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The Agony of the Present is Outweighing the Promise of the Future

The bizarre 20s initiated a wave of political and governmental change of historic proportions: the gender and sexuality crisis, the replacement of President Trump, the virtual elimination of the Republican party, the collapse of law and order in California (and the rise of lawlessness and anti-Christian sentiment and general anarchy). Again and again there are startling changes under way in politics and government. Politicians, columnists, the people, and academics all seem confused by the scale of change. There is an inevitable focus on the pain of those who have been dominant and the disorientation of those who have been powerful. The agony of the present is outweighing the promise of the future. When we look at this phenomenon, what seems to some a brilliant, exciting period of innovation is actually a terrifying collapse of the existing order. We have seen a terrifying decline of order and stability rather than the precursor of a new, more productive and more open future. This acceleration of change is threatening to overwhelm people everywhere and the way in which it often disorients individuals, businesses, communities and governments. There is no language to communicate the problems we face, no vision to outline the future towards which we should strive, and no program to help accelerate and make easier the rebirth of sanity, law, order, and God. The reality is that transformation is going on everyday in the private sector among entrepreneurs and with citizens who are inventing new things and creating new solutions because bureaucracy does not stop them. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

A new civilization is emerging in our lives, and blind men everywhere are trying to suppress it. This new civilization brings with it new family styles, changed ways of working, loving, and living, a new economy, new political conflicts, and beyond all this an altered consciousness as well. Humanity faces a quantum leap forward. It faces the deepest social upheaval and creative restructuring of all time. Without clearly recognizing it, we are engaged in building a remarkable new civilization from the ground up. This is the meaning of the Third Wave. Until now the human race has undergone two great waves of change, each one largely obliterating earlier cultures or civilization and replacing them with ways of life inconceivable to those who came before. The First Wave of change—the agricultural revolution—took thousands of years to play itself out. The Second Wave—the rise of industrial civilization—took a mere three hundred years. Today history is even more accelerative, and it is likely that the Third Wave will sweep across history and complete itself in a few decades. Those of us who happen to share the planet at this explosive moment will therefore feel the full impact of the Third Wave in our lifetimes. The Third Wave brings with it a genuinely new way of life based on diversified, renewable energy sources; on methods of production that make most factory assembly lines obsolete; on new, non-nuclear families; on a novel institution that might be called the “electronic cottage;” and on radically changed schools and corporations of the future. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

The emergent civilization writes a new code of behavior for us and carries us beyond standardization, synchronization and centralization, beyond the concentration of energy, money and power. This new civilization has its own distinctive World outlook; its own ways of dealing with time, space, logic, and causality. And, its own principles for the politics of the future. Most people, to the extent that they bother to think about the future at all, assume the World they know will last indefinitely. They find it difficult to imagine a truly different way of life for themselves, let alone a totally new civilization. Of course, they recognize that things are changing. However, they assume today’s changes will somehow pass them by and that nothing will shake the familiar economic framework and political structure. They confidently expect the future to continue as the present. Recent events have severely shaken this confident image of the future. A bleaker vision has become increasingly popular. Large numbers of people fed on a steady diet of bad news, disaster movies, and nightmare scenarios issues by prestigious think tanks have apparently concluded that today’s society cannot be projected into the future because there is no future. For them, Armageddon is only minutes away. The Earth is racing toward its final cataclysmic shudder. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

Our argument is based on what we call the “revolutionary premise.” It assumes that, even though the decades immediately ahead are likely to be filled with upheavals, turbulence, perhaps even widespread violence, we will not totally destroy ourselves. It assumes that the jolting changes we are now experiencing are not chaotic or random but they, in fact, form a sharp, clearly discernible pattern. It assumes, moreover, that these changes are cumulative—that they add up to a giant transformation in the way we live, work, play and think, and that a sane and desirable future is possible. What follows begins with the premise that what is happening now is nothing less than a global revolution, a quantum leap. It flows from the assumption that we are the final generation of an old civilization and the first generation of a new one, that much of our personal confusion, anguish, and disorientation can be traced directly to the conflict within us and within our political institutions, between the dying Second Wave civilization and the emergent Third Wave civilization that is thundering in to take its place. When we finally understand this, many seemingly senseless events become suddenly comprehensible. Broad patterns of change begin to emerge clearly. Action for survival becomes possible and plausible again. The revolutionary premise liberates our intellect and will. One powerful new approach might be called social “wavefront” analysis. It looks at history as a succession of rolling waves of change and asks where the leading edge of each wave is carrying us. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

It focuses our attention not so much on the continuities of history (important as they are) as on the discontinuities, on innovations and breakpoints. It identifies key change patterns as they emerge so that we can influence them. It begins with the very simple idea that the rise of agriculture was the first turning point in human social development and that the industrial revolution was the second great breakthrough. It views each of these not as a discrete, one-time event but as a wave of change moving at a certain velocity. Before the First Wave of change, most humans lived in small, often migratory groups and fed themselves by foraging, fishing, hunting or herding. At some point, roughly ten millennia ago, the agricultural revolution began and crept slowly across the planet spreading villages, settlements, cultivated land and a new way of life. The First Wave of change had not yet exhausted itself by the end of the seventeenth century when the industrial revolution broke over Europe and unleashed the second great wave of planetary change. This new process began moving much more rapidly across nations and continents. Thus, two separate and distinct change processes were rolling across the Earth simultaneously, but at different speeds. Today the First Wave has virtually subsided. Only a few tiny pre-agrarian populations in South America or Papua New Guinea, for example, remain to be reached by agriculture. The force of this great First Wave has basically been spent. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

Meanwhile, the Second Wave, having revolutionized life in Europe, North America and some other parts of the globe in a few short centuries, continues to spread, as many countries—until now basically agricultural—scramble to build steel mills, automobile plants, textile factories, railroads and food-processing plants. The momentum of industrialization is still felt. This Second Wave has not entirely spent its force. However, even as this process continues, another, even more important, has begun. For as the tide of industrialism peaked in the decades after World War II, a little-understood Third Wave began to surge across the Earth, transforming everything it touched. Many countries, therefore, are feeling the simultaneous impact on two, even three, quite different waves of change, all moving at different rates of speed and with different degrees of force behind them. For our purposes we shall consider the First Wave era to have begun sometime around 8000 B.C. and to have dominated the Earth unchallenged until sometime around A.D. 1650-1750. From this moment on, the First Wave lost momentum as the Second Wave picked up steam. Industrial civilization, the product of this Second Wave, then dominated the planet in its turn until it, too, crested. This latest historical turning point arrived in the United States of America during the decade beginning about 1955—a decade that saw white-collar and service workers outnumber blue-collar workers for the first time. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

This was the same decade that saw the widespread introduction of the computer, commercial jet travel, the birth-control pill and other high-impact innovations. It was precisely during this decade that the Third Wave began to gather its force in the United States of America. Since then it has arrived at slightly different dates in most of the other industrial nations. Today all high-technology nations are reeling from the collision between the Third Wave and the obsolete, encrusted economies and institutions of the Second. Understanding this is the secret to making sense of much of the political and social conflict we see around us. If America allowed state-private capitalism based on a mixture of forms of ownership, it would generate increasingly strong market incentives for companies of all forms of ownership and provide a highly competitive environment. At the same time, this would allow the government to intervene in the economy in order to support industries and companies on the one hand, and to contain the threats of excessive lending, high-risk financial transactions, and asset bubbles on the other. By and large, such intervention does not inhibit market mechanisms. This model of capitalism will help American retain place as the economic superpower. This would prevent American from experiencing negative annual growth and help prevent recession by preventing the burst of bubble assets. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

A mixed form of capitalism will slowly but surely, gradually but steadily, tackle major social and economic problems: starting from the agricultural reform and overcoming food shortages, and then allow the government to develop various kinds of nonstate enterprises and increase the supply of consumer goods; this will make the economy more attractive to foreign investors and liberalize imports. Creating State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) will lessen the burden on taxpayers, and allow SOEs to operate in the competitive environment; recapitalizing banks and resolving the nonperforming loans issue; strengthening social safety nets; promoting the development of midwestern economies; and so on. This evolutionary process will address such key problems as stability of energy and natural resources supplies, energy efficiency, and environment protection. Knowing the size of the economy is the critical first step for enabling law enforcement, the judicial system, and policymakers to make informed choices about how to combat illegal economic activity, such as prostitution. It is estimated that the prostitution economy is valued at $16 billion in the United States of America, as of 2023, and 67 percent of transactions are done in cash. Both the prostitute-as-worker and prostitute-as-commodified-body identifications were made possible by the fusing together of the meanings for “men” and “money.” Men were constructed as both income (id est sources of money) and as income which could only be generated through exchanging sex for money. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

The construction of men as sources of money was an understanding of particular men (id est johns) which was applied to all men. This most clearly seen in the women’s repeated claims that “all men are johns.” As Gail (aged 28) said: “To me, all men are [johns]. As far as I’m concerned I couldn’t do it if it wasn’t bought. And if it’s not needed then why are we able to sell it.” Dominant discourses of male sexuality as a difficult to control, physical impulse provided the requisite ideological conditions in which the meanings for men and money could be fused together. The women portrayed male sexuality as a biologically drive, aggressive need, as “instrumental” rather than “expressive” and therefore they were able to characterize johns as any (and all) “normal” men doing only what “comes naturally.” The john/prostitute relationship could, thus, be understood as though it was simply a routine economic exchange in which normal (id est ordinary, typical and not deviant) men buy “outlets” for their physical needs. Combined with this understanding of all men as johns was the women’s belief that men as a group have easier access to and more money than women. This belief was most clear in the respondents’ talk about men not having childcare problems and so having better access to legal and illegal ways of earning money. Thus, the interviewees’ identification as both workers and commodified-bodies was made possible by a recoding of the meaning of men and money whereby men came to represent income. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

Within such a symbolic landscape, the women were able to construct their prostituting as though it was nothing to do with sex and just routine economic exchange (with themselves in control of and the beneficiaries of that exchange) and as though it had everything to do with sex (with their rentable female private parts the object of the exchange). And, contradictorily, the same symbolic World permitted the women to tell stories in which men as johns (id est purchasers) and as pimps (id est owners) take control of prostitutes’ commodified bodies. Hence, involvement in prostitution becomes a web of economic relationships over which the women believed they had control via ownership of their rentable bodies and absolutely no control or ownership as slaves to their pimps. The identification of prostitutes-as-business-women occurred in seventeen of the twenty-one narratives. This identification was comprised of an understanding of prostitutes ad being rational economic agents involved in weighing up the costs and benefits of particular courses of action, wherein individual women appraised themselves of, and in relation to, the respective financial and social costs accruing from being involved with men. This is an identification that is distinguished from the prostitute-as-worker identification from within the business women identification the women talked about themselves as “smart.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

“Stick-up men” who deployed both rules and business metaphors when discussing the “business” of robbery, the women in this study positioned themselves as “smart women” working “the right way.” Such talk differed according to whether or not the women were being pimped at the time the interviews took place. For the women who were not being pimped, being a business woman an working the “right way” meant maximizing income whilst reducing the possibility of exploitation. There were two fundamental rules: business women should not have any personal or intimate relationships with men; and, business women should not be naïve about men. The women could demonstrate their business-like status by showing their willingness to accept these rules. “I reckon if you work, you gotta stop being naïve. You have to see men for what they are. [Do you mean johns?] No, I mean men. You have to be professional about how you see all men. They’ll live off you if they can.” (Olivia, aged 28.) In contrast, the women who were being pimped at the time of the interviews talked about a different rule. They said that working the right way meant minimizing the risk of violence that is associated with street work. The primary strategy used was to get a pimp. Hence, Anna (age 36) made the following remarks: “The street’s a dangerous place. If you’re gonna be smart you have to have a man to protect ya and make sure no one kidnaps you or drives off with you. So what if you have to give him some money.” (Anna, aged 36.) #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

For these women, the pimp’s dress and outward appearance were used to demonstrate their own business success: “You want your [pimp] to look good, man. You want them to dress good, get nice cars and wicked gold. You give them your money so they can look good. I look at it as good advertising, you know? If I were some stupid crackhead or something, I couldn’t be earning the money I earn to make my man look good.” (Katrina, aged 20.) In contrast, in nine of the twenty-one women’s narratives was an identification of prostitutes-as-loving-partners making choices and taking courses of action based on the love they felt for the men they were involved with, rather than rules for business success. This identification was constructed in relation to the specific relationships the respondents had with men who financially exploited them (rather than within generalized notions of particular categories of men—id est “pimp,” “partner,” et cetera). The women talked about themselves as willing to sacrifice their earnings, their safety and their security for their partners. The women were symbolically transforming their relationships with (often violent and) exploitative men from “business” relationship, or even abusive relationships, into intimate, loving, romantic and above all else non-prostitution related relationships. Andrea’s remarks below demonstrate the manner in which she erased the possibility of the violent relationship she experienced as being a relationship which was specific to her involvement in prostitution: “I don’t suppose he really was a [pimp]….I think he’s the only person I ever really loved. Even now I sometimes get upset over it, coz I did love him. I was willing to give him everything I’d got—body, soul EVERYTHING.” (Andrea, aged 27.) #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

The prostitute-as-loving-partner identification was also made possible by the way in which the women drew on dominant notions of how romantic love is experienced by women as being sublimation of their desires and a centralizing of their partner’s desires. “To tell you the truth, I was that besotted [id est in loved] with him that I’d give him everything. I’d give him the f*cking World. I’d give him all my money and he’d beat me up. But I carried on giving him my money. You do, don’t you when you love some one?” (Ruthie, age 25.) God has commanded that the sacred power be expressed only between a man ana women who are legally married. Virtue brings peace, strength of character, and happiness in this life. Our Heavenly Father knew that we would be faced with many choices and challenges, and virtuous living would prepare us to succeed. For many of you, the day you were blessed was a first step on your journey of a virtuous life. Youth is a defining time in which you can develop patterns of virtue that will help you take necessary steps toward eternal life. To navigate through difficult times, we need the iron rod, which represents that word of God. We must study and understand the truths and commandments found in scriptures. We must listen carefully to the words of our latter-day prophets, whose teachings will give us guidance, direction, and protection. And we must hold to the standards found in the Holy Bible. One way we can withstand the pressures of the World is “stand in holy places, and be not moved,” reports Doctrines and Covenants 87.8. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

For the person becomes passive in volition and mind, one is held by deceiving offenders and no longer has the power to act, or is driven into psychopathological activity—uncontrollable activity of thought, restlessness of body, and wild, unbalanced action of all degrees. The actions are spasmodic and intermittent, the person sometimes dashing ahead and at other times being sluggish and slow—like a machine in a factory with the wheels whirring aimlessly, because the switch at the control center is out of the hand of the master. The human cannot work, even when one sees so much to be done, and is feverish because one cannot do it. During the time of passivity one appeared to be content, but when one is driven into psychopathological activity, one is restless and out of accord with all things around one. Though one’s environment should lead one to a state of full contentment, yet something (may it not be “somebody”?) makes it impossible for one to be in harmony with one’s external circumstances, however pleasant they may be. One is conscious of a restlessness and activity which is painfully feverish; or else of passivity and weight, of a doing of “work” and yet no work. All these are manifestations of a psychopathic destruction of one’s peace. Theonomy is a logically smooth juncture of our concepts of culture and ultimate concern. Culture is form, and for content it must look elsewhere—in its depths. However, at the depts one discovers ultimate concern, the power and meaning which breathes a soul into the otherwise dead body of culture. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

In theonomy the body is vigorous and bursting with the energy of a truly ultimate concern. Religion and culture are theonomously one. Culture and its nation, function, elements, styles, types, and ambiguities are of value and interest for philosophers, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and also of pressing importance for theologians, since the notion of theonomous culture propels Christianity into the midst of the World. Theonomy demands that religion permeates the whole of society, even its hitherto considered profane areas. Without a close bond between religion and culture, theology is left with little to say to modern humans in the majority of one’s consuming activities. Humans today are not prepared to renounce the creations of literature, art, politics, science, and technology as stumbling blocks to the holy. On the contrary, if his attitude is at all religious, he tends to view them as steppingstones which lead to a fuller and profounder experience of the divine. The vision of culture in which ultimate concern informs the whole web of life and thought and for which the ultimate unity is an ever-present horizon, make religion relevant to culture in a profound way. The Church has been powerfully called back out of its self-chosen ghetto, out of its disregard for culture, to do its task for the World. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

We have tried to show their one theonomous root and the void which necessarily has followed their separation, and perhaps something of the longing of our time for a new theonomy, for an ultimate concern in all our concerns. Since one of the depths of culture is fathomed, they are no longer deep, and the profundity of the secular maybe merely a nicer term for what in reality may be the scaling-down of the holy to the secular level. In this case, the divine transcendence is forfeited, and Christ does not break into history, but rather emerges from it as a kind of ideal. However, there is a danger of becoming exclusively secular. On the other hand, one might conclude that theonomy results in a total “sacralization” of the World which entails the disappearance of the profane, for the more deeply one probes into the secular heart, and even the atheistic heart, the more one perceives there the throb of an ultimate concern, the life-force of faith. In this case the transparency of the secular to the holy reduces the former to the status of a ghost. And if the secular disappears, does not the divine breakthrough lose its dramatic, unlooked-for, grace-full quality? If everything is holy, there is nothing to be broken through. Moreover, salvation is assured, and the preaching of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection is no longer an urgent mission. Leaving the categories of secularization and sacralization, one finds the same ambiguity in theonomy in regard to the church. In one sense theonomy renders the church unnecessary, even dangerous, for the Spiritual Presence is active everywhere with no need for ecclesiastical channels, and the history of the church discloses the menace of heteronomy which lurks in it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

However, in another sense the church is inevitable, for the presence of the Spirit draws men together into a holy community where their ultimate concern drives through to the expression in symbols and cult. Considering theonomy in yet another context, one might claim that it does not correspond to the hard facts of the human existential situation, that a theonomous union of religion and culture has never existed, or, if it did, it was quickly eroded by man’s proclivity to sin. In a word, history dines theonomy. And yet, eschatology demands it. For theonomy echoes the yearning cry of the human soul to find God in all things; it corresponds, not perhaps to man’s achievement, but to his deepest religious instinct, to his most ardent hope. These alternative interpretations of theonomy indicate that even a prolonged study of its structure—religion is the substance of culture, and culture is the form of religion. One must delve into its theological content, specifically the notion of God, the meaning of Jesus Christ, the nature of the church, and the question of history and eschatology. A rather useful neologism has recently been added to economics. It is reprivatization. If the operation of the post office were detached from government control and put into the hands of the Railway Express Company, this would be an example of reprivatiztion. In contesting the notion of an inevitable drift to socialism, without gainsaying the desirability under some conditions of certain kinds of public enterprise, some writers seek to find a balance between private and public, appropriate to the situation faced. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

From time to time this could require reprivatization, as it might nationalization at other times. This concept is directly applicable to the division of function and responsibility between private and public family agencies. And the insight it affords into the value problem entailed helps to illuminate the question of the transfer of functions, back and forth, between the family and the other institutions of the community. While transfer of some duty from a private family agency to a public body calls for a formal group decision, the shift of family responsibilities to private agencies and institutions is more often the result of thousands of unco-ordinated individua decisions. Nevertheless, either type of decision is tentative, conditional, reversible. Of course the effect of a given instance of reprivatization may be costly, but that has to be calculated against other costs, before a balance can be struck which will indicate the proper course of action. Suppose it were proven that an exceedingly valuable part of the development of a child was furthered by his participating in some form of work. Although the goods produced might in dollar-and-cent terms cost his parents more than if they went to the store and bough them, the net result might nonetheless be far more worth while; the same maybe true of adult do-it-yourself. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

This example, of course, immediately suggest that the values which must be balanced in the management of a family are not reducible to dollars and cents. An economist may count the cost of developing the competence of a child, but a parent is hard put when one has to calculate its value, as against competing values. Who has yet plumped the mysterious calculus of human motivation which operates when parents must decide whether they can “afford” another child? At least in parenthood one thing is certain—the decline in standard of living which will result from having an extra mouth to feed. However, it must be left to social psychologists not yet with us to discern what goes on it courtship, when the man become sure that she is the maid to ask, and he, the man for her to accept. Despite the efforts of certain thinkers to impute to this tangled welter of subjective transactions some homogeneous, metaphysical medium of exchange analogous to money—libido, tension, energy, utility—the values which direct people’s actions remain incommensurable. No “classical economics of the psyche” has survived its author. And for that matter, has anything conclusive been recorded by economists about the process of value formation? For the present, the best we can do is to confine ourselves to a qualitative, and perhaps genetic account of values, and take for granted the fact that through, as yet little understood, and not conspicuously rational processes of thought and discussion, people balance and conciliate the seemingly incommensurable, and thus direct their own actions. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

In tracing the evolution of the many kinds of family agencies from philanthropy through therapy to organized self-help, this balance of values among the parties concerned will be kept in the foreground as our principal mode of explanation. In this review, we shall follow a six-category classification of family agencies which is more or less cognate with the previous categories of conditions affecting the development of competence: medical agencies, economic agencies, protective agencies, counseling agencies, educational agencies, recreational agencies. Each class of agencies is thus presumed to be mainly engaged in affecting respective categories, but it should be evident that it affects other categories as well, and thus has some effect on all components of competence. What is the effect of alienation on mental health? The answer depends of course on what is meant by health; if it means that humans can fulfill their social function, carry on with production, and reproduce themselves, alienated humans can quite obviously be healthy. After all, we have created the most powerful production machine, accessible to the grasp of the madman. If we look into the current psychiatric definition of mental health, then one should think too that we are healthy. Quite naturally the concepts of health and illness are the products of those people who formulate them—hence of the culture in which these people live. Alienated psychiatrists will define mental health in terms of alienated personality, and therefore consider healthy what might be considered sick from the standpoint of normative humanism. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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How Will We Know What Might Have Been?

Historians study the paths that have led from paths that have led from paradise or fearful despair to the present; futurists study the paths that lead from the present to a promised paradise or fearful despair. We will find out the results of some of our choices because we will live through them, but we will never know for sure what we missed. America faces a convergence of crises unmatched since its earliest days. Its family system is in crisis, but so is its health system, its urban systems, its vale system and above all, its political system, which for all practical purposes has lost the confidence of the people. How can we know what is true when it is difficult to tell fact from lies, when social media replicate unverified assertions and imagined truths a thousand-fold, when lies interfere with decision making, when popular opinion and democratic voting lead to answers that are unappealing or demonstrably wrong? History shows that propaganda can be based on lies masquerading as facts. Social media provide a new way to disseminate stories and amplify them, whether true or false. Confirmation basis is a quirk of human thinking that tends to make us more readily accept stories that confirm beliefs we already hold and reject those that challenge those beliefs. The consequences as we have seen can be catastrophic. The intensity and apparent validity of falsehoods will make them more dangerous in the future and camouflaging technology will become even better so the falsehoods will be better masked and harder to detect. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Why should these—and many other crises—all strike at approximately the same time in our history? Are they evidence of terminal decay in America? Are we at the “end of history”? Curing the problem may compromise freedoms that are basic to free societies. The longer we wait, the more difficult the resolution. America’s crises stem not from its failure but from its earlier success. Rather than the end of history, we are at the end of pre-history. Our smokestack industries have been laying off masses of manual workers. Our family structure has fractured, our mass media have de-massified, and our life styles and values have diversified. America has become a radically different place. This explains why all the old forms of political analysis no longer apply. Terms like “right-wing” and “left-wing” or “liberal” and “conservative” are drained of their familiar meanings. In Russia these days, we speak of Communists as “conservatives” and reformers as “radicals.” In the U.S.A., economic liberals may be social conservatives and vice versa. “Left-wing” Ralph Nader unites with “right-wing” Pat Buchanan to oppose NAFTA. Even more jarring and significant, however, is the growing transfer of political power away from our formal political structures—the Congress, the White House, the government agencies and political parties—to electronically-linked grassroots groups and to the media. These and other massive changes in American political life cannot be explained in political terms alone. They are related to equally deep changes in family life, in business, in technology, culture and values. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

To govern in this period of high-speed change, disillusionment, and almost fratricidal conflict in society, we need a coherent approach to the twenty-first century. A defining characteristic of change today is its pace. Events move swiftly, and acceleration affects everything—even, it seems, the fate of books. Currently, the confusion between what is really happening or has happened and what might have been or might be, is enveloping us in a fog of artificial truth and we have to ask is it really a thunderstorm or is it the stroke of an artist’s digital brush? Is the boarder really overrun by people immigrating illegally, or are the images manipulated. As the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels taught the World in the Second World War, lies repeated with emphasis and insistence come to be believed by listeners; the illusion of truth can be constructed. Psychologists have shown that lies can come to be believed even when the true facts are generally known; repetition makes lies seem more believable and generally accepted as truth. It worked for Barak Obama; it continues to work for politicians and even in democracies. The state of the art of artificial realis is so now advanced that human sense can no longer determine whether pictures are real and untouched, real but manipulated or wholly artificial. Truths can be half-truths or of the “it depends” type. Faces can also be sketched from DNA fragments. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

Voices can be modified and constructed to fool friends, relatives, and even one’s self. Machines looking for telltale signs of manipulation can sometimes pick up subtle clues to artificiality, but the modification techniques are improving and it will not be long before all traces of manipulation are invisible to humans and sensors alike. When an image is captured in digital form, it is relatively easy to change its shape and color, to shrink it or enlarge it, to move it to another place in the frame, to another picture entirely, or to save it for future use. When an old image is moved to a new frame, it is not just “pasted on” but rather is integrated electronically with the original picture so that pixels that comprise the image flow continuously. Who needs witchcraft when you have technology? Aaliyah Haughton was killed in a plane crash during the shoot of The Queen of the Damned. The movie was completed anyway, by inserting digitized images of Aaliyah into the incomplete scenes. Virtually anything can be done these days and made to look authentic. The time has come for the next great step forward in American politics. We must recognize that all markets will not succeed unless they are supported by adequate governance institutions. What is needed is a clear distinction between rear-guard politicians who wish to preserve or restore an unworkable past, and those who are ready to make the transition to what we call a “Third Wave” information-age society. If nothing else, global competition means we cannot go back to the conformity, uniformity, bureaucracy and brute force economy of the assembly-line era. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

However, the Third Wave is not just a matter of technology and economics. It involves mortality, culture and ideas as well as institutions and political structure. It implies, in short, a true transformation in human affairs. Just as the industrial revolution destroyed or rendered irrelevant many of the political structures that preceded it, the knowledge revolution—and the Third Wave of change it has launched—will do the same to America and many other countries. Political parties and movements that recognize this historical fact will survive and shape the future for our children. Those that fail to do so will swirl down the storm drain of history. A lower level of state social spending and foreign aid will result not only in a better state of public finance, but also in a much stronger link between people’s incomes and their work effort, skills, and productivity. In this regard, labor motivation will be significantly higher. Western societies need to provide stronger incentives for individuals to take their lives into their own hands. This is how conventional capitalist system work. Making people work under stronger market pressures requires demonstrating higher ability to accommodate them: in other words, to make citizens accept and tolerate those pressures without social turmoil. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

America must have a higher degree of tolerance for the pains the market economy is causing: income disparities, low pay for a large numbers of workers, cuts of the excessive labor force by companies, unemployment, and underemployment. When signs of social unrest appear, it is suppressed by the regime. There is a lot of talk about America’s increasing income disparities as one of its major social problems and challenges. No doubt, it is a problem. However, let us not forget that expanding income gaps—or shall we say income differentiation?—stem from a low degree of the state’s involvement in the labor market and a small scale of income redistribution through social transfers. In this regard, they stimulate labor effort, providing a very strong incentive for the capable and talented—and this provides a strong impetus for economic growth. There are two patterns of the increase of income gaps. The first one, both socially explosive and economically detrimental, is the rise of absolute incomes of high-income families on the one hand and the fall of those of low-income families on the other. The rich become richer, and the poor poorer. The second pattern is fundamentally different: Absolute incomes of both high-income and low-income households are rising, but the former’s rise faster. Of course, it makes people, especially those belonging to the low-income group, frustrated with increasing income inequality, which is often perceived as social injustice. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

It may cause social tensions. However, at the same time this pattern provides a very strong stimulus for economic growth: first, because it encourages the work effort, as the prospect of a higher income and better life is there for the households of all income groups; and second, because low-income families are also improving their living standards and becoming increasingly active consumers. Because some people wish to raise their incomes, some turn to prostitution. It is important to emphasize that the paradox of involvement in prostitution occurs because there is a fundamental discontinuity between the effects of engagement in prostitution that the women, in our study, recalled and the stories they told about such engagement. Hence, the women claimed that involvement in prostitution alleviated their poverty, provided them with housing, helped them to live independently and gave them a means to fashion better lives for themselves. Yet, they also claimed that involvement in prostitution created their poverty, generated their housing difficulties, make them more dependent on men and/or families and jeopardized their social and material survival. However, in their recollections, the women indicated that as they could see no alternative to their current lifestyle, they had to live within that contradiction (id est, they had to make sense of their lives within prostitution). It is argued here that prostitution comes to make sense (id est, is rendered plausible and coherent) by, and within, the construction of a specific “prostitute-identity” which is underpinned by a shifting set of meanings for men, money, and violence. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

There are six contingent elements of the “prostitute-identity.” They have been characterized as contingent because each element was made possible by the social and material context in which the women inhabited. Thee six elements are described in contradictory pairs. Following these descriptions, the shifting set of meanings of “men,” “money” and “violence” that underpin each pair is also outlined. The first contingent element is the “prostitute-as-worker” identification in which all the respondents talked about themselves in relation to a generalized imaginary notion of “johns.” Within this identification, prostitute-women were constructed primarily as rational economic agents pursuing monetary goals and, more specifically, as workers doing a job and getting paid for it. Prostitution was discussed as though it was simple economic contract between prostitutes and their johns. This is evidenced in the euphemistic phrases used (id est, “just making money,” “doing business”) and in the way the women described their involvement in prostitution, more generally. Lost (aged 21) said: “I’m doing a job. I was doing a job. Like any other person who goes out in the morning, goes to work, gets paid for it and goes home. That’s what I do.” Christina (aged 23) agreed: “It’s a job. That’s what you class it as—a job.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Interestingly, the identification of prostitutes—as—workers is also seen in the way that the women described their involvement in prostitution as having nothing to do with sex. The interviewees could make such statements because they denuded their involvement in prostitution of its social setting. Such decontextualization permitted them to reduce their engagement in prostitution to only a set of episodic, economic moments in a series of individual exchanges between men and women. As Janet (aged 37) said: “You don’t have sex with [johns]! F*ck no! That’s not sex, you don’t even think of it as sex. That’s money. It’s a job. We calling it ‘working.’” Others, such as Jasmine (aged 30) and Ingrid (aged 44) put it more succinctly: “It’s not sex, it’s work” and “You don’t think it’s sex with [johns]. You don’t think of that as sex.” The second element in the “prostitute-identity” is a “prostitute-as-commodified-body” identification (as evident in sixteen respondents narratives). In this identification, the women talked about themselves in relation to particular (and anonymous) johns and a notion of “pimp-as-owner” and defined their bodies (especially their privates) as rentable objects. This was a subtly nuanced identification; the women also talked about both controlling and not controlling their rentable private parts. The prostitute-as-commodified-bodies identification occurred primarily in relation to an understanding of johns as anonymous men who were interested only in gratifying their own sexual desires and were willing to pay money to do so. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

This is in direct contrast to the prostitutes-as-workers identification where the respondents talked about themselves in relation to a generalized, imaginary and decontextualized notions of “johns” as one part of a simple economic exchange. The prostitute-as-commodified-bodies identification was constructed within a specific definition of what was being sold to johns. Instead of selling skill, expertise, time or companionship, these women talked about themselves as being providers of rentable women’s private parts. “It hit me when I was 19 that I was actually a prostitute. I didn’t really think about it before—it was just work. But then it hit me. I was actually selling myself. I was just a hole. I was nothing more than a body men paid to f*ck. I was a prostitute.” (Lois, aged 21) The first nuance was in relation to a notion of owning and controlling the commodity (id est, the rentable women’s private part) which was possible through a symbolic separation of women’s bodies from their (assumed) selves. Other researchers have understood this separation as evidence of the emotional and psychological harm of involvement in prostitution and as specific strategies used by prostitutes to distance themselves from the socially stigmatized label “prostitutes” and this refuse the negative personal characteristics associated with the label. However, I argue that it is through the symbolic separation of their bodies and selves that the women were able to discuss themselves as owning and controlling (id est, being ultimately able to dispose of) their rent-able private parts. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Ingrid (age 44) and Patsy (age 42) claimed, respectively: “The way I see it, there’s me and my body’s just there to be sold” and “When I’m here, I’m me. But when I’m out there, I’m not there. I’m not there. I’m something else. I’m just a prostitute—I’m something I can sell.” The second nuance that occurred was in relation to a notion of owning, but not controlling their rentable private parts. This second nuance was made possible by the dissolution of symbolic separation of body and self so that eight of the prostitute-women imagined that their selves had been lost to their continuously rented private part and via that, their johns had control over them. Witness Sammy’s remarks: “In the end, you hate yourself for selling your body. They do what they want to you. Your body’s an object and you’ve got no control over it.” The third nuance is noted in relation to a contextualized understanding of pimping practices. There was an unstated acceptance of one of the more “feudal” pimping practices—id est, the buying and selling prostitutes between different pimps. Such an acceptance opened a space for four respondents in which they discussed themselves, in relation to a notion of pimps as owners. Th fact that they had each been sold or traded at some point during their involvement in prostitution does not demonstrate this identification; nor do their comments that such practices were common place. However, their reactions to and remarks about when they had been sold do. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Each of the four women took issues, not with being treated like chattel property, but rather with how much money they had been sold for. The amount obtained represented to these women a symbolic measure of their worth as commodified bodies and rentable private parts. As Barbara (age 24) said: “Can you believe it? Kevin sold me to Steve for just fifty dollars! Fifty dollars! I was worth more than that!” The individual, who trades sex for money, often times consents to a perpetual condition of weakness, under the false conception that it is a necessary state for the manifestation to survive in the capitalistic market. However, when one is weak, that is often the prime time to find God’s strength and let that be sufficient for accomplishing His will—and keep in mind, it is not an exhortation to God’s children deliberately to will to be weak. This would make a person unfit for service in many ways. Instead, one should say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthen me.” That “willing to be weak” so as to “have a claim on Christ’s strength” is a wrong attitude can readily be seen. Such a “weakness” is not in accord with God’s plan and provision. It actually hinders God’s strengthening; and by this subtle deception of the enemy in the minds of many, God is robbed of much active service for Him. Christianity is the purifying, prophetic power. This theology lets the judgment of the unconditionally transcendent God fall upon every attempt of culture and religion to claim value before him. In its conception the only relation which the World has to God is that the World stands in the divine negation, in the crisis, in the shaking of time by eternity. Religion is the substance of culture and culture is the form of religion. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Family functions have often been transferred to other institutions, not because of their failure of the family to do its duty, but because another institution could realize the values involved even more fully. Recreation is an example of this. Occasionally a transfer of function has had the unwanted effect of weakening the family for the performance of some of its remaining tasks. Homes for the aged, for instance, cannot conserve the emotional value of the grandparent-grandchild relations. Such cases raise the question whether retransfer, though desirable, is possible in certain instances. This problem, for example, is reflected in discussions about the use of foster-homes rather than institutional care for the aged. The personnel of certain institutions, which began by being able to offer superior realization of certain family values, have so vigorously sought to enhance their institutions by usurping additional family functions that they have at times endangered other values of the family. Thus higher education may alienate children from parents, just as commercial services can weaken the housewife’s raison detre. This sort of thing has happened more often under the stimulus of commercial than professional considerations, yet certain agencies, which were originally set up to help families in need, have sometimes unduly prolonged the families’ dependence on outside help. Agency programs whilst intending rehabilitation or improvement have nonetheless at times produced unintended negative (and positive) side effects. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

The ambiguous consequences of professionalization. –The growth of specialized agencies for remedying deficiencies in family functioning is a potent condition for the evolution of professional technique and the scientific analysis and codification of the factors at work in family life situations. The same process operates here as can be witnessed throughout all other institutions of industrial, urban society: the more refined the division of labor, the more likely the generalization of subtle differences and associations, with consequent innovation in practice and understanding. Here lies no doubt the major positive benefit to be derived from the transfer of functions from families to family agencies. On the other hand, as already suggested, such transfers may come to seem not only inevitable under certain historical conditions, but irreversible, due to the fact that the layman can never hope to appropriate the knowledge and skill of the professional. Probably the majority of family-serving processionals hold this point of view, either unreflectively or deliberately. Only a minority relish the notion of prolonging or enlarging the dependence of their clients; the majority take the rueful view that the transfer of functions to professionals, despite its liabilities, is a net gain for family welfare, and thus justified. Moreover, it is easy to point out that not all transfers of function have been to responsible agencies devoted to family welfare; it transfers there must be, it is better that they should be professional rather than commercial hands. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

The process of professionalization need not halt, however, with the emergence of the certified family-serving professions. It can move on to encompass the commercial and the irresponsible, raising their standards of ethics and performance. More important still, it can work backward to professionalize the layman, in terms of one’s knowledge and self-conscious standards of application. Every agency and profession can readily adopt the objective of building the confidence and competence of its clients as family members. Some family agencies already disavow a vested interest in client dependency; a few are actively seeking to professionalize their clients in the sense just outlined. These we call the planning agencies. Historically, the development of family agencies can be schematized, with the usual gains and losses of simplification, into three stages: charity, therapy, and planning. At each stage there have been corresponding private and public forms, the one supported by voluntary contributions or dues, the other by taxation. Thus at the stage of charity there is private assistance to the afflicted by specialized persons and groups other than kin or neighbours, and public assistance in the form of country farms and state institutions. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

In the second stage there are the various voluntary benevolent and charitable associations dispensing assistance in organized and professional but still rather uneven manner; and on the public side, the conduct of regular, wide-scale services like home relief. Emphasis at this stage tends to be upon professionalization and rehabilitation through treatment of individuals. In the third stage, the emphasis shifts still further from the alleviation of distress and emergencies arising in families unequipped to cope with them, to the concerted achievement of more positive goals for organized publics, or for the community as a whole. Not boards of philanthropists but the affected people themselves form voluntary associations of various kinds, where their members participate directly in the planning and execution of programs. Such voluntary associations may be self-help agencies like insurance societies and co-operatives, or the public affected by the operation of some government executive agency, like the Farm Bureau in relation to the Department of Agriculture. Taking a round average, most family agencies in the United States of America may be said to have evolved to a point somewhere between the second and third stages. Some of the newest, however, are only commencing at the first stage; some, like the public-school systems in a number of states, have reached very advanced forms of planning, and furnish standards for judging others. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

At this third stage, it becomes less and less possible to distinguish family agencies from the other institutions of the community, because they are all embraced in a conscious, collective responsibility for the welfare of families and family members in the community. Yet charity and therapy may continue to be required indefinitely, though in changing proportions. Just as the inadequacies of charity has led to therapy, so the inadequacies of therapy are leading to planning. These inadequacies are relative to the increasing scope of the problems, and to the increasing scope of the opportunities for improvement as the evolution of the community continues. Where once, for example, cases of mental breakdown were simply confined in a country asylum (often run in conjunction with the poorhouse), there have since then developed a number of family agencies offering psychiatric care aimed at rehabilitation; but the volume of mental breakdown, despite psychiatric progress, still runs far ahead of the volume of cures. This has forced attention on the need for the prevention and early detection of mental breakdown. Many thinkers have also become aware of the need for broad positive programs of social change which would create a more definitely beneficial psychological environment for the entire population. Some commentators on the problems of mental health have become fixated, to borrow one of their own concepts, at the stage of psychiatric cure, and seem to desire nothing better than the multiplication of therapists, clinics, and mental hospitals. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

It would appear invidious to quote an example of this view, because its advocates are many. While it is perhaps most common among those who are explicitly concerned with psychotherapy, it dogs all other family agencies. It is closely allied with the functionalist view which aims to regain or restore some putatively healthy status quo ante. The extreme case may be those decentralists who would restore everyone to the family farm of the nineteenth century. The torrent of changes affecting the family as a consequence of science and industrialization during the past century is like the flood unleashed by the sorcerer’s apprentice. The effects of the transfer of the production of goods from the home to the factory, which converted children from assets to financial liabilities, have far from run their course. The resulting decline of fertility has meant that there are more people with no children to support them in age or infirmity, and older people find it more difficult to support themselves since there are no longer family enterprises to which they can make a contribution. At the same time, from the point of view of the community as a while, lengthened life expectancy and lower fertility have meant a declining number of working people is maintaining an increasing number of nonworking older people. Because the smaller family is less and less able to care for its aged, pension systems, both public and private, have been spreading quite spectacularly, and these in turn have the effect of further diminishing the function and responsibility of the family in caring for aged parents. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Each sequence of change had inevitably forced another, and no resting place appears in sight. It is not to be wondered at that some people, including a number of serious thinkers, are beginning to experience the same mounting anxiety that gripped the desperate little apprentice, and like him are praying for the sorcerer to give them respite. Through they may get the sorcerers, they will get no respite. Those who are fearful of the unanticipated consequences of purposive social action may succeed in handing over their responsibility to someone who promises order and stability, but they are not likely thereby to escape other consequences which may be both less easy to anticipate and more fearful to contemplate. The promise which the situation holds out to them is wiser anticipation and greater competence in making their hopes prevail. If a father left the family farm to work in a factory or office, it was probably to achieve a higher standard of living for his family. If old people live longer, it is because everyone want it that way. If child labour outside the home is forbidden, it is because of long campaigns of moral reform against it. If children are fewer per family, this is manifestly the choice of parents, abetted somewhat by landlords and proponents of the sales tax. These historic developments were responses to previous problematic situations, but they were never the only possible responses. And if things do not always turn out as expected, there is no reason to suppose people will be less competent to handle any new problem than they were to handle the prior situation which instigated it. Nor does the future offer fewer alternatives among which creatively to form a pattern of choice; indeed, it does just the opposite. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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Obliged with Grief and Heartbreaking to Confess it was True

It happened that in the midst of the dissipations attended upon a Santa Clara winter, I was pale, and broken, with my hands clasped and grief running in raw streams of redness down my face. The weather was strange. There was a fitful wind that swirled fallen leaves in cones and eddies like kaleidoscopic little whirlpools on the grass. The wind was unseasonably warm, as well as capricious. The rain dimpled upon the windows, and there was nothing cheerful about this night. Odd bits of debris carried past the windows, half-sunk, ambiguous in the rain. The cast of the light from the lamps in the garden were being absorbed, rather than reflecting any light. Organ music, emphysemic from the Grand Ballroom. However, odd melodies kept drifting over it, reminding me of the piano rags and vapid crooning my old grandfather like to listen to. The light was odd. Twice, the servants seemed to fade to black and white in their somber march through the mansion. I rubbed my eyes. There was nothing wrong, I knew, with my eyesight. When I looked again, the procession was normal. I began to feel the floor beat underneath me like impatient hands, cold and flapping. And I can honestly say that I had never been frightened, but I was frightened now. And I was spooked. I looked up through the dim ripples of light, and thought I saw a team of snorting, black-plumed horses crossing the front law. I throbbed with horrible life underneath me and knew that it was my own pulse, thumping, my whole body cold and urgent now with foreboding. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8

Then I heard someone scream from. And the sound pierced my heart with its terror and its bewilderment. Gusts of rain lashed with vindictive fury at the windows of the mansion. I felt a tapping on my shoulder that began to burn. I felt powerless and terrified. The tallow and wax candles flickered. Bursting into tears, I ran out into the light and pulled back my collar, there was a long, three-pronged claw mark on my neck that was bleeding. Overcoming by the strange things going on around me, I fainted. When I came to, I was lying in my bed and shivering, I could not feel the heat from the fireplace flames. Looking up at a window which seemed very small and far away, I heard sounds of weeping, muffled as if through thick cotton wool. I did not know how long my illness would last, but the house was shrouded in darkness. I kept to my room for many months, during which I allowed only brief visits. The curtains were always drawn. “I trust you are feeling a little better today, Mrs. Winchester?” The housemaid would ask, and I would rouse myself wearily and say that yes, I supposed that I was, and then would read The Oakland Tribune until it was time for me to set off to my office, where I worked each day on accounting. Most evenings I dined in the Venetian Dining Room. On Sundays, I worked in my study, I did not go to Church because I was busy managing my estate. I was also still grieving the loss of my infant daughter and charming husband. Oh, I was so dreadfully distressed. Because I loved my family so, I could not dare to be parted from them, but I knew one day I would recover my spirits. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8

My mansion looked as grand as a palace with its avenue of lamps, and more windows than you could count, and a statue of an angel before the entrance. Though I was compounded of guilt—even gilt at being alive at all–in the dark drawing room, I prayed constantly to be happy again. Some gathered around me because I possessed great wealth, and they thought it was their duty to help me take care of this fortune, but inevitably found that there was a cruse upon it, for they were all either led to the scaffold, or sunk to the lowest and most abject misery. With every mystery comes a sense of something evil. Many obtained no greater gratification from the constant excitement of vainly wishing to break that mystery, which to their exalted imaginations began to assume the appearance of something supernatural. Letter arrived from England, which I opened with eager impatience; the first was from my sister, breathing nothing but affection; the others were from my business partners imagining there was an evil power resident in my mansion. I must admit, however, its character was dreadfully vicious, for its possession of irresistible powers of seduction, rendering its licentious habits more dangerous to inquisitors. Llanada Villa used its character to enhance her gratification. It seemed like the pinnacle of unsullied virtue, but could drag some down to the lowest abyss of infamy and degradation. Throwing every mask aside, this mansion seemed to be sculpted to expose the whole deformity of their vices to the public gaze. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8

As she existed, so beautiful and delicate, Llanada Villa might have formed the model for a painter, wishing to portray on canvas the promised hope of the faith Mahomet’s paradise, but she belonged to those who had so souls. As she graced the plain, she was the eye of animated nature, for this beautiful luxurious mansion suited but to the taste of an epicure. Though ghosts can sometimes be seen at dusk wandering around the base of the Observational Tower, and their screams could be heard for miles. There was a living vampire, who has passed the years amidst the servants, feeding upon the life of a lovely female to prolong his existence for the ensuing months, his blood would run cold. Some thought these tales were just horrible fantasies; but Mr. Hansen cited the names of old men, who has at last detected one living among themselves, after several of their near relatives and children had been found marked with the stamp of the fiend’s appetite. Those who had dared to question their existence, always found some proof given, which obliged them, with grief and heartbreaking, to confess it was true. Once, while an artist was sketching my home, when his parents heard the name of my estate, they begged of him not to return at night, as he must necessarily pass through the fruit orchards, where no farmer would ever remain, after the day had closed, upon any consideration. They described it as the resort of the vampire in their nocturnal orgies, and denounced the most heavy evils as impending upon one who dared cross their path. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8

He made light of their representations, and tried to laugh them out of the idea; but when he saw his parent’s shudder at his daring thus to mock a superior, infernal power, the very name of which apparently made their blood freeze, he was silent. Tarquin often stayed in the Haunted Bedroom. He reported that it felt as though somebody had thrown something in his eyes. He also heard footsteps and furniture being moved about in the room and saw a strange figure looking at him. Next morning when Tarquin told me these tales, he was surprised to observe my melancholy face, and was shocked to find I was concerned about his words, mocking the belief of those horrible fiends, for the inspired me with such terror. Throughout the day, he was so occupied in his research, that he did not perceive that day-light would soon end, and that in the horizon there was a tremendous storm pouring all its rage upon the country side. He at last, however, mounted his horse, deterred to make up by speed for his delay: but it was too late. Twilight, in this climate, is almost unknown; immediately the sun sets, night begins: and ere he had advanced far, the power of the storm was above—its echoing thunders had scarcely an internal of rest;–its thick heavy rain forced it way through the canopying foliage, whilst the blue forked lightning seemed to fall and radiate at his feet. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8

Suddenly, his horse took fright, and he was carried with dreadful rapidity through the entangled fruit orchard. The animal at last, through fatigue, stopped, and all he could see in the glare of lighting was the 9-story Observational Tower. Dismounting, he walked back towards it, hoping to find shelter for the night from the pelting of the storm. As he approached, the thunders, for a moment silent, allowed him to hear the dreadful shrieks of a woman mingling with the stifled, exultant mockery of a laugh, continued in one almost unbroken sound—he was startled: but, roused by the thunder which again rolled over his head, he, with a sudden effort, forced open the door of the tower. He found himself in utter darkness: the sound, however, guided him. He was apparently unperceived; for, though he called, still the sounds continued, and no notice was taken of him. Tarquin found himself in contact with some one, whom he immediately seized; when a voice cried, Again baffled!” to which a loud laugh succeeded; and he felt himself grappled by one whose strength seemed superhuman: determined to sell his life as dearly as he could, he struggled; but it was in vain: he was lifted from his feet and hurled with enormous force against the ground:–his enemy threw himself upon him, and kneeling upon his breast, hand placed his hands upon his throat—when the glare of many torches penetrating through the window that gave light in the day, disturbed him;–he instantly rose, and, leaving his prey, rushed through the door, and in a moment the crashing of the branches, as he broke through the fruit orchards, was no longer heard. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8

The storm was now still; and Tarquin, incapable of moving, was soon heard by those without. They entered; the light of their torches fell upon the woodened walls, and the thatch loaded on every individual panel with flakes of soot. At the desire of Tarquin, they searched for her who had attracted him by her cries; he was again left in darkness; but what was his horror, when the light of the torches once more burst upon him, to perceive the airy form of his fair conductress brought in a lifeless corpse. He shut his eyes, hoping that it was but a vision arising from his disturbed imagination; but again saw the same form, when he unclosed them, stretched by his side. There was no colour upon her cheek, not even upon her lip. She had dark brown hair, pulled back very tightly, and dark eyes. There was a stillness about her face that seemed almost as attaching as the life that once dwelt there;–upon her neck and breast was blood, and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened the vein:–to this the farmers pointed, crying, simultaneously struck with horror, “A Vampire! A Vampire!” Their lamentable cries, as the approached the main part of the mansion, forewarned myself and the servants of some dreadful catastrophe. Tarquin was put to bed in the Haunted Bedroom and was seized with the most violent fever, and was often delirious. His mind, by this shock, was much weakened, and that elasticity of the spirit which once so distinguished him now seemed to have feld forever. I sat staring vacantly into the fire and listened to the heavy ticking of the mantel clock. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8

I belonged to a Society, which met twice a week in my Blue Séance Room. The spirit of the departed could visit us from Heaven, which we often called “Summerland,” to speak through a medium to those they loved. We thought of Heaven as a perfect summer’s day in the country, with beautiful fields of flowers. It was now the first week of June, and still broad daylight, but the evening chill was already upon the air. Guests walked up the narrow staircase, and into the dim, Blue Séance Room, in which the curtains were already drawn. The only furniture was a large circular table, around which half a dozen people were already seated, including myself. I greeted them warmly. I ceased to speak. There was a collective gasp from the society; the hair rose upon the back of their necks. Everyone’s hands were joined and trembling. There was faint buzzing vibration, running up my arms and through my body. “I can feel the power,” I said. “Is there anybody here?” Words started welling up in my throat, threatening to choke me if I did not speak. I began to chant sounds to the tune of “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” and slowly the tension relaxed and my hand ceased to tremble. My skin was crawling with gooseflesh. There was an old melody, even elderly. And it was familiar. The wind grew stronger up here, there were moans of the unseen crying for help, as we heard rain spatter hard against the Séance Room window. There was a figure dressed in black looking through the barred window. After a few moments, she turned into a white human-shaped most and disappeared. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8


Strange blue lights have been witnessed moving around some of the rooms in the Winchester Mansion, and at times, staff and guest have witnessed them circling around people. In the basement, growls are often heard, and people have encountered a malevolent spirit, said to be an elementary who manifests into an aggressive human form, while elsewhere extreme fluctuations in temperature, light anomalies and physical sensations of being pushed and grabbed are all commonly reported. Witnesses have also reported catching fleeting glimpses of a human haunting the water tower, or, the ghost tower, as it is ominously known. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

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Some Doors are too Dangerous to Open…

It was a beautiful day at the beginning of Winter. I was cheerful and optimistic. Stopping in my writing, I lifted my left hand from the paper, stretched it out to the pile of books, and moved the top one. I sat there fascinated, for a moment, glancing at the painting The Standard Bearer, by Prince Rupert. It was an interesting painting, there was almost hallucinatory quality about it. The deep blacks from which the image has been scraped reveals the ominous underside of contemporary culture that lurks as ever-present possibility in our lives. Also portrayed is the psychological state of isolation and dignity, as the prince poses, as one of high nobility would, while looking off into the distance, as if he is longing to know what lies beyond the castle walls. I find myself looking at it for a long time and coming back to it, several times. I went on with my writing as if nothing had happened, perhaps for another five minutes , and had actually got to the last few words of what I had determined to extract, when the figure in the painting started to move again. I saw the hands move; I turned my head again to examine him more closely, and I was framing a sentence to address him when I discovered that I did not dare to speak. There he sat, looking at me, and there I sat. I turned my head again to my work, and finished writing two or three words I still had to write. The paper and my notes are at this moment before me, and exhibit not the slightest tremor or nervousness. I could point out the words I was writing when the phantom started moving, and when he went back to his normal pose. Having finished my task, I shut the book, and placed it on the table: it made a slight noise as it was sat on the table, and the figure in the painting turned and looked at me again. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

Sitting myself back in my chair, I sat for some seconds looking at the fire with a curious mixture of feeling, and I felt a sudden, strange frisson, a chill down my spine. The fire was blazing up well, when I happened to glance up for a second. I studied the painting over and over again, and each time it seemed to come more and more alive. The prince would sometimes blink and make slight facial expressions. He was no longer looking away. He seemed to be looking at me, and into this room. His face had a strange expression, no longer stoic. He looked as if he were at once astonished and afraid. The book on the tabled opened to a page, and the quote, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” It has often been thought that the affections of the dead survive their death, and dwell long upon the people and the places they have loved in life. It is a beautiful thought, but carries with it, of necessity, the appalling corollary that if it be possible for the affections to survive, it is equally likely that hatreds are similarly immortal: and thus, in the inimical forces in that case ranged against us in the unseen World, we would have some foundation for the once universal belief in evil spirits. I wondered what message my companion in the portrait was trying to convey. I spent time looking at it, staring at the prince’s face, the porous ground through which the acid penetrated, and the lighter tones of the surface. In due course morning dawned: the sun rose, and a most beautiful day succeeded a very wet and dismal night. Suddenly, I heard a sound resembling the foot steps of a man. I carefully examined the entire room, but there was nothing there. I looked up at the painting and the prince had vanished. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

I went back to my desk and started writing. However, I was again aroused. The noise was now louder than before. I darted to the spot where the noise was, and tried to grasp the intruder in my arms. My arms melted together, but enclosed nothing. The noise passed to another part of the room, and I followed it, groping near the floor to prevent anything passing under my arms. It was in vain; I could do nothing. The sound died at the doorway of the crypt, and all again was still. I went slowly down the hall, glancing at the vases. The corridor to the kitchen beckoned, but I was stopped short by something I had never seen before. The door to a library I had never seen before stood open. In all of the years of construction, this door had been a wall. Now, there was a glimpse of afternoon light falling across an ornate desk and blue persian carpet. This thrilled me with fear and wonder. I took a deep breathe and forced myself to walk through the door. Bookcases lined the walls, though there was space enough for one painting directly behind the desk. The faint square where the green paint seemed brighter told of a painting that hung there before some soul seized it. A set of casement windows let in the mellow winter light. Then, a deep, guttural moan whose source I could not identify. The prince? Had he groaned? I tried to speak, but no noise would come out. As I walked towards a doorway in the darkness, there appeared to be the silhouette of a figured in the doorway. I stood frozen on the spot holding my breath, when to my astonishment, a dark shadow moved toward me. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

It was the prince. He was radiating a luminous glow. I shone the light in his direction and he started floating upward. Pointing at the wall and whispering, he ignored all the lovely crafts around him. I got the feeling that he wanted me to hang his portrait in the spot, which showed in indication that something had adored the wall long ago. I watched the ghostly scene for several minutes before he suddenly vanished. Later that day, I returned to the library and found the prince back in his portrait. I called to Mr. Hansen and had him hand the painting in the mysterious room. Shortly after he was done, we walked out of the room, and the door turned back into a wall. Later that day, the servants were drinking lemonade in the dining room, they sat around together and fraternized, discussing the sad state the country was in and reminiscing about better times when the country was whole. They suddenly heard vicious and rapid footsteps, looking to see where the noise was coming from, they noticed bloody footprints across the floor and leading down the hallway, only to disappear into the wall. They quickly cleaned up the mess, but the footprints only returned. While they spent hours more scouring the floors, a housemaid found an ancient key under the table, as she was coming to show it to me, she found herself being lead by blood footprints down the hall and the stairs. Curious to see where they were leading her, she followed. Unexpectedly, she saw a piece of an ancient door, as she got closer to it, she noticed impressions of large wooden beams set in gypsum plaster. “Where did this come from?!” –she mused. She stuck the antique key into the hole, and the door cracked into a million pieces. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5

Having entered the small with the rays of light that seemed to have struck the place for the first time after hundreds of years, the wide-eyed servant was horrified to see that the room was filled with skeletons. She felt the icy fear and urgency full now. Her heart pounded fiercely in her chest and she was running short on breath. From the position of the skeletal frames, it was easy to determine that they had died gnawing one another’s flesh. She expressed deep concern, surprise, but there was more. Looking further into the room, the servant noticed there were complex drawings and magical symbols on the walls. There had been stories that a monster had been born in my mansion. Servants often heard shuffling feet and hideous half-human cries as it emerged for its nocturnal prowling’s. It had a horn on its head, straight up like a sword, and instead of arms it has two wings like a bat’s, and at the height of the beast it has a fio [Y-shaped mark] on one side and a cross on the other, and lower down at the waist, two serpents, and was a hermaphrodite, and on the right knee it had an eye, an its left foot was like an eagle’s. Perhaps this was his ghastly chamber that is hidden deep within the walls of my home. Not even I knew the location of this secret room. The housemaid came to retrieve me, tears still streaming unapologetically down her face. In a state of shock and horror, the housemaid led me to the chamber she had discovered. As we got closer to this ancient door, her trembling ceased. Slowly, we walked around the corner, but the ancient door of strong oak was gone. So we did the only thing we could do in this terrible moment. To find this secret room, we hung drapes on every visible window. One window remained undraped, but we had no luck in locating the hidden room. I could only conclude that the secret chamber lay deep within a wall. But there, in the depths of the hall, we could just make out a massive black shape moving and writhing on the floor. Before we even had a moment to wonder what it could possibly be, I saw the moonlight glint across a gigantic mouth full of razor sharp teeth rushing toward the housemaid. She felt the teeth sink deep into her torso as that hideous maw snapped shut around her. It all happened so fast that she had no time to process what was happening, as she was pulled violently down the hallway and out of sight. Never to be seen again. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5


In ancient times, many believed that the real essence of any living thing, be it animal or human, resided in the breath and that the spirit might live on in the last exhalation of breath by a dying person. This “spirit” or “breath” could be good or evil. It could inhabit the living, entering a person’s body so that they were possessed. In most beliefs of this kind, the possession was thought to be evil. The case files on hauntings at The Winchester Mystery House are ones that deserve to be reexamined. The knocking spirits, or poltergeist represent one of the forms of domestic hauntings. It is now regarded as one of the most haunted locations in the World.

There are many spirits that have been reported here throughout the more than one hundred years. It is said to be haunted by ghost from different periods in the mansion’s history, including a man dressed in black, and a ghost boy who has been regularly seen in the mansion’s stables, surprisingly, along with ghostly horses and chicken. Apart from this, the carriage house is said to be haunted by the spirit of a woman and a little girl who is said to appear to visitors and ask them where her father is. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

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She Never Left, He Cut Out, I Know You All Know What I’m Talking About

Most people act quite decently in their narrow personal sphere, in fact surprisingly so, considering their general confusion. However, we must differentiate between intelligence and reason. By intelligence I mean the ability to manipulate concepts for the purpose of achieving some practical end. There seem to be come interesting differences between women who exchange sex for crack in crack houses and those who hustle tricks on the street for money to buy crack. These latter women were not directly addressed in this report, chiefly due to their minimal representation in the sample. However, anecdotal data from interviews and observations suggest that they may be at lesser risk for HIV infection and transmission than their crack house counterparts. This inference is based on their frequency of sexual contacts and their attitudes and practices associated with condom use. First, it appears that men and women who are street prostitutes have fewer sex partners, and considerably less frequent sexual activity, than the so-called skeezers and chicken heads who exchange sex-for-crack in the smoking and freak rooms of neighborhood resorts, brothels, and base houses. Soliciting a trick on the street, negotiating a price, going to a place to have pleasures of the flesh, engaging in pleasures of the flesh, receiving payment, and then going back to the streets to purchase and smoke crack take time. To a considerable extent, this regulates a man or woman who is a street prostitute’s aggregate number of customers. Several of the men and women, who are street prostitutes, in this study reported an average of three to six tricks each day that they worked, with most soliciting clients fifteen to thirty days during the month prior to interview. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Although this, too, results in an inordinate number of partners for pleasures of the flesh during the course of a year, or even a month, the numbers may be considerably fewer than those of the women and men who exchange pleasures of the flesh exclusively in crack houses. Recall, for example, the remarks already mentioned by the women who spent much or all of the day in crack houses, smoking crack and participating in sodomy or traditional coitus. Second, it appears that the men and women who are street prostitutes in this study were more conscious of sexually transmitted diseases and more often insisted that their customers use condoms. The following comments are representative: “If they don’t want to use a condom, they don’t go. I will not go, I will not do it. Most instances, there are very, very few where they don’t even want to wear a condom, and very few refuse to wear them. I just tell them, ‘Hey, you know I’m afraid of getting AIDS. You don’t know that you have it. I don’t know if I have it, but you never can tell you know.’ You know I tell them if you want to make love to me or whatever, you have to put one on. If you don’t you can’t. And no oral sex either.” By contrast, based on observations and the reports of numerous informants, condoms are rarely used during the activities involving pleasures of the flesh that occur in crack houses, freak, and smoke rooms. There are likely several reasons for this difference. There is a socialization process, for example, associated with becoming a prostitute. Would-be and neophyte prostitutes learn the appropriate techniques and safeguards through apprenticeships with pimps and/or more experienced prostitutes. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

In some cases, there is formal or informal training on how to protect oneself from theft, violence, or disease. To further highlight this illustration, in one sociological analysis of prostitution as an occupation, it was found that the recognition of sexually transmitted disease was a specific topic of instruction for neophyte houses prostitutes: Ann [the madam of a small house of prostitution] accompanies the turnout [neophyte prostitute] and the client to the bedroom and begins teaching the woman how to check the man for any cuts or open sores on the genitals and for any signs of old or active venereal disease. She usually rechecks herself during the turn-out’s first two weeks of work. Furthermore, however loose, unstructured, and transitory they may often be, those who work the streets or in organized houses of prostitution have friendships and peer relationships through which experiences are shared, techniques are traded, warnings are communicated, knowledge is reinforced. Concern for cleanliness and signs of sexually transmitted diseases were readily apparent among several of the street prostitute/informants in this investigation—for example: “You know some of thems not clean, you know, like they haven’t washed and before I even do something I check them out first. And if I see dirt I say, ‘No, you gotta wash up first.’ And even if I put my mouth to it and I can taste like it’s not clean I just draw back from it. I say I don’t want it, you know, and if I feel like if the taste is not right I give them their money back. Ain’t no way any c*ck is goin’ into any part of my body without me checkin’ it twice. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

“An’ even after he pass inspection, then he got to put on a rubber [condom]. That’s the rule I tell him. An’ if he don’t have a rubber I sell him one for a dollar. That’s the way it been with me all along, even before AIDS. ‘Ya don’t want to take anything home to yer ole lady,’ I say, ‘and I don’t wanna take yer germs home to my old man.’ So now we both safe and sound.” There appears to be no such concern in crack houses. The women who trade pleasures of the flesh for crack in crack houses are typically not experienced prostitutes who moved from the street to the crack house. One street prostitute commented: “I picked up a date in a crack house once and I didn’t believe what I was seein’ in there. She was a little girl—19, 18, maybe 17 that’s all—doin’ stuff like in a porno film. They be doin’ anything and everything in front of anyone, and you could tell they were no b*tches [street prodtitutes]….Yeah, I feel real sorry for ‘em. They probably turned a trick now an’ then, but they’re not experienced girls [prostitutes]. If they was, they wouldn’t be on their knees givin’ heads all day in crack houses.” A second likely reason for the differences between skeezers and street prostitutes is the role that crack plays in their lives. For skeezers and house girls, crack is at the basis of their pleasures of the flesh exchanges, as clearly evidenced in such comments as “I do it for crack” and “crack is my pimp.” By contrast, although the use of crack and other drugs is the reason that many women and men engage in prostitution, their need for crack seems to be somewhat less pressing. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

To further highlight this illustration, one person who works as a prostitute remarked, “First I tend to business, you know getting dates, getting money, saving for the rent, you know, and then I go buy a couple of rocks. If another date comes along, I wait to smoke.” And associated with this is the man or woman who works as a prostitute’s strong commitment to paying for his or her won crack. People employed as prostitutes will exchange sex for money but not for a hit: “If I had money I’d get my own drugs. I don’t need nobody else. If I really wanted some more [crack] then I’d find someone to have sex with. The first time [sex was exchanged for crack] I’ll tell you was about three years ago. And I made him pay me double in drugs as if it was money. And they did it, and I got it in my hand up front as payment as I was going to make anything and I was going to buy crack with my own money anyway and since I doubled the price of the cash that I wanted I went for it. And then I don’t, very rarely do that [exchange sex for drugs rather than money].” The differences between men and women who work as prostitutes in the streets and those working in crack houses, is there are different risk assessments for the HIV virus. The potential for transmission of HIV from women to men during traditional coitus in crack houses is related to one aspect of the cocaine/sexuality connection. Cocaine has long had a reputation as an aphrodisiac, although sexuality is notoriously a playground of legend, exaggeration, and rumor. In all likelihood, much of cocaine’s reputation may be from the mental exhilaration and disinhibition it engenders, thus brining about some heightened sexual pleasure during the early stages of use. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

At the same time, however, cocaine users have consistently reported over the years that the drug tends to delay the sexual climax and that after prolonged stimulation, an explosive orgasm occurs. Users also report that chronic use of the drug results in sexual dysfunction, with impotence and the inability to ejaculate the common complaints of male users and decreased desire for pleasures of the flesh becoming the norm for both male and female users. What applies to powder cocaine with regard to sexual stimulation and functioning would also apply to crack cocaine. Male customers, as well as male and female providers, in the sex-for-crack exchange networks report the difficulties associated with ejaculating under the influence of crack. Some report that they can climax only through extremely vigorous masturbation. One house girl commented: “Some of these mens have trouble getting’ it up and keepin’ it up, and it’s hard to get a limp c*ck to come, although sometimes even that happens.” Others similarly reported: “The cracks causes problem for men. They can get a hard-on, but they don’t come quick like when they’re straight. So first they want heads, and when that don’t work, they want p*ssy sex. Then it still takes ‘em forever, pumpin’ away until his c*ck gets sore, I get sore, and then I get pissed. But I can’t say anything, because he already gave me the cracks.” It is within such a situation that the potential for femle-to-male transmission of HIV exists. During traditional coitus, the friction of the male organ against the woman’s parts causes stimulation that can generate copious amounts of vaginal secretions. And as noted, HIV has been isolated from vaginal and cervical secretions. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

Furthermore, since women who exchange sex for crack in crack houses do so with many different men during the course of a day or night, potentially HIV-infected semen from a previous customer can still be present in the woman’s privates. Moreover, it was reported by one crack house prostitute that a customer ruptured the skin on his male organ while having intercourse with her: “One time this dude was prongin’ my p*ssy so long that he sees blood and starts yelling: ‘What the f*ck’s goin’ on with you lady, you on the rag or something?’ But it was him that was bleedin’ in me. His c*ck was goin’ in and out of me for so long that he rubbed it raw.” Although vaginal and anal intercourse often occur, much of the sex that occurs in crack houses involves women performing oral sex on men. To date, however, evidence for an oral route of HIV has been unconvincing. In most of the investigations of homosexual practices where a full range of sexual activities were carefully considered, for example, the risk from either insertive or receptive orogenital contact was uncertain, although regarded to be quite low. The data concerning heterosexual spread of the virus by oral sex are also limited. For example, in one study of the spouses of AIDS patients, HIV serpositivity among spouses was higher for couples who practiced oral sex in addition to penile-vaginal pleasures of the flesh, as compared with couples who practiced only penile-vaginal pleasures of the flesh. (However, it is a good idea to be cautious and speak to your medical doctor and you and your partner be tested.) #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

There is another cofactor, however, apparent in crack house oral sex that may be affecting the spread of HIV: the open sores on the lips and tongues of crack users as the result of burns and other epidermal trauma caused by the heat in the crack pipe stem. Because most men and women who perform repeated acts of oral sex in crack houses refuse to swallow a customer’s semen as it is ejaculated, the potential for HIV transmission for infected semen becomes apparent. For example, the 22-year-old who claimed to have engaged in more than thirty thousand episodes of oral sex commented: “I may have swallowed a lot of c*ck in my time, but I don’t swallow nobody’s come [semen]. Ya can tell me when the man is gonna come, so ya try to get his c*ck out of yer mouth so it ends up somewhere else. Most of the time it ends up on yer face, hair, chest…Either that or he surprises me and I end up with a mouth full og gizz [seman]. So I wait ‘til he’s done pumpin’ and then I let it out all at once.” (This particular woman also reported having an open sore on the inside of her lower lip, which she assumed was from a crack pipe.) Interestingly, and not surprisingly, street prostitutes not only disdain swallowing a customer’s semen, but most of those interviewed in this study avoided having semen enter their mouths: “I don’t like them to climax in my mouth. A man will push my head because they want it deeper. And I’ll tell them, I’ll give them one warning: ‘Get your hand off my head. I know my job, and you know.’ I hate that, to push my head and I’ll give them a warning and then I’ll get out quick. They’ll just come in your hand. I won’t let them come in my mouth. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

The use of crack and the existence of crack houses proliferated in Sacramento throughout the 1980s, and by the end of the decade, crack and crack house sex had become the community’s major drug problems. However, in the years hence, a number of things have changed. On the basis of focus groups conducted in 2010, and 2020, it would appears that crack continues to occupy a prominent place in the culture of drug-dependent women and men in Sacramento. In fact, informants often stated that crack has become “the common denominator in Sacramento’s street drug scene.” There is consensus, as well, that the drug is “the great equalizer on the street,” in that it had forced crack-dependent women and men—regardless of age, race/ethnicity, occupation, religion, or family background—into sex trading or commercial sex work in order to support their drug-taking. The crack houses, still exist, but are not usually as prominent primarily because of vigorous law enforcement. There are still “house girls,” “house boys,” and “freak rooms,” and all of the specialized types of houses. There are also many private houses and apartments where friends and acquaintances continue to gather to make crack, smoke crack, and exchange sex for crack. The World is already beginning to reap the consequences of its abandonment of any standard of morality. As just one example, recently the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in the United States of America warned that if a cure for AIDS is not quickly found, it could become a Worldwide epidemic that “will dwarf such earlier medical disasters as the Black Plague, smallpox, and typhoid.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

Most people fall into sexual sin in a misguided attempt to fulfill basic human needs. We all have a need to feel loved and worthwhile. We all seek to have joy and happiness in our lives. Do not be misled by lies. There is no lasting happiness in immorality. There is no joy to be found in breaking the law of chastity. Just the opposite is true. There may be momentary pleasure. For a time it may seem like everything is wonderful. However, quickly the relationship will sour. Guilt and shame set in. We become fearful that our sins will be discovered. We must sneak and hide, lie and cheat. Love begins to die. Bitterness, jealousy, anger, and even hate begin to grow. All of these are the natural results of sin and transgression. On the other hand, when we obey the law of chastity and keep ourselves morally clean, we will experience the blessings of increased love and peace, greater trust and respect for our martial partners, deeper commitment to each other, and, therefore, a deep and significant sense of joy and happiness. We must not be misled into thinking these sins are minor, or that consequences are not that serious. One of the most sobering statements about being unchaste is that of Alma to his son Corianton: “Know ye not, my son,” he said, “that these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost?” (Alma 39.5.) Very few of us will ever be guilty of murder or of the sin against the Holy Ghost. However, the law of chastity is frequently broken, and yet it stands next to these other sins in seriousness in the eyes of the Lord. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

Physical intimacy between husband and wife is a beautiful and sacred part of God’s plan for His children. It is an expression of love within marriage and allows husband and wife to participate in the creation of life. God has commanded that this sacred power be expressed only between a man and a woman who are legally married. The law of chastity applies to both men and women. It includes strict abstinence from sexual relations before marriage and complete fidelity and loyalty to one’s spouse after marriage. In addition to reserving sexual intimacy for marriage, we obey the law of chastity by controlling our thoughts, words, and actions. Jesus Christ taught, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of told time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart,” reports Matthew 5.27-28. To develop creativity, practice in make-believe and utilization of imaginary, absent, or hypothetical audiences, when real or socially present audiences are inimical or inhibitory, increases the probability of creativity. Respect for one’s own voluntary fantasy and ability to withdraw are the principal cases in point; these must of course be distinguished from compulsory fantasy and worry. Effecting self-organization and symbolic processes which enable the individual to be self-rewarding and self-validating, id est, able to provide one’s own consensual validation and social reward, increases the probability of creativity. Comparisons with historical models known through reading and drama are familiar examples. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

Increasing the variety and range of a person’s experience increases one’s potentiality for creativity, providing a richer fund of materials and a broader base for creativity. The greater the variety of interpersonal experiences, the greater the probability of a cumulative growth of creativity. Extensive experiences in reading, travel, parties, games, discussion groups, interclass and intercultural exploration, and other sources of variety in interpersonal experience—both direct and vicarious—increase the development of creativity, particularly through the metaphors they provide for reinterpreting present activity. The availability or privacy and the positive valuation of its use for reverie, self-exploration, and self-experimentation increase the probability of creative growth. Creativity operates under a law of increasing returns, in that each episode of creativity increases the potentiality for future creativity. Providing people with experiences of creativity on a small scale increases the probability of more extensive creativity on a larger scale in the future. Interpersonal activities and orientations which are genuinely playful are favorable to creativity. Competition and conflict (where competitors are matched and consequences limited and not serious), satire, parody, and burlesque of cherished values; humor; the playful juxtaposition of incongruities; they playful cultivation of illogicality, fantasy, and the mixture of the real and the unreal are among the kinds of playfulness favorable to creativity. There is a serendipity of play where creativity, whilst unsought for, may emerge from useless pleasure-seeking activity. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

Cultivation of an aesthetic orientation toward activity (“do it because it pleases you”) as opposed to a utilitarian practical orientation (“do it because it is good for you”) increases the probability of creativity. The sense of performance before an audience, where performance is values apart from its consequences, expands potential for creativity. One is tempted at this point to look back over the above hypotheses from several points of view. For example, certain independent variables recur under each of the six components of competence. Does this mean that the six components of competence. Does this mean that the six components do not vary independently, or does it mean that conditions conducive to the growth of one will contribute to others? Any efforts to develop competence imply some theory of learning and human development; might this not be made explicit? Might it not, for example, be well to generalize that there is a triadic movement in interpersonal learning: one sees in others what they can less well see in themselves, and learns abstractly how to vary the conditions of their development, one thereby teaches the other how to create the same favorable conditions for the development of one’s self, and by identification with the other who becomes so significant, one learns (by taking the role of the other toward oneself) how to create for oneself those conditions favorable for one’s development. Applied more generally, one sees broad implications for any group which acts on the proposition that each member’s behavior is a vital condition for the development of every other. Such speculation has always been important to progress in research, but there is not space here to indulge in it further. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

Regardless of how the suggested hypotheses are appraised by the reader, at the very least one should seriously consider the case for a new approach in family research which is satisfied with nothing less than explicit, testable experimental hypotheses. These should state in if-then form the conditions thought to be causally effective in producing a change in the development of those abilities required for successful handling of interpersonal situations, especially those found in families. If and when research can then go on to validate such hypotheses, then—and only then—will there really be scientific justification for publishing the procedures by which research findings can actually be applied. We make no pretense of having presented an exhaustive system of hypotheses, nor of being able to do so. Nor are we prepared to argue that the hypotheses we have listed are the best ones and should necessarily be given top priority in research on competence. However, we do content that competence a we have defined it is a top priority research problem; that the hypotheses proposed here are not mere offhand illustrations but merit serious attention; and that elaboration of significant hypotheses in all of the cells provided for, and the design and conduct of research to test them, will give to family research a unity, coherence, and impact it has not yet enjoyed. If we re wrong in our evaluation, then it is of the utmost importance that a more acceptable structuring of the problem be proposed without delay. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

Suffering directly caused by psychopathological offenders may be distinguished from the true fellowship of Christ’s sufferings by its complete absence of result, either in fruit, victory, or ripening in spiritual growth. If carefully observed, it will be seen to be entirely purposeless. God does nothing without a definite object. He does not delight in causing suffering for the sake of suffering, but psychopathological offenders do. Suffering caused by the psychopaths is acute and fiendish in its character, and there will be no inward witness of the Spirit which tells the suffering self-actualized individual that it is from the hand of God. To be a discerning eye can be as clearly diagnosed to be from a psychopathological offender as can any physical pain be distinguished from a mental one by a skillful physician. The suffering caused by psychopathological offender can reach to the depths of your soul, causing acute suffering in the psyche—injecting “feelings” into the soul, repugnant or poignant; soulish, producing acute darkness, confusion, chaos, horror in the mind—anguished, knifelike emotional pain; or physical; pain in any part of the body. The ground given for the evil spirits to produce counterfeit suffering in such an acute degree as this may be traced back to the time when the self-actualized, in one’s absolute surrender to God for “the way of the cross,” deliberately willed to accept suffering from Him. Then afterwards, in fulfillment of this surrender, he gave the ground to the enemy; by accepting some specific suffering as from God which really came from the psychopathological offender, thus opening the door to them by the reception of their lie, the admittance of their actual power manifested in the suffering—continuing still further to give more ground by believing their interpretation of the suffering—and doing so as “the will of God”; until the whole life became one prolonged “yielding to suffering,” which seemed unreasonable, unaccountable in its origin, and purposeless in its results. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

God’s character is thus often maligned to His children, and the deceiving spirits do their utmost to arouse rebellion against Him for what they themselves are doing. We stand not only under judgment, but also under grace. The relation of God and the World, God and the Spirit, and God and history underlies the negative (judgment) in three areas. Theology must always speak paradoxically in a Yes and a No. The relationship of God to nature, spirit, and history in manipulating the concepts of judgment and grace resembles more an exercise in logic than a theological treatment of mysteries; and a readiness to cast the mantle of the positive paradox over everything results in a cheap universalism. It is the nature of the of the Protestant principle to resist heteronomy, to protest justification by intellectual works even though they deal with the content of faith. Theology must communicate in terms meaningful to our age. One must speak of the unconditioned instead of God, of the Logos instead of Jesus Christ. In this way, traces of the divine Yes and No can be found in all cultures. If one prefers to call this a philosophy of culture, then our era requires of us as theologians not to be theologians, but philosophers of culture. The goal is to seek an understanding of Jesus Christ in the World. Every act of submissive worship is an act of alienation and idolatry in this sense. What is frequently called “love” is often nothing but this idolatrous phenomenon of alienation; only that not God or an idol, but another person is worshipped in the way. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

We are living in one of the most important revolutions in the history of power—a change that is now reshaping our planet. Over the past generation millions of words have been devoted to upheavals in technology, society, ecology, and culture. However, relatively few have attempted to analyze the transformation in the nature of power itself—which drives many of these other changes. We have seen how, at every level of life, from business to government and global affairs, power is shifting. Power is among the most basic of social phenomena, and it is linked to the very nature of the Universe. For three hundred years, Western science pictured the World as a giant clock or machine, in which knowable causes produced predictable effects. It is a determinists, totally ordered Universe, which, once set in motion, pre-programs all subsequent actions. If this were an accurate description of the real World, we would all be powerless. For if the initial conditions of any process determine its outcome, human intervention cannot alter it. A machine-like universe set in motion by a Prime Mover, divine or otherwise, would be one in which no one has power over anything or anyone. Only, at best, an illusion of power. Power, in short, depends on cracks in the causal chain, events that are not all pre-programmed. Put differently, it depends on the existence of chance in the Universe and in human behavior. Yet power cannot operate in an entirely accidental Universe either. If events and behavior were really random, we would be equally helpless to impose our will. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

Without some routine, regularity, and predictability, life would force upon us an endless series of random choices, each with random consequences, and thus make us powerless prisoners of fortune. Power thus implies a World that combines both chance and necessity, chaos and order. However, power is also linked to the biology of the individual and the role of government or, more generally, the state. This is so because all of us share an irrepressible, biologically rooted craving for a modicum of order in our daily lives, along with a hunger for novelty. It is the need for order that provides the main justification for the very existence of government. At least since Rousseau’s Social Contract and the end of the divine right of kings, the state has been seen as party to a contact with the people—a contract to guarantee or supply the necessary order in society. Without the state’s soldiers, police, and the apparatus of control, we are told, gangs or brigands would take over all our streets. Extortion, rape, robbery, and murder would rip away the least shreds of the “thin veneer of civilization.” The claim is hard to deny. Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming that in the absence of what we have earlier described as vertical power—order imposed from above—life quickly becomes a horror. Ask the residents of once-beautiful Sacramento what it means to live in a place where no government has sufficient power to govern. However, if the first function of the state is to ensure order, how much is enough? And does this change as societies adopt different systems of wealth creation? #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

When a state imposes iron control over everyday life, silences even the mildest criticism, drives its citizens into their homes in fear, censors the news, closes the theaters, revokes passports, knocks on the door at 4.00 A.M. and drags parents from their screaming children—who is served? The citizen in need of a modicum or order—or the state itself, protecting itself from outrage? When does order provide necessary stability for the economy—and when does it strangle needed development? There are, in short, to analogize from Marx, two kinds of order. One might be called “socially necessary order. The other is “surplus order.” Surplus order is that excess order imposed not for the benefit of the society, but exclusively for the benefit of those who control the state. Surplus order is the antithesis of beneficial or socially necessary order. The regime that imposes surplus order on its suffering citizens deprives itself of the Rousseanuian justification for existence. States that impose surplus order lose the Mandate of Heaven. Today they also lose their moral legitimacy in an interdependent World. In the new system now emerging, they invite not only the attention of global opinion but the sanctions of morally legitimate states. The United States of America has dispatched a secret mission to smooth over ruffled relations between China and Japan. Nevertheless, despite all the opportunism and realpolitik, the entire World, in effect, voted on the moral legitimacy of the hardliners’ regime. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

Global opinion is growing more articulate, and less tolerant of surplus order. If so, there is a hidden reason. The revolutionary new element—a change brought about by the novel system of wealth creation—is a change in the level of socially necessary order. For the new fact is that, as nations make the transition toward the advanced, super-symbolic economy, they need more horizontal self-regulation and less top-down control. Put more simply, totalitarian control chokes economic advance. Student pilots often fly with white knuckles tightly gripping the controls. Their instructors tell them to loosen up. Overcontrol is just as dangerous as undercontrol. Today, as the crises in the Ukraine and other countries demonstrate, the state that attempts to overcontrol its people and economy ultimately destroys the very order it seeks. The state with the lightest touch may accomplish the most, and enhance its own power in the process. This may—just may—be bad news for totalitarians. However, enough ominous signs darken the horizon to dispel facile optimism. Those who have read this far know that we have no utopian promises. The use of violence as a source of power will not soon disappear. Students and protesters will still be shot in plazas around the World. Armies will still rumble across borders. Governments will still apply force when they imagine it serves their purpose. The state will never give up the gun. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

Similarly, the control of immense wealthy, whether by private individuals or public officials, will continue to confer enormous power on them. Wealth will continue to be an awesome took of power. Nevertheless, despite exceptions and unevenness, contradictions and confusions, we are witnessing one of the most important changes in the history of power. For it is now indisputable that knowledge, the source of the highest-quality power of all, is gaining importance with every fleeting nanosecond. The most important powershift of all, therefore, is not from one person, party, institution, or nation to another. It is the hidden shift in the relationship between violence, wealth, and knowledge as societies speed toward their collision with tomorrow. This is the dangerous, exhilarating secret of the Powershift Era. Power is inherent in all social systems and in all human relationships. It is not a thing but an aspect of any and all relationships among people. Hence it is inescapable and neutral, intrinsically neither good nor bad. The power system includes everyone—no one is free of it. However, one person’s power loss is not always another’s gain. An objective examination of the relation between society and human nature must consider both the furthering and the inhibiting impact of society on man, taking into account the nature of man and the needs stemming from it. Each society is structuralized and operates in certain ways which are necessitated by a number of objective conditions. These conditions include methods of production and distribution which in turn depend on raw materials, industrial techniques, climate, size of population, and political and geographical factors, cultural traditions and influences to which society is exposed. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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We Stand, All Together Now, at Ground Zero

This report includes some parts that are beyond the maturity of youth. This is the cruellest moment in the life of societies…I am under no illusions and do not except to wake up one morning to see the resurrection of freedom in our country, as if by a stroke of magic….No, no; decay, and decay for a period whose end I cannot fix and which will last for not less than one or two generations—is our lot…I shall witness the evil only, I shall die in the midst of the darkness. The designation graveyards, rooms in abandoned buildings, has an interesting genesis. At the corner of one of Sacramento’s housing projects, described by a local journalist in this way: “Sure, there are always problems. Its official name is Site 5, Project SA527-B, but residents began calling in ‘The Graveyard’ years ago. Poverty breeds crime, and crime bred more of itself. But when a tidal wave of cocaine rocks descended on the place ten years ago, crime seemed to put The Graveyard in a stranglehold. The pulse of the community grew faint. Residents began dying out of The Graveyard and prospective tenants refused to move. So basers [crack users and dealers] claimed the vacant apartments for themselves.” In time, The Graveyard’s abandoned apartments became overrun by crack dealers and users, the smell of drugs is vented from one apartment in to the apartment next door, and other people were unknowingly getting contact high, and being exposed to germs from their neighbor’s apartment. The problem got so bad that the county government began boarding up the project’s vacant rooms. However, the name took on a life of its own, and was renovated. People now deal crack out of the fire escapes, look outs stand out on the corner at night. There is a methadone clinic down the street. Community members fear walking by that building because of all the noise, violence and drug and alcohol abuse. Some people even run by it when the fights break out. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

To future highlight this illustration: “It’s an empty house, empty room. So somebody like go into this room, the first one there. They might put a board you know, you have cloth, you know a bucker of water to bathe and sh*t. I did it myself. Put up those boards and sh*t, sometimes curtains hanging over the door, this room had no doors, no windows, nothing like that. I know’d this one place off Capital Avenue where this lady set up in a burned out apartment. She was sort of a wh*re/crack head/skeeezer/bag lady who’d do anythin’ for crack and for food for her tick baby [a prostitute’s child fathered by a john], her base baby [a child conceived and gestated by a crack-using mother]. For a hit on the pipe or for some food or money or drug or cigarettes she’d let you smoke in her digs and she’d suck your prick too.” And finally, somewhat related to graveyards are base cars—abandoned automobiles that sever as places to smoke crack, to have sex, or to exchange sex for crack. Organized crack houses are reportedly few in number in Sacramento. The environment in these establishments is far more controlled than in any other type of crack house, with the owners more visible and closely monitoring all activities. Violence and general chaos are uncommon. The ambience is described as clam, and children are not permitted. They have more workers than other crack houses, most of whom maintain order inside or watch for police: They would have people outside, lookouts. Way up and down the street, like on the corner. And another guy sitting in the yard like he was cleaning the yard or something. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

“There would be like a bouncer at the door with a gun to watch to make sure no cops or anything would walk in. Or to make sure that there were no problems within the place itself. Just to make sure it secure for their sake.” Purchasing crack in organized houses is more structured than elsewhere. Several have specific hours of operation. Upon arrival, a customer is sold crack, seated with a pipe, and strict order is maintained. To further highlight this illustration, “You can’t come in the house after 8.00. Other than that he passes it through the window. Before 8.00 you can come in and he lays them [crack and crack pipes] on the table and you can pick what you want. Sometimes you walk in and he is sifting it [cocaine hydrochloride] with the baking soda so he can cook it and tell you to come back in fifteen minutes. When you walk in they have a person that pats you down to see if you got any weapons on you, and then you go through the doors then they have a person that brings you a torch. And they set you up to table and OK when you first walk in the door its goin; back a little bit you buy your rocks at the door. They have a little stand. They have all the rocks you want from five dollars all the way to a fifty-dollar rock. And you pick out which one you want, whatever your money can afford and then they have someone escorts you back in the back, and that’s where we smoke at. They give you a pipe, they give you a torch, and then your own your own. It wasn’t like these abandoned burned-out houses that you see here in the city. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

“This house was very nice, very organized; he had house pipes, torches; he supplied lighters, screens, drugs; everything you needed was right there to prevent so much traffic. Once you get there if you have enough money, you can sit there and use the house pipes and everything. If you only came there to buy a nickel [five-dollar rock] or a dime [ten-dollar rock], you got it and left. Finally, direct sex-for-crack exchanges do not occur in the organized houses. One prostitute noted that “they let the hookers and skeezers in the door only if they was going to buy crack. The house is for buying and smoking only. They let us cut deals there, you know, but you can’t sex there. Got to go someplace else, usually out of the customer’s car.” Interviews with 35 women and 17 men in Sacramento revealed a progression into the drug World that for some, especially the women, ended in virtual slavery to pimps and more importantly to crack. All of the fifty-two informants had long histories of drug use. For almost all of these subjects, alcohol and tobacco use preceded their illicit drug-using careers. Marijuana use began at a mean age of 14 years. A significant proportion of the group experimented with inhalants, hallucinogens, stimulants (uppers), and depressants (downers). Some 40 percent had histories of intravenous drug use, including some cocaine, heroin, speed, and/or speedball (heroin mixed with cocaine). All of the men and all but one of the women had used cocaine (non-IV) during their teenage years, with 75 percent using the drug on a regular basis. Crack use began for both men and women by age 25. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

In terms of current drug use, defined as any use during the thirty-day period prior to the interview, crack clearly predominated. Crack was smoked for as long as it was available and users had means to purchase it—with money or sex, stolen goods, or other drugs. It was rare that someone had just a single hit. It was typical that they spent fifty to one hundred dollars in one period, with binges lasting three or four day. During these smoking cycles, users neither ate nor slept. Some informants purchased crack over two hundred times in the thirty-day period prior to student recruitment. While many of these crack users binged for several days in a row, over half (58 percent) used the drug on a daily basis. For every day they used crack, they were high from as few as three ties to as many as fifty times. Moreover, once crack was tried, it was not long before it became a daily habit. One-third of the sample used crack daily immediately after first trying it. An additional 27 percent used it daily by the end of their first month. For many of the women in this study, the craving for crack led eventually to prostitution. Once they ran out of money and things to sell, they found they could always sell themselves. The following quotation, drawn from the transcript of a 28-year-old African-American crack user legally employed as a shipping clerk, clearly illustrates a characteristic aspect of the sex-for-crack phenomenon. She details her first exchange of sex for crack and how it came about. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

“I had my last paycheck, that was $107. That day I went straight from there [work] with a friend guy and copped some drugs. I bought $25-five nickel rocks. We drunk a beer, we needed the can to smoke on. So we sat there and we smoked those five rocks and you know, like they say, one is too much and a thousand is never enough. And that’s the truth. Those five rocks went like this [snaps fingers], and I had maybe about $80 left. I had intentions of takin’ my grandmother some money home for the kid. But I had it in my mind you know I was, I was just sick. I wanted to continue to get high so push came to shove and I smoked up that whole day. OK all the money was gone, all the drugs was gone. About 0.00 we went and sat in the park. Usually when we set in the park, people will come over and they’ll have drugs. I stayed out because I couldn’t give an account for what I had did with the money. My grandmother done thought that I was goin’ to pick up my check and comin’ back. So I walked down this street—you know you got people that will pick you up. So this guy stopped, and I got in the car, and I never did any prostituting but I wanted more drugs. So this guy, he asked me: “How much would you charge me for a head?” That’s oral sex. And I told him $40. And so he say, how much would you charge me for two hours to have just sex not oral sex? And so I told him $40 so he say: “OK get in,” and he tool me to this hotel. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

“He had about six rocks. I didn’t want sex. I wanted to get high, so we smoked the rocks and durin’ the time I sexed with him. So after I sexed him, he gave me the money, and after the rocks was gone I still wanted to get high. So he gave me more money to go get more drugs. We went into another hotel. By that time it was maybe 6.00 in the morning. By that time I done spent all my $40. It wasn’t nothing I had done wasted the money.” The individuals interviewed in this study had sexual histories that began early and involved many partners. The mean age of the first sexual intercourse was 14 years, with the females being involved in sex almost a year earlier than the males. The first sex-for-money exchange occurred at a mean of 23.2 years. During the thirty-day period prior to the interview, the sexual activities of the fifty-two informants were extensive. Among the seventeen male crack users, more than half had twenty-five or more male sex partners, and five of the seventeen had a hundred or more male partners. In addition, 60 percent of these male crack users had more than twenty-five male sex partners during the same period. Moreover, 42 percent participated in vaginal sex more than twenty-five times; 88 percent participated in oral sex more than twenty-five times, just under half participated in rear end-insertive coitus at least once; and 30 percent engaged in rear end-receptive coitus during this thirty-day period. Finally, 30 percent of these men masturbated other men (“hand jobs”). #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

The women appeared to have many more sexual contacts than the men. Almost 90 percent of the women had a hundred or more male sex partners, and 11 percent had as many as twenty-five female partners. Some 39 percent of these women participated in traditional coitus more than fifty times, 57 percent engaged in sodomy more than fifty times, 20 percent participated in rear end coitus, and 29 percent provided men with hand jobs. Respondents performed a wide array of acts involving pleasures of the flesh. This might include generic sodomy (a “brain”) or a specialized variation (“slow neck” or “fast head” or a blood sucker who performs acts on women at a certain time of the month). Moreover, the majority of the respondents reported performing acts involving pleasures of the flesh that they would do while on crack and/or for crack and doing so for a penny (one hit on a crack pipe) or less. For example, a 31-year-old male prostitute reported: “As a matter of fact, when you are high on crack you’ll do almost anything. We [the respondent and his boyfriend had sex in front of other people, and one male joined us. Usually I gave the other guy head while we had anal intercourse.” Most parents would like to keep their children from strolling down this road, so they raise them in the ways of God and attend weekly church services, Bible study, and teach them to pray. When you hear the phrase “the law of chastity,” do you know what it means? You probably get a lot of mixed messages about it. All kinds of media, and sometimes even friends and family, have different opinions about it. And the World actively teaches things contrary to what the Lord teaches. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

So what exactly does the law of chastity mean? The law of chastity is the Lord’s term for His commandment to live a life of sexual purity and virtue. Living the law of chastity is for both men and women, and it means you do not have any sexual relations before marriage, and [you are] completely faithful to your spouse after marriage. However, being virtuous and chaste is about more than just pleasures of the flesh. Treat others with respect, not as objects used to satisfy lust and selfish desire. The law of diminishing returns is a principle stating that profits or benefits grained from something will represent a proportionally smaller gain as the point of optimization is exceeded. So, somethings become less desirable or useful after they are done so many times. This is why purity is important. Your body is a temple of God and not something you want to just give away, abuse or let other people abuse. Before marriage, do not participate in passionate kissing, lie on top of another person, or touch the private, sacred parts of another person’s body, with or without clothing. Do not do anything else that arouses lust. Do not arouse those emotions in your own body. Note that the Lord’s standards do not change just because two people really like each other and both agree to the behavior. When you respect other people, the Lord, and yourself, you will keep the commandments—and that means no sexual relationship or arousing sexual feeling outside of marriage. The Lord really is serious about this. “The prophet Alma taught that sexual sins are more serious than any other sins except murder and denying the Holy Ghost,” (see Alma 39.3-5). #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

Creativity in interpersonal relations refers to the actor’s capacity to free him or herself from established routines of perception and action, and to redefine situations and act in the new roles called for by the new situations—in short, it means inventiveness in interpersonal relationships. Of all the components of competence we have considered, creativity is perhaps the most difficult to specify and to investigate. Nevertheless it is evident that competence in interpersonal relations requires some such group of qualities and skills. It therefore becomes necessary to develop research on the conditions for their optimal development and utilization. Participation in social relations which are permissive rather than repressive, equalitarian rather than hierarchical and authoritarian, mutual and reciprocal rather than unilateral, is favorable to creativity. Rotation of functional positions among the participants in a social relationship is a source of new experience, providing a broadening base for creativity and increasing the probability of its development. Role-reversal in role-playing is an almost universally usable substitute device when more extended rotation of roles is not feasible, as with children and parent. Participation in social relation where diversity and individuality are valued above uniformity and conformity increases the probability of creativity. Extensive and obligatory routine is unfavorable to creativity. Routine in a particular activity may be favorable to creativity insofar as it frees the individual’s attention, energy, and other resources for creative activity in another area. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

A balance between established routine, preferably flexible, varied, and of limited range and duration, and opportunity for deviation from routine is optimal for creativity. Some areas of the individual’s experience and activity must always be subject to routine, but procedures which encourage the variation of routine activities increase the probability of creativity. Situations which provide challenges that exceed the individual’s previous achievement without exceeding one’s ability are favorable to the occurrence of creativity. Even if the challenge exceeds one’s usual conception of one’s ability, a condition favorable to creativity exists, provided true ability is not overchallenged, and particularly if the support of significant others can be introduced to bolster unrealistically modest judgment of ability. The suspension of one’s own judgment regarding one’s ability is important in such a case. Resultant spontaneity may permit the individual to go ahead and act creatively, even though one’s usual conception of one’s ability would lead one to appraise the situation as threatening and demanding withdrawal. Experiences increasing self-esteem will increase the probability of creativity. A distinction between self-esteem and self-satisfaction ( a seeking for stability, permanence, perpetuation of the status quo of the self) is necessary. Self-esteem is conceived as a positive self-valuation operating independently from changes in other areas of the self-system. Involved in self-esteem is a kind of detachment which permits a person’s appraisal of one’s general worth to stand independent from particular success and failure events; critical appraisal of products is thus not seen as directed against the performer. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

If experiences are provided affecting the individual’s self-organization and symbolic processes, so that one’s threshold of stimulation is lowered and one becomes able to be more fully responsive to the stimulation of other people and interpersonal events, the probability of creativity is increased. A playful and sociable atmosphere—as created by the capable host—is the best example. Passivity caused by wrong acceptance of suffering consists when the self-actualized accepts suffering with Christ in the way of the cross. To fulfill this surrender one passively yields to suffering in whatever form it may come, believing that suffering with Christ means reward, and fruitfulness. One does not know that psychopathic offenders can produce counterfeit “suffering,” and that one may be accepting suffering from them though believing it to be from the hand of God, and, by so doing, giving ground to them. And what does one consider “suffering” to be? Both conduct disorder in the life which cannot be got rid of, and suffering in the life which cannot be explained. By recognizing the truth of deception the first can be got rid of, and the latter explained. Suffering is an obvious factor in motivating a person to take a certain course. So it is a great weapon of psychopathic offenders to use in controlling people, for by suffering they can drive an individual to do what one would not do otherwise. Not realizing this, the believer may entirely misinterpret the suffering one goes through. Self-actualized individuals are often suffering for others, perhaps even for the country as a whole. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

They look upon themselves as martyrs when they are really victims, unaware that “suffering” is one of the chief symptoms of deception. By putting a human into suffering, the psychopathic offenders gleefully ease themselves of their enmity and hatred to man. The theonomous union of religion and culture can be expressed in yet another way, by the relation of the holy to the secular. Consecration is the first principle of the secular. By this, nothing is essentially and inescapably secular. Everything has the dimension of depth, and in the moment in which the third dimension is actualized, holiness appears. Everything secular is potentially sacred, open to consecration. Nor is the mediation of the churches, of religion in the narrow sense, necessary for this consecration. For the dimension of depth in the secular is religion—religion in the large sense of ultimate concern which cannot be restricted only to an ecclesiastical sphere. Once the autonomous, self-sufficient surface of the secular is broken through by an unconditioned concern, the holy reveals itself in the depths of the secular. In that moment, the universe is God’s sanctuary. Every work day is a day of the Lord, every supper a Lord’s supper, every work the fulfillment of a divine task, every joy a joy in God. In all preliminary concerns, ultimate concern is present, consecrating them. The concrete way in which consecration is effected is symbolism. When, under the influence of ultimate concern, a thing become a symbol of the holy, then to that degree it is sacred and participates in divine holiness. No object, no person, no activity is excluded from the possibility of symbolizing the holy, for everything in the World rests on the ultimate ground of being. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

The first principle, then, offers the possibility of finding the holy in the secular; the second principle, the convergence of the holy and secular, maintains its necessity. The secular resists self-transcendence, but this very resistance produces the emptiness and meaninglessness which characterized the finite when cut off from the infinite. An exhausted secularism is driven to ask the question of a meaning and power of being beyond itself; it seeks the holy. On the other hand, the holy cannot manifest itself without the secular, for it is through the finite alone that the infinite can express itself. It is through holy “objects” that holiness must become actual. Consequently, although they remain in tension, the poles of the holy-secular converge upon one another. The third and last principle is that of the essential belongingness of religion and culture to each other. In the existential, actual condition of mankind, the holy is separated from the secular, and this constitutes the state of sin. Essentially, however, they are untied in that religion is the substance of culture, and culture the form of religion. Therefore, in the essential order the holy and the secular are not found as hostile or even divided spheres; rather, together they form a union in which the autonomy of the finite is not destroyed, while at the same time it achieves transcendence by revealing in its depths the presence of the infinite. The fact that in the existential order they confront each other from behind unyielding barriers is tragic witness to the state of sin and separation in which man lives. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

Religion itself, namely, a religious culture beside a secular culture, a temple beside a town hall, a Lord’s supper beside a daily supper, prayer beside work, meditation beside research, caritas beside eros is proof for all the World. This duality can never be fully overcome in history, but it should be prevented from widening into an unbridgeable chams. The poles of the holy-secular can be at least fragmentarily united. The above principles that relate the holy to the secular render intelligible the term “Protestant secularism.” The term “theonomy” may be objected to because its use by Catholics has created connotations of a clearly heteronomous character. Therefore, it may be wise to speak, in certain cases, of “Protestant secularism.” Theonomy indicates that neither ecclesiastical heteronomy nor secular autonomy can have the last word in human culture. For the shallow creations of an autonomous culture lack substance, and heteronomy rides roughshod over secular forms. However, theonomy is more than a needle which flickers between two extremes on the culture-gauge: There is, however, a difference between a culture which is theonomous, determined by direct and intentional expression of an ultimate concern, and a culture which oscillates between an empty autonomy and a suppressive heteronomy. Ultimate concern is the positive, life-giving taproot of theonomous culture. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

When it comes to the new-style global organizations, the question of whether some non-national “gladiators” ought to be represented in World bodies is closely related to the deign of new organizations on the World scene. A key question facing the architects of the new global order is whether power should flow vertically or horizontally. A clear example of vertical organization is the European Community, which seeks to build, in effect, a supra-government that would, according to its critics, reduce the present countries of Europe to the status of province rather than sovereign nations—by imposing supra-national controls over currency, central banking, educational standards, environment, agriculture, and even national budgets. This traditional vertical model seeks to solve problems by adding another echelon to the power hierarchy. It is “high-rise” institutional architecture. The model, congruent with the emerging forms of organization in the business World and the advanced economies, flattens the hierarchy rather than extending it upward. It will be based on networks of alliances, consortia, specialized regulatory agencies, to accomplish ends too large for any single state. In this system there is no higher level of top-down control, and specialized agencies are not grouped hierarchically under a nonspecialized central body. It is the equivalent of “low-rise” architecture. It parallels the flex-firm. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

Around the World today, the EC is being closely watched and, very often, taken as the only model for regional organization. Thus, the proposal to clone the EC is loudly heard, from the Maghreb and the Middle East to the Caribbean and the Pacific. A more revolutionary approach would be to lace existing organizations in each of these regions together, without imposing a new layer of control. The same might be done between nations. Japan and the United States of America, for example, are so closely intertwined economically, politically, and militarily, that decisions in one have immediate high-impact consequences in the other. Under these circumstances, the day may arrive when Japan will demand actual voting seats inside the Congress of the United States of America. In return, the United States of America would no doubt demand equivalent representation in the Japanese Diet. In this way would be born the first of many potentials “cross-national” parliaments or legislatures. Democracy presupposes that those affected by a decision have a right to participate in making the decision. If this is so, then many nations should, in fact, have seats in the U.S.A. Congress, whose decisions have greater impact on their lives than the decisions of their own politicians. As the World goes global, and the new system for wealth creation spreads, demands for cross-national political participation—and even cross-national voting—will bubble up from the vast populations who now feel themselves excluded from the decisions that shape their lives. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

However, whatever form the global organizations of tomorrow assume, they will have to pay more attention, both positive and negative, to the Global Gladiators. To what extent should groups like religions and global corporations, as well as transnational trade unions, political parties, environmental movements, humans rights organizations, and other such entities from the civil society be represented in the institutions now being planned for the World of tomorrow? How can one keep a crucial separation between Church and state at the global level to avoid the fearsome bloodshed and oppression that has so often resulted from their fusion? How might terrorists or criminals, warlords and narco-killers be quarantined? What legitimate global voice might be given to national minorities oppressed at home? What missile defense or chemical-warfare defense measures should be regional or global, rather than left to purely national responsibility? No one can afford to be dogmatic in answering these dangerous questions of the not-so-far-off future. The questions themselves sound strange, no doubt, in a World that still conceives of itself as organized around nation-states. However, at the dawn of the smokestack era, nothing sounded stranger, more radical, more dangerous than the ideas for French, English, and American revolutionaries who thought that people and parliaments should control kings, rather than the reverse, and that lack of representation was cause for rebellion. In many countries, such ideas may provoke passionate objection on patriotic grounds. The proto-fascist French writer Charles Maurras in the 19th century expressed the traditional view that “of all human liberties, the most precious is the independence of one’s country.” However, absolute sovereignty and independence have always been mythical. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

Only countries willing to opt out of the new system of wealth creation forever can avoid plugging into the new global economy. Those who do connect with the World will necessarily be drawn into an interdependent global system populated not by nations alone, but by newly powerful Global Gladiators as well. We are witnessing a significant shift of power from individual or groups of nation-states to Global Gladiators. This amounts to nothing less than the next global revolution in political forms. The shift toward heterogeneity in the emerging World system will sharply intensify if giant nations splinter, as now seems eminently possible. The Soviet Union is fast-fracturing, with Gorbachev desperate to hold the parts together in a much-loosened framework. However, some pieces will almost surely flake off and assume strange new forms in the decades to come. Whether part of the Post-Soviet Union or not, some regions will inevitably be drawn into the economic vortex of a German-dominated Europe; others into the nascent Japanese sphere of influence in Asia. The backward republics, still dependent on agriculture and raw material extraction, may huddle together in a loosened federation. However, rational economic considerations could easily be swept aside by a tidal wave of republic, and Byelorussia merge into a giant mass based on Slav culture and a revivified Orthodox church. Islam could glue some of the Central Asian republics together. China, too, could split up, with its most industrially developed regions in the South and East severing their ties with the great rural-based China, and forming new kinds of entities with Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and perhaps a reunified Korea. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

The result might he a giant new Confucian Economic Community, countering the rise of Japan, while further strengthening the significance of religion as a factor in the World system. To assume that such changes will happen without civil war and other conflicts, or that they can be contained within the obsolete frame of a nation-based World order, is both shortsighted and unimaginative. The sole certainty is that tomorrow will surprise us all. What is brilliantly clear, then, is that as the new system of wealth creation moves across the planet it upsets all our ideas about economic development in the so-called South, explodes socialism in the “East,” throws allies into killer competition, an calls into being a new, dramatically different global order—diverse and risk-filled, at once hopeful and terrifying. New knowledge has overturned the World we knew and shaken the pillars of power that held it in place. Surveying the wreckage, ready once more to create a new civilization, we stand, all together now, at Ground Zero. In China, state owned companies have been put into a competitive environment where they have to rely more and more on themselves and less on the state, and to work hard to become profitable. Though they remain the core part of the Chinese economy, their status is drastically changing. The conventional perception of an SOE is that of an enterprise operating under tight supervision of a government agency and relaying on the state coffers for funding, shielded from competition, and pursuing the goals of the government’s economic and social policy (such as achieving certain numerical targets for production of particular goods, providing employment, or even supporting social welfare institutions like hospitals or kindergartens). #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

These goals are often achieved at the expense of commercial viability and profitability. Therefore the government has to provide financing to keep the enterprise going. This perception has to be reconsidered. A different, nonconventional type of SOE also exists and, furthermore, plays an increasingly important role in many emerging market countries in Asia and beyond; that is to say, SOE-market-style. Run by professional managers with a high degree of decision-making authority, they do not rely on the state’s soft financing but borrow at commercial rates or rise funds at the capital market. They full participate in competition both domestically and, more and more often, internationally. They pursue profit maximization as a major goal. In such companies, private investors often hold a minority stake. They may be listed on the stock exchanges at home and overseas. The SOEs of this kind are often more efficient, competitive, and dynamic than private companies. The SOE’s shift from the traditional to the market-style pattern is a major source of China’s structural transformation, giving its economy enormous energy to grow. This is the direction of change its major vector. In real life, many Chinese state-owned companies are currently still on their way between the two patterns described. Since the start of the market reforms, step-by-step, the government has been reducing the scope of SOEs’ products covered by the direct planning system, which kept the state responsible for financing, supply of necessary equipment and intermediate goods, price setting, and selling the products. The so-called zhenqqi fenkai policy was launched, meaning the separation of the government’s functions from enterprises’ business operations. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22


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Ghosts Need More Energy than they Have Inherently

There are some singular instances of skulls being preserved in old houses and becoming the subjects of weird legends. The Winchester Mansion is one of them. My beautiful property is one of the stateliest homes In America. In this case there is no element of doubt as to whose skull is preserved here. The story has always been free from the slightest suspicion of vagueness. Llanada Villa is a noble building of Grand Queen Anne architecture, and stands on a gentle eminence over overlooking the village. This was an age when the stern realities of civil war, and general insecurity seemed to be ending, and when to dwell in castles and moated granges appeared unreasonable. In every way, in art, and architecture, and in the graces of life, and era of Americana. Money was no object and no expense was spared to render the Winchester Mansion as fine as the spirit architects and craftsmen could make it. My home is certainly a very noble structure. You approach it through beautiful stained-glass doors, with caryatidal figures, and there are gabled wings, and several towers and turrets, with one being nine stories high. The entire home is plentifully supplied with more than 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 47 fireplaces, 6 kitchens, 13 bathroom, and a beautiful landscaped yard. The interior is handsome with rich panelling, but is chiefly remarkable for the fine staircase and the Grand Ballroom. All its columns and walls were decorated beautifully with the Egyptian writing, and the ceiling was covered with plates of gold. With over 600 rooms and more than 747 acres, my home was growing to perfection with unaffected enthusiasm. It has never been out of my thoughts, and when it is finished, I am always devising little additional touches. I live for the house. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

However, my home is haunted by Marie Marybelle who was bricked up alive after the basement was built. She saw to beggars resting in the fruit orchard. As she approached, they rose and asked charity. Helping them from her purse, a valuable ring she was wearing attracted their attention, and they demanded it with threats. Alas! poor Marie. She declared it was an heirloom, and had belonged to her mother; but little the ruffians cared for that, and attempted to snatch it from her finger. My pet dog Zip, whom she happened to be walking, barked, but was not otherwise of much use, and the unhappy Marie shrieked; whereupon one of the men struck her over the head with a cudgel and so knocked her senseless. They then made off with the ring, and when assistance at last arrived no one but the studded girl was to be seen. The farmers were fearful that they would be blamed, so they carried her to the basement; but although she lingered during five days, they were fearful she would never recover. In her last conscious intervals, she besought her sister, the other housemaids, for the love she bore and the affection they owned her, when she was dead to sever her head from her body and to preserve it within the walls of the mansion, there to let it remain for all future time. “Let it be removed; and make this, my last wish, known to any. And know, and let those of future generations know, that is my desire be not fulfilled, my spirit shall, if it be permitted, render the house uninhabitable for human beings.” The farmers did not consider this gruesome wish, they figured it was merely part of her wandering faculties. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

A few days later her body was entered into the wall. Not many days had passed when those living in the mansion were startled, as they were proceeding to bed, by hearing a loud crash in one of the down stairs rooms; and although it was searched, no fallen object could be discovered. A few nights later, the sleeping household were awakened by the reverberating slam of doors; and they rose and searched through the house, and saw Marie, she was pale, had dark shadows under her eyes, and her hands shook. We realized this was a vision of death. Her body leaked blood. My heart was beating faster and faster while her hands reached for me and tired to get ahold of me. I could hear her ghost draw in her breath. A sudden crackling was consuming the ceiling above. The night was red and brilliant, and nobody was safe, nothing was safe. The fancy gilded sofas near us were drenched in blood, the very tapestry bleeding as if it was from within. All draperies were splattered with blood, all windows featureless portals to a black and empty sky. I must have been screaming. How the horror illuminated the night. Ladies in their long gowns scurried, wept, embraced each other, pointed. Frantic men ran to drag objects to safety, slipping on the floor. The shock on each face told the others that they had passed into someplace not of this World. Some saw their own and other’s breaths condensing into clouds in the cold air. We all were in shock with a new respect for the unpredictable yet undeniable power of the unknown. We looked at Marie, but then she vanished in the bloody mist. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

Then, it was towards the top of the house, on the outside, at the north-east corner, resembling the loud creaking of a saw, or rather that of a windmill, when the body of it is tuned about in order to shift the sails to the wind. We then heard a knocking over our heads, when we attempted to go to the study to investigate, as I opened the door, it was thrust back with such violence as had liked to have thrown me down. However, I thrust the door open, and went in. Presently, there was a knocking on one side, then on the other, and, after a time, in the next room. We went into the room, and the noise continued. These spirits love darkness. Later that evening, August the butler had the most hurtful attack as he was kneeing at the fireplace, stirring the coals. Without warning, a huge amount of water rushed down the chimney, extinguishing the fire. The sparks that flew from the chimney blinded August, and he was covered in ashes. One night the ghost roamed the corridors of the mansion and sought admittance to the rooms of each member of the household. It knocked once or twice on the doors of several bedrooms, then, true to its aggressive pattern of behavior against the mansion, it paused to deal 113 consecutive blow to August’s door before it returned to the Blue Séance Room. There was also the distinctive sound of a large animal rubbing itself along the walls. The steps taken by the ghost were quite unlike human steps and I was sure no animal walked in such a manner. As soon as we made our departure from the third floor, there was a loud thug what sounded like a body had suddenly fallen to the floor. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5

As the death of a thunderstorm swept over the area, we thought the Devil himself was coming to claim a soul. We were in terror. Back in the blood-dampened corners of the parlor, there was a cold chill that penetrated the room. A man dressed in dark blue was a dark beard was standing against one wall of the room, not ten feet from us. The man stood there. Then I noticed something strange—the apparition was only visible from the waist up! He started playing the organ and moving an occasional bit of furniture about the room. Fighting growing panic, I closed my eyes and opened them again. The man stood there, glowering at me. I was shaken by these images. Not only did I see them I felt a deep physical response. I had to clear my eyes as well as my head. There was something overpoweringly intimate about them, yet something indistinct at the same time. The midnight screams increased in shrillness and were joined by the furious crimes of animals. Rhythmic tappings moved up and down the corridors as if a small drum and bugle corps were parading in the halls. The ghost then pounded in the door. The force of the successive lows on the door shook every window on the floor. As the ghost burst through the door, that is when we noticed it was a hoofed creature. The room began to shake and there was a long, drawn-out cry. We retreated to the Observatory Tower and it was plagued by strange and dark shapes descending the stairs. There was a ghost hanging from the ceiling, twitching and jolting as if struggling for breath. Voices were screaming and shouting, “To be knaved out of our graves, to have our skulls taken, are tragic abominations.” The temperature dropped rapidly and the voices grew louder and louder, and I am sure that I could see someone standing in the shadows watching us. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5


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The Rock Resort—It Has Nothing to do with Music

People believe that failure in life is like the bankruptcy of a business in which the losses are greater than the gains. This concept is nonsensical. We may be happy of unhappy, achieve some aims, and not achieve others; yet there is no sensible balance which could show whether life is worth while living. Maybe from the standpoint of a balance life is ever worth while living. It ends necessarily with death; many of our hops are disappointed; it involves suffering and effort; from a standpoint of the balance, it would seem to make more sense not to have been born at all, or to die in infancy. Many people who have this view point often turn to drugs and prostitution as a way out. Crack houses sometimes allow on-site drug use while others do not. Some tolerate sex acts, others do not. Some facilities produce and/or sell drugs and others do not. Many crack houses are well-fortified and profit-oriented “castles.” “Base houses” are described as the all-purpose 7-11 of the crack house World. The term “resort” to describe multiroom apartments that have been converted into efficient crack houses. “Brothels” are places where sex is the order of the day and house girls or house boys, pimps, and crack users do business. A “residence house” is a private residence where the owner welcomes in partiers for extended drug and sexfests. “Graveyards” are described as free-for-all environments such as abandoned buildings and such. Finally, “organized crack houses” represent the most rule-oriented variation in which a highly present owners and staff members oversee drug sales and drug use in an orderly fashion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

When we consider life of the “crack whore,” we explore the intense sexual and drug use habits of this brand of prostitute and consider the accompanying health concerns. Important differences exist between crack whores and traditional street prostitutes. There is a valuable nexus between drug use and prostitution. Crack cocaine has brought these two Worlds dangerously close together, thus altering the behavioral and cultural aspects of the offending. “Crack was my pimp,” reports a 28-year-old Sacramento Chicken Head. When most people think of vice related crime, the two that come to mind are drugs and prostitution. Indeed, the two are intrinsically linked in both fictional and journalistic media accounts; prostitutes tend to be drug users and many female drug users tend to be prostitutes. What is less investigated are the ways in which particular patterns of drug usage affect patterns of prostitution. The crack house is a carnival of vice. It is one hell of a nasty place where kingrats and pay masters rule, where the guy buckets give slow necks for a penny, and where the freaks, rock monsters, and the blood suckers will do anything for a hit on the stem. By 2022, the Drug Enforcement Administration estimated that there were no fewer than seven hundred crack houses in the Sacramento area. The very term “crack house” and the physical characteristics that it represents can mean many different things—a place to use, a place to sell or do both, a place to manufacture and package crack—and the location may be a house, an apartment, a small shack at the back of an empty lot, an abandoned building, or even the rusting hulk of a discarded automobile. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

Close scrutiny reveals no fewer than seven distinct types of crack houses exist in Sacramento. However, we many not be able to cover all seven today in this report. Reportedly few in number, castles are fortified structures where large quantities of crack are manufactured from powder cocaine, packaged in plastic bags or glass vials, and sold both wholesale and retail. Crack users (aka “rock monsters” or “base heads”) are not permitted inside the walls of castles. Typical fortification include barred window, reinforced door and window frames, steel doors with heavy slide bolts, and walls reinforced from the inside with steel mesh and/or a layer of concrete blocks. Such heavy fortifications are not for the purpose of making police raids difficult. An 18-year-old former lookout for a crack house reported in 2020: “The whole idea [of the fortification] is to keep the cops off yer backs long enough to dump the stuff [crack] before they get in. This one rock castle I was in had all the doors and walls braced with steel bars drilled into the floor and ceiling. It has TV cameras lookin’ up and down the street Nothin’ could go down without them knowin’ about it. The only time the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] got in was when they came with a tow truck to pull down the door and a battering ram to get past a concrete barrier. It took them fifteen minutes to get in, and by then we had the place clean [free of drugs]. In addition to fortifications, most castles are well armed, with workers typically carrying semiautomatic weapons at all times. Crack sales are accomplished with little or no interaction. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

In some houses of this type, exchanges are made through a slot or hole in the fortified door, with the money passed in and the crack passed out. In others, the transaction is accomplished by means of a basket or a pail lowered from a second floor or attic window. Due to the fortifications and nature of drug transactions in castles, sex-for-crack trading is generally not practiced in these houses. The base house seems to be an “all-purpose drug joint,” as one informant put it. Base houses are used by many kinds of drug users, especially intravenous users. A variety of drugs are available, including crack. However, smoking crack is not the primary activity. Intravenous drug use (typically cocaine) I more commonly seen and accepted here than in other types of crack houses, but sex-for-drugs exchanges rarely occur. In this regard, a 35-year-old crack-using prostitute commented: “You can go there and shoot drugs and she (the owner) shoot, but she didn’t smoke crack. She’ll let you smoke there as long as you…give her two dollars. If you was a smoker, a rock smoker, you can give her two dollars to smoke. If you was a cocaine shooter you give her cocaine to shoot or buy her some wine or something. The only thing she didn’t let us do there is bring customers.” Another crack users offered a somewhat different description: “OK, you go in there, and some people they have a syringe in their arm and a pipe in their mouth at the same time. You go in there and you buy crack and they rent a room or they go in the bathroom. You gotta pay fifteen dollars for this ‘cause that’s two different types of drugs that you get into your system. You can buy a syringe there too, but most of the times people bring their own syringes. And they go in there, and thy shoots up first and they leave the needle in their arm and then they put the crack on top of the pipe and they tell somebody to hit them, you know, to keep the fire on the stem while they inhale it.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

The resort is one of the more customary types of crack house in Sacramento. The physical layout is that of a small apartment adapted for crack use. The kitchen is used for cooking rock, at least one bedroom is set aside for sex, and the living space is used for selling and smoking. As one crack user described the resort: “It was just an apartment house where a lot of people that smoke crack come inside and just do drugs and smoke. One of them was his main room and the other two he would rent out, one for sexual and one for just smoking. And sometimes there wouldn’t be nobody smoking and they just come to have sex in both of them. Inside, candles burning, pillows on the floor; it wouldn’t be very good for a person in his right mind.” The owners of these crack houses (aka “kingrats,” “rock masters,” or “house men”) seem to be concerned about two things: money and crack. Many of them are addicted to crack and operate the houses to support their drug habits. Almost anything can happen in these crack houses. They were observed to be filthy, chaotic, and crowded. The crack smokers got into fights, attempted to steal each other’s drugs, and exhibited extreme paranoia. A characteristic of the resort is easy to access to crack, although each house has slightly different sales procedures. Some charge an entrance fee, and customers are free to smoke and have sex. Crack is usually on a table and purchases are informal. In other houses, the crack may not be on display, and customers pay a worker to bring them a rock. For example: “They just have it there on the table, whatever you want, give them the money for it and go in the back and then if you want another you go right to the front and buy a nickel [five-dollar rock] and then you smoke that. You have to but your stuff from them. There was one where you could bring your stuff, but you would have to pay, pay them to use their equipment.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

In resorts, the bartering of sex and crack occurs between the prostitute (aka “head hunter,” “gut bucket,” “freak,” “base whore,” “crackie,” “rock star,” “skeeter head” or “skeezer”) and her or his customer (aka “john” or “pay master”). The owner of the crack house receives a fee (crack or money) from the john for the use of the freak room. As such, the customer pays both the owner of the house and the prostitute. And finally, the crack houses known locally as resorts are termed as such because of the variety of activities that occur there. A cocaine dealer reported in this regard: “That they call it a ‘rock resort’ has nothin’ to do with music. Ha, ha. It’s because you can really get into it there—drugs, sex, rock ‘n roll, all three at once, whatever. You can smoke your brains out, f*ck your brains out, get sexed any way you want, watch sex, get paranoid, fight, watch fights, cut somebody, get high, get killed, whatever the f*ck you want.” Although prostitution and trading sex for crack are among the primary activities of many crack houses, in the brothel the owner is a dealer/pimp and the sex-for-drugs exchange system is somewhat unique. The prostitute is a house girl or house boy and is not involved in the payment process. For the sexual services she or he provides, one receives payment for the houseman or housewoman in the from of crack, room, and board. Several respondents reported having actually lived in a crack house brothel, with many more having visited such establishments. A 26-year-old-crack addict with a ten-year-career in drugs described her experience this way: “Bein’ that I been workin’ the streets since I was eleven and don’t really mind sexin’ a lot of different guys, I thought it would be a real easy deal for getting’ all the cracks [more than one rock] that I needed. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

“So this bondman [drug dealer] that I’d know’d real well takes me in. He says all it is givin’ a lot of brains [oral sex]. Well man, I know’d a lot of brains. I probably done more fellatio [her emphasis] than any lady on the street. I really got my self into somethin’ bad. It wasn’t just brains like he said. It was everything. There was guys pushin’ their natures [genitals] everywhere—in my mouth, in my guts, up my a**; guys gettin’ off [climaxing] in my face; one guy goin’ down on me with five others watchin’ and jerkin’ off. Most of the time I just didn’t care, ‘cause I was gettin’ all the rock I wanted. But times I just wanted to be left alone, but I couldn’t. One time they raped me man; they raped me, cause I wouldn’t f*ck ‘em just that minute. They held me down and beat me and did all kind of terrible things. And I tried to leave but I was a prisoner there. After the rape I tried to leave, but the man at the door he’s got his orders and I can’t go. So when I try to get out he slapped me around and they rape me again. They raped me again real bad this time, f*cking me in the c*nt and the a** at the same time, slapping my face and pinching my tits, and one f*ck pissed on me after he was done. An’ then to teach me another lesson they hold back on the pipe. After a while I got sick, and I was all bruised and looked so bad, that they threw me out. They just threw me out like I was just some piece of sh*t.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

In addition to the sexual services available in the brothels, some street prostitutes use them solely as places to have sex with their customers. To further highlight the illustration, a 25-year-old woman who had been exchanging sex for money and drugs for eight years reported: “One of the rooms is for base [crack], the other three rooms are for tricking and one of the first rooms inside the door, that’s where the dude sit, that’s where the G-man [security man, bouncer] sit. When you come in the house he pat you down. They pat you down, and when you come in you say “date.” That means pat you down and let you go and have a date. See anyone was allowed to bring a date, anyone was allowed to bring a trick. When you go in you can bring a date in from the outside and use the room and get money from him and you got to do what you gotta do—five dollars to use the room, five dollars one hour, they say an hour but they only give you forty-five minutes with that mother-f*cker.” Residence houses are quite numerous in the Sacramento area and are likely the most common form of crack house. They are houses or apartments where small groups of people gather regularly to smoke crack. The operators are reluctant to call these places “crack houses,” because they are used as such only by their friends. However, the activities are the same as those in other crack houses, including sex-for-crack exchanges. The major differences revolve around the payment system. Crack is not sold in residence houses; it is only smoked there. In the more traditional crack house, such as a brothel or resort, payment for using the house can be made with money or crack, although money is preferred. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

In residence house, payment is made only with crack. Visitors give crack or more often share crack with the owner of the house or apartment in return for having a place to smoke or turn a trick. There are usually fewer people in these crack houses than in others—five or six compared to fifteen or twenty. They are also the same five or six individuals, whereas in other types there is a greater turnover of people. Finally, whereas the visitors to other types of crack houses are “customers,” only “friends” are invited to residence houses. We have two more types of houses of debauchery that we will discuss in the next few days. Life is a unique gift and a challenge, not to be measured in terms of anything else, and no sensible answer can be given to the question whether it is “worth while,” living, because the question does not make any sense. As a conception of self-effacement and loss of self-consciousness is contrary to the self-actualized person’s full use of the faculties which the ultimate concern requires for the cooperation with it, psychopathological offenders gain ground on the basis of this deception about “death.” The misconception of what death means in practice was really part of their “teachings,” subtly suggested, and received by the man who was ignorant of the possibility of deception over what looked like devoted, whole-hearted surrender to God. The teachings of offenders can, therefore, be based on truth. The effect of the deception on the self-actualized person is, in due time, an insensitivity produced by psychopathic offenders which is hard to break. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

In his state of insensitiveness he had no ability to discern, recognize, feel or know things around him, or in himself. He is unaware of his actions, ways and manners, together with a hyper-self-consciousness which he is not conscious of, and which makes him easily hurt but unaware of his own hurting of others. He had practically become stoical, and unable to see the effect of his actions in putting others into suffering. He acts without volitional thinking, reasoning, imagining, or deciding what he says and does. His actions are mechanical and automatic. He is unconscious of sometimes being a channel for the transmission of words, thoughts, or feelings which pass through him apart from the action of his will and his knowledge of the source. An illustration of theonomy is the interpenetration of morality, culture, and religion. Morality, the constitution of the person as person in the encounter with other persons, looks to culture to provide it with concrete contents such as the ideal of personality and community. Morality receives from religion the unconditional character of reunion of the separated. Morality can even be called theonomous ethics, for it is a matter of law, but not alien law (heteronomy) or superficial law (autonomy): the law given by God is man’s essential nature, put against him as law. Therefore man’s nature is not evil. If a man were not estranged from himself, if his essential nature were not distorted in his actual existence, no law would stand against him. The law is not strange to man. It is natural law. It represents his true nature from which he is estranged. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

Culture creatures a universe of meaning, but the forms it produces re valid only if morality imparts to them the force of the moral imperative. Culture accepts from religion the substance or ground which alone affords the element of ultimacy. Religion is the self-transcendence of life under the dimension of spirit, but this cannot occur without morality, id est, without the constitution of the moral self by the unconditional imperative. Furthermore, religion depends upon culture to provide the meaningful forms in which self-transcendence is expressed. Under the conditions of existence, religion, culture, and morality are ambiguously disrupted and tend to act independent of one another. However, their essential unity and interplay in the human spirt exemplify theonomy in yet another way. The depth-dimensions enters into the very definition of theonomy, for theonomy is autonomous reasons united with it own depth. In spite of the theonomous union between religion and culture, these two do not lie on the same level. Religion is the depth-dimension of culture. The abstract formulation is this: Religion is the substance of culture, and culture is the form of religion. More concretely, however, religion is ultimate concern. As such it gives meaning, seriousness, and depth to all culture. It is always effective, giving inexhaustible depth to life and inexhaustible meaning to every cultural creation. What does the metaphor depth mean? It means that the religious aspect points to that which is ultimate, infinite, unconditioned in man’s spiritual life. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

The American religious revival of the 1950s was a search for the lost dimension, the religious dimension of depth. For man has lost the answer to the question of whence he comes, whither he goes, what he is doing, and what he should make of himself in the short span between birth and death. This loss of depth-dimension is reflected in the loss of symbols which traditionally convey it. The symbols of creation, original sin, the savior, salvation, and God have been interpreted on a horizontal level as reports about past events, as descriptions of things next to other things. Consequently, they have become meaningless. Rather, they must be interpreted vertically as expressions of the ground of being and meaning. The most religious currents—religious in the wide sense of ultimate concern—are found today in the modern novelists, poets, dramatists, painters, architects, and analytic and existential philosophers who penetrate to the lost dimension, who raise the ultimate question. However, what lies at the bottom of this murky dimension of depth? The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being is God. He deplores the aimless surface activity of our lives where we speed about hither and tither, cruelly smashing ourselves and others. To avoid complete despair, we must abandon this surface-life. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

Let us rather plunge more deeply into the ground of our historical life, into the ultimate depth of history. The name of this infinite and inexhaustible ground of history is God. That is what the word means, and it is that to which the words Kingdom of God and Divine Providence point. And if these words do not have much meaning for you, translate them, and speak of the depth of history, of the ground and aim of our social life, and of what you take seriously without reservation in your moral and political activities. In fathoming the depths, one achieves theonomy. Judgement is to creativity as criticism is to creation. The ability to evaluate a situation, to define the problem which it presents, is antecedent to the projection of a positive response or resolution. However, after the creative response has been made, its adequacy must in turn be evaluated; in this respect criticism is also subsequent to creation. A major problem in the definition of creativity is to determine the degree to which the adequacy or quality of a novel product needs to be taken into account in assessing the creativity of an actor. The solution of this question has to be left to future research; for present purposes, judgment is conceived as the ability to evaluate the available alternative responses in problematic interpersonal situations. Whether these alternatives are novel or traditional, they must be plural for judgment to operate. Creativity can supply additional alternatives; and in this hypothetical respect, creativity itself becomes a condition conducive to judgment, while clearly distinguishable from judgement. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

If sufficient time is allowed for the completion of each sequence of decision-making, each experience can be assimilated with previous experience, and learning can occur in the sense of greater integration and efficiency in the process of judgment. Conversely, pressure of time which forbids completion of the process is disruptive of particular instances of decision-making and inhibitory of the progressive improvement of judgement. (Generous allotments of time for making up one’s mind may seem easier to obtain than the patience to utilize the time in careful weighing of alternative, where in the past patience has been punished by parental figures.) The greater one’s experience as a decision-maker, the better judgment becomes. Experience varies in both range and intensity. It may include both performance as a judge of outcomes as well as a mediator among potential alternatives, in the role of actor as well as that of critic. Age does not automatically lead to experience in decision-making. Experience in decision-making is not only to run the risk of mistakes with costly consequences, but to make the mistakes and bear the consequences. If the exercise of judgment is practiced in a playful and symbolic manner, competence in the judgment of real-life situations increases. Judgment can be practiced in such forms of play as team debating, rhetoric, mock trials, window and catalogue shopping, and academic discussions. Symbolic practice in judgement can be obtained through vicarious participation in the solution of real or prototype problems by leaders or other representatives. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

Explicit training furnishes concentrated practice. Practice is increased by systematically taking the roles of others, exempli gratia, changing sides in debate. Judgment improves if responsibilities widen with the growth of judgement. Withdrawal of—or from—responsibility inhibits the growth of judgment. There appears to be a need here for the enlargement of responsibilities in a graded series at an optimal rate of increase, so the person is continually challenged and stimulated, but not overloaded and made anxious. Others must dare to trust one’s judgment if it is to grow, and must be willing to share the necessary costs of mistakes, keeping them at a reasonably low maximum but not excluding their real possibility. One’s judgment improves as one acquires a vocabulary for articulating the criteria of judgment. Self-conscious scrutiny of the judgment process, utilizing explicit criteria for identifying the points at which mistakes occur, is as important as the verbalization of the standards applied in making particular choices. Being called upon to voice opinions or defend decisions accentuates self-conscious attention to both the process of judgment and the elaboration of criteria. Freedom to criticize and to dissent is most conducive to the competent exercise of judgment when fully institutionalized in the custom and structure of the groups concerned. Counsel by others is a form of criticism easy to assimilate and conducive to judgment if freely rejectable. Explicit and systematic means for checking mistakes and errors, for comparing expected with actual outcomes, are an objective form of criticism which removes it from anxiety-provoking surveillance by others. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

As it becomes possible to note improvement in judgment, to measure its fluctuations under varying conditions and compare it with changes in others, judgment tends to improve further. Not only do success and failure predispose to more of the same, but confirmation by others tends to stabilize important changes. Ratification of process in some dramatic or ritual way by a sympathetic audience is an especially effective means of retaining and stimulating gains. As provocations to diffuse anxiety are lessened, judgment improves. The disruptive effects of anxiety upon the exercise of judgment and its growth can be considered as negative conditions to be removed, whilst self-confidence and trust in the ability to judge can be cultivated positively. Common negative conditions are extreme sanctions against failure or error in judgment, fear of punishment or stripping of responsibility for mistakes, hostile criticism or outright aggression by opponents, excessive partisanship which forbids compromise, and the treatment of values as sacred or absolute. Positive tactics include the stead widening of the values open for discussion, limited pilot commitments for trial decisions, redefinition of ultimate values as instrumental, inducements to rest and refreshment, recesses in deliberation, breakdown into smaller units of discussion, postponement of decision, and the injection of ultimate values as instrumental, inducements to rest and refreshment, recesses in deliberation, breakdown into smaller units of discussion, postponement of decision, and the injection of humor and play. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

Assurance of face-saving for defeated parties is a less honored but indispensable means, along with the rhetoric of compromise, which-like sportsmanship-promises losers another chance. As the right to exercise judgment is recognized and excellence in its practice is honored among members of a group, its possession by members is enhanced. Recognition of the possibility of sound, impartial judgment is a necessary condition of its exercise. In part, this is to say that autonomy is a condition of judgment. More particularly, it means a climate hospitable to “third parties,” to the via media, to the secure and independent status of judge and mediator. The historical identification of legal justice with equality and reciprocity finds warrant in interpersonal relations. In this atmosphere, the victor does not gloat and the vanquished is a “good loser.” Triadic concepts dissolve the irreconcilable antinomies of a more hierarchical order. Exposure to highly competent decision-makers facilitates identification with them, and thereby the acquisition of their skills, and confidence in the exercise of judgment. While exposure to just judges and inspiring critics does not guarantee identification with their example, isolation from challenging models may quite effectively thwart the growth of judgment. Furthermore, exposures to persons as models, even when only vicariously witnessed, helps to furnish persons with solutions of problems in judgment which may be valuable in future situations. To further highlight this illustration, famous legal decisions are unlikely to be literally transferable to new cases, yet they may stimulate efforts to achieve equal wisdom. Good managers of household income, or domestic crises, set standards of judgment for their children to emulate. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

The greater the quantity and reliability of relevant knowledge available to participants in problematic interpersonal situations, the more likely is improvement in their judgement. Intelligent awareness of the consequences of alternatives affects the making of decisions in numerous ways, but knowledge is not a substitute for judgment in situations presenting genuine problems; neither can general rules be devised to apply strictly and mechanically to all cases. The bearing of knowledge upon action has been an ancient philosophical problem, but it is possible that research can illuminate the relationship in new ways. Knowledge tends to accumulate with experience, and is thus one of the features of age which contributes to wisdom; again, however, it is only one necessary element in the process of judgment, and a limited influence in the growth of judgment. Judgment develops optimally among group members who hold some values or standards in common while admitting a moderate margin for interpretation and change. Without some results, situations become wholly arbitrary, fluid, and chaotic. Yet if rules are applied to situations mechanically without deviation or change, there is no room for judgment, which cannot develop without exercise. The optimal function of rules is thus analogous to that of grammar in language—they limit and facilitate, without dictating what statements will be composed by users. This margin of freedom from responsible decisions also accounts for a sense of uncertainty, for which there is an optional degree at various developmental levels. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

Problems of judgment which may terrify a child may challenge an adolescent whilst boring an adult. A group whose ultimate standards are too diverse may be unable to reach decisions; if too homogeneous, actions may become monotonous; there is an optimal ratio of variety and consensus, of innovation and assimilation. Without some rules held in common, it is unlikely that judgment could be measured, since there would be no standpoint from which decisions could be evaluated as correct or mistaken, either by actors or observers. The diagnosis of the illness of present-day Western culture is by no means new; its only claim toward furthering the understanding of the problem is the attempt to apply the concept of alienation more empirically to various observable phenomena, and to establish the connection between the illnesses of alienation and the humanistic concept of human nature and mental health. In fact, it is most remarkable that a critical view of twenty-first century society was already held by a number of thinkers living in the nineteenth century, long before the symptomatology which seems so apparent today had become fully manifest. It is also remarkable that their critical diagnosis and prognosis should have so much in common among themselves and with the critics of the twenty-first century. The prognosis of the decay and barbarism into which the twenty-first century will skin was made by people of the most varied philosophical and political views. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

Military might is one thing nation-states have had that other contenders for power typically lacked. However, if state or inter-governmental forces cannot impose order, the day may dawn when perfectly ordinary transnational corporations decide it is necessary to put their own brigades into the field. Fantastic as this may sound, it is not without historical precedent. Sir Francis Drake waged war not merely on Spanish ships laden with silver, but on towns all along the Pacific coast of South America, Central America, and Mexico. He was financed by private investors. Is it entirely fanciful to imagine 21st-century corporate versions of the Italian condottieri? In The Apocalypse Brigade the novelist Alfred Coppel has pictured precisely this situation—one in which a mega-oil company organizes its own army to protect oil fields from an anticipated terrorist strike. The company acts on its own because it cannot get its home government to protect its interests. Extreme as this fictional scenario may seem, there is a certain logic to it. The inability of states to stop terrorism, despite all the armies at their command, has already forced some major corporations to take matters into their own hands, hiring trained drivers, armed bodyguards, high-tech security specialists, and the like. And when Iran took some of his employees hostage, billionaire Ross Perot hired ex-Green Berets to penetrate Iran and rescue them. From here it is only a short step to mercenary troops. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

Clearly we are heading for chaos if new international laws are not written and new agencies created to enforce them—or if key Global Gladiators, like the transnational corporations, religions, and similar forces, are denied representation in them. Proposals are coming hot and fast for all sorts of new global institutions to deal with ecology, arms control, monetary matters, tourism, telecommunications, as well as regional economic concerns. However, who should control these agencies? Nation-states alone? The less responsive to their needs governments and inter-government organizations become, the more likely it is that transnational firms will end-run governments and demand direct participation in global institutions. It is not too hard to imagine a Global Council of Global Corporations arising to speak for these new-style firms and to provide a collective counterbalance to nation-state power. Alternatively, major corporations may demand representation in their own names, as part of a new class of membership within organizations like the United Nations, the World Bank, or GATT. Given the growing diversity and power of Global Gladiators, the United Nations, which until now has been little more than a trade association of nation-states, may eventually be compelled to provide representation for nonstates, too (beyond the token consultative role now granted to certain nongovernmental groups, or NGOs). Instead of one-nation—one-vote, it may well have to create additional categories of voting membership for transnational companies, religions, and other entities, which would vastly broaden its base of support in the World. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

On the other hand, if the nation-states who own and operate the U.N. refuse to widen representation, counterorganizations may arise as global corporations multiply and gather strength. However, whether or not such speculations prove correct in the future, the new Global Gladiators—corporate, criminal, religious, and other—already share increasing de facto power with nation-states. China, with a GDP of $17.73 trillion, is the World’s second largest economy, and has the largest number of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the World—over 150,000. Low labor costs and cutting-edge technology have made China the World’s manufacturing hub. According to UN data, China was home to 28.7 percent of the global manufacturing output in 2019—the largest share by any country. Since 2020, more companies from China have made the annual Fortune Global 500 ranking than any other country, further reinforcing its status as an economic superpower. In fact, 71 percent of China’s Fortune 500 companies are state-owed. State ownership is most common in China’s strategic sectors, such as energy, telecommunications and banking. Manufacturing is the largest revenue generator for China, followed by other sectors such as construction, real estate, e-commerce, and software development. The shares of limited-liability enterprises and foreign-funded companies are rising (the former, however, include entirely or partially state-funded companies). As far as the ownership structure is concerned, China’s economic system is not state capitalism as an antipode of the Western-style liberal market economy. It is a constantly evolving mixture of state-owned companies, private firms of various types, and the third sector. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

As such evolution gains strength, the share of the private sector is steadily rising, and so is its influence on the economy and society. In an important step, manifesting this change, at the beginning of this decade, private business-people were allowed to join the Communist Party. Although America is a capitalistic country, I do not understand how the government can survive and thrive by only collecting taxes and through consumer spending. It seems that the American government may need to revises its method of capitalism, which will allow the government to invest in businesses and make a profit to reduce the burden on taxpayers. One of China’s biggest state-owned companies is China Minmetals Corporation. Annual revenue 2021: $102.0 billion. China Minmetals Corporation is a SASAC-owned company that mines and processes metal products. Copper, tungsten, lead and zinc, rare Earth, tin, antimony, nickel, aluminum, and other products are processed and distributed by the company. It is also involved in the financial and real estate development sectors. China Minmetals Corporation acquires significant international mineral assets that China does not locally. It also controls 90 percent of the contract value in domestic metallurgical engineering and construction. The first step for the U.S.A. to compete with China is to rebuild its own financial health: bring down the debt-to-GDP ratio and stop depending on the Chinese for money and goods. People who are against the American government ought to take a look at our successful industries: aerospace, avionics, telecommunication, satellites, computer software, operating systems, applications, pharmaceutical, and agriculture. All of those industries got some substantial help in terms of R&D or protectionism from the U.S.A. government. We need to start turning around mature industries here rather than chasing growth that might appear to be there in China. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23


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Buying Souls in Return for a Song

I dug deep, deep into my soul to find the heart, the love, the tenderness. I could not stand to be unquiet with a shrieking spirit whose howls made my blood run cold. After growing increasingly uncomfortable in the rain, I returned home late. The vibrations of every word uttered still echoed in the ether. The evening was so dreary that I earnestly just wanted to have a warm meal in the dining room in front of the fireplace. I went down into the kitchen, in search of supper, all the rest of the household having retired long before. Even more astoundingly, perhaps, I suddenly found myself walking down a hallway completely unrecognizable to me. Everything seemed quiet. When I reached the front parlor, I distinctly saw the tall, beautiful lady, with long fair hair, wearing a blue Tudor-style dress walk across the kitchen. I could faintly smell her apple scented perfume. She gazed forlornly out the window. Thinking it was one of the maids, I spoke to her, but the figure vanished into thin air, and a search discovered nothing at all. Mr. Hansen, however, described how he saw a man in the stable-yard, and, under the impression that he was some unauthorized visitor to the Servants’ Hall, asked him what he was doing there. As he approached the man, darkness closed in around him, so did the cold, and so did two and then four blue and green orbs. The man “vanished” without a reply. After about a minute, Mr. Hansen retuned to his group. His hands were stiff and icy cold and he was physically shivering from a bone numbing chill he had just experienced, although the farm fields were lush with summer crops. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

Such a place as this have never existed before in all our long bloody history. Never such a place as this—full of mythologies of dead gods and lexicons of evil and demons invented by aggrieved souls. Its prominent appearance presupposes the supernatural. Llanada Villa is densely overshowed by trees, and the chief entrances to it, by the ancient wrought-iron gate back and front, are, and long have been, closed, the usual approach being by the stable-yard on the west side. This singular disuse of the entrances originally planned has itself given rise to many fantastic legends. Llanada Villa hails a new revelation that comes to our minds and our souls, wed as they are to flesh, living flesh, a revelation rising out of the pain and thirsts of the hearts lost souls. Every time I enter my home, I feel a great shudder pass through me. It is almost, almost, the very concept of life beyond the veil. There, against the dark woods where men tremble and pray to the God some were about to meet, was a golden cross and what appeared to be several gold stars hovering above and to the right of it. One of my butler’s had a daughter who lived here on the estate. She was six years old. In the small hours of the morning, when dawn was making things clear, the child, waking up, saw a little old woman scratching with her fingers against the wall, close to the fireplace. She was not at all frightened at first, but sat up to look at her. The noise she made in doing this caused the old woman to look round, and she came to the foot of the bed, and, grasping the rail with her hands, stared at the child long and fixedly. So horrible was her stare that the child was terrified. Later that day, the sheriff found her wandering in a rainstorm, shivering and crying, and saying she was afraid to go home. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

On a fine summer evening, the servants returned to the Servants Hall for the night. One of the housemaids felt that the heat was still so great that she could not seep, and having fastened her window, she did not close the shutters—in that very quiet place it was not necessary—and, propped against the pillows, she still watched the wonderful, the marvelous beauty of that summer night. Gradually she became aware of a looming figure approaching the entrance gate. As it drew closer, it was fixed in a dark substance, a definite ghastly something, which seemed ever moment to become nearer, increasing in size and substance as it approached. Every now and then it was lost for a moment in the long shadows which stretched across the lawn from the trees, and then it emerged larger than ever, and still coming on—on. As she watched it, the most uncontrollable horror seized her. It was a man on a horse, dressed like a Confederate officer. She longed to get away, but the door was locked on the inside, and while she was unlocking it, she must be for an instant near to it. She longed to scream, but her voice seemed paralyzed, her tongue glued to the roof of her mouth. Suddenly, she could never explain why afterwards, the terrible object on the horse seemed to turn to one side, seemed to be going round the house, not to be coming to her at all, and immediately she jumped out of bed and rushed to the door, but as she was unlocking it, she heard scratch, scratch, scratch upon the window, and saw a hideous ghostly figure upon a horse with flaming eyes glaring in at her. She quickly got back to the bed, but the creature continued to scratch upon the window. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

A severe thunderstorm had developed, and the creature continued to scratch upon the window. The housemaid felt a sort of mental comfort in the knowledge that the window was securely fastened on the inside, as the rain continued to pour. Suddenly, the scratching sound ceased, but the wind blew then rain inside the room, she could hear it dropping on the floor as the wind howled and the shutters slammed against the wall. In her agony, a long bony finger tapped on her shoulder. Her terror was so great that she could not scream. It twisted its long, bony fingers into her hair, and it dragged her head over the side of the bed, and—it bit her violently in the throat. As it bit her, her voice was released, and she screamed with all her might and main. The other servants rushed out of their rooms, but the door was locked on the inside. A moment was lost while they got a poker and broke it open. Then the creature had already escaped through the window, and the housemaid, was bleeding profusely from a wound in the throat, was lying unconscious over the side of her bed. One servant pursued the creature, which feld before him on horseback, and he shouted, “If I catch you, I’ll bend this pistol over your skull!” However, the creature galloped off in the moonlight and seemed to disappear over the wrought-iron gate. The servant quickly rejoined the others at the housemaid’s bedside. She was dreadfully heart, and her wound was a very definite one, but she was of a strong disposition, and when she came to herself she said, “What has happened is most extraordinary and I am very much hurt. It seems inexplicable, but of course there is an explanation, and we must wait for it. It will then turn out that a lunatic has escaped from some asylum and found his way here.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

The wound healed, and she appeared to get well, but the doctor who was sent for to her would not believe that she could bear so terrible a shock so easily, and insisted that she must have a change, mental and physical; so I sent her to England. She became involved in all the interests of the country. The house which she let was a single story. This time the housemaid always closed her shutters. After a year abroad, the housemaid returned. The winter passed most peacefully and happily. In the following April, the housemaid was awakened by a sound she remembered only too well—scratch, scratch, scratch upon the window, and, looking up, she saw, climbed up to the topmost pane of the window, the same hideous creature, with glaring eyes, looking in at her. This time she screamed as loud as she could. The servants rushed out of their rooms with postils, and out the front door. But all of the blood had been drawn out of the housemaids veins, and the creature was already riding away across the lawn on horseback. The next day the servants summoned all the others servants. They patrolled all 747 acres of land that I owned and found a cavern that led to an underground vault. A horrible scene revealed itself. The vault was full of coffins; they had been broken open, and their contents horribly mangled and distorted, were scattered over the floor. One coffin remained intact. Of that the lid had been lifted, but still lay loose on the coffin. They raised it, and there, withered, shrivelled, in a Confederate uniform was the hideous figure that had attacked the housemaid; and they did—the only thing that can lay a vampire—they burnt it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

There was something so sad about that child and so peculiar. She was absolutely earnest and the wildest look would come into her blue eyes. Sometimes she would stay up until after dark. Defenseless and sobbing bitterly, she would not utter a word when the other servants accused her of bring a man into the mansion. They claimed they spied her and a man dressed in a Confederate uniform meeting in the garden after dark. They said she allowed the man to touch her indecently and her innocence was a complete façade. As well, people had reported seeing the housemaid with a huge black devil-dog with red eyes and heard the muffled voice of the housemaid talking to it. Other times she was see with what some servants thought was a ghost of a man in black whom they said they heard him offer to buy her soul in returned for a song. To which she agreed. The ghost commanded the housemaid, Martha, to meet him at midnight. However, she was too frightened to go. The next day, he was so annoyed that he had been disobeyed that he hit the housemaid around the head almost dislocating her neck. After this, she absolutely refused to meet with her mysterious companion and that is when the Confederate soldier on a horse started to appear. Although it has been many years since, the footpath leading to the place where they used to meet has been the scene of disembodied voices and there are reports of a ghostly lady, resembling Martha, in a grey dress as well as a boy in knee-high shorts and a transparent white horse that sometimes appears to shock witnesses. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6


Many people who tour The Winchester Mystery House have frequently reported a ghostly legend. An apparition of a women wearing a black dress periodically appears and walks across the north-east of the mansion. She was first reported in 1920 by several servants who were reportedly scared half to death. She is thought to be wearing Victorian clothing and wanders around the horse stables, turning a corner and then vanishing. She is believed to be the spirit of the housemaid Martha, who according to records, left for England in 1895. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

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Addiction to Designer Drugs, Big Money, Expensive Houses, and Luxury Cars

Healthy people have the ability to form healthier personalities and maintain relationships of love and friendships in the World. This ability ensures that a healthier person will have access to relief from the existential loneliness in which we all live. Loneliness is not a disease of which one can be cured; it is an unescapable fact of human existence. Although most heroin users spend some portion of their drug-using careers as stabilized junkies and many manage to live for years with high heroin availability and highly-structured daily routines, at least two properties of the stabilized junkie’s situation tend to work against the maintenance of stability. One is the pharmacological property of heroin. It is a drug to which users tend to develop a tolerance rather rapidly, although it has been demonstrated that such tolerance is neither necessary nor universal. Moreover, as we have pointed out in previous reports, numerous factors in the social setting of heroin use mitigate the destabilizing effect of the drug. Work routines, household duties, and even subcultural roles all serve to structure drug consumption. However, in the absence of external structures of constraint, or when such routines are temporarily disrupted, the pharmacological properties of heroin tend to destabilize the lifestyle of the addict further. In sum, contrary to popular belief, heroin use does not inevitably lead to a deterioration of lifestyle. Rather, the physiological dynamics of narcotics use tend to be most destabilizing under conditions where life structure is already weak and incapable of accommodating the physiological demands imposed by increased tolerance. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

The other property of the stabilized junkie’s life which tends to undermine stability is the hustle the junkie uses to finance his or her habit. According to our respondents, it is not hard times of difficulties in raising money through hustlers which tend to destabilize the stabilized junkie’s life. “You can adjust yourself to a certain amount of drugs a day,” explained Belle, “that you don’t have to have but just that much.” In addition to reducing their drug consumption, stabilized junkies accommodate themselves to such lean periods by substituting other drugs for heroin, working longer and harder at their hustling, or changing the type of hustle they work. On the contrary, it is the unusual success, the “bit sting” or “big hit,” that tends to destabilize the stabilized junkie’s high degree of life structure. The “big sting” or “big hit” can come in many forms. One of our respondents—an armed robber who usually limited his robbing to street mugging, gas stations, and convenience stores—“hit” a bank, which to our respondent’s surprise, produced a “take” of over $60,000. He increased his heroin consumption dramatically and, while doing so, abandoned virtually all the stabilizing routines which marked his life prior to his windfall take. In another instance, a relatively stable junkie dealer was “fronted” several thousand dollars of heroin on consignment. Instead of selling it as he had agreed to do, he absconded with it to another state, shot up most of it himself, and gave the rest away. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

In another case, a relatively low-level burglar/thief came across $10,000 in cash in the course of one of his burglaries. He took the money to New York where he intended to cop a “big piece” that he could bring back to the city in which he lived and sell for a nice profit. However, instead of selling it, he kept it for his own use and his habit rapidly increases from a stable three bags per day to nearly a “bundle”—a5 bags per day. Although the “big hit” or “big sting” appears to be the most common precipitator of the transition from the status of stabilized or occasional heroin user to the status of free-wheeling junkie, many other variants of similar destabilizing patterns are common. The stabilized junkie may not be the one who makes the big sting. It may be his or her spouse, roommate, paramour, addict friend, or regular trick who receives a windfall of drugs or money and invites the stabilized junkie to share in the benefits of good fortune. “Goody,” a part-time street prostitute, moved in with a big-time drug dealer who provided her with all the heroin she wanted in exchange for domestic services, sexual favors, some modest help in cutting and packaging drugs. Although her supply of drugs was virtually limitless, she took her child-raising obligations and responsibilities very seriously and they kept her to a modest level of use. However, after a year of domestic living she began to miss the “street” life and the friends she had there and to resent her total (“bag b*tch”) dependence on her dealer boyfriend. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

She returned to the street and used the money she earned from “hoing,” and “ripping” her tricks to purchase drugs in addition to what she got at home for free. This behavior not only destabilized her drug use, but it also disrupted her home life to such an extent that she pated with her dealer and returned to the street full-time. Interestingly, this return to prostitution, theft, and robbery as her sole means of support forced her to develop a new life structure and abandon the free-wheeling pattern into which she had drifted when she had a dual source of supply. Unless heroin addicts are disciplined by a life structure to which they are so committed and obligated that it effectively prevents them from doing so, they will expand their consumption of heroin to whatever level of use the availability of drugs or funds to buy them makes possible. What marks the career stage of the free-wheeling junkie is the almost total absence of structures of restraint. In the word of “Little Italy,” who described a “free-wheeling” stage of his addict career: “I can remember, I wouldn’t be sick, I wouldn’t need a shot…And some of the guys might come around and get a few bags [and say] ‘Hey man, like I don’t have enough money. Why don’t you come down with me?’…I’m saying [to myself], ‘Oh-oh, here I go!’ and I would shoot drugs I didn’t even need to shoot. So I let it get out of control.” The problem for the first free-wheeling junkie is that the binge cannot last forever and is typically fairly short-lived. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

After a month or two of free-wheeling heroin use—during which time the free-wheeling junkie may have no idea of how much heroin he or she is consuming daily—not only is a modest usage level unsatisfying but the life structure within which one might support it is likely to have been completely abandoned or at least be in severe disrepair. The Street Junkie—Low Availability/Low Life Structure At the point in a free-wheeling junkie’s career when heroin availability drops precipitously and life structure does not provide the support necessary to stabilize heroin use, the free-wheeling junkie may manage to rebuild that life structure and accommodate to a new and lower level of availability. To the extent that his rebuilding and accommodation can be managed, the free-wheeling junkie may be able to return to the life of a stabilized junkie. However, if the rebuilding of life structure cannot be managed, the free-wheeling junkie may become a street junkie. Street junkies most closely approximate the public stereotypes of heroin addicts, if only because their way of life—both where and how they live—make them the most visible variety of heroin addict. Cut off from a stable source of quality heroin, not knowing from where one’s next “fix” or the money to pay for it will come, looking for any opportunity to make a buck, getting “sick” or “jonesing,” being pathetically unkempt and unable to maintain even the most primitive routines of health or hygiene, the street junkie lives a very difficult, hand-to-mouth (or more precisely arm-to-arm) existence. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

It terms of our typology, the street junkie’s life may be understood as a continuous but typically unsuccessful effort to stabilize life structure and increase heroin availability. The two problems are intimately related in such a way that, unless the street junkie can solve both the problems at once, neither problem will be solved at all. That is, unless the street junkie can establish a stable life structure, one will be unlikely to increase the availability of heroin. Likewise, unless the street junkie is able to increase the availability of heroin, one will be unlikely to establish a stable life structure. To illustrate how this relationship works in les abstract terms, it is helpful to begin with a description of what low life structure means in the life of the street. If any single word can describe the essence of how street opiate users “get over,” that word is opportunism. Subjects were always alert to the smallest opportunity to earn a few dollars. The notion of opportunism is equally relevant to predatory criminality, nonpredatory criminality, employment, and miscellaneous hustling activities. The cause of the street junkie’ opportunism is one’s failure to establish a stable life structure which regularly produces enough income to support an addiction. Consequently, the street junkie’s life is a series of short-term crimes, jobs, and hustles. Street junkies steal or rob when opportunities arise to do so. For a price or in exchange for heroin, they will “cop” for an out-of-towner, “taste” for a dealer, “tip” for a burglar, rents their “work” to another junkie, sell their “clinic meth” and food stamps, or share their “crib” accommodations with a junkie who needs a place to “get off” or a “hoe” who needs a room to take her “tricks.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

They will do odd jobs, wash cars, paint apartments, stage accidents and vandalize their own cars, claim it was an accident, and get insurance money, steal and sell other peoples’ medications, deliver circulars, move furniture, carry baggage, or snitch to the police. The problem is not only that this opportunistic crime, hustling, or legitimate work pays very little, but that none of it is stable. While one or more of these activities may produce enough income today, none of them may be counted on to do so tomorrow. Moreover, because typical street addict crimes pay so little, because such crimes must be repeated frequently to produce any sizable income, and because they are so unpredictably opportunistic, the chance that the street addict will be arrested sooner or later is very, very high. This was the unfortunate experience of Little Italy who after falling out with his supplier, was forced to discontinue drug sales as a major means of income and turned to armed robbery to support his use. “I know today, I can say that is you don’t have a plan you’re gonna f*ck up man…Now those robberies weren’t no plan. They didn’t fit in nowhere…just by the spur of the moment, you know what I mean? I had to fond something to take that place so that income would stand off properly, ‘cause I didn’t have a plan or didn’t know anything about robbery.” As Little Italy’s experience demonstrates, street junkies lives are further complicated by the fact that “big dealers”—vendors of quantities of good quality heroin—often refuse to sell to them. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

The reasons they refuse are directly related to the instability of street junkies’ lives. Because street junkies can never be certain when and for how much they will “get over,” they are frequently unable to afford to buy enough drugs to satisfy their “jones.” In the face of such a shortage they will commonly beg drugs from anyone they know who might have them or have access to them, try to “cop short” (buy at less than the going rate), attempt to strike a deal to get drugs loaned or “fronted” (given on consignment) to them on a short-term basis, or, if necessary, engage in opportunistic hustling. Also, because street junkies are the type of addict most vulnerable to arrest they are also the most likely category of addict to be “flipped” by police into the role of an informant. Usually street junkies will be promised immunity from prosecution on the charge for which they were arrested if they “give up” somebody “big.” Given the frequency with which street addicts “come up short,” the relatively small amount of profit to be made in each individual transaction with them, and the higher-than-normal risk of police involvement, few “big dealers” are willing to put up with all of the attendant hassles and hustles that dealing with street junkies typically involves. While there are exceptions—the most common being big dealers who relatives of street junkies or their friends of long standing—street addicts are mainly limited to “street dope,” heroin that has been repeatedly “stepped on” (diluted) as it is passed from the highest-level dealer to the lowest. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

In fact, some studies have shown that as much as 7 percent of street dope may have no heroin in it at all, while other studies show a heroin concentration of from 3 to 10 percent in street dope as compared with an average concentration of nearly 30 percent in bags seized from “big dealers.” The irony in this situation is that, as a consumer of “street dope,” the street addict pays a higher per/unit price for heroin than any other person in the distribution chain. Furthermore, this very low and often unpredictable quality of heroin available to the street junkie serves to destabilize his or her life structure further. In 2020, heroin-involved overdose death rates decreased nearly 7 percent from 2019 to 2020. However, more than 13,000 people died from a drug overdose involving heroin in the United States of America, a rate of more than four deaths for every 100,000 Americans. The number of heroin-involved overdose deaths was nearly seven times higher in 2020 than in 1999. Nearly 20 percent of all opioid deaths involved heroin. Heroin is an opioid drug made from morphine, a natural substance taken from the seed pod of the various opium poppy plants grown in Southeast and Southwest Asia, Mexico, and Colombia. Heroin can be a white or brown powder, or a black sticky substance known as black tar heroin. People inject, sniff, snort, or smoke heroin. Some people mix heroin with crack cocaine, a practice called speedballing. Heroin enter the brain rapidly and binds to opioid receptors on cells located in many areas, especially those involved in feelings of pain and pleasure and in controlling heart rates, sleeping, and breathing. However, it is a very dangerous drug. In the age of fentanyl, all drugs are dangerous, as they could be mixed with it and could be immediately fatal. Even marijuana could be laced with fentanyl. Therefore, it is important to stay away from all drugs and be sober at all times. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

Passivity caused by misconception of self-effacement. Under the idea that surrender of self to the Ultimate cause means self-effacement, self-renunciation, and, practically, self-annihilation, the self-actualized has aimed at unconsciousness of personality, personal needs, personal states, feelings, desires, external appearances, circumstances, discomforts, opinions of others et cetera, so as to be “conscious” of the ultimate concern only moving, working, acting, through it. To this end one has given over one’s “self-consciousness” to “death” and has prayed that one might have no consciousness of anything in the World but the presence of the ultimate concern. Then, to carry out this absolute surrender of self to death—this entire self-effacement—one consistently, in practice, “yields to death” every trace of the movement of “self” one become aware of, and sets one’s will steadily to renounce all consciousness of personal wishes, desires, tastes, needs, feelings, et cetera. All this—appearing to be so “self-sacrificing” and “righteous”—results in an entire suppression of personality, and the giving of ground to psychopathic offenders in a passivity of the whole being. This permits the powers of psychopathic offenders to work, and bring about an “unconsciousness” which becomes in time a deadness and dullness of the sensibilities, and an inability to feel—not only for oneself but for others, so as not to know when they suffer or when one oneself cases suffering. How does the Spiritual Presence attack and close the gap between subject and object in the matter of language? It does so insofar as it witnesses, it expresses, it gives voice to what transcends the subject-object structure. Under the influence of the Spirit the human word becomes the Word of the ultimate concern. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

This Spirit-determined human word is not bound to any particular religion or revelation. However, whenever language becomes a bearer of the Spirit, it unites the speaker with that of which one speaks by reaching beyond the subject-object structure to the power of being and meaning in which they both are grounded. Consequently, the ambiguity of poverty and abundance is overcome in that a few words become great words when they convey the Spirit. The ambiguity of particularity and universality is conquered since the Spirit-bearing word, though particular, shares in the universality of the Spirit. Ambiguous indefiniteness yields, for the word, determined by the Spiritual Presence, does not try to grasp an ever escaping object but expresses a union between the inexhaustible subject and the inexhaustible object. Finally, the ambiguity of communication and anti-communication is overcome when the word, impregnated with the Spirit, penetrates to the center of both listener and speaker so that estrangement and, with it, the possibility of deception and distortion vanish. The presence of the Spirit in human language is another Pentecost. The subject-object chasm is bridged, thus striking at the root of all linguistic ambiguities. The result is a theonomous central function. Judgment in interpersonal relations refer not to the perception of differences in quantity, though a large body of gestaltist literature in psychology includes such matters under this caption. Instead, it refers to the evaluation of alternative courses of action. There is a lively current interest in critical thinking, planning, and decision-making, for which good judgment is imperative. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

Judgment is here conceived as very similar to the ancient concept of wisdom, as signified in the Greek word sophia, from which philosophy gets its name. In view of the centuries of effort which have been devoted to seeking out the mysteries of its occurrence and transmission, it will inevitably seem foolhardy to some to make further tries at identifying the conditions of its development. Yet, every wise parent must continue to instill wisdom in his offspring, and there is room for hope that contemporary social science can add something toward clarifying the conditions for cultivating this long valued ability. The operational definition of judgment must itself be the product of research; a priori definitions can at best point the way toward preliminary approximations, and distinguish judgment from some other abilities which are sometimes take for it. Thus judgment is not another name for utility, which by an assumption common to economists, all rational choices are said to maximize. Indeed, as some of the more critical economists themselves aver, many decisions among alternative values are not commensurable through resort to some imputed quasi-monetary common denominator or intervening variable; their qualitative ordering in particular situations is not reducible to universal categories and dimensions. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

The quality of judgment itself—construed as an ability to make correct decisions—mut be estimated in actual situations and reference to identified actors. What is a correct decision for one actor may be a mistake for another actor, or for the same actor at a different time. The level of judgement cannot be inferred simply from the content of decisions made; the decisions have to be gauged in their context. To take a concrete example: while as a rough guide home economists recommend that families spend no more than a fourth of their income on rent, it may be good judgment under extraordinary circumstances to spend two or three times that much. Whether the family is exercising good judgment depends on its total living situation and the other expenditure choices it makes. Thus the measurement of judgment is likely to require reference to a representative range of decision and considerations within the history of the actor. The interpersonal origins of judgment need heavy emphasis. A person can only be reasonable as long as the other is reasonable, and one, as one’s self is reasonable. However, each can help the other to acquire skill in being reasonable. On this account it might be useful to rename judgment in interpersonal relations—reasonableness or reasonability. That measurement of judgment is ultimately feasible and may become quite reliable and exact is suggested by the fact that people are always making appraisals of the good judgment or mistakes of others and of themselves, and are interested, at least abstractly, in the steady improvement of their judgment. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

Arguments are popular, for instance, among parents as to how far children have progressed in the development of judgment, how far they can be trusted to exercise responsibility for themselves and others. Although it is generally recognized that children increase or improve in judgment as they grow older, laws are continually debated as to the age at which teenagers may drive cars, choose their own movies and reading matter, govern their own morals, spend money wisely, and depart from parental counsel. The practical bearing and importance of the optimal development of judgment on martial choice and the rearing of children seems obvious. However, the judgment does not necessarily reach a plateau at the age of twenty-one, or a peak at any other age. Its growth is not an inevitable concomitant of aging, since it can be readily arrested, and can even degenerate and decline. While paternalistic husbands restrict the responsibility of their wives, for example, their wives’ judgment deteriorates in consequence, leading to further restrictions of their responsibility. Neither is there any upper limits to judgment; it can develop progressively like the other elements of interpersonal competence. Global leaders must go beyond this basic level of interpersonal skills to effectively lead their team. Because global leadership goes beyond domestic, expatriate, and comparative leadership, as well as global management or simply a global title, and becomes “extreme leadership.” Yes, kind of like extreme sports. And like an extreme athlete who needs that higher level of resilience, endurance, willpower, fitness and courage to push themselves to the absolute limit, so must global leaders take their competencies—whether interpersonal or otherwise—to a higher level. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

Just as nations are proving inept in coping with terrorist or religious frenzy, they are also finding it harder to regulate global corporations capable of transferring operations, funds, pollution, and people across borders. The liberalization of finance has encouraged the growth of some six hundred mega-firms, which used to be called “multinationals” and which now account for about one fifth of value added in agriculture and industrial production in the World. The term multinational, however, is obsolete. Mega-firms are essentially non-national. Until the recent past, globe-girdling corporations have typically “belonged” to one nation or another even if they operated all over the World. IBM was an unquestionably American firm. Under the new system for creating wealth, with companies from several countries linked into global “alliances” and “constellations,” it is harder to determine corporate nationality. IBM-Japan is, in many ways, a Japanese firm. Honda builds cars in the United States of America and ships them to Japan. Ford used own Jaguar (1999-2008) and used to own Land Rover (2000-2008) before selling both to Tata Motors in 2008. It is difficult to designate the nationality of global corporations. They fly the flag of their customers, not their country. What is the “nationality” of Visa International? Its headquarters may be in the United States of America, but it is owned by 21,000 financial institutions in 187 countries and territories. Its governing board and regional boards are set up to prevent any one nation from having 51 percent of the votes. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

With cross-national takeovers, merger, and acquisitions on the rise, ownership of a firm could, in principle, switch from one country to another overnight. Corporations are thus becoming more truly nonnational or transnational, drawing their capital and management elites from many different nation, creating jobs and distributing their streams of profit to stockholders in many countries. Changes like these will force us to rethink such emotionally charged concepts as economic nationalism, neocolonialism, and imperialism. For example, it is an article of faith among Latin Americans that Yankee imperialists siphon “superprofits” from their countries. However, if tomorrow “superprofits” from a Mexican operation were to go to investors dispersed throughout Japan, Western Europe, and, say, Brazil (or even someday China), who exactly is the neocolonislist? What if a transnational is nominally based in Macao or, for that matter, Curacao, and its stock is owned by 100,00 continually changing shareholders from a dozen countries, trading in half a dozen different stock exchanges from Bombay and Sydney to Paris and Hong Kong? What if even the institutional investors are themselves transnational? What if the managers come from all over the World? What country, then, is the “imperialist oppressor”? As they lose their strictly national identities, the entire relationships between global firms and national governments is transformed. In the past, “home” governments of such companies championed their interests in the World economy, exerted diplomatic pressure on their behalf, and often provided either the threat (or the reality) of military action to protect their investments and people when necessary. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

In the early 1970s, at the behest of ITT and other American corporations, the CIA actively worked to destabilized the Allende government in Chile. Future governments may be far less ready to respond to cries for help from firms that are no longer national or multinational but truly transnational. If so, what happens when terrorists, guerrillas, or a hostile nation threaten the people and facilities of one of the great transnationals? To whom does it turn for help? Does it meekly walk away from its investments? Perhaps the most popular definition of the economic system of today’s China is state capitalism as opposed to the Western-style liberal market economy with private companies at its core. It can hardly be denied that, at this point, compared to the West, in the Chinese economy there is more state, and compared to China, in the Western economies there is more private entrepreneurship. Still, this conceptual framework is too simplistic—first of all because it underestimates the role of change. While retaining differences from Western economic systems, especially regarding the role of the state, China is accommodating more and more elements of conventional Western capitalism, first of all Anglo-Saxon capitalism as the latter’s classical model. This process of accommodation and the ability to accommodate are the sources of China’s economic strength. Remaining different, it is becoming more and more similar to the West in many important respects. China’s economic system appears to be a mix created by this dialectical game of similarities and differences. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

The increase of its economic power is supported both by market incentives, which are becoming stronger and stronger (in some respects significantly stronger than in the West) and by large-scale government intervention. It is crucially important that, when intervening in the economy, the government remains premarket enough, or pragmatic enough, not to undermine market incentives. Basically, the emergence of China as a new economic giant underlines the fact that the economic system of a nation influences its growth and power first of all not through its static condition (the way it looks at this particular moment), but through the dynamics of its evolution and adaptation to the changing internal and external environment. The economies of the West are losing their market-driven dynamism. In contrast, the Chinese economy is growing and increasing its strength exactly on the energy of its premarket drive. Within the three decades of reforms, it terms of its systemic transformation, China achieved three results of a historical importance. China is rebounding strongly following the reopening of its economy. The country’s GDP will grow 5.2 percent this year and 5.1 percent in 2024. The Chinese government has resorted to surprising measures to restore confidence among private entrepreneurs. China’s education ministry has estimated that nearly 11.6 million college graduates are looking for jobs this year. The government set a cautious growth plan for this year with a job creation target of 12 million. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18


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