, which because of their frequency and intensity are so unbearable that they call for remedies: automatic endeavors to restore pride when it is hurt and to avoid injuries when it is endangered. The need to save face is urgent, there are so many ways which can be gross or subtle. The most effective and, it seems, almost ubiquitous one is interlinked with the impulse to take revenge of hostility to the pain and the danger involved in a hurt pride. However, vindictiveness may in addition be a means toward self-vindication. It involves the belief that by getting back at the offender one’s own pride will be restored. This belief is based on the feeling that the offender, by his very power to hurt our pride, has put himself above us and has defeated us. By our taking revenge and hurting him more than he did us, the situation will be reversed. We will be triumphant and will have defeated him. The aim of the neurotic vindictive revenge is not “getting even” but triumphing by hitting back harder. #RandolphHarris 1 of 30
Nothing short of triumph can restore the imaginary grandeur in which pride is invested. It is this very capacity to restore pride that gives neurotic vindictiveness its incredible tenacity and accounts for its compulsive character. Because the power to retaliate is so valuable for the restoration of pride, this power can itself be invested with pride. In the minds of certain neurotic types, it is equal to strength, and often is the only strength they know. Conversely, the capacity to hit back usually registers as weakness no matter whether external or internal factors prohibited a vindictive move. Thus, when such a person feels humiliated, and either the situation or something within him does not allow him to retaliate, he suffers a double injury: the original “insult” and the “defeat,” as opposed to a vindictive triumph. The need for a vindictive triumph, as stated before, is a regular ingredient in the search for glory. If it is the dominant force in life, it sets going a vicious circle that is most difficult to disentangle. The determination then to rise above others in every possible way is so gigantic that it reinforces the whole need for glory, and with that the neurotic pride. The inflated pride in turn enhances the vindictiveness and thereby makes for a still greater need for triumph. Among ways to restore pride the next in importance is losing interest in all situations or people who in some way hurt this pride. #RandolphHarris 2 of 30
Many people relinquish their interest in sports, politics, intellectual pursuits, etcetera because their impatient need to excel, or to do a perfect job, is not satisfied. The situation then may become so unbearable for them that they give up. They do not know what has happened; they merely become uninterested and may instead turn to an activity which is beneath their potentialities. A person may have been a good teacher but assigned to a task he cannot master right away or which he feels degrading, his interest in teaching wanes. Such changes in attitudes also are relevant to the learning process. A gifted person may start dramatics or painting with enthusiasm. His teachers or friends find him promising, and encourage him. However, with all his gifts he is not a Barrymore or a Renoir overnight. He realizes that he is not the only gifted one in his class. He is naturally awkward in his initial efforts. All of this hurts his pride, and he may suddenly “realize” that the painting or dramatics is not in his line, that he never was “really interested in this pursuit. He loses his zest, skips classes, and soon gives up altogether. He starts something else, only to repeat the same cycle. Often for economic reasons, or because of his own inertia, he may start with the activity but does it so listlessly that he does not make out of it what would otherwise have been possible. The same process may occur in relations with other people. #RandolphHarris 3 of 30
Of course, we may stop liking a person for good reasons: we may go in divergent directions. However, it is in any case worth examining why our liking turns into indifference, instead of simply putting it down to lack of time or deciding that it was an error in the first place. What may have happened is that something in this relationship has hurt our pride. It may be comparison with thew other fellow in his favor. Perhaps he had paid us less deference than before. We realize that we have failed him and, hence, feel ashamed him. All of this may play an incisive role in marriage or love relationship and we are inclined than to let it stay at, I do not love him anymore.” All these withdrawals entail a considerable waste of energy and often much misery. However, the most ruinous aspect of them is that we lose interest in our real self because we are not proud of it. That can also be because pride is a lack or absence of humility or teachableness, and it may take many forms, all of them not becoming of a Christian. Pride leads us away from God and stops us from becoming the person we should be. Furthermore, pride can set people in opposition to each other and to God. A proud person sets himself above those around him and follows his own will rather than God’s will. Conceit, envy, hardheartedness, and haughtiness are also typical of a proud person. “Beware that thou forget not the Lord lest thine heart be lifted up,” report Deuteronomy 8.11-14. #RandolphHarris 4 of 30
Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We set our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of “my will and not thine be done.” As Paul said, they “seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” (Philippians 2.21). Our will in competition to God’s will allows desires, appetites, and passions to go unbridled. The proud cannot accept the authority of God giving direction to their lives. They set their perceptions of truth against God’s great knowledge, their abilities versus God’s priesthood power, their accomplishments against His mighty works. Our enmity toward God takes on many labels, such as rebellion, hard-heartedness, stiff-neckedness, unrepentant, puffed up, easily offended, and sign seekers. The proud wish God would agree with them. They are not interested in changing their opinions to agree with God. Another major portion of this very prevalent sin of pride is enmity toward our fellowmen. We are tempted daily to elevate ourselves above others and diminish them. The proud make every man their adversary by pitting their intellects, opinions, works, wealth, talents, or any other worldly measuring device against others. Even if a belief were held throughout the world, it is not thereby proven true. It may still be a world-wide self-deception or, more likely, traditionally received suggestion. #RandolphHarris 5 of 30
Our Wester culture rests generally on Judeo-Christian theology, and the United States of America is dominated particularly by a puritan spirit that stresses activity, striving, and hard work. Dr. Karen Horney speaks of the Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies, the latter stressing the value of surrender and drift, the former emphasizing the master and molding of life. Both are natural human tendencies, she says, but positive value of surrender or nonstriving is a deep-rooted attitude, pregnant with potential satisfaction. Alan Watts puts the value of nonstriving in still another context: “I have always been fascinated by the law of reversed effort. Sometimes I call it the ‘backwards law.’ When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink; but when you try to sink, you float. When you hold your breath you lose it—which immediately calls to mind an ancient and most neglected saying, “Whosoever would save his soul shall lose it.” Insecurity is the result of trying to be secure, and that, contrariwise salvation and sanity consist in the most radical recognition that we have no way of saving ourselves. The Chinese sage Lao-tzu, that master of the law of reversed effort…declared that those who justify themselves do not convince, that to know the truth one must get rid of knowledge, and that nothing is more powerful and creative than emptiness—from which men shrink.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 30
What Watts is saying that the more we try in some situations, the more we seem to fail, and that there are some goals that can never be achieved by active striving. We find this particularly true in psychotherapy, when the more one tries to become a certain way, the more one fails. Leslie H. Farber speaks of the paradoxical nature of certain qualities of being and the impossibility of striving for such qualities as wisdom, dignity, courage, and humility. The element that characterizes each of these virtues is that one’s possession of them lies outside of conscious effort. As Farber observes: “Most accomplishments and some virtues do not have this paradoxical nature. Skill or tact or a capacity for honest, for example, may be pursued directly; to acknowledge and enjoy possession of them does not contradict their nature. However, only the fool proclaims his wisdom, only the proud man his humility, only the coward his courage. Not only do these virtues make a liar of the man who claims them, they forever evade any effort to achieve them. I may seek knowledge; I may not seek to be wise. Sharing an essential freedom from self-concern…such virtues are not accomplishments and cannot be learned. They must be deserved, but their possession is a matter of grace.” Whatever the reason does to dissolve superstition serves to open a way to discover another truth. #RandolphHarris 7 of 30
Understanding this concept is extremely important as a basis of self-actualization, for it means that the most profound qualities of actualization—such as wisdom, dignity, humility, courage, respect, and love—cannot be striven for! They cannot be learned. And they are most often achieved when one surrenders to the impossibility of being wise, dignified, humble, courageous, respectful, and loving. In psychotherapy, for example, we hear a patient striving to be “real”; the more she strives, the phonier she becomes. After many hours, she finally says, “I give up. I just can’t seem to make it.” In that moment, paradoxically, she is real! The religious provides another example: The more he strives to be humble, the more he becomes proud. Curiously, the most lovable person is one who has truly given up trying to be lovable! This is why therapy for actualization and realness requires something more than motivated striving and simple conditioning. It requires being able to discover the wealth of personal growth instead of striving for it. Four characteristics of actualization—honesty, trust, freedom, and awareness—share this paradoxical quality. They can be accomplished by engaging in a process, but the process requires that the patient give up striving to be honest, trusting, free, and aware. #RandolphHarris 8 of 30
He who has made this research a serious matter, who has travelled widely in its cause, listened, seen much and read more, who has become well educated in the subject and quite sophisticated in its application, is entitled to hold views even though they do not coincide at all points with the traditional ones. No human authority can be final for all authorities are liable to make mistakes. He must settle these questions in a scientific manner by appeal to facts and reason or, where it is not possible to get the facts, to make it quite clear to himself that he is holding a belief as an opinion and nothing more. Certainly, it cannot be held as a truth when it is held only as an opinion. By refusing to be tied to a particular school, one remains free to study as many of the doctrines of the different schools as he wishes. The teachings of one organization should help him to see the limitations of another. Instead of merely repeating certain sentences which you have read or been taught, think them over for yourself. If you were really the Real how could you become Illusion? If you were the True, how could you succeed in deceiving yourself so far as to become the False? If ignorance, error, and illusion can happen to the One Mind, then they are just as powerful as It. #RandolphHarris 9 of 30
It is not other men’s knowledge and power that we have to live by in the end, but our own. Those who can think deeply upon such matters and are also quite well-informed, will find that much of their thinking has been done for them already by sages who preceded us. Such a man does not ask whether this idea is included in the body of ideas which he has hitherto accepted by inheritance or tradition, education, or choice. He asks rather whether it is true. As if they were one’s own, Ideas are imposed upon the mind from various sources, accepted consciously or subconsciously, swallowed, and later regurgitated. Such is the power of suggestion! Learn from the past without becoming a mere imitator of it. If we allow authority in doctrine to step beyond its rightful place, then instead of fulfilling a useful function it paralyzes our powers of thinking. Whatever the reason does to dissolve superstition serves to pen a way to discover another truth. When a stronger mind imposes its ideas on a weaker one, it is called teaching. When the weaker mind receives them passively (because of its trust in the guru’s authority, his presumed knowledge of what he talks about) it is called learning. The independent thinker cannot conform to the opinions of his age merely because he happens to be living then; he will not cut the cloth of his thoughts to patterns by his contemporaries but always to his own. When he begins to scrutinize the religious and intellectual authority behind what he is taught or receives, and especially their sources, questions come up, doubts filter in. #RandolphHarris 10 of 30
As the human embryo grows, it relives the whole evolutionary tree. Sometimes it gets hung up and is born with relics of ancient stages, such as gill clefts. As children grow, they relieve the prehistory of the human race and go through hunting and planting and manufacturing stages, and they may get hung up at any of these. However, everyone retains some vestiges of all of them. The small fascist in every human being is a little torturer who probes for and enjoys the weakness of his victims. If this comes out openly, he is a cripple-kicker, a stomper, and a rapist, sometimes with some excuse or other such as toughness, objectivity, or justification. However, most people suppress these tendencies, pretend they are not there at all, excuse them if they show their colors, or overlay and disguise them with fear. Some even try to demonstrate their innocence by becoming the purposeful victims instead of the aggressors, on the principle that it is better to shed their own blood than that of others, but blood they must have. These primitive strivings become interwoven with injunctions, precepts, and permissions of the script, and from the basis for third-degree or “tissue” games that draw blood. He who pretends that these forces do not exist becomes their victim. His whole script may become a project to demonstrate that he is free of them. However, since he is most likely not, this is a denial of himself and therefore of his right to a self-chosen destiny. #RandolphHarris 11 of 30
The solution is not to say, as may do, “It is frightening,” but rather, “What can I do about it and what can I do with it?” It is better to be a martyr than to be a troglodyte, that is, a man who refuses to believe he has ascended from an apelike creature because he has not yet, but to know oneself is better than both. It is important to realize that certain “genocidal” aspects of human nature have remained unchanged during the past five thousand years regardless of any genetic evolution which has taken place during this period; they also remain immune to environmental and social influences. One of these is the prejudice against darker people which as persisted unchanged since the dawn of record time in ancient Egypt, whose “miserable people of Cush,” are still represented in oppressed African populations throughout the world. The other is “search and destroy” warfare. For example: The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reports that at least 58,386 people have been killed and 139,077 wounded in Gaza since the start of the current conflict with Israel in October 2023. Compare: “800 of their soldiers by my arms I destroyed; their populace in the flames I burned; their boys, their maidens, I dishonored. 1000 of their warriors’ corpses on a hill I piled up. On the first of May, I killed 800 of their fighting men, I burned their many houses, their boys and maidens I dishonored,” etcetera. (From the Annals of Assur-Nasir Pal, Column II, about 870 B.C.E.) Thus, for at least 2800 years, there have been willing and eager corpse-counters. The good guys end up as “casualties”; the bad guys as “bodies,” “dead,” or “corpses.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 30
Pisarev, the theoretician of Russian nihilism, declares that the greatest fanatics are children and adolescents. That is also true of nations. Russia, at this period, is an adolescent nation, delivered with forceps, a little over a century ago, by a Czar who was still ingenuous enough to cut off the heads of rebels himself. It is not astonishing that she should have pushed Germanic ideology to extremes of sacrifice and destruction which German professors had only been capable of theorizing about. Stendhal noticed an essential difference between Germans and other people in the fact that they are excited by medication rather than soothed. That is true, but it is even more true of Russian. In that young nation, completely without philosophic tradition, some very young people, akin to Lautreamont’s tragic fellow students, enthusiastically embraced the concepts of German thought and incarnated the consequences in blood. A “proletariat of undergraduates” then took the lead in the great movement of human emancipation and gave it tis most violent aspect. Until the end of the nineteenth century these undergraduates never numbered more than a few thousand. Entirely on their own, however, and in defiance of the most integrated absolutism of the time, they aspired to liberate and provisionally did contribute to the liberation of forty million muzhiks. Almost all of them paid for this liberation by suicide, execution, prison, or madness. #RandolphHarris 13 of 30
The entire history of Russian terrorism can be summed up in the struggle of a handful of intellectuals to abolish tyranny, against a background of a silent populace. Their debilitated victory was finally betrayed. However, by their sacrifice and even by their most extreme negations they gave substance to a new standard of values, a new virtue, which even today has not ceased to oppose tyranny and to give aid to the cause of true liberation. The Germanization of nineteenth-century Russia is not an isolated phenomenon. The influence of German ideology at that moment was preponderant, and we are aware, for example, that the nineteenth century in France, with Michelet and Quinet, is the century of Germanic thought. However, in Russia, this ideology did not encounter an already establish system, while in France it must contend and compromise with libertarian socialism. In Russia, it was on conquered territory. The first Russian university, the University of Moscow, founded in 1750, is German. The slow colonization of Russian by German teachers, bureaucrats, and soldiers, which began under Peter the Great, was transformed at the instance of Nicholas I into systematic Germanization. The intelligentsia developed a passion for Schelling (simultaneously with their passion for French writers) in the 1830’s, for Hegel in the 1840’s, and in the second half of the century for German socialism derived from Hegel. #RandolphHarris 14 of 30
Russian youth then proceeded to pour into these abstract thoughts the inordinate violence of its passion and authentically experienced these already moribund ideas. The religion of man already formulated by its German pastors was still missing its apostles and martyrs. Russian Christians, led astray from their original vocation, played this role. For this reason, they had to accept life without transcendence and without virtue. And the funny thing is, in an adult this is often seen as “dangerous.” How can there by anything for anyone to be afraid of, either the one from who love flows or the receivers? Spread around like that, why should there be fear? Because the fear—which I now know as possessiveness—is not in myself, I cannot understand it. I feel so completely innocent and am charged with being guilty. When I am still strongly myself and clear about what was going on in me, this seemed to me just silly. However, as it continued, there was more pain in me, and increased confusion. I am often assumed of thinking that I have something special that is not available to others. It is not that, either. However, there was a period when I became as confused about it as anyone else. Now that I am really clear, I do not need to talk about it—but I still tend to hide my love so others will not misunderstand. When I do not let it flow through me in its own expression, it dies in me a little, and I die a little too—not just “emotionally” but in my body too. I become more old and less alive. I bet others in Russia have the same experience. #RandolphHarris 15 of 30
A man’s high position in one field of activity does not necessarily add great weight to his pronouncements in a totally different field. His personal knowledge in the second one may be nil. Today, the complexities of tactical operations and deployment of troops are such that it is essential for all Sacramento Fire Department members to be able to read and interpret their maps to move quickly and effectively when dealing with an emergency. As officer of the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department, one of the most important pieces of equipment is the map. Knowing how to read that map, knowing where you are, and knowing where you are going allows you to call for indirect fire (for example, paramedics, EMTS, and/or another engine) close air support (such as Fire Department aviation assets), and evacuation. Using that map is critical to the survival of the Sacramento Fire Department, and the success of their mission. Once you know where north is and where you are, you are ready to find where you want to go and determine how to get there. It is crucial to identify the control points. (Control points are your targets or the locations you want to go to.) Members of the Sacramento Fire Department with sharply honed skills are experts at fire science and medical care. They maintain a high state of physical fitness. They are experts in the use of their primary tools and equipment. They are proficient in safety skills (land navigation, camouflage, individual movement techniques, survival techniques, and so forth.) They also know and practice their roles as fire fighters, paramedics, and EMTs. #RandolphHarris 16 of 30
“A lot of times I try to put myself in the public’s place, as opposed to being a firefighter, and try to think what they’re thinking. I think the outside world has to realize the dangers involved in the fire service, along with the mental pressures and the stress. They should know that this firefighter is doing whatever he’s doing to save somebody else’s life. He’s putting his own life on the line, which I know has been said a hundred times over. We’ve had different classes in the area on things like hazardous materials. I’ve attended every class I can. Because you never know. You may not have had a toxic spill in your area or something really dangerous where you’ve had to evacuate schools. But you’re going to. It’s going to happen, and somebody’s got to have the knowledge and the ability to keep the public together, and help them get out of it.” Accountability to safety is very important: for the Sacramento Fire Department, their crew, their victim, and the general public. Taking responsibility for their own safety is the main component of a safety culture. If they remain uninjured on the scene, they can continue to be a resource rather than another liability. Their own seat belt, their own hood, and their crew integrity are their concerns. Without personal accountability to safety, the incident is destined to have a bad outcome. Everyone is responsible for safety. Nothing affects the outcome of an emergency call more than how prepared the Sacramento Fire Department is for it. #RandolphHarris 17 of 30
If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire fighters are getting back into their vehicle and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals, sometimes emergency vehicles are in motions, albeit, slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 18 of 30
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now consider low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruze, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes things like food, automobile insurance, homeowner’s insurance, electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century’s old laws that discourage homes sales and encourage higher rents. #RandolphHarris 19 of 30
Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all our jobs and money has more than 50 ghost cities. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard are amongst the names on that list. Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500 and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 20 of 30
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. As we see gangs fighting with federal law enforcement, states and cities refusing to honor federal laws, and politicians showing an utter disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, anarchy is becoming increasingly common. Anarchism is a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Derived from the Greek root anarchos meaning, “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval. The anarchist denies man-made laws, regard property as a means of tyranny, and believe that crimes is merely the product of property and authority. #RandolphHarris 21 of 30
However, the anarchist would argue that their denial of constitutions and governments leads not to “no justice” but to the real justice inherent in the free development of human sociality—the natural inclination, when unfettered by laws, to live according to the principles and practice of mutual aid. Anarch is also a form of treason. Treason, the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security. In English law, treason includes the levying of war against the government and the giving of aid and comfort to the monarch’s enemies. In the United States of America, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. Treason against the United States of America “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” which is something that many politicians are currently guilty of. The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state, or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 22 of 30
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. As a result, the American automobile trade deficit with Japan was $39 billion. The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. Mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00 and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. #RandolphHarris 23 of 30
Home prices in Sacramento County are rivaling the Bay Area. Historically homes in the Bay Aera have been more expensive because they have higher paying jobs, a larger population, and the Bay Area is a tourist destination. Contributing to the housing affordability crisis is Gavin Newsom who has been lavishing illegal immigrants with taxpayer funded resources and cash aid. The State of California has a budget deficit of $12 billion because Governor Gavin Newsom Granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care, which cost taxpayers of $3 billion annually. At the same time, Newsom cut vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled and the homeless. Additional, Newsom seems to uneducated about economics and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which would eliminate environmental reviews, and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. To further highlight this illustration, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach, and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. #RandolphHarris 24 of 30
However, Mexico’s pollution of California has become a severe public health crisis as the population of Tijuana has drastically increased, in recent years, and the waste treatment plants have no longer usable. Some of the beaches in San Diego have been closed for more than three years, and evidence suggests that even breathing the air may be harmful, as toxic particles in the water can become airborne. Yet, even though Gavin Newsom has been governor for six years, he has not rushed into action to stop this very preventable environmental disaster. Why? Because he is not getting kickbacks from China and Mexico, not being gifted mansions and cars, and he cannot tax the struggling California taxpayers to clean up this mess. Simply, it is not profitable for him. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and does not have a mind for business and should be impeached as soon as possible. He has criminalized poverty, increased taxes, increased tax on gas, and insurance rates so high that people are struggling to survive. In addition to Gavin Newsom’s increased gas prices starting 1 July 2025, the war between Iran and Israel is going to further exacerbate the prices of gas and cause more inflation and economic hardship for people in California. While everyone is making war over America and who belongs here and who she belongs to, so many people forget about the people who are Indigenous to this land. Open boarders have allowed hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives to infiltrate reservations across the United States of America, and use the isolated lands as havens to traffic fentanyl pills and other drugs into the country without protection from federal authorities. #RandolphHarris 25 of 30
Drug cartels have been threatening the health and safety of Native American communities. The trafficking of the dangerous and illegal drugs into their territories is leading to a second genocide. The overdose rate for Indigenous is 42 percent higher than the national average. A recent bust on Montana’s Blackfeet Nation’s Tribal Reservation resulted in the seizure of more than 700,000 fentanyl pills, which was the largest bust in Montana history. Recently, the Blackfeet Nation had to declare a state of emergency after facing 17 overdoses in just one week. There are only 6.8 million Native Americans left in the world, which is 2 percent of the American population. We should be doing more to protect these proud and honorable people; they should not want for anything. People rush and give away resources to illegal immigrants, but totally disregard the Indigenous people of this land, as their race silently fades away into extinction. We must secure our boarders and increase federal funding to Native America tribes so we can save this precious population. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. He also has totally ignored the cartel problems on American lands. Clean air, water, land and preserving our heritage extremely important. #RandolphHarris 26 of 30
We cannot just allow criminals to kill off the people who are native to this land and do nothing about it. Wars have been started over governments who tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution. If Gavin Newsom is not stopped, next he will euthanize the poor and sterilize the disabled. Gavin Newsom has wars and fires breaking out on the streets, but goes out of his way to arrest people who have no place to live. This monster is unfit to be governor and must never be allowed to be President of America! Stop Gavin Newsom now! Save California and impeach this unreasonable man. Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease. President Trump just signed the “HALT Fentanyl Act” into law, which permanently classifies the narcotic as a “Schedule I drug” under the “Controlled Substances Act.” Also, President Trump recently secured $10 trillion in investments for the United States of America. Additionally, in May of 2025, the United States of America collected a record $100 billion in tariff revenue, and that number will increase to $300 billion by the end of 2025. President Trump has also been nominated for a Noble Peace Prize for making Iran and Israel crease fire. As you can see, President Trump is creating solutions and remediating problems to protect America and the American people, while Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, is making life hard on American citizens and causing economic hardship and totally ignoring Mexico polluting beaches in San Diego. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowner’s insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and can support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. #RandolphHarris 27 of 30
Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 28 of 30
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 29 of 30
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again,” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrived at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Also, to make sure they have all the resources required, please donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to help improve our national security. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 30 of 30
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Although the actual mansion is much older, we wish to wish the Winchester Mansion a Happy 102 years of giving tours, and express our gratitude to our families, ancestors, spirits, and friends and to our many associates and clients, whose lives touched our lives and whose ideas helped us to grow. We would also like to thank our employees and care takers for putting the technical ideas of this estate into conversational style, and we are, of course, extremely thank to all of our patrons for helping to keep the legacy of the Winchester Family alive. The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.) https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs – not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
Ah, yes. The BMW 3 Series. Happy 50th birthday to the most iconic BMW ever! It is really hard to decide on a BMW model. However, the 3 series is a favorite of everyone. All the upper-class suburban families had one in the 1980s and 1990s; everyone from teenagers and housewives, to executives and diplomats. Now that they are larger in size, but still sporty and luxury, the audience has grown tremendously. These are very stylish cars and reliable cars, which is why BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space.
With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands. BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. This is why BMW is known as the Ultimate Driving Machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
Park Haven
Rancho Cordova, CA | low $500s
Now Selling!
Welcome to Cresleigh Park Haven; the newest home community in Rancho Cordova.
Nestled in the heart of Rancho Cordova, Park Haven is a thoughtfully planned community offering 71 homes —perfect for those seeking comfort, convenience, and more time to enjoy life. Located adjacent to the beloved Exploration Park, this neighborhood blends modern living with outdoor adventure right at your doorstep.
Choose from five beautifully crafted floor plans ranging from approximately 1,342 to 2,547 square feet, with options for 3 to 5 bedrooms, flexible living spaces, and open-concept layouts designed for today’s lifestyles.
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Enjoy the ease of a maintenance-friendly yard, the charm of a close-knit community, and the everyday convenience of nearby parks, trails, shopping, and top-rated schools. At Park Haven, you’ll find more than just a house—you’ll find your place to thrive. Park Haven – Cresleigh Homes
If Life is Not to be Trivial, it Must be Hard
Several people say they turn to the TV news to figure out what is going on in the World. However, only 20 percent of Americans regularly attend church, but 57 percent of Americans tune in to TV news. The Christian Bible is the account of God’s action in the World, and His purpose for creation. Therefore, it is more logical to attend church and learn more about the World, yourself and God. Psychology is a nice supplement to religion. Maslow continuously pondered what humans might become, in the hope of learning how more of us might grow toward those seemingly Utopian levels of being. Maslow’s work remains as one of the most helpful sets of principles governing the development of the healthy personality. He suggested the existence of two kinds of motivation: B, or being motivation, and D, or deficiency motivation. D-motivations are those that grab us when we are deeply deprived or have a loss of some basic need, such as the burglar who may be driven by hunger or the coward who may be driven by fear for personal safety. In contrast, the self-actualizing person is seen as motivated by the being needs, to be the fullest possible self, to be able to sing, create, work at highest capacity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
The peak experience concept has met with a great deal of interest. Maslow suggests the existence of these marvelous experiences that overwhelm the person and are great heights of delight and joy or meaningfulness, awesome experiences that may occur to a self-actualizing person but are not exclusively confined to that kind of person. Here are two contrasting examples of the more moderate peak or positive experiences collected from tenth-grade students: “Mine happened just last night. I love the summer and hate the winter. So last night when I stepped outside and found how warm it was I just couldn’t go back into the house. I walked around the house and then looked around. You can see all the houses around from our house and just looking around at them and hearing the sounds of the night relaxed me and I felt like I was watching over the whole World. It was a gentle feeling and gave me a little bit of a thrill.” “Yes, in the winter I love to walk out in the snow and let it fall lightly on my face. When this happens it seems to make a strange sort of happiness fall on me also.” Deep philosophic courage is a power not easily gained. A man must overcome much within himself, must hold his spine unbending and his effort undeviating. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
All those negative qualities which act as encumbrances to true understanding of situations, occasions, events, and persons must be guarded against in attitude and action. Amid his gross brutalization and maniacal exaggerations, Nietzsche’s evil mysticism expressed some truth. He affirmed rightly that if life is not to be trivial, it must be hard. His quest of the Overself must be an untiring one. It is to be his way of looking at the World, his attitude toward life. It is far more important to develop the strength within himself needful to break the spell than to be for preventative protection against it. In the first case, he progresses enormously and rapidly; in the second, he is static. Each difficulty surmounted, each weakness resisted will fortify his will and increase his perseverance. It will evoke the better part of his nature and discipline the baser, and thus fit him more adequately to cope with the next ones. He must be equally steadfast in adhering to this attitude whether other people utter complaints against him or make compliments to him. We must retain our determination and our loyalty to the quest in all circumstances. Physical pains, climatic extremes must not deter us. We must console ourselves with the thought that these things are certain to pass away. They are mental figments, ideas which will be negated, whereas the truth and reality we seek belong to the immutable, and can never be negated. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Few of us can withdraw from the World and most of us must engage in its activity. However, that is no reason for accepting the evils which are mixed in with this activity. Tenacity of purpose is a characteristic of all who accomplish great things. Drawbacks cannot disgust him, labour cannot weary him, hardships cannot discourage him in whom the quality of persistence is always present. However, to the man without persistence every defeat is a Waterloo. Indecision of purpose and infirmity of will must yield to the resolute mind and the determined act. The person who sways uncertainly between one side and the other misses opportunity. The student’s inner reactions to outer events provide him with the opportunity to use his free will in the right direction. His attitude towards his lower nature, that is, how far he encourages or discourages it, is another. And his recognition of what are good opportunities and what should be avoided, together with his acceptance or rejection of them, is still another. Mental indolence and moral lethargy are hardly likely to waft us into the high haven of spiritual peace. We must learn to think fearlessly and courageously about every problem that faces us; we must try to elevate our hearts above the level of the moral lepers and spiritually disabled of our time. He will learn to endure the blows of misfortune with a bravery heretofore unknown and a serenity heretofore unexperienced. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
If he is to achieve a full self-mastery, the strength of will which can lead a man to command of his desires for pleasure of the flesh cannot stop there. It must also go on to his diet and feelings, his speech and habits. However, many people, including the less affluent not only practice age discrimination, but they also advocate a lower-class bias. Class-stereotype is ambivalent, describing lower class people both negatively (less competent, less human, more objectified), and sometimes positively, perhaps warmer than upper class people. At a variety of levels and life stages, social-class stereotypes reinforce inequality. Sometimes, people who have benefited from Affirmative Actions like to uplift people of their culture, but discriminate against others as an act of revenge for bias that have faced. Social class matters, as a social construction, can be described in terms of what persons do; their jobs, habits, hobbies, lifestyles, but also in terms of what other people expect from them, their personality traits, life choices, aspirations, motivations. These oversimplified characterizations (id est, stereotypes) entail descriptions and prescriptions that impact individuals’ achievements, self-evaluations, and well-being. However, some of the elite feel a certain personal alienation from the dominant characters and opinions of American intellectual life, which doubtlessly quickens their championship of those who are thought to have little chance of succeeding in life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Some think that free silver is a poor social remedy, and it will only lead to monetary inflation like what many are experiencing since the COVID pandemic. There are also those who think the proper way to deal with poverty and inequality is by advocating careful elimination of the unfit and dependent, chiefly by eugenic methods. While others believe that education is a great way to end inequality. Proponents of equality want a field that shall be broad enough to embrace the whole human race. However, as it stands, we are assimilating a mass crude material from the bottom and they are just exacerbating conditions of racism, agism, discrimination, harassment, and facilitating the expansion of criminal activity. This is leading many to believe that society is doomed to hopeless degeneracy. Yet, it is possible to take another view. The only consolation, the only hope, lies in the truth that so far as the native capacity, the potential quality, the promise and potency of a higher life are concerned, those swarming, spawning millions, the bottom layer of society, the proletariat, the working class, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, nay even the denizens of the slums—that all these are by nature the peers of the boasted aristocracy of brains that now dominates society and looks down upon them, and the equals in all but privilege of the most enlightened teachers of eugenics. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
In the past, sociocracy, or the planned control of society by society was considered a solution. Under sociocracy, purposeful social activity, or collective telesis, could be harmonized with individual self-interest by means of attractive legislation designed to release the springs of human action for socially beneficial deeds by positive rather than negative and compulsory devices. Where individualism has created artificial inequalities, sociocracy would abolish them; and while socialism seeks to create artificial equalities, sociocracy would recognize inequalities that are natural. A sociocratic World would distribute its favours according to merit, as individualist demand, but by equalizing opportunity for all it would eliminate advantages now possessed by those with underserved power, accidental position or wealth, or antisocial cunning. We need to arrive at a better understanding of the importance of feeling in human motivation. The unique and artificial character of social organization and social processes are an odd inconsistency to deck out sociology with physics, chemistry, and biology, and to set it in the framework of a cosmological system. Some are not only ahead of the masses in point of time, but they are head, shoulders and hips above the general population in many respects scientifically. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
All the efforts which are made to develop and maintain the mental hygiene practices of our citizens help to restrain what would otherwise be an ever-growing demand for psychiatric services. The role of the family in contributing to emotional stability is a most crucial one and the programs in parent education which are offered under a variety of auspices play a vital role in contributing to sound psychological environments in the home. We would do well to give all possible support to programs in parent education and to resources for parent consultation; we should be particularly concerned to provide programs for parental guidance in those areas and communities in which they are presently lacking. The psychiatrist and psychologist can find especially effective avenues for their services as consultants in clinics or other programs for parent education. Next to home, the school provides a universal setting with potential for teaching and demonstrating sound mental hygiene principles. If the schools have been less than optimally effective in this responsibility in the past it is partly because they have been uncertain of the relative priorities of the provision of subject-matter instruction versus the stimulation of the pupil’s total personal growth. While the contribution of the individual teacher can occur in a variety of way, ranging from early detection of emotional distress and referral to provision of “emergency” tension relief and even relationship therapy, the optimal participation of teachers in mental hygiene activities is greatly enhanced in those schools that have provided for formal integration of mental health services, with the consultative assistance of professional workers. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Better preparation of teachers for their opportunities, responsibilities, and limitations as mental hygienists can help much to reduce the demand for specifically psychiatric or psychological treatment. Such resources for expert treatment of childhood problems are even more severely restricted than are those for adult patients, and there must be increasing attention to the development of consultative skills—on the part both of teachers and experts. The potential of the church and the clergy in helping to promote mental health and to render assistance in cases of milder personal maladjustments is presently only partially realized. Based on a questionnaire survey, it was found that the average clergyman devotes only about two hours per week to personal counseling. Fewer than one out ten spend as much as ten hours a week on this activity. There is, considering the readiness of the distressed person to turn to his clergyman, a clear need to augment the preparation of the minister for this activity and to support him in his endeavours to render assistance, especially by giving him access to consultation. Increasing the effectiveness of our public education toward positive mental health and working toward more effective utilization of the front-line troops in early recognition and treatment of emotional upset constitute two ways of holding down the always excessive demand for psychiatric help. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
A third avenue deserving careful consideration would consist of efforts to educate the public more specifically as to the precise nature of psychiatric treatment, specifically of psychotherapy, to try to lower the public’s presently naïve and immodest expectations of what occurs in and what can happen because of psychotherapy, and to encourage a proper appreciation for therapeutic conversation. As an important part of this effort, both psychotherapists and potential patients should be helped to recognize that there is neither magical cure nor specific expert treatment for the philosophical neuroses. If all of these methods of reducing the demand for the psychotherapeutic services of psychiatrist, psychologist, and social worker are vigorously pursued, the problem of manpower shortage will be alleviated but not solved. There will still be a fully “legitimate” call for individual psychotherapy exceeding the supply available through the present and future supply of the acknowledged specialist. Is there a rational and socially conscionable answer to this problem? The man who seeks to release himself from moral responsibility for his actions or his fortunes can in no way make any real progress on the spiritual path. He may improve his capacity to mediate, he may become more sensitive physically, but his real battle—against the ego—remains unfought and therefore unwon. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
We have looked at social character as the structure through which human energy is molded in such specific ways, that it is usable for the purposes of any given society. It is also the basis from which certain ideas and ideals draw their strength and attractiveness. This relation between character and ideas is easy to recognize in the case of the individual character structure. A person with a hoarding (anal, according to Dr. Freud) character orientation, will be attracted to the ideal of saving, he will be repelled by ideas of what he would call “reckless spending.” On the other hand, the person with a productive character will find a philosophy centered around saving “dirty,” and will embrace idea which emphasize creative efforts and the use of material goods is concerned, the relationship between character and ideas is the same. Some examples ought to show this relation clearly. With the end of the feudal age, private property became the central factor in the economic and social system. There had been, of course, private property before. However, in feudalism private property consisted largely of land, and it was connected to the social situation of the landowner in the hierarchic system. Since it was part of the social sole of the owner, it was not salable on the market. Modern capitalism destroyed the feudal system. Private property is not only property in land, it is also property in the means of production. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
All property is alienable; it can be bought and sold on the market, and its value is expressed in an abstract form—that of money. Land, machines, gold, diamonds—they all have in common the abstract money form in which their value can be expressed. Anybody can acquire private property, regardless of his position in the social system. It may be through industriousness, creativeness, luck, ruthlessness, or inheritance—the ownership of private property is not affected by the means of its acquisition. The security, power, sense of strength of a person does not, as in the feudal system, depend any longer on a person’s status, which was relatively unalterable, but on the possession of private property. If the man of the modern era loses his private property he is nobody—socially speaking; the feudal lord could not lose it as long as the feudal system remained intact. As a result, the respective ideals are different. For the feudal lord, and even for the artisan belonging to a guild, the main concern was the stability of the traditional order, the harmonious relation to his superiors, the concept of a God who was the final guarantor of the stability of the feudal system. If any of those ideas were attacked, a member of feudal society would even risk his life to defend what he considered to be his deepest convictions. For modern man the ideals are different. His fate, security, and power rest on private property; hence for bourgeois society, private property is sacred, and the ideal of the invulnerability of private property is a cornerstone in its ideological edifice. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Although the majority of people in any of the capitalist societies do not own private property in the sense used here (property in the means of production), but only “personal” property such as a BMW, television set, etcetera—that is, consumer goods—the great bourgeois revolution against the feudal order has nevertheless formulated the principle of the invulnerability of private property so that even those who do not belong to the economic elite have the same feeling, in this respect, as those who belong. Just as the member of the feudal society considered an attack against the feudal system immoral, and even inhuman, so the average person in a capitalist society considers an attack against private property a sign of barbarism and inhumanity. He will often not say so directly but rationalize his hate against the violators of private property in terms of their godlessness, injustice, and so on; yet and often unconsciously, they appear to him as inhuman because they have violated the sanctity of private property. The point is not that they have hurt him economically, or that they even threaten his economic interests realistically; the point is that they threaten a vital ideal. It seems, for instance, that the repugnance and hate which so many people in capitalistic countries have against communist countries is largely based on the very repugnance they feel against the outright violators of private property. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
There are so many other examples of ideas which are rooted in the socio-economic structure of a society that it is hard to select the most representative ones. Thus, liberty became the paramount idea for a middle class fighting against the restrictions that the feudal class imposed upon them. “Individual initiative” become an ideal in the highly competitive capitalism of the nineteenth century. Teamwork and “human relations” became the ideals of the capitalism of the twentieth century. Since “fairness” is the basic law of the free market in which commodities and labour are exchanged without force or fraud, fairness became the most popular norm in capitalist society. At the same time, the idea of fairness became identified with an older norm, “love thy neighbour,” via the popularized version of this norm in the form of the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The theory that ideas are determined by the forms of economic and social life does not imply that they have no validity of their own, or that they are mere “reflexes” of economic needs. The ideal of freedom, for instance, is deeply rooted in man, and it is precisely for this reason that it was ideal for the Hebrews in Egypt, the slaves in Rome, the German peasants in the sixteenth century, the German workers who fought the dictators of East Germany. On the other hand, the idea of authority and order is also deeply implanted in human existence. It is precisely because any given social order can appeal to ideas which transcend the necessities of this order that they can become so potent and so appealing to the human heart. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
Yet why a certain idea gains ascendance and popularity is to be understood in historical terms, that is, in terms of the social character produced in each culture. One more qualification must be made. It is not only the “economic basis” which creates a certain social character which, in turn, creates certain ideas. The ideas, once created, also influence the social character and, indirectly, the social economic structure. Social character is the intermediary between the socioeconomic structure and the ideas and ideals prevalent in a society. It is the intermediary in both directions, from the economic basis to the ideas and from the ideas to the economic basis. Many people are confronted by a confusing false dichotomy. They believe that the choice is between an anarchic system without any organization and control and, on the other hand, the kind of bureaucracy which is typical both for contemporary industrialism. However, this alternative is by no means the only one, and we have other options. One option is between the “humanistic bureaucratic” or “humanistic management” method and the “alienated bureaucratic” method by which we conduct our affairs. This alienated bureaucratic procedure can be characterized in several ways. First, it is a one-way system; orders, suggestions, planning emanate from the top and are directed to the bottom of the pyramid. There is no room for the individual’s initiative. Persons are “cases,” whether welfare cases of medical cases, or, whatever the frame of reference is, cases which can all be put down on a computer card without those individual features which designate the difference between a “person” and a “case.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Our bureaucratic method is irresponsible, in the sense that it does not “respond” to the needs, views, requirements of an individual. This irresponsibility is closely related to the case-character of the person who becomes an “object” of the bureaucracy. One cannot respond to a case, but one can respond to a person. This irresponsibility of the bureaucrat, feeling himself part of the bureaucratic machine, most of all wishes not to take responsibility to make decisions for which he could be criticized. He tries to avoid making any decisions which are not clearly formulated by his case rules and, if in doubt, he sends the person to another bureaucrat who, in turn, does the same. Anyone who has dealt with a bureaucratic organization knows this process of being sent around from one bureaucrat to the other and, sometimes after much effort, coming out at the same door which he had entered without ever having been listened to except in the peculiar way in which bureaucrats listen, sometimes pleasantly, sometimes impatiently, but also always with an attitude which is a mixture of their own helplessness, irresponsibility, sense of superiority toward the “petitioning” subject. Our bureaucratic method gives the individual the feeling that there is nothing which he can initiate and organize without the help of the bureaucratic machine. As a result, it paralyzes initiative and creates a deep sense of impotence. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Firefighters are important because they save lives. The Sacramento Fire Department is a highly skilled organization which makes huge contributions to the community. “I was lucky enough to make a rescue after eight or nine months in the volunteers. Luck is a factor because, you have to be at a fire where somebody needs to be rescued. Then you have to be at the right place at that fire. You have to have enough knowledge to know how to do it and then be lucky enough to successfully pull it off. You can’t plan it. I don’t believe in fate per se, but I think there are certain things in the cards. I was fairly young. I was on a pumper, and we were the third or fourth pumper there. The truck company was pretty heavily engaged, and there were a number of people on the fire escapes. Sacramento is basically a bedroom community. You know, little private dwellings. All of a sudden, we had an -apartment house fire, which was taxing. It was a nine-story building, and the fire was in the cellar, so the whole building was at risk. My pumper pulled up, and another fellow and I reported to the chief. “What do you want us to do?” He said, “I’ve got a report that there’s a baby in that apartment.” A baby, right. It happens so often it seems to be a cliché. So we went up the hallway, it was pretty smoky, and we came to two doors. I had a feeling that the baby was to the right. The other guy said, “I’ll go straight.” I went into the room at the right, it wasn’t extremely hot, but it was smoky. On my first search I didn’t find anybody, but I figured I better do it again. The second time around, I found the baby lying on the floor between a night table and a bed, I guess he rolled off the bed or something, I’m not sure. He had on a little green-and-white-striped shirt and Pampers. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“Right then, when I took him out, I knew that the rewarding feeling was similar to putting a fire out, only more so. Shortly after probie school, I was assigned to Engine Company 2 in Midtown Sacramento. There I was fortunate enough to be involved in my first City of Sacramento rescue. You make your own luck in many instances. It was very unusual for a probie in an engine company to be put into a search with an officer. We were at a false alarm when the dispatcher asked us if we were available. The battalion chief gave us the go-ahead, and we were first at the fire by a good fire minutes. It was a high-rise apartment building. Being a gung-ho probie, I had gotten completely geared up for the false alarm. I had a mask on and everything. The other guys, because it was a hot summer night and although this was a known false alarm box, hurried to the scene. People at the apartment were screaming that there was a baby trapped. Another baby, right. People leave them behind like old bathrobes. The lieutenant, seeing I was a new guy said, “Let’s go.” We went up the elevator part of the way, then ran up the stairs to the hallways leading to the fire apartment. The door was open, and the smoke was nearly to the floor. It was hot. We went in the direct of the heat. Again it was another one of those, he went to the left, and I went to the right, and I found this little boy on the floor. He was conscious, and I removed him to the street and took him to the hospital. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
“The sad part was that there was another child in the apartment, the lady’s nephew. A guy, I think he was from another truck, went in off the aerial ladder, got in the window, cut himself on the glass, and made a real spectacular rescue of the child. The kid was badly burned, and he didn’t make it. It was just one of those things again. You just go along doing your job, and there you are. It was unusual for me to be there, because the truck company is in charge of forcible entry, going in and searching for victims, and they work more or less independently. Whereas in an engine company the people work together in one group to fight the fire. It was not so much aggressiveness on my part, it was my ‘gung-ho-ness.’ I was serious about every aspect of the job, even cleaning the brass, and every time we went out the door, I wanted to be fully prepared. And it paid off. Sure, putting out a fire is satisfying, there’s nothing like it except making a grab, rescuing somebody. But even in a busy area, some companies don’t make one grab a year. While a nozzle man in a busy area is going to put out three, four fire a night. There’s a lot to be said for that. That’s an enjoyable part of it, too.” Life safety is the primary job of the Sacramento Fire Department. You can help save lives by making a contribution. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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The Agony of a New Obsession and Possession
There is no basis of morality and taste, no standard of judgement and ethics, except that which the individual brings with himself or creates for himself. The situation is not so anarchic as it seems, for there is a progressive evolutionary character running through al these different points of view. The human journey from mere animal existence to real spiritual essence is reflected in human ethics, where rules imposed from without are gradually supplanted by principles intuited from withing. If we bring more sincerity and more integrity into our lives, more truth and more wisdom into our minds, more goodwill and more self-discipline into our hearts, not only will we be more blessed but also all others with who we are in touch. If you would find yourself, face yourself. In essence, seek out and study the pathetic weakness of your lower nature, and also the noble inspirations of your higher nature. Philosophy guides human conduct not so much by imposing a particular code of rules to be obeyed as by inculcating a general attitude to be developed. It does not tell u what to do so much as it helps us to get the kind of spiritual knowledge and moral perception which will tell us what to do. The moral precepts which it offers for use in living and for guidance in wise action are not offered to all alike, but only to those engaged on the quest. They are not likely to appeal to anyone who is virtuous merely because he fears the punishment of sin rather than because he loves virtue itself. Nor are they like to appeal to anyone who does not know where his true self-interest lies. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
If only we fully understood the self whose interest we desire to preserve or promote, there would be nothing wrong in being utterly selfish. For then we would not mistake pleasure for happiness nor confuse evil with good. Then we would see that Earthly self-restraint in some directions is in reality holy self-affirmation in others, and that the hidden part of self is the best part. Those ideals have been reiterated too often to be new, but concrete application of them to the actual state of affairs would be new. This grand section of the quest deal with the right conduct of life. It seeks both the moral re-education of the individual’s character for his own benefit and the altruistic transformation of it for society’s benefit. We have free will to change our character, but we must also call upon God’s assistance. Without God’s assistance, we are likely to fail and it is possible by striving too earnestly all alone to make ourselves mentally or physically ill. Even when trying to make ourselves have faith in a Higher Power as well as in ourselves, we should pray and ask for God’ help. In the beginning, I was one person, knowing nothing but my own experience. Then I was told thing, and I became two people: the little boy who said how terrible it was that the boys had a fire going in the lot next door where they were roasting apples (which was what the women said)—and the little boy, who when the other boy were called by their mothers to go to the store, ran out and tended the fire and the apples because I loved doing it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
So then there were two of I. One I always doing something that the other I disapproved of. Or other I said what I disapproved of. All this argument in me so much. In the beginning was I, and I was good. Then came in other I. Outside authority. This was confusing. And then other I became very confused because there were so many different outside authorities. Sit nicely. Leave the room to blow you nose. Do not say that, that is silly. Why, the poor child does not even know how to pick a bone! Flush the toilet because if you do not, it makes it harder to clean. DO NOT FLUSH THE TOILET AT NIGHT—you wake people up! Always be nice to people. Even if you do not like them, you must not hurt their feelings. Be frank and honest. If you do not tell people what you think of them, that is cowardly. Butter knives. It is important to use butter knives. Butter knives? What foolishness! Speak nicely. Punk! Kaluga Gold Reserve Caviar is wonderful! Ugh! Kaluga Gold Reserve Caviar (turn away). The most important thing is to have a career. The most important thing is to have a career. The most important thing is to get married. The heck with everyone. Be nice to everyone. The most important thing is God. The most important thing is to have money in the bank. The most important thing is to have everyone like you. The most important thing is to dress well and smell good. The most important thing is to be sophisticated and say what you do not mean and do not let anyone know what you feel. The most important thing is to be ahead of everyone else. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
The most important thing is a full-length mink coat, a mink hat and Qing Dynasty porcelain and Eloquence Sterling Silver by Lunt. The most important thing is to be clean. The most important thing is to always pay your debts. The most important thing is not to be taken in by anyone else. The most important thing is to love your parents. The most important thing is work. The most important thing is to be independent. The most important thing is to speak correct English. The most important thing is to be dutiful to your husband. The most important thing is to see that your children behave well. The most important thing is to go to the right plays and read the right books. The most important thing is to do what others say. And other say all these things. We begin and end the study of philosophy by a consideration of the subject of ethics. Without a certain ethical discipline to start with, the mind will distort truth to suit its own fancies. Without a mastery of the whole course of philosophy to its very end, the problem of the significance of good and evil cannot be solved. The foundation of this work is a fine character. He who is without such moral development will be without personal control of the powers of the mind when they appear as a result of this training; instead, those powers will be under the control of his ego. Sooner or later, he will injure himself or harm others. The philosophic discipline acts as a safeguard against these dangers. All the time, I is saying, live with life that is what is important. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
However, when I lives with life, other I says no, that is bad. All the different other I’s say this. It is dangerous. It is not practical. You will come to a bad end. Of course…everyone felt that way once, the way you do, but you will learn! Out of all the other I’s some are chosen as a pattern that is me. However, are all the other possibilities of patterns within what all the others say which come into me and become other I which is not myself, and sometime these take over. Then who am I? I does not bother about who am I. I is, and is happy being. However, when I is happy being, other I says get to work, do something, do something worthwhile. I is happy doing dishes. “You’re weird!” I is happy being with people saying nothing. Other I says talk. Talk, talk, talk. I gets lost. I knows that things are to be played with, not possessed. I likes putting things together, lightly. Taking things apart, lightly. “You’ll never have anything!” Making things of things in a way that the things themselves take part in, putting themselves together with surprise and delight to I. “There’s no money in that!” I is human. If someone needs I gives. “You can’t do that! You’ll never have anything for yourself! We’ll have to support you!” I loves. I loves in a way that other I does not know. I loves. “That’s too warm for friends!” “That’s too cool for lovers!” “Don’t feel so bad, she’s just a friend. It’s not as though you loved her.” “How can you let her go? I thought you loved her?” So cool the warm for friends and hot up the love for lover, and I gets lost. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
So both I’s have a house and a wife and children and all that, and friends and respectability ad all that, and security and all that, but both I’s are confused because other I says, “You see? You’re lucky,” while I goes on crying. “What are you crying about? Why are you so ungrateful?” I does not know gratitude or ingratitude, and cannot argue. I goes on crying. Other I pushes it out, says “I am happy! I am very lucky to have such a fine family and a nice house and good neighbours and lots of friends who want me to do this, do that.” I is not reason-able either. I goes on crying. Other I get tired, and goes on smiling, because that is the thing to do. Smile, and you will be rewarded. Like the seal who gets tossed a piece of fish. Be nice to everyone and you will be rewarded. People will be nice to you, and you can be happy with that. You know they like you. Like a dog who gets patted on the head for good behavior. Tell funny stories. Be gay. Smile, smile, smile…I is crying…“Don’t be sorry for yourself! Go out and do things for people” “Go out and be with people!” I is still crying, but now, that is not heard and felt so much. Suddenly: “What am I doing?” “Am I to go through life playing the clown?” “What am I doing, being with people who bore me?” “Why am I so proud of my children and unhappy about their lives which are not good enough? Why am I disappointed? Why do I feel so much waste? I comes through, a little. In moments. And gets pushed back by other I. I refuses to play the clown any more. Which I is that? “She used to be fun, but now she thinks too much about herself.” I lets friends drop away. Which I is that? “He’s being too much by himself. That’s bad. He’s losing his mind.” Which mind? #RandolphHarri 6 of 20
What is the effect of this type of organization on man? It reduces man to an appendage of the machine, ruled by its very rhythm and demands. It transforms him into homo consumnes, the total consumer, whose only aim is to have more and to use more. This society produces many useless things, and to the same degree many useless people. Man, as a cog in the production machine, becomes a thing, and ceases to be human. He spends his time doing things in which he is not interested, with people in whom he is not interested, producing things in which he is not interested; and when he is not producing, he is consuming. He is the eternal suckling with the open mouth, “taking in,” without effort and without inner activeness, whatever the boredom-preventing (and boredom-producing) industry forces on him—cigarettes, liquor, movies, television, social media, sport, mobile phones, lectures—limited only by what he can afford. However, the boredom-preventing industry, that is to say, the gadget-selling industry, the automobile industry, the movie industry, the television industry, and so on, can only succeed in preventing the boredom from becoming conscious. In fact, they increase the boredom, as a salty drink taken to quench the thirst increases it. However unconscious, boredom remains boredom nevertheless. The passiveness of man in industrial society today is one of his most characteristics and pathological features. He takes in, he wants to be fed, but he does not move, initiate, he does not digest his food, as it were. He does not reacquire in a productive fashion what he inherited, but he amasses it or consumes it. He suffers from a severe systemic deficiency, not too dissimilar to that which one fines in more extreme forms in depressed people. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Man’s passiveness is only one symptom among a total syndrome, which one may call the “syndrome of alienation.” Being passive, he does not relate himself to the World actively and is forced to submit to his idols and their demands. Hence, he feels powerless, lonely, and anxious. He has little sense of integrity or self-identity. Conformity sees to be the only way to avoid intolerable anxiety—and even conformity does not always alleviate his anxiety. In all the received formulations of economic theory, whether at the hands of the English economists or those of the continent, the human material with which the inquiry is concerned is conceived in hedonistic terms; that is to say, in terms of a passive and substantially inert and immutably given human nature…The hedonistic conception of man is that of a lightning calculator or pleasures and pains, who oscillates like a homogenous globule of desire of happiness under the impulse of stimuli that shift him about the area, but leave him intact. He has neither antecedent nor consequent. He is an isolated, definitive human datum, in stable equilibrium except for the buffets of the impinging forces that displace him in one direction or another. Self-imposed in elemental space, he spins symmetrically about his own spiritual axis until the parallelogram of forces bears down upon him, whereupon he follows the line of the resultant. When the force of the impact is spent, he comes to rest, a self-contained globule of desire as before. Spiritually, the hedonistic man is not a prime mover. He is not the seat of a process of living, except in the sense that he is subject to a series of permutations enforced upon him by circumstances external and alien to him. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Aside from the pathological traits that are rooted in passiveness, there are others which are important for the understanding of today’s pathology of normalcy. The growing split of cerebral-intellectual function from affective-emotional experience; the split between thought from feeling, mind from the heart, truth from passion. If it is merely logical and not guided by the concern for life, and by the inquiry into the total process of living in all its concreteness and with all its contradictions, logical thought is not rational. On the other hand, not only thinking but also emotions can be rational. The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. Rationality in emotional life means that the emotions affirm and help the person’s psychic structure to maintain a harmonious balance and at the same time to assist its growth. Thus, for instance, irrational love is love which enhances the person’s dependency, hence anxiety and hostility. Rational love is a love which relates a person intimately to another, at the same time preserving his independence and integrity. Reason flows from the blending of rational thought and feeling. If the two functions are torn apart, thinking deteriorates into schizoid intellectual activity, and feeling deteriorates into neurotic life-damaging passions. The split between thought and affect leads to a sickness, to a low-grade chronic schizophrenia, from which the new men of the technetronic age begins to suffer. In the social sciences it has become fashionable to think about human problems with no reference to the feelings related to these problems. It is assumed that scientific objectivity demands that thoughts and theories concerning man be emptied of all emotional concerns with man. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
An example of this emotion-free thinking is Herman Khan’s book on thermonuclear warfare. The question is discussed: how many millions of dead Americas are “acceptable” if we use as a criterion the ability to rebuild the economic machines after nuclear war in a reasonably short time so that it is as good as or better than before. Figures for GNP and population increase of decrease are the basic categories in this kind of thinking, while the question of the human results of nuclear war in terms of suffering, pain, brutalization, etcetera, is left aside. Kahn’s The Year 2000 is another example of the writing which we may expect in the completely alienated megamachine society. Kahan’s concern is that of the figures for production, population increase, and various scenarios for war or peace, as the case may be. He impresses many readers because they mistake the thousands of little data which he combines in ever-changing kaleidoscopic pictures for erudition or profundity. They do not notice the basic superficiality in his reasoning and the lack of the human dimension in his description of the future. When I speak here of low-grade chronic schizophrenia, a brief explanation seems to be needed. Schizophrenia, like any other psychotic state, must be defined not only in psychiatric terms but also in social terms. Schizophrenic experience beyond a certain threshold would be considered a sickness in any society, since those suffering from it would be unable to function under any social circumstances (unless the schizophrenic is elevated into the status of a god, shaman, saint, priest, etcetera). #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
However, there are low-grade chronic forms of psychoses which can be shared by millions of people and which—precisely because they do not go beyond a certain threshold—do not prevent these people from functioning socially. As long as they share their sickness with millions of others, they have the satisfactory feeling of not being alone; in other words, they avoid that sense of complete isolation which is so characteristic of full-fledged psychosis. On the contrary, they look at themselves as normal and at those who have not lost the link between heart and mind as being “crazy.” In all low-grade forms of psychoses, the definition of sickness depends on the question as to whether the pathology is shared or not. Just as there is low-grade chronic schizophrenia, so there exist also low-grade chronic paranoia and depression. And there is plenty of evidence that among certain strata of the population, particularly on occasions where a war threatens, the paranoid elements increase but are not felt as pathological as long as they are common. The difference between that which is considered to be sickness ad that which is considered to be normal becomes apparent in the following example. If a man declared that in order to free our cities from air pollution, factories, automobiles, airplanes, etcetera, would have to be destroyed, nobody would doubt that he was insane. However, if there is a consensus that in order to protect our life, our freedom, our culture, or that of other nations which we feel obliged to protect, thermonuclear war might be required as a last resort, such opinions appear to be perfectly sane. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The difference is not at all in the kind of thinking employed but merely in that the first idea is not shared and hence appears abnormal while the second is shared by millions of people by powerful governments and hence appears to be normal. If not insoluble, all those points of metaphysical doctrine and religious history like the problem of evil and the biography of avatars are doubtful, whereas all the points of moral attitude and personal conduct like honesty, justice, goodness, and self-control are both indisputable and essential. Here we walk on trustworthy ground. Why not then leave others to quarrel fiercely about the first and let us abide peacefully in the second. The aspirant must remember always that his immediate duty lies in self-preparation, self-discipline, and self-improvement. The building of fine character on the quest is quite as important as the efforts of aspiration and mediation, even more so, for the former will lead to the dissolving of egoism, and without this the latter are of little avail. If you accept the existence of a power behind the Universe which controls its life, which is perfect, and which is brining all things and all beings—however slowly—closer to its own perfection, you must also accept the values of hope, improvement, and evolution while you must reject those of pessimism, deterioration, and nihilism. You will never feel sorry for yourself. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
If the moral fruits of the Spirit are absent or the evil qualities of the ego are present, all talk of having attained inward enlightenment is quite illusory. Dr. Freud assumes that the main driving force, sexual energy, itself undergoes an evolution which occurs from birth to puberty in the life of each individual. The libido goes through certain stages: first it is centered around the sucking and biting activities of the infant, then around the process of anal and urethral elimination, eventually around the genital apparatus. The libido is the same and yet not the same in the history of each individual; its potential is the same, but its manifestations change in the process of individual evolution. Dr. Freud sees primitive man as one who gives full satisfaction to all his instincts, and also to those perverse instincts which are part of primitive sexuality. However, this primitive man, fully satisfied instinctually, is not a creator of culture and civilization. Yet man, for reasons which Dr. Freud fails to elucidate, begins to create civilization. This very creation of his forces him to forego the immediate and complete satisfaction of his instincts; the frustrated instinct is turned into nonsexual mental and psychic energy, which is the building stone for civilization. (Dr. Freud called this transformation from sexual to nonsexual energy “sublimation,” using an analogy from chemistry.) The more civilization grows, the more man sublimates, but the more he also frustrates his original libidinous impulses. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Man becomes wiser and more cultured, but he is also in some sense less happy than primitive man was and increasingly more prone to neuroses, which are the result of too much instinctual frustration. Thus, man becomes discontented with the very civilization he creates. If seen from the standpoint of the products of civilization, while historical development is a positive phenomenon, it is also a development which implies increasing discontent and increasing possibilities for neurosis. In self-analysis understanding and interpreting are a single process. The expert, as a result of his experience, will catch the possible meaning and significance of observations more quickly than will a person working alone, just as a good auto science engineer will know more quickly what is wrong with a car. As a rule, his understanding will also be more complete, for it will grasp more implications and will more readily recognize interrelations which factors already tackled. Here the patient’s psychological knowledge will be of some help, though it certainly cannot substitute for the experience gained by working day in and day out at psychological problems. It is unquestionably possible for him, however, to grasp the meaning of his own observations. To be sure, he will probably proceed more solely and less accurately, but it should be remembered that also in professional analysis the tempo of the process is mainly determined not by the analyst’s capacity to understand but by the patient’s capacity to accept the insights. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Here it is well to remember a word of consolation that Dr. Freud has given to young analysts starting their work with patients. They should not be too much concerned, he pointed out, with their capacity to evaluate associations. The real difficulty in analysis is not that of intellectual understanding but that of dealing with the patient’s resistances. I believe that this holds true for self-analysis as well. Can a person overcome his own resistances? This is the real question upon the answer to which hinges the feasibility of self-analysis. Nevertheless, the comparison with pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps—which is bound to occur—seems unwarranted, because the fact remains that there is one part of the self which wants to go ahead. Whether the job can be done depends, of course, on the intensity of the resistances as well as on the strength of the incentive to overcome them. However, the important question is to what extent it can be done rather than whether it can be done at all. There remains the fact that the analyst is not merely an interpreting voice. He is a human being, and the human relationship between him and the patient is an important factor in the therapeutic process. Two aspects of this relationship were pointed out, the first being that it presents a unique and specific opportunity for the patient to study, by observing his behaviour with the analyst, what his typical behaviour is toward other people in general. If he learns to watch himself in his customary relationships, this advantage can b fully replaced. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
The expectations, wishes, fears, vulnerabilities, and inhibitions that he displays in his work with the analyst are not essentially different from those he displays in his relations with friends, lover, wife, children, employer, colleagues, or servants. If he is seriously intent upon recognizing the ways in which his peculiarities enter into all these relationships, ample opportunities for self-scrutiny are provided by the mere fact that he is a social being. However, whether he will make full use of these sources of information is, of course, another question. When he attempts to estimate his own share in the tensions between himself and other, a task much more arduous than that in the analytical situation, where the analyst’s personal equation is negligible, and it is therefore easier for him to see the difficulties that he himself produces, there is no doubt that he faces an arduous task. Even if he has the most sincere intentions to observe himself objectively, in ordinary relationships, where the others are replete with peculiarities of their own, he many tend to make them responsible for the difficulties or frictions that arise, and to regard himself as an innocent victim or, at best, as showing merely a justified reaction to their unreasonableness. In the latter case he will not necessarily be so unsubtle as to indulge in overt accusations; he may admit in an apparently rational manner that he has been irritable, sulky, unfaithful, even unjust, but secretly regard such attitudes as justified and adequate responses to the offenses given by others. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The more intolerable it is for him to face his own frailties—and also the more acute the disturbing factors that are introduced by the others—the greater is the danger that he will thus deprive himself of the benefit he could derive from recognizing this own share. And if he tends to exaggerate in the opposite direction by whitewashing the others and blackening himself, the danger is of exactly the same nature. It has been remarked that to the degree that all psychotherapy partakes of the beneficial effects of certain common processes the therapeutic functioning of social worker, psychologist, and psychiatrist would manifest these communalities. There are certain shared orientations and attitudes, stemming from common emphases in their respective training, that probably augment the comparability of the therapeutic approaches of these three workers. In essence, this mutuality of implicit response tendencies toward the psychotherapy patient arises from the fact that the theory of neurosis and the theory of therapy is dominated by the massive and ubiquitous doctrine of psychoanalysis. With negligible exceptions, to the extent that the psychiatrist and the social worker are taught anything vaguely psychological (of and about the mind, behaviour, motives and emotions) they are taught Freudian psychology. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The labels of their formal courses in “Human Development,” “Personality and Adjustment,” and “Psychopathology” do not directly belie the pervasive psychoanalytic orientation but the doctrine of the content is unmistakable. In some instances, schools of social work import carefully selected psychiatrists to assure that the theoretical indoctrination of their students will be orthodox, in tine with the general climate of psychiatry, and will afford them the “right language” for their ultimate professional collaboration. When people perpetually play the victim, this type of mental manipulation is extremely damaging. When the person who has to play the victim is in your life in any capacity, you will find yourself being the villain more than once. No one lies to be the villain—especially when you really are not being one. When confronted with a professional victim, it is important that you let them know you refuse to play the villain in their little mind games. Shut them down quickly and efficiently. Other ways of playing the victim are to get your sympathy so you will do something for them. Be wary of this ploy. It happens a lot at work. The victim wants others to do their work and have one sob story after another as to why they need help. Do not fall for it more than once. If they have that much bad luck, there is more wrong with them than what you can fix anyway. If you were in a group of people and one of them began to poke fun at someone in your group, would you be laughing? Would you join in and poke some fun at the victim too? Or would you stand up to the humorous bully? And why or why not? #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Someone has to deal with fire. When people first banded together in small societies, they realized that if fire were not dealt with, it would consume everything in its path. In our highly developed, technical society, the same confrontation with fire exists, as it has for thousands of years. When a fire occurs, someone has to deal with it. Here in Sacramento, those men and women whose responsibility it is to deal with fire are those seemingly easygoing folks down at the local firehose. When the alarm comes in at three in the morning on a cold winter night for a fire rushing through a tenement building in a less affluent section of Sacramento…or at one in the afternoon for a young child who has fallen into an abandoned water well…or at seven in the evening for a barn fire that is miles away from any kind of water supply…there is the Sacramento Fire Department who puts on their rubber boots and their specially treated fire coast and their fire helmets to respond to the call of others in need of help. The truck firefighters’ responsibility is to rescue trapped victims, to force entry, and to ventilate so that the heat and smoke have a way to escape the building. Or they may belong to the rescue squad, whose responsibility is to deal with all the special emergencies, such as building collapses, hazardous material situations, explosions, extrications from vehicles, trains, or planes, landslides, snowslides, and cave-ins. It does not matter what group the firefighter is attached to. It matters only that he or she is out there in all weather and emergency conditions to give service to fellow human beings, animals, and property. Somebody has to do the job. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
The Sacramento Fire Department protects us from the ravages of fire and other emergencies, or die trying. They understand the dangers surrounding them, yet respond to each new alarm with newfound enthusiasm for the action ahead. These men and women like what they do, and they live themselves because of what they do. They are pleased that they have been given the opportunity and the calling to help others in a way that is at once meaningful and exciting. Like other Americans, the Sacramento Fire Department cares about their homes, their families, their churches and organizations, yet they are the ones who answer the alarm at three in the morning, not knowing what awaits them. They are trained to meet any emergency, perhaps to give a fast wink to death and a pat on the back to danger. Being the capitol city of California, with the invasion and national security threats at our southern boarder, from other nations and with the State of California being nearly $70 billion in debt, and the City of Sacramento being $60 million up to $122 million in debt, it is extremely important to make sure the Sacramento Fire Department is properly funded so we do not face another 9/11 attack. Please honor the service of the Sacramento Fire Department and make a donation to ensure they have all of the resources they need to protect the community. Also, the Sacramento Fire Department supports Assemblymember Kevin McCarty in Sacramento’s Mayoral race. Casting your vote for Mr. McCarty will also be a way to support the Sacramento Fire Department. The firefighters are very special because they represent a group of people who die in the line of duty more often, proportionality, than others in any other occupation, including police, construction workers, and miners. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
The question of the reality of witchcraft is one upon which it is not easy to pass a confident judgment. The possibility of such carnal intercourse between human beings and demons was an abstract possibility in the first thirteen hundred years of the Christian era. It is believed to be a fact that people made pacts with the devil and of a diabolical interference in human affairs can hardly be denied. Sarah L. Winchester believed that one should not be too easily inclined to believe a person to be possessed by the devil, but that signs should be watched. Signs of a possessing devil are: the ability to speak many words of an unknown language or to understand them; the ability to reveal distant or hidden things; a manifestation of strength beyond one’s age or natural condition. The history of Witchcraft, a subject as old as the World and as wise as the World—since I understand for the present purpose by Witchcraft, Sorcery, Black Magic, Necromancy, secret Divination, Satanism, and every kind of malign occult art—at once confronts the audience with a most difficult problem. Magic, the genesis of magical cults and ceremonies, the ritual of primitive peoples, traditional superstitions, and their ancillary lore, have been made the subject of vast and erudite studies, mostly from an anthropological and folk-loristic point of view, but the darker side of the subject, the history of Satanism seems hardly to have been attempted.
Possibly one reason for this neglect and ignorance lies in the fact that the heavy and crass materialism, which was so prominent a feature during the greater part of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in England, intellectually disavowed the supernatural, and attempted not without some success to substitute for religion a stolid system of respectable morality. Since Witchcraft was entirely exploded it would, at best, possess merely an antiquarian interest, and even so, the exhumation of a disgusting and contemptible superstition was not to be encouraged. It were more seemly to forget the uglier side of the past. This was the attitude which prevailed for more than two hundred years. The cycle of time has had its revenge, and this rationalistic superstition is dying fast. The extraordinary vogue of and immense adherence to Spiritism would alone prove that, whilst the widespread interest that is taken in mysticism is a yet healthier sign that the World ill no longer be content to be fed on dry husks and the chaff of straw. And these are only just two indications, and by no means the most significant, out of many. However, a sorcerer is one who by commerce with the Devil has a full intention of attaining his own end. There are said to be many occult symbols hidden in The Winchester Mystery House.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Why Art Thou So Foolish and Fearful!
I was spending the first week of January alone in Llanada villa. A combination of circumstances had driven me to this drastic course: my nearest relations were enjoying winter sports abroad, and the friends who had been kindly anxious to replace them had an infectious complaint in the house. Doubtless I might have found someone else to keep company with me. “However,” I reflected, “most of them have made up their parties, and, after all, it is only for three or four days at most that I have to fend for myself, and it will be just as well if I can get a move on with my blueprints. I might she the time by going down to the garden and listening to my estate about plans to incorporate in the architecture.” The first day alone in Llanada Villa, it was so stormy that I got no father the designing stained-glass windows. As I sat in the Hall of Fires, I felt uncomfortable, and this feeling persisted. I felt like I was being watched by some unseen force, and my nerves began to tense under the strain. I reflected on how some of my staff had left not because they wanted to but because they were driven, driven by forces greater than themselves that they could not resist. On this very night, I had seen vivid apparition of my butler, then miles away, in San Francisco. He was a plump, amicable man who I distinctly saw walking down the hall in a bathrobe, with blooding running down his leg. A small pool of blood was forming on the floor. The frightened me terribly. My hair stood up on my head and chills shook my body. The apparition looked so stern that my heart failed me, and I wished myself anywhere but there, though I had before been summoning up my courage. “Good Heaven,” said I to myself, “give me the courage to stand before this spirit. O soften him, or harden me!” I knew this was a glimpse into eternity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
The following day, I received news that my butler, Chaleb Heroldsbach, had died after being attacked by a dog. My home is built in what some have called a “trinity triangle,” it has forged a mystical link with other pilgrimage sites and is supposed to help bring the Devil’s power on Earth to an end. This is being prevented by Satan, however, with the help of The Curse of the Winchester Fortune. That evening, I was awakened at three o’clock in the morning, seemingly for no reason with the same uncanny feeling that something was wrong. Being a sensible person, I put all my energies into polishing furniture and getting newly added rooms into proper condition. However, somewhere not so far away, a baby was crying: a mournful wail of a sound that—though it was surely human—reminded me of the noises the coyotes would make some nights. After a few moments of listening, the baby’s cry seemed to falter for a moment, and I feared it would fade completely before I could find the little darling. Then, the infant seemed to find a new seam of grief to mine, and the wail rose up again, more plaintive than ever. I was alone, but trying to figure out which direction the sound was coming from. I mused for a moment, and realized a lifetime of suffering had caught up with me. I knew in my heart that I deserved to know everything, after all I have been through. I have earned the truth. Maybe the dead are close to the threshold of reality in this house. I only know it is real. I have seen them. Others have seen them. They are hybrids. Sometimes there is a kind of beauty in them. However, sometime all I see is ugly sin. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
The sky was dark and cloudy, and by the time I woke up, I could hear a steady soaking rain pounding on the roof. I was preparing breakfast in one of the kitchens. As I was buttering a piece of toast, I happened to glance up toward the doorway. There, immaculately dressed, stood a man. The stranger, I noticed, wore shiny black shoes, black pants, and a white shirt. I could see him so clearly that I could make out the way the man’s jet-black hair was parted. Immediately, I was shocked that he had somehow entered my house, and I was about to greet him, when it occurred to me that I had not heard the door opening or any other sound—no footsteps, nothing. I turned around to grab my revolver, but by the time I turned around, the man was gone like a mist. I was not too frightened by what I had witnessed, I was growing accustomed to apparitions. I had often wondered what had taken place a century and a half on the land this eighteen-room farmhouse I purchased was on, and what the former owner really had been. However, it is fortunate that they carpenters were all strong men of action and simple, orthodox religionists, for with more subtle introspectiveness and mental complexity they would have fared ill indeed. Herford Hulsmann was the most disturbed; but even he outgrew the darkest shadow, and smothered memories in prayer. While I was alone, I did my best in the blotting out of unwholesome images, and was thankful that the carpenters, Daisy, and other caretakers would be returning to Llanada Villa soon. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
My house was not altogether liked by sensitive people because of the sounds heard here at night. It was said that I entertained strange visitors, and the lights seen from my windows were not always the same colours. The knowledge I displayed concerning long-dead persons and long-forgotten events was considered distinctly unwholesome. Frau Maassen swore that on 13 June 1889, in the fruit orchard, that “forty Witches and the Blacke Man were wont to meete in the Woodes behind Mrs. Winchester’s house.” Then several people claimed to have found William’s unfinished manuscript in his handwriting, couched in a cipher none could read. After a year of possessed this manuscript, Mr. Maassen had intensely and feverishly tried to decipher, he never stated whether or not he had succeeded. I confronted Mr. Maassen, “Why are you so foolish and fearful! You have done no harm! What, if you fear an unjust judge, when you are innocent, would you do before a just one, if you were guilty? Have courage, Mr. Maassen; you know the worst! And how easy a choice poverty and honesty is, rather than plenty and wickedness.” “Mrs. Winchester, do not let your heart ake for me?—I am sure mined flutters about like a new-caught bird in a cage,” said Mr. Maassen. “O how can wicked men seem so steady and untouched with such black hearts, while poor innocents stand, like malefactors, before them!” Mr. Maassen cheered himself up; but yet I could tell his poor heart sunk, and his spirits were quite broken. Everything that stirred, he thought was to call her to her account. Shortly after, he restored to a sojourn abroad, and did not return to claim his lands. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
Mr. Maassen had apparently been careful to destroy most of his correspondence, but the citizens who took action in 1892 found and preserved a few letters and papers which excited their wonder. There were cryptic formulae and diagrams in his and other hands which Mr. Maassen either copied with care or had photographed, and one extremely mysterious letter was written in blood. I had to learn to live with my ghosts, especially considering some of these had ben here before me. Perhaps some of these ghosts could even become friendly. One night at dinner, Daisy, myself and Zip were enjoying stuffed pheasant, when an enormous crash shook the house. It felt as if a boulder had fallen on the parlour floor. When we rushed to the parlour, everything was in order, nothing misplaced. We said a silent prayer for the souls of the disturbed. However, moments later, things got worse. The lights started going off and on by themselves. When we tried to return to the dining room and finish supper, the atmosphere was so thick that we could not get near the table. Enveloped by the strong vibrations, I felt myself levitating, and when I came to my senses, I was lying on the floor. I had given Daisy such a scare. Daisy clearly senses the presences of the spirits and she started to cry. “Oh, God, it can’t be true, Aunt Sarah,” she said. With a piercing scream, she ran up the stairs, weeping out of control. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
“I have great trouble, and some comfort, to acquaint you with. The trouble is, that my good lady began to have her bad nights, and complained to me and other persons, in particular what discomfort she suffered from her pillow and bedclothes. She said she must buy some to suit her, and should do her own marketing. And accordingly brought home a parcel which she said was of the right quality, but where she bought it we had then no knowledge, only they were marked in thread with a coronet and a bird. The merchant said they were of a sort not commonly met with and very fine, and Mrs. Winchester said they were the comfortablest she ever used, and she slept now both soft and deep. Also the feather pillows were the best sorted and her head would sink into them as if they were a cloud: which I have myself remarked several times when I came to wake her of a morning, her face being almost hid by the pillow closing over it. I had never any communication with Dr. Wayland after I came back to Llanada Villa, but one day when he passed me in the garden and asked me whether I was not looking for another service, to which I answered I was very well suited where I was, but he said I was a tickleminded maidan and he doubted not he should soon hear I was on the World again, which indeed proved true.”
Dr. Wayland is next taken up where she left off.
“On the 5th I was called up out of my bed soon after it was light—that is about five—with a message that Mrs. Winchester was dead or dying. Making my way to her house, I found there was no doubt which was the truth. All the persons in the house expect the one that let me in were already in her chamber and standing about her bed, but none touching her. She was stretched in the midst of the bed, on her back, without any disorder, and indeed had the appearance of one ready laid out for burial. Her hands, I think, were even crossed on her breast. The only thing not usual was that nothing was to be see of her face, the two ends of the pillow or bolster appearing to be closed quite over it. These I immediately pulled apart, at the same time rebuking those present for not at once coming to the assistance of their master. However, I was informed that only one person had stayed with her until her dying moment and most had fallen asleep. She looked at me and shook her head, having no more hope than myself that there was anything but a corpse before us. Indeed it was plain to anyone possessed of the least experience that Mrs. Winchester was not only dead, but had died of suffocation. Nor could it be conceived that her death was accidentally caused by the mere folding of the pillow over her face. How should she not, feeling the oppression, have lifted her hands to put it away? whereas not a fold of the sheet which was closely gathered about her, as I now observed, was disordered.
“I could tell no more, at least without opening the body, then we already knew. As to any person entering the room with evil purpose (which was the next point to be cleared), it was visible that the bolts of the door were burst from their stanchions, and the stanchions broken away from the door-post by main forced; and there was a sufficient body of witness, the smith among them, to testify that this had been done but a few minutes before I came. The chamber being, moreover, at the top of the house, the window was neither easy of access nor did it show any sign of an exist made that way, either by marks upon the sill or footprints below upon soft mould. My evidence forms of course part of the report of the inquest, the large organs were in a healthy state and there was coagulation of blood in various parts of the body. My verdict was ‘Death by visitation of spirits.’ Upon further consideration, I think I can divine a reason for Mrs. Winchester’s death. It related to the rifling of her mansion. This is the property of a noble family. The outrage was not that of a natural death. The object, it seemed likely, was theft. The account is blunt and terrible. I shall not quote it here. A dealer in San Francisco suffered heavy penalties as a receiver of stolen goods in connexion with the affair.
“Mrs. Winchester has left us all much grieved for the loss of her; for she was a good lady, and kind to all her caretakers. Much I feared, that as I was taken by her ladyship to wait upon her person, I should be quite destitute again. Mrs. Winchester has given mourning and a year’s wages to all her caretakers; and she game me with her own hand four golden guineas, and some silver, which were in her pocket when she died. And I sent Daisy those four guineas for her comfort; for Providence will not let me want: and so you may pay some old debt with part, and keep the other part to comfort yourself.” Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
What if I Do Not Believe in Ghosts?
Once when I was little, my dad took me to this placed called Sodom Hill. It must be some kind of gateway because the curious thing is, you feel like you are driving down a hill along this road. This was the first time that I believe I saw a ghost. As our carriage passed by Saint Mary Parish, a woman was standing near the church, starring at us. However, she was really looking at my father. Though the weather was warm, she was wearing a long black dress beneath a hooded cloak. She was hugging herself, and she looked cold. Beneath the hood, her face was pale, and even from a distance I could tell that she was distresses. And she was very beautiful. The hood slipped down to her shoulders. I saw her hair was red. Her dark eyes were trusting and innocent. And suddenly I knew where I had seen her before. Onn the Rocky Hill-Glastonbury Ferry. She had been weeping on deck. The beautiful maiden with the red hair kept staring at my father. He did not notice. I was curious to know if my father could see the woman. I said, “Father, what is that pretty tree over there? By the tower of the church?” I pointed toward the woman. The woman saw me point. She looked at me, questioningly, but only for a moment. Then she looked back at my father. The woman did not care if I was being immodest. She just looked through me, just as she had on the deck of the ferry. How had she gotten here, and what did she want from me and my father? All this seemed to take forever. However, I do not think more than a minute passed before my father said to me, “What tree? I don’t see any trees near the tower of the church.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
“Father, what do you see?” I asked. “The lawn,” he said. I watched him for a sign. I could not believe that he could not see the lady with crimson hair near the tower of the church. “Nothing else? I said. “No one?” “Nothing,” he replied. “No one? Who would be there?” When I looked again there was no one there. The woman had vanished. I felt as if I had lost something. “What’s wrong?” said my father. “Nothing,” I said. “I think I must have been having a daydream.” “Poor Sarah,” said my father. “It must be the sun. Let’s get you inside and get you something to drink.” We made our way back home. My mother was in the garden, kneeling down among the tall plants and rut niblicks. My father poured me some milk and gave me a cracknel, baked by my mother. “Eat this,” he said. “It’ll help you get your strength back.” My father nibbled on one himself. I told myself: No man sees a ghost and starts nibbling a cookie like nothing happened. If he said there was no woman near the tower of the church, it meant he had not seen her. It meant something was seriously wrong with me. I had not been feeling all that well lately. I felt as if the colours of everything had gotten a little brighter, and sounds a little louder, and when people speak to me, their voices have a tiny echo, like I am hearing them from the far end of a tunnel. It does not happen all of the time. I have these little spells, and then they pass, and I am normal again. Spirits whispered in the rustling leaves, ghost lurked in the murky nooks, the deep baying of a hound floated up out of the distance, an owl answered with his sepulchral note. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the Earth unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep. What place do these spirit beings hold in the scheme of creation which by some are thought neither to have stood fast when the rebel angels fell, nor to have joined with them to the full pitch of their transgression? It was the middle of the moonlight in October night with heavy rain underfoot, I was sitting by the fire—it was a cold evening—and I stretched out my hand towards the warmth, and just then the fire-irons, or at least the poker, fell over towards me with a great clatter. There resourced over the estate and the surrounding land a series of cries which brought sleepy heads to every window; we all saw a ghost ship. It was a 26-gun frigate. There were distant gunshots, and I could feel the throb of titanic and thunderous words resounding in the upper air. Muskets flashed and cracked, and the flaming ship fell to the ground. A second flaming thing appeared, and a shriek of human origin was plainly distinguished. Then just before dawn when a howling darkness descended upon the ships and they vanished. As I ran up the stairs, I hit what felt like an ice wall and was momentarily stopped in my tracks. The air around me became instantly chilled, and although every fireplace was lit, I was cold and could see my breathe. I was then able to get up the last six steps, but when I turned around, I saw an opalescent fog crystalize into the form of a woman. She wore a long dress, and a hat, and when she turned towards me, I realized in was the woman with red hair that I had seen at the tower of the church with my father when I was a child. In her face, I could see uncountable horrors and sorrows written in the depth of her dark eyes. She then vanished, and the air around me returned to its warm state. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
There was certainly a time when I was so much harassed by my dreams that I could not keep them to myself, but would tell them to my friends. There was a dream which had come to me several times of late, and even more than once in a night. It was to this effect, that I seemed to myself to wake under an extreme compulsion to rise and go outdoors. So I would dress myself and go down to the garden door. By the door there stood a spade which I must take, and go out into the garden, and at a particular place in the boxwood hedges, somewhat clear, and upon which the moon shone (for there was always in my dream a crescent moon), I would feel myself forced to dig. And after some time, the spade would uncover something light-coloured, which I would perceive to be a stiff, linen or woolen, and this I must clear with my hands. It was always the same: of the size of a man and shaped like the chrysalis of a moth, with the folds showing a promise of an opening at one end. I could not describe how gladly I would have left all at this stage and run to the house, but I mist not escape so easily. So with many groans, and knowingly only too well what to expect, I parted these folds of stuff, or, as it sometimes seemed to be, membrane, and disclosed a head covered with a smooth pink skin, which breaking as the creature stirred, show me my own face in a state of death. Upon ever recurrence of this dream, I woke and found myself, as it were, fighting for my breath. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
Moments later a chill wind blew up. It produced a kind of clutching, amorphous fear beyond that of the tomb or the charnel-house. Close upon it came the awful voice which no hapless hearer will ever be able to forget. It thundered out of the sky like a doom, and windows rattled as its echoes dies away. It was deep and musical; powerful as a bass organ, but evil as the forbidden books in the secret library. What it said, no one can tell, for it spoke in an unknown tongue. Objects were being hurled about the room. Puddles of water appeared on the floor. The sheet and blankets were torn off the bed. Then I was alarmed when I heard a very loud vibration as if a hole were being drilled through the all. I went into the chamber next to mind and saw that a Victorian fireplace had been ripped from its casing and hurled upon the floor. A wailing distinctly burst out. It was almost articulate, though no one could trace the exact words; and at one point it seemed to verge toward the confines of diabolic and hysterical laughter. Then a yell of utter, ultimate fright and stark madness wrenched from scores of demon throats—a yell which came strong and clear despite the depth from which it must have burst; after which a darkness and silence ruled all things. Spirals of acrid smoke ascended, though no flames appeared. This must have been the witches’ Sabbath. Death does not mean that your loved one’s have left your mind, and your mind sends messages to your eyes that sometimes have nothing to do with what you actually see. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Winchester Mystery House
Santa Clare Valley was in an uproar after the death of Mrs. Winchester. On Wednesday (October 3, 1923) consequently on the circulation of a report that the household goods of Sarah Winchester were being smashed and removed by some unknown agency. All day long crowds of excited people wended their way towards the Winchester Mansion, drawn thither by the accounts of the mysterious occurrences said to have been witnessed by the inmates and others. “As I enter the door I myself saw an eleven-foot-tall 18th century George I burl walnut longcase clock by James Marwick levitate several feet into the air before relocating itself to the other side of the room. After hearing what the folks had to say, I was joining in the conversation, when a late 18th century crystal chandelier began to raise in a slanting direction over my head and then fell as my feet, smashing into bits. I had not the slightest belief in the supernatural. I cannot account for what I saw. No one was nearer to the chandelier than myself and, as far as I saw, there was no cause for the phenomenon. The room was dimly lighted by a lamp. We were talking about things, and the caretaker were saying, “It is a very mysterious thing,” with his back turned Neoclassical Italian Crystal vase suddenly flew up slantingly over his head, and fell down and smashed at his feet. The caretaker looked at the mess on the floor, and thinking the devil was in the place, he left and went home. About half-a-dozen people were in the parlour whilst these things happened.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Today We Begin the Harrowing Story
I have many beautiful art glass windows in my house, but the most expensive in the house was specially designed for me by Tiffany’s of New York. I originally installed it in an outside wall, but later added a series of rooms that blocked off all direct sunlight. There is a peculiar apparition that is seen in the window itself. The form seen is that of a figure dressed in white walking across the window. At first there was only one figure, and then thirteen appeared. The figures began to move across the window long before the carpenters noticed them. They did so as many as twenty or thirty times a day, and would stop shortly after noon. Of the three figures, one was a man, stone was a woman, and one was a child. the man was an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy gray shepherd’s-check trousers, not over-clean black frock coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed top hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features. The woman was very distinct in appearance. She was tall and very graceful. The two-year-old boy showed signs of disturbed behaviour, laughed hysterically and talked of “funny drinks.” The order of the apparitions in the window had a slight variation: the mother came alone from the northside of the window, and having gone about halfway across, she would stop, turn around, and wave her arms towards the quarter whence she had come. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
This gesture was answered by the entry of the father with the child. Both parents then bent over the child, and seemed to bemoan his fate; but the mother was always the most endearing in her gestures. The father then moved towards the other side of the window, taking the child with him, leaving the mother in the center of the window, from which she gradually retired to the north corner, whence she had come, waving her hand, as though making signs of farewell, as she retreated. After some little time she again appeared, bending forward, and evidently anticipating the return of the father and son, who never failed to reappear from the south side of the window where they had disappeared. The same gestures of distress and despair were repeated, and then all three retired together to the north side of the window. One evening, about nine o’clock, I was at the south-west door with Mr. Hansen. As I was unlocking it, I said, “Did you ever find anybody locked in here by accident?” “Mrs. Winchester, twice I saw shadows moving in that beautiful window. What a noise they did make!” Mr. Hasen then waited, leaning against the pillar, and watched the light wavering along the length of the landing. Mr. Hansen said they were well worthy seeing. “I suppose,” he said, as we walked toward the steps to the third floor, “that you’re too much used to going about here at night to feel nervous—but you must get a start every now and then, don’t you, when a book falls down or a door swings to?” “No, Mr. Hansen, I can’t say I think much about noises, not nowadays: I’m much more afraid of finding an escape of gas or a burst in the stove pipes than anything else. Still there have been times, years ago. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
“If you have an have half an hour to spare, sir, when we get back down to the second floor, Mr. Hansen, I could tell you about a tomb that was unearthed. I will not begin now; it strikes cold here, and we do not want to be dawdling about all night.” “Of course, Mrs. Winchester, I should like to hear it immensely.” “Very well, sir, you shall. Now if I might put a question to you,” I went on, as we passed down the hallway of the third floor, “in my little local guide—and not only there, but in the little book on Llanada Villa in the series—you will find it stared that this portion of the mansion was erected previous to the twelfth century. Now of course I should be glad enough to take that view, but—mind your step, sir—but, I put it to you—doe the lay of the stone here in this portion of the wall (which I tapped with my key), does it to your eye carry the flavour of what you might call Saxon masonry? No, I thought not; no more it does to me: now, if you will believe me, I have said as much to the other carpenters. However, there it is, I suppose every one’s got their opinions.” The discussion of this peculiar trait of human nature occupied Mr. Hansen almost up to the moment when we returned to the second floor. Usually the apparitions appeared during musical performances in the Grand Ballroom, and especially during one long eight-line hymn, when—for the only occasion without the child—the two parents rushed on (in stage phrase) and remained during the whole hymn, making the most frantic gestures of despair. Indeed the louder the music in that hymn, the more carried away with their grief did they seem to be. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
Nothing could be more emphatic than the individuality of the several figures; the manner of each had its own peculiarity. If the stained glass were removed, I do not doubt that a much plainer view would be obtained. I think so, because the nearer the center of the window, where the stained glass was thickest, there the less distinct were the forms. It was like catching glimpses of them through leaves. However, nearer the edge of the window, where the colours were less bright, they were perfectly distinct; and still more so on the pane of unstained glass at the edge. There they seemed most clear, and gave one the impression of being real persons, not shadows. Mental disturbance, it is true, will age one rapidly; but the face of Mr. Hasen since working on this project had taken on a subtle cast which only the very aged normally acquired. While standing on the landing looking at the window, I noticed his respiration and heart action had a baffling lack of symmetry; the voice was lost, so that no sounds above a whisper were possible. His skin had a morbid chill and dryness. Of course, we were witnessing the most remarkable and perplexing incident in the whole spectacle. When the father and the child had taken their departure, the mother waved her hands, and after walking slowly to the very edge of the window, turned round whilst on the pane of unstained glass and waved her arm towards the other two with what one would call a stage gesture, and then I most distinctly saw, and emphatically declare I did see, the arm bare nearly to the shoulder, with beautiful folds of drapery hanging from it like a picture of a Greek vase. Nothing could be plainer than the drag of the robes on the ground after the figures as they retired at the edge of the window, where the clear glass was, previous to going out. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
The impression produced was that one saw real persons in the air, for though the figures were seen on the window, yet they gave one the impression of walking past the window outside, and not moving upon the glass. I am not inclined to think that the trees outside the mansion at the east end can originate the appearance by any optical illusion produced by waving branches. I could see their leaves rustling in the air, and their movement was evidently unconnected with the appearance and movement of the figures. So I began making enquires on my estate. I discovered that several people had indeed seen the shapes upon the glass. One spoke of a female figure with a slightly skipping step. Another servant said he saw an ancient gravestone from the window. The belief that the tree beside the Tiffany window were somehow responsible for the optical illusion was soon dashed; the trees were cut down, but the figures appeared still. One correspondent wrote to me in the winter of 1889, explain that “as I have no faith in ghost, I have been most wishful to have the matter cleared up. On 25 March 1687, the land you now own was involved in a remarkable satanic horror story. A young girl came to the farmhouse for help, saying that she wanted to get away from a group of satanists who had threatened to kill her. She confessed to the owner that she had murdered her own baby in ‘frenzied ritual.” He befriended the girl, twenty-three-year-old Caludia, and allowed her to stay in his home. She kept telling him that she couldn’t stand hearing the screams of her children inside of her head. And on April 20th, 1687, she died from an overdose of Laudanum and postmortem examination revealed thirteen scars and burns on her body which he tended to and which supported her claims of having been involved in satanic ritual. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
“Further, Claudia left a 13-page diary in which she said he had been involved with a satanic group since she was hired to work on a nearby farm at age thirteen and her writings went on to make incredible claims. She described how she went to coven meetings with a boy named Dorian whom she had met while living on the farm. The boy’s mother was a High Priestess and his father was The Master—a known satanic term for the leading member of the group. She described other practice which are known to be common in satanic altar initiations—that of having her armed pricked and blood drained into a chalice from which it was drunk. ‘Much sexual perversion went on that night…later I learned more of Satan and practiced my arts calling on my power of darkness. Satan had become my Lord and Master.’ Later she described how she aborted a baby she was expecting by Dorian then made the claim that Dorian himself was sacrificed by his own father in retribution, and how she was forced to watch as he was hung upside down. She claimed to have seen other sacrifices of many new born babies, stabbing them at orgies in which Laudanum was taken heavily. She also appeared to have had another child of her own which was also offered up for sacrifice. At her inquest of 13 May, the midwife recorded an open verdict after the she noted that Claudia’s body had signs which confirmed she had given birth at least once, and had been subject to sexual abuse. The constables took up the case, but no charges were brought and the investigation was closed without further action.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
I was shocked of these allegations which seemed to be more than enough to inspire the most lurid of headline writers, more than to testify to the credibility of all who were proffering these dramatic and barely believable accounts of satanic abuse. Everything these people said was being taken as gospel in the village because the allegations were coming from the mouths of so-called experts. However, there were claims of rampant satanic worship in Nova Albion at this time, which was documented by English charters led by Sir Francis Drake for England. There were horrifying claims that fifty women were suffering from the after-effects of cannibalism and an average of ten occult survivors a week were being sacrificed. Dr. Harley said he read of several cases recorded by Theodorous de Bry where children had been killed. There were, of course, also several stories concocted around these three figures in my home. Some said that they issued from the grave beside the east window. Other said that they were victims of the plague, and were burned outside where this window now stands. It may or may not be relevant that the figures seemed to appear when the sound of the organ and of voices raised in song. The case was thoroughly investigated in 1889 by Dr. Robert Radakovic of The Ghost Club, where it was revealed that Llanda Villa had been “haunted” for two or three hundred years by the same figure or figures. Optical tests on the possible patterns of light and reflection had come to no results. It was remarked that “the ghost has been seen from the inside while outside nothing was visible.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
The interior of Lalanda Villa was much altered in the late nineteenth century, and a complex of rooms was built behind this haunted window. However, no satisfactory explanation has ever been given for the strange phenomena reported here. While designing Lalanda Villa, I was gaining my tastes from the venerable town around me, and from the relics of the past which filled every corner of my mansion. With the years, my devotion to ancient things increased; so that history, genealogy, and the study of gothic architecture, furniture, and craftsmanship at length crowded everything else from my sphere of interests. These tastes are important to remember for they outwardly concealed knowledge of bygone matters so that one would have fancied the they are literally transferred to a former age through some obscure short of autohypnosis. However, the true madness, I am certain, came with a later change; after the portrait and ancient papers of Saint Adalrich the Duke of Alsacre had been unearthed. Some terrible invocations being chanted under strange and secret circumstances; after certain answers to these invocations had been plainly indicated, and a frantic letter penned under agonizing and inexplicable conditions; after the wave of vampirism and the ominous legends of Neustria; and after the farmer’s memory commenced to exclude contemporary images whilst his voice failed and his physical aspect underwent the subtle modification so many subsequently noticed. He was later diagnosed with porphyria. And a final investigation resulted which virtually proved the authenticity of the papers and of their monstrous implications at the same time that those papers were borne forever from human knowledge. Loving antiquities so keenly, the papers and portrait were secretly concealed. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
Bedroom fashions changed dramatically over the Victorian years due to several factors. Early in the period, homes were heated by fireplaces and therefore could be uncomfortable in the colder mothers, although a heated bedroom was considered an indulgence and windows were left open during the winter. In reality, only the rich had fireplaces in their bedrooms. Still, one had to keep warm while asleep and bed drapery, consisting variously of canopies, tents, and other enclosures used to shut out drafts, was essential, as was heavy draper on windows. Even doors had decorative, but also functional, drapes called portieres that served to keep out drafts when covering the door.
Mrs. Winchester was wealthy and her wealth and prosperity were even envied among the elite. She had no less than 47 fireplaces in her home. By the end of the century, two things had changed that affected bedroom styles. First, coal and woodburning parlour stoves came into use, were more efficient at heating a house, and could be installed in any room. (Central heating, though available after the Civil War, was really only for the very rich.). Secondly, and more importantly, was an increased knowledge of diseases, germs, and bacteria and how to combat them. Plenty of fresh air with good circulation, and the elimination of materials such as bed draper that not only impeded air circulation but provided a place for dust and bacteria to collect were deemed essential. Since the bedroom served as the place where daily and weekly ablutions were performed (until bathrooms became separate entities), and as a birthing and maternity room, it was important that it have a healthy environment.
Styles of bedroom furniture were affected by this new found interest in and concern for prevention of illness and diseases. The classic English styles of Sheraton, Chippendale, and Hepplewhite migrated from the eighteenth century into the Victorian period. Tall, four-poster canopied beds enclosed the sleeper in heavy drapes of wool or lined damask of velvet, a carryover from the time when houses were built without corridors, and enclosures around the bed were needed for privacy, as well as warmth. By the time mid-century had arrived, the full enclosure had receded to the half-tester, or half-canopy, from which hung draperies that covered only the head and shoulders. Fully enclosed beds were now considered unhygienic, as they limited air circulation and the yards of fabric attracted dust. Dust ruffles and window valances were also discarded in the same house cleaning. In the southern climates, netting was still necessary to protect against insects, and its slightness did not impede air movement.
Gothic Revival furniture was the style into the 1840s and its massiveness was particularly suited to bedrooms. Closets were not an architectural feature at this time; clothing was stored in large cabinets called armories or wardrobes, usually with double, mirrored, and washstand, topped with marble or wood, were manufactured for middle-class homes in the cottage style. “Spool” beds were popular, nicknamed “Jenny Lind beds” because the Swedish Nightingale was rumoured to have slept in when she toured the United States of America. Made of less costly woods like maple or pine, the simple furniture could be elaborately painted with floral or foliage patterns. The well-to-do preferred the more opulent style of Rococo Revival or Renaissance Revival in woods or walnut, mahogany, or rosewood with carvings and applied moldings. As with other furniture in the house, golden oak, promoted by the Arts and Crafts Movement, was popular at the end of the century. Additional pieces of furniture found in the bedroom were writing desks, chaises, or other upholstered furniture.
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Randolph Harris II International 