Home » Work (Page 9)
Category Archives: Work
Dabbling in its Dark, Cruel Possibilities
It was one of the brisk winter mornings that begins in a fog, promising the cold to come. A mist was rising from the fruit orchards as I dropped down the hill into Llanada Villa in the valley below the mansion. It was a fair-tale mansion, all turrets and towers, stained glass and plush Victorian gardens, sitting majestical on the most valuable plot of land. As I entered my home, I heard the music playing softly from the morning room. I sat sipping coffee at nine thirty, glad it was Saturday. I knew that life was going to be vastly more complicated now. Well, it was going to be more dangerous, too. Overhead, the morning sky had turned a vivid blue, intersected by fading vapor trails. It was bright enough blue, the sky. However, it had a depth and stillness suggestive of the steady retreat of sunlight and a slight warmth. I have seen real ghouls in my home, and I knew that magic was something that could be harnessed and exploited and there were people in the World with hunger for power and influence enough to risk dabbling in its dark, cruel possibilities. The whisper of water dropping on to leaves as the rain began to fall could be heard. The lights flicked on and off. I looked around, half-waiting for the sound to stir again. The rain strength. I heard drops begin to fall on the roof. For many years the staff reported hearing a little girl crying. She has been seen on occasion, and is described as about seven years old. She has been seen in the house at the main stairwell, on the lawn, and on the third floor. I passed on through the passages of crystal and rooms of silver—spacious chambers, empty and silent. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
This house felt older than the memory of man. It was an accursed mansion. There were strange noises in the mansion. Every night the wailing of a woman could be heard above the moaning of the wind. If ghost must walk the Earth, they could find no spot on the globe where their appearance would be more natural, or better understood. The staff tells tales of disembodies footsteps, lights that switch themselves off and on at will, and objects moving. The Daisy Bedroom has lights that switch themselves on and off after dark and phantom footsteps are often heard in the hallway near the room. One day a housemaid was speaking to a guest as she served dinner downstairs. To everyone’s surprise, the serving tray sitting on the table picked itself up and tipped itself upside down. The tray was filled with plates of hot foot that went everywhere. The sacrificial stones of the Druid priests, oriented after the fashion of the ruin of ruins of Stonehenge, the blood-vats, imperishable adjuncts to human sacrifice, have stood through the ages, grim guardians of the mysteries of the haunted fruit orchards. If someone were to tell me that the fruit orchards at Llanada Villa echoed nightly with the shrieks of sacrifice and that the ghost fires of forgotten priestcraft still glowed in the morning, I would find it hard to disbelieve. That ghastly curse remained on my family and fortune. The mansion has picked up a few permanent guests. One evening, from the observation tower, I saw a huge black figure gliding along the grounds. It could not be human because of the rate of speed it was going. I felt not just fear, but absolute dread. I experienced a bone-chilling could throughout my body. I ran down nine flights of stairs, while crying uncontrollable and my heart was pounding. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Only in the understanding of the stock from which the Victorian mansion’s ghosts are sprung can one appreciate the immortality with which long-accepted tradition has endowed them. Ghostly itself is the history of the Winchester Mansion. While the carpenters were painting on the fourth floor, one of them was startled to see the word MURDER appear in the freshly rolled paint, as if written with someone’s finger—only the words were backwards, as though being written from the other side of the wall. One of the painters explained: “We were quite surprised when a shadow started moving towards us.” As they realized that the “shadow” was approaching them, they also realized that area of the mansion was a very lonely place, especially at night. Not many people ventured up there. And although in their haste to leave, they could only give brief glances at the dark figure, they were sure of one thing: “The only outstanding feature was the outline of a wide brim hate.” Another evening while the carpenters were painting, they heard a quiet creaking emanating from the wood floors. They steeled their nerves before investigating. That is when they saw a young woman sitting in a chair directly behind them. The woman was there for just a moment before disappearing. Later the evening as the farmers were picking fruit in the fields, the dark figure “floated” diagonally across the field. It drifted rapidly to a clump of trees with two flat rocks near by and disappeared over a slight drop-off beyond. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
One of the farmers screwed up his courage and, in spite of the bizarre, dark figure’s mysterious and even menacing appearance, volunteered to walk down to the spot where the apparition disappeared. After five minutes of observation, he returned, like an efficient scout, with his report, unsettling as it might be. He said when he reached the far side of the hill there were two “soldiers-dressed” figures stilling on the two flat rocks near the clump of trees. Neither one spoke to the other; nor did they acknowledge the other’s presence. Instead they just sat, seemingly rigidly fixated, staring down into the field. Other ghost haunting the mansion include those of two little boys, who have been heard running on the second floor. One night, while I was preparing for company, I found two sets of muddy boot prints coming from the door to nowhere and crossing the room. When I told Daisy about the boot prints. She said they must be made by the same boys who keep coming in the door the opens to the wall, and we had locked them out. Looking toward the door she said, “It’s OK, if you prefer this door, go ahead and use it.” Immediately the door swung open. Needless to say cold chills ran through both of us. We never worried about the door that opens to the wall again. My idea for the mansion was not only to create a place for the spirits, but also to build an estate that would inspire awe. The gorgeous series of fields gardens, forests, and grassy acres are as fascinating as they are beautiful. However, when the sun goes down, the shadows creep and spread, giving the Victorian Mansion an entirely different look and feel. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
With grounds lit by a full moon hanging low in the sky, just to the side of the columns of the mansion, one begins to ponder the many mysteries surrounding the Winchester Mansion. One night I was putting out a candle when I heard the sound of a singing voice. At first I thought: “Oh, that sounds nice.” However, then I wondered what it was and where I could be hearing singing from. After all, the staff was asleep and there was no one around, and the sound definitely was not coming from outside. It was frightening, but it was not explainable. It was just a couple of phrases of singing and it took me by surprise. I could faintly see the hazy shape of a woman moving down what the hallway. One night, a group of farmers were packing up for the evening. A they looked around with a lantern for their tools, they were shocked to see what appeared to be the black form of a man moving toward them. The figure was larger than human and had no features—it was a black mass that seemed to sway toward them in the bright light. The man wielding the lantern quickly put it out and they all ran away. For weeks the men thought about what they had seen; they just could not forget it. They spoke to other servants about the vision or sighting. They were quite disturbed and unable to let the subject drop. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Take heed! Come, all Spirits! By the virtue and power of your king, and by the seven crowns and chain of your Kings, all Spirits of the Hells are forced to appear in my presence before this circle of Solomon, whensoever I shall call them. Come, then, all at my order, to fulfil that which is in your power, as commanded. Come, therefore, from the East, South, West, and North! I conjure and command you, by the virtue and power of Him who is three, eternal, equal, who is God invisible, consubstantial, in a word, who has created the Heavens, the sea, and al which is under Heaven. I conjure thee, Lucifer, by the living God, by the true God, by the holy God, who spake and all was made, who commanded and all things were created and made! I conjure thee by the ineffable name of God, ON, ALPHA, and OMEGA, ELOYM, YA, SADAY, LUX, MUGENS, REX, SALUS, ADONAY, EMMANUEL, MESSIAS; and I adjure, conjure. I command you, O all ye demons dwelling in these parts, or in what part of the World soever ye may be, by whatsoever power may have been given you by God and our holy Angels over this place, and by the power Principality of the fernal abysses, as also by all your brethren, both general and special demons, whether dwelling in the East, West, South, or North, or in any side of the Earth, and, in like manner, by the power of God the Father, by the wisdom of God and the Son, by the virtue of the Holy Ghost, and by the authority I derive from our Savior Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
The idea that we survive physical death, that some part of our being is immortal, profoundly affects the loves of those who harbor such a belief. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
And please be sure to check out the online gift store: https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
All is Well that Ends Well?
The family is sacred to the ultimate concern and is the most important social unit in time and eternity. The ultimate cause established families to bring happiness to its creations, allowing them to learn correct principles in a loving atmosphere, and prepare them for eternal life. The home is the best place to teach, learn, and apply virtuous principles. It is where individual learn to provide love, food, clothing, respect, shelter, security and other necessities they require. The mother and father, as equal partners, should help each family member. However, sometimes things do not go as planned. Because we live in a World with many influences, people may become criminals. Men and women can both become involved in crime. When it comes to burglaries, for the females who worked as partners, this could involve a variety of tasks. Many of these tasks were indistinguishable from those traditionally associated with men, such as gaining entry, searching the house, carrying goods outside, and disposing of them. The following interview segment describes some of the tasks performed by a female acting as a partner. Although this was her first offense, she heled to find the transportation to reach the target (by stealing a truck) and took part in the actual break in: “Well, it wasn’t up on me, somebody else who was in there different, not state, in a different county. He just came up and told me he knew about it, a rich guy that was gonna be gone for the weekend. He knew this person, knew who it was, and he knew about it. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
“When he left that night about two or three in the morning, we went down there. We had stolen a truck, we had stolen my ex-boyfriend’s father’s truck, went down there. We tried to get in, but we couldn’t get in. Everything was locked. Right…We couldn’t get in for nothing, so what we does was, we had some sh*t in back of the truck and we took some tape. Then we put it over the window real tight, then we busted it, and then we took the tape down and the window was shattered. It had no window in it. So—everybody used gloves of course—so we went in there, you know, and we knew when we went, we knew nobody was gonna be home. There wasn’t a house around for two blocks, each way you went. So…my first one was basically the easiest one.” The target often was located by a female partner, who also took the lead in planning the offense. In these cases the women had a substantial say in determining how the proceeds of the crime were divided: “…whatever you chose to give to the other person. We tried to split everything equally. We were all good friends, you know, so I got the best deal out of it because of the fact that I needed the money more than everybody else. Me and my sister needed the money more than everybody did and…we were the ones that said hey, we pointed it out, we found a way to get in, we knew where everything was, we told them how, we had everything planned out down to the TV. This is where this is at and this is where this is at.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
The roles played by female burglars are dynamic and can chance over time. Many of the women who currently participate in offenses as partners started out as accomplices. The woman quoted below clearly has an equal relationship with her co-offender, but this was not always the case: “The first burglary I ever committed, I was in the house and I was smoking weed at the time. A friend came in and said ‘I want to go in this house.’ I said ‘Okay, it was around the corner….what part am I going to play?’ He says ‘All you got to do is watch the doors for me. The bags I bring down, take them out, and you also drive the car for me.’” As should be obvious from above, women who work as accomplices in burglary play much more limited roles. They seldom participate in planning the crime, and often do not even enter the dwelling. Some claimed to prefer working with others because they lacked the skills needed to be a successful burglar: “I can’t do all by myself…I haven’t mastered that yet.” Others simply felt more comfortable when relying on a colleague’s expertise; they were uncertain about their ability to work alone. In the following case, a woman reports that she deferred to her boyfriend’s judgment in determining the suitability of a given target. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
“He can look at them and tell. He’s better at it than me. Sometimes I give him tips to go on, but he checks them out. I feel safer for him to check them out.” A common work assignment for accomplices was acting as a lookout or driver. Several of the women stated that driving was their primary job in burglaries: “Well, see, me and my boyfriend had been together for a year, and he done them all the time. Well, not all the time, but it was no big deal, and all I had to do, all I ever do, is drive. I just go like he’ll go, him and his friend. He don’t do ‘em every week or anything like that. Like it’s not really ‘cause we need the money or anything either. Like he’ll go during the day and he’ll look at a house and he’ll find one, and then he’ll tell me about where the house is…all I have to do is drive to the place and wait for them to start bringing out the stuff, and then drive off.” Other said that they typically kept a lookout for their colleagues: “They came and picked me up with a stolen automobile. I didn’t know that it was stolen. We went out there to this house and they got out. I just assumed—I didn’t know what was going on at first. We got out and they went in first, and then they came back out. One of the men came back out and told me to come in and to keep an eye out to see if anybody was there or anybody comes down the sidewalk or if anybody drives down the street or anything.” In both of these cases the women, as accomplices, did not choose to perform these secondary tasks. Instead the tasks were assigned to them by a dominant co-offender. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
What light does this quantitative and qualitative information shed on the nature of female criminality? Our sample was not generated randomly; with this fact in mind, the quantitative findings suggest that women involved in residential burglary do not differ significantly from their male counterparts on a number of relevant dimensions (exempli gratia, drug and alcohol use, degree of offense specialization). Nevertheless, the results show that some important differences may exist as well. Compared to the males, for example, the females more often committed burglaries with others, began offending at a later age, and had less contact with the criminal justice system. Further examination of these apparent differences is warranted. The qualitative data demonstrate that women’s involvement in residential burglary is marked by diversity and that the debate about whether women play a primary or a secondary role in the offense is probably a red herring. In fact, as among males, some assume primary roles exclusively, some adopt secondary roles exclusively, and others move from one type of role to another s they become more experienced. This observation has important implications for research into women’s involvement in crimes committed more often by males. To be sure, a much lower percentage of women than of men participate in residential burglary. Even so, our qualitative data reveal substantial similarities be tween males and females. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
This fact suggests that the activities of women who do engage in such offenses may be explained by some of the same factors that explain men’s participation. When it comes to the stole property system (SPS), we must consider the law of supply and demand shape the SPS. This term refers to the loosely formed relationships that bring about the theft of property and the subsequent repackaging and resale of these goods via the “black market.” We use contacts with law enforcement authorities to formulate a revised view of property crime. Instead of viewing burglaries as isolated incidents of theft, we argue that we should conceive of the acts and actors involved as spanning a more broadly defined set of roles and behaviors. They identify the thief, fence, and person who buys the stolen goods as key players in the SPS. They also identify multiple stages in the process: research and planning, extraction, exchange (id est, conversion of the goods to money), marketing, residtribution/resale, and evaluation. Moreover, the roles and behaviors of the various players are said to be interchangeable and flexible. In the end, we reconsider the way that we think about property crime. We become more sensitive to the potential for business concepts such as division of labor, entrepreneurial spirit, supply and demand, and marketing to manifest themselves in the World of property theft. In doing so, we are able to drive home the complexity and fluidity tht can beset property crime events. Moreover, we illustrate how the criminal calculus can lead to mutually beneficial relationships and roles that allow the criminal subculture to expand and innovate. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Perhaps no area of contemporary criminal activity holds more potential for improved understanding and successful intervention through analytical reorientation than does that of property theft. This area of crime is by no means new, a situation which may in fact constitute the greatest barrier to fresh thinking on the subject. Centuries of experience with thefts of property have give us a fairly strong conceptualization of this crime area, a conceptualization which centers almost exclusively on the thief. There is of course nothing illogical or erroneous about a concern for this individual; it is one after all who steals property. What is argued here, however, is that an exclusive concentration of the thief yields a myopic view of the process of theft, a view which draws the boundaries of the crime too tightly around that individual. It is a view which tends therefore to consider each incident of theft as a unique event, determined and constrained by the motivations, needs, and skills of the perpetrator. This “conventional view of theft” (if we can use this phrase) prescribes a response to this crime which largely consists of a fairly sophisticated sorting process, linking one individual (or one group of individuals) with each event as it occurs. Such an “individualistic” approach to crime and criminals is not, of course, confined to the property theft area. For example, we suggest that it is the most prevalent approach to crime in general. Consistently, both the popular and scientific tendency is to view the criminal’s behavior as a problem of individual maladjustment, not as a consequence of his participation in social systems. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
Perhaps it is for this reason that in criminology we have had thousands of studies that have sought some damaging trait in the personalities of individual criminals, but very few studies of the organizational arrangements among criminals who commit crimes in concert. The tendency toward an individualistic interpretation of criminal behavior cannot be laid to the idiosyncrasies of either the public or the scientist, but rather is undoubtedly influenced by the nature of the legal systems, with their concepts of individual responsibility an intent, upon which most democratic societies are based. However, while such an interpretation may conform well to the needs of a legal system, it may have the additional effect of causing us to ignore some important dimensions of contemporary criminal behavior. It is the perspective that property theft is one area of criminal behavior that has sorely suffered both conceptually and practically from a failure to probe the relationships among criminals (and)…the structure and operations of illicit organizations. Perhaps the mot glaring evidence of this failure concerns what the President’s Crime Commission called “little research…done on fencing,” id est, on the criminal receiver of stolen property. This crime figure, although tallying an impressive list of protestations to one’s importance over several centuries has remained little explored, while one’s relationship with the thief has been virtually ignored by the criminologist. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
However, if the popular and scientific tendency has been to overlook the fence, the police detective assigned the responsibility of dealing with property theft has not found it possible to do so. Instead, as the authors discovered in the course of an ongoing study of patterns of criminal receiving, police detectives possess a great deal of information about the fence. Other researchers have reported similar experiences. Because the police know about the fence does not imply that one’s activities are either successfully or efficiently interdicted, for the police agency is as influenced by an individualistic approach to crime as is the social scientist. Thus the bulk of enforcement resources and activity against theft is directed to the thief, and the situation in which police effort is devoted directly and exclusively to the fence appears to be rare indeed. The criminal receiver remains a curiosity to the criminal justice system, being infrequently arrested and even less often convicted. The model of property theft employed here—the Stolen Property System—is an operationally based one, derived from the author’s research into patterns of criminal receiving in a large urban area of the northeastern United States of America. As a part of this study, access to police intelligence reports on the activities of burglars and fences has been obtained, as well as records of these activities maintained in a special investigative unit in the office of the district attorney. Now, as burglaries are crimes of economics, this indicates that economics plays a kay factor in our lives. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
China is an economic power house, and it growing production and export power enhances its financial strength as well. This is natural. However, compared to its sensational emergence as a leading manufacturing and trading nation, the process of its ascending to the position of a major financial power is more fragmentary and complicated. China has by far the largest foreign exchange reserves in the World, about three times as large as Japan, which is number two. It is also rapidly emerging as the leading international lender. In contrast, China’s role as a foreign direct and portfolio investor is still considerably smaller than that of America, major European countries, and Japan. For the time being, the story of China’s growing financial clout is, first and foremost, the story of the unprecedented increase of the financial power of the Chinese state. As of the end of 2021, the gross financial assets of China increased 13.6 percent to USD $29,689 billion. That is an increase of USD $25,563 billion since 2010. In December 2022, the reserves of China stood at USD $3,120 billion. The exact composition of China’s foreign exchange reserves is classified information. Foreign direct investment into China totaled $42.5 billion between July and December 2022. That constituted a 73 percent decline on the year. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
China’s net international investment position reached USD $2,531.328 billion in December 2022. As of the year 2022, the United States of America’s net international investment position was USD -$16.12 trillion. The United States of America is currently the World’s largest debtor nation. Thinking about the pre-cybernetic machine—with minor exceptions, state socialism had led not to affluence, equality, and freedom, but to a one-party political system…a massive bureaucracy…heavy-handed secret police…government control of the media…secrecy…and the repression of intellectual and artistic freedom. Setting aside the oceans of spurting blood needed to prop it up, a close look at this system revealed that every one of these elements is not just a way of organizing people, but also—and more profoundly—a particular way of organizing, channeling, and controlling knowledge. A one-party political system is designed to control political communication. Since no other party exists, it restricts the diversity of political information flowing through the society, blocking feedback, and thus blinding those in power to the full complexity of their problems. With very narrowly defined information flowing upward through the approved channel, and commands flowing downward, it becomes very difficult for the system to detect errors and correct them. In fact, top-down control in the socialist countries was based increasingly on lies and misinformation, since reporting bad news up the line was often risky. The decision to run a one-party system is a decision, above all, about knowledge. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
The overpowering bureaucracy that socialism created in every sphere of life was also, a knowledge-restricting device, forcing knowledge into pre-defined compartments or cubbyholes and restricting communication to “official channels,” while de-legitimating informal communication and organization. The secret police apparatus, state control of the media, the intimidation of intellectuals, and the repression of artistic freedom all represent further attempts to limit and control information flows. In fact, behind each of these elements we find a single obsolete assumption about knowledge: the arrogant belief that those in command—whether of the party or of the state—know what others should know. These features of all the state socialist nations guaranteed economic stupidity and derived from the concept of the precybernetic machines as applied to society and life itself. Second Wave machines—the kind that surrounded Mr. Marx in the 19th century—for the most part operated without any feedback. Plug in the power, start the motor, and it runs irrespective of what is happening in the outside environment. Third Wave machines, by contrast, are intelligent. They have sensors that such in information from the environment, detect changes, and adapt the operation of the machine accordingly. They are self-regulating. The technological difference is revolutionary. While Mr. Marx, Mr. Engels, Mr. Lenin all bitterly assailed the philosophy of “mechanical materialism,” their own thinking, reflecting their era, remained steeped in certain analogies and assumptions based on pre-intelligent machinery. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
Thus for Marxian socialists the class struggle was the “locomotive of history.” A key task was to capture the “state machine.” And society itself, being machine-like, could be pre-set to deliver abundance and freedom. Mr. Lenin, on capturing control of Russia in 1917, became the supreme mechanic. A brilliant intellectual, Mr. Lenin understood the importance of ideas. However, for him, symbolic production, too—the mind itself—could be programmed. Mr. Marx wrote of freedom, but Lenin, on taking power, undertook to engineer knowledge. Thus he insisted that all art, culture, science, journalism, and symbolic activity in general be placed at the service of a master plan for society. In time the various branches of learning would be neatly organized into an “academy” with fixed bureaucratic departments and ranks, all subject to party and state control. “Cultural workers” would be employed by institutions controlled by a Ministry of Culture. Published and broadcasting would be monopolies of the state. Knowledge, in effect, would be made part of the state machine. This constipated approach to knowledge blocked economic development even in low-level smokestack economies; it is diametrically opposed to the principles needed for economic advance in the age of the computer. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The Third Wave wealth-creation system now spreading also challenges three pillars of the socialist faith. Take the question of property. From the beginning, socialists traced poverty, depression, unemployment, and the other evils of industrialism to private own-unemployment, and the other means of production. The way to solve these ills was for the workers to own the factories—through the state or through collectives. Once this was accomplished, things would be different. No more competitive waste. Completely rational planning. Production for use rather than profit. Intelligent investment to drive the economy forward. The dream of abundance for all would be realized for the first time in history. In the 19th century, when these ideas were formulated, they seemed to reflect the most advanced scientific knowledge of the time. Marxists, in fact, claimed to have gone beyond fuzzy-headed utopianism and arrived at truly “scientific socialism.” Utopians might dream of self-governing communal villages. Scientific socialists knew that in a developing smokestack society such notions were impractical. Utopians like Charles Fourier looked toward the agrarian past. Scientific socialists looked toward what was then the industrial future. Thus, later on, while socialists regimes experimented with cooperatives, worker-management, communes, and other schemes, state socialism—state ownership of everything from banks to breweries, rolling mills to restaurants—became the dominant form of property through the socialist World. (So complete was this obsession with state ownership that Nicaragua, an imitative latecomer to the socialist World, even created “Lobo Jack,” a state-owned disco). Everywhere, the state, not the workers, thus became the chief beneficiary of socialist revolution. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Socialism failed to meet its promise to improve radically the material conditions of life. When living standards fell in the Soviet Union after the revolution, the decline was blamed, with some justification, on the effects of World War I and counterrevolution. Later the shortfalls were blamed on capitalist encirclement. Still later, on World War II. Yet thirty years after the war, staples like coffee and oranges were still in short supply in Moscow. In the period preceding Mr. Gorbachev’s perestroika, the diet of a middle-class researcher at a state institute in Moscow was heavily based on cabbage and potatoes. In 1989, four years after the start of Mr. Gorbachev’s attempt at reforms, the U.S.S.R. had to import 600 million razor blades and 40 million tubes of shaving cream from abroad. Remarkably, though their number is declining, one still hears orthodox socialists around the World calling for the nationalization of industry and finance. From Brazil and Peru to South Africa and even in the industrialized nations of the West there remain true believers who, despite all historical evidence to the contrary, still regard “public ownership” as “progressive” and resist every effort to de-nationalize or privatize the economy. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
It is true that today’s increasingly liberalized global economy, uncritically hailed by the great multinational corporations, is itself unstable and could suffer a massive coronary. The distended debt balloon on which it rests cold be punctured. Wars, sudden interruptions of energy or resources, and any number of other calamities could cause its collapse in the decades ahead. Under catastrophic conditions, one might well imagine the need for temporary emergency nationalizations. Nevertheless, incontrovertible evidence proves that state-owned enterprises mistreat their employees, pollute the air, and abuse the public at least as efficiently as private enterprises. Many have become sink-holes of inefficiency, corruption, and greed. Their failures frequently encourage a vast, seething black market that undermines the very legitimacy of the state. However, worst and most ironic of all, instead of taking the lead in technological advance as promised, nationalized enterprises, as a rule, are almost uniformly reactionary—the most bureaucratic, the slowest to reorganize, the least willing to adapt to changing consumer needs, the most afraid to provide information to the citizens, the last to adopt advanced technology. For more than a century, socialists and defenders of capitalism waged bitter war over public versus private property. Large numbers of men and women literally laid down their lives over this issue. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
What neither side imagined was a new wealth-creation system that would make virtually all their arguments obsolete. Yet this is exactly what happened. It is super-symbolic. It is knowledge. The same knowledge can be used by many people simultaneously to create wealth and to produce still more knowledge. And unlike factories and fields, knowledge is, for all intents, inexhaustible. Neither socialist regimes nor socialists in general have yet come to terms with this truly revolutionary fact. An established firm in an industry stands to gain by keeping out new competition. Then it can raise prices to monopoly levels. Since monopoly is socially harmful, the antitrust authorities try to detect and prosecute firms that employ strategies to deter rivals from entering the business. In 1945, the Aluminum Corporation of America (Alcoa) was convicted of such a practice. An appellate panel of Circuit Court judges found tht Alcoa had consistently installed more refining capacity than was justified by demand. In his opinion, Judge Learned Hand said: “It was not inevitable that it [Alcoa] should always anticipate increases in the demand for ingot and be prepared to supply them. Nothing compelled it to keep doubling and redoubling its capacity before other entered the field. It insists that it never excluded competitors; but we can think of no more effective exclusion than progressively to embrace each new opportunity as it opened and to face every newcomer with new capacity already geared into a great organization. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
This case has been debated at length by scholars of antitrust law and economies. Here we ask you to consider the conceptual basis of the case. How could the construction of excess capacity deter new competitors? What distinguishes this strategy from others? Why might it fail? An established firm wants to convince potential new competitors that the business would not be profitable for them. This basically means that if they entered, the price would be too low to cover their costs. Of course the established firm could simply put out the word that it would fight an unrelenting price war against any newcomers. However, why would the newcomers believe such a verbal threat? After all, a price war is costly to the established firm too. Installing capacity in excess of the needs of current production gives credibility to the established firm’s threat. When such capacity is in place, output can be expanded more quickly and at less extra cost. It remains only to staff the equipment and get the materials; the capital costs have already been incurred and are bygones. A price war can be fought more easily, more inexpensively, and therefore more credibly. This makes sense in the logic of strategy, but will such a device work in practice? There are at least two qualifications that limit its success. First, if there are many firms already in the industry, then discouraging newcomers gives more profit to all of them. Will any one firm bear the costs of capacity when it gets only a part of the benefit? #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
This is a standard prisoners’ dilemma. If one firm is large enough, it may in its own interest provide such a service to the rest of the industry. Otherwise the firms must collude in building capacity; this may be hard to hide from the antitrust authorities. In the Alcoa case, only may not regard the dilemma of whom will install capacity as a serious problem, because Alcoa had a 90 percent share of the primary aluminum ingot market. However—and this is the second qualification—is that the relevant market? Even if there are no other producers of primary ingots, secondary production from scrap is a source of competition. So is Alcoa’s own future production. Many aluminum-based products are highly durable. If Alcoa puts more aluminum on the market in the future, then the values of these durable goods will decrease. If the company cannot credibly guarantee the users that it will restrict its own future, output, they are willing to pay for aluminum now. This is just like IBM’s problem of pricing mainframe computers. The solution of renting is much harder here: you cannot rent aluminum as such; Alcoa would have to extend its operations into all sorts of aluminum-based products. In accordance with the directions of the ultimate concern, and in view of the critical time through which the World is passing, every expression, “view,” or theory which we hold concerning things should now be examine carefully, and brought to the proof, with open and hones desire to know the pure truth of the ultimate concern—as well as every statement that comes to our knowledge from the experience of others, which may throw light upon our own pathway. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
Every criticism—just or unjust—should be humbly received and examined to discover its grounds, apparent or real; and facts concerning the verities from every self-actualized being should be analyzed, independent of their pleasure or pain to us personally—either for our own enlightenment or for our equipment in the service of the ultimate concern. For the knowledge of truth is the first essential for warfare with the lying offenders, and truth must be eagerly sought for and faced with earnest and sincere desire to know it and obey it in the light of God: truth concerning ourselves, discerned by unbiased discrimination; truth from the virtues, uncolored, unstrained, unmutilated, undiluted; truth in facing facts of experience in all members of the hierarchy of self-actualization. Sometimes we are we can be too engrossed in our own internal struggle to intervene and prevent someone else from being hurt, but gradually the fragments and splinters and hurts began to disturb us. We may experience internally the broken moments, shattered dialogues, and cruelty of neutral faces. Here were people committed to the rescuing of “dropouts” and “rejects” from the public school, blatantly ignoring the crucial feelings being expressed. In this room, in the many passing hours and in that moment were people who hungered for a vital, active, listening human presence. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
However, what they get are intellectual arguments and words with little or no feeling. What they get are dead faces and lifeless bodies. Within one is growing an indignation against these denials or elemental human values until at last one’s own existence, one’s own isolation, one’s own desire for a solitary state crumbles away and vanishes. For the first time in weeks, one may experience intense and vital feelings from within, a full response to others. One’s anger mounts at the surface way in which fundamental matters are handled, at the ignoring of potential for intensity and depth, and at people committed to serving abused and rejected children failing to reach out, recognize and affirm each other. It may take one back to another time and place. This may cause of to reflect on the coldness and indifference others have to the personal struggles and feelings, an avoidance of intensity and depth in interactions, an intellectualizing and professionalizing or values and concepts of the ultimate concern. Mystery, spirit, feeling, the human sense, the unspoken and ineffable, the sense of awe and wonder, aesthetic appreciation—all might be missing. What else is the ultimate concern but a willingness to submit to the unknown, to learn from the unseen and intangible what we must fulfil? Where else do powers of life, actions to living in the deepest and fullest sense, come but from felt presences that awaken us to a fuller realization of what it means to be unique and human. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
There will be pronouncements, lineal objectives and goals, definitions, rules, all carefully edited and articulated. We must be concerned with deviance and social injustice, and be aware of the importance of using political and economic powers to being about beneficial social changes. We have to speak about poverty and war, the end of killing and hunger. However, these are devotions to abstractions: for there before us are instances of human suffering, and individuals struggling to rise, and they are being met with indifference, with a refusal or inability to listen and respond. Some may speak glibly of the value of love in enlightenment, but these words do not strengthen and affirm, not support or encourage individuals in their search and struggle. The words are empty. The soul of life dies quickly in the presence of doctrines, rituals, and intellectual reactions. The central concern, the only immediate and intense here-and-now feeling, is a fear of the people who rate us, an incessant anxiety boarding on paranoia that they are being judged in every detail and nuance. Without exception, the fear of being tossed out, or of being put on probation, is paramount. The way to success is to be silent, to speak in abstractions, to avoid action in any living, breathing terms. They will be startled at one’s indignation, at one’s efforts to arouse genuine caring, interpersonal involvement, and decent human responses. When we examine the sacred of the “is” namely, actual purity, or the present reality of the revered it is the mysterium tremendum et fascinosum. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
The mysterium tremendum et fascinosum is the experience of ‘the ultimate’ in the double sense of that which is the abyss and that which is the ground of man’s being. The mysterium tremendum et fascinosum is the beneficial side of sacredness; it attracts because, as the ground of being, it implies the fulfilment and the beatitude of the creature. The negative side is the mysterium tremendum et fascinosum which terrifies because, as the abyss of being, it implies an infinite, unbridgeable distance between the finite and the infinite. In the ecstatic experience of revelation one feels both the elevating power of the divine presence and its annihilating power. This is the experience of the actual sacredness of the ultimate concern. A man who has never tried to flee from the ultimate concern has never experienced the ultimate concern that is the ultimate concern. The ultimate concern of our own making, fashioned after the image of man, is easy to live with, but man cannot stand the ultimate concern that is really the ultimate concern. Man tries to evade the ultimate concern, and hates it, because one cannot escape it. The protest against the ultimate concern, the will that there be no ultimate concern, and the flight to nihilism are all genuine elements of profound philosophy. Such is the shaking power of the mysterium tremendum et fascinosum. The eyes of the Witness we cannot stand are also the eyes of One of infinite wisdom and supporting benevolence. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
The center of being, in which our own center is involved, is the source of the gracious beauty which we encounter again and again in the stars and mountains, in flowers and animals, in children and mature personalities. The scared can be viewed not only from a phenomenological point of view, but also from an ontological one. The sacred contains the meaning of individuals and of the whole, and is the ground of meaning. It is also the abyss of meaning because it transcends every individual meaning and cannot be fully grasped in any act of meaning. Unconditioned meaning is the mysterium tremendum et fascinosum, the abyss and the ground of the meaning of things, not only in so far as they are, but also in so far as they ought to be. Against this ontological background, the sacred is not unperceptible, but it is not objective. The sacred is contemplated not as an object; it I contemplated as transcendent meaning. To be sure, there exist also sacred objects to see them as purity is to grasp through them the meaning of the unconditioned. The sacred is being-itself or the power of being. What is required in the professional sense is the fullness and depth of a truly human commitment to self and others, and the love that connects one man with other men. This love must be allowed to develop because love is immediate and grows out of a willingness to enter into interpersonal dialogue and communication, out of the willingness to permit the unknown in one’ self to connect with the unknown in others. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
Ruin is the Destination Toward Which All Men Rush
With equality and gender-based studies becoming more important, it is a goo idea that we take a look at a gender-based analysis of residential burglary. The study is based on interviews with 105 active residential burglars, 87 of whom were males and 18 were females. The project employed a snowball sampling strategy in which an ex-offender recruited known burglars who were presently operating in a city. The gender-based compassion suggests that, in many way, female burglars resemble their male counterparts. For example, both group display long criminal histories that span a variety of property, violent, and public order offenses categories. Both groups accumulate long, diverse substance abuse histories that overlap with and contribute to their involvements in burglary. At the time, the gender-based comparison reveal several differences. Female burglars begin offending at a later age, are more likely to co-offend, and have less contact with authorities. The typology of female burglars describes offenders as either accomplices or partners. Factor of motivation, levels of target selection and planning, and patterned work roles serve to differentiate these two conceptual categories. Despite growing interest in female criminality, little is known about the nature of women’s participation in crimes statistically dominated by males. Certainly that is the case for residential burglary, an offense labeled as an overwhelmingly male enterprise. For example, we hardly know how female become involved in such offenses or what roles they play. Are they tempted into these crimes, for instance, by the influence of delinquent peers or by the use of drugs? #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Because we lack detailed knowledge, we cannot assess the extent to which the processes underly burglaries committed by females differ from those underlying burglaries by males. This lack also restricts our capacity to detect important differences among female burglars. An assessment of these difference, however, is crucial in formulating effective policy responses to female criminality and to developing theories of lawbreaking by women. Short of observing burglaries, perhaps the best way to acquire this information is to go to the offenders themselves. The most pressing need today, in researching the agenda for feminist criminology, is observation and interviewing so we can plunge more deeply into the social Worlds of girls and women. Such a strategy will allow researchers to comprehend women’s crime on its own terms. Often it is claimed that offenders are versatile and commit a wide range of offense. This observation, however, is derived largely from studies of males conducted in criminal justice settings rather than on the street. During our interviews we asked the subjects whether they ever had committed other sorts of crimes beside residential burglary. We did so because we were concerned primarily with prevalence—that is, whether the subject ever had engaged in other kinds of offenses. Stealing (which includes shoplifting and corresponds to the legal definition of this activity), auto theft, and assault were the offenses most commonly reported by males. Stealing and assault were mentioned most frequently by the females; these offenses were comparable in rank of frequency to those reported by the males. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Beyond these two offenses, however, little other criminality was reported by the females. The only meaningful differences between the men and the women for this measure was found in regard to auto theft. This crime was fairly common among the males, but unknown among the females. The explanation for this difference might reside in a strong cultural tradition linking masculinity to driving and car ownership. Alternatively, males may have “cornered the market” in auto theft; to be profitable, such a crime requires sophisiticated coneections with garage owners, automotive recycle yard employees, and car dealerships. One important aspect of offending style concerns the degree of crime specialization—that is, the extent to which offenders concentrate on one particular type of offense. When we asked offenders whether they had been involved in crimes other than residential burglary during their most recent period of offending, thirty-four percent of the males and 42 percent of the females claimed that they had committed only residential burglaries during this period (roughly the last six months). This finding is consistent with a substantial body of previous research showing that offenders display considerable diversity over the course of their criminal careers, but may specialize in a particular “line” for short periods. This phenomenon is labeled as “short-term specialization.” Another element of offending style concerns the inclinations to work with others in carrying out cries. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Previous research demonstrated that more often than not, [burglary] is committed by two or more persons acting in concert. The results of our study bear this out: 79 percent of the males and all of the females reported that they had worked with others in the past. The males showed considerable variation in frequency of working with others: 39 percent said they “seldom” worked with others, while another 39 percent reported that they “always” did so. For the women, however, the picture was much clearer: an overwhelming 83 percent reported that they “always” worked with others, and the remaining 17 percent states that they “usually” did so. The final aspect of offending style that we examined here relates to drug and alcohol use among our respondents, as well as to their perceptions of the role played by intoxicants in leading them to commit such crimes. Our research reveals that there is little difference between the males and the females in self-report drug use. When the drug users were asked whether addiction had anything to do with their burglaries, 71 percent of the males and 82 percent of the females answered affirmatively. A majority of those in both groups said they committed burglaries to obtain the money they needed to buy more drugs. In addition, slightly more than three-quarters of the users in each group—76 percent of the males and 79 percent of the females—claimed that they used drugs before committing their burglaries. A higher percentage of females than of males started that they “always” or “usually” used drugs beforehand. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
One explanation seems to be that many female burglaries arise from crack “runs.” This point, however, is difficult to determine conclusively because use of the drug is heavily stigmatized. We explore male-female differences on three dimensions designed to measure burglary offending histories: age at first burglary, total number of lifetime burglaries, and lambda, the mean number of annual burglaries. The ages at which males and females committed their first residential burglary differed significantly: the males generally started much earlier in life. None of the female burglars had committed their first offense before age 12, but 22 percent of the males had done so. The modal category for males was the 13-16 age bracket, which accounted for 53 percent of the cases. Sixty-one percent of the females, on the other hand, were over 16 years old when they carried out their first burglary. Given that the females started to commit burglaries later, on average, than their male counterparts, we are not surprised that a greater proportion of females had been involved in fewer than 20 residential burglaries in their lifetime. Perhaps more interesting, 39 percent of the females had committed more than 70 lifetime residential burglaries, a proportion roughly comparable to the males’ figure of 41 percent. The bimodal distribution of the females’ responses suggests that women are likely to engage in burglary at two very distinct levels, and perhaps to employ two different styles. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
The males were more likely than the females to have had contact with the system for offenses of all types. This difference was most notable at the stage of the criminal justice process that resulted in incarceration. Over ninety percent of the respondents in each group had been arrested previously, but only one woman (6 percent) had been convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. In contrast, 26 percent of the males had served time in the past. This difference may exist in part because the females began offending later and consequently had fewer “years at risk.” Other factors, however, are probably at work as well including an assumption by the police that most burglars are male, which allow females to remain above suspicion and a tendency for those females who are arrested to receive preferential treatment in the courtroom. Certainly the women in our sample believe that their gender conferred a degree of protection from the law. Several expressed the belief that authorities would not take action against them simply because they were female. Is it not becoming clear, in light of the existence of deceiving offenders and their methods of deception, that close examination is needed of modern theories, conceptions, and expressions regarding things in connection with the ultimate concern and its way of working in man? For only the certainty of ultimate concern, apart from “views” of truth, will avail for protection or for successful warfare in the conflict with wicked offenders in the self-actualized hierarchy. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
When we reach self-actualization, we are at the highest hierarchy of the pyramid, and this is denoted by morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, and acceptance of facts. There are five levels in the pyramid. At the very bottom, people are interested in physiological functions only which include: breathing, food, water, pleasures of flesh, sleep, homeostasis, and excretion. At the second level of the pyramid, individuals are concerned with safety and this entails security of: body, employment, resources, mortality, the family, healthy and property. At the third hierarchy most are concerned with love and belonging. This includes friendship, family, sexual intimacy. At the fourth hierarchy, this realm focuses on esteem: self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, respect by others. All that is in any degree the outcome of the mind of the “natural man” will prove to be but the weapons of straw in this great battle, and if we rely upon others’ “views of truth,” or upon our own human conceptions of truth, offenders will use these very things to deceive us—even building us up in these theories and views so that under cover of them he or she may accomplish one’s purpose. We cannot, therefore, at this time, overestimate the importance of believers having ready minds to “examine all things” they have thought, and perhaps taught, in connection with the things of ultimate concern and the self-actualized realm—all the “truths” they have held, all the phrases and expressions they have used in “virtue teachings,” and all the ideas they have absorbed through others. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
For any wrong interpretations of truth, any theories and phrases which are man-conceived and which we may build upon wrongly, will have perilous consequences to ourselves and others in the conflict with truth and individual self-actualized people passing through. Because in the present offenders will comes to them with deceptions in DOCTRINAL form, self-actualized individual must examine carefully what they accept as “doctrine,” least it should be from the emissaries of the deceiver. Some people are tired of struggling and want only to know a quiet silence. This can be a shock to one’s own awareness of who he or she is. One may have always considered struggle essential in growth, and in many crises and conflicts it has provided the turning point in one’s life. Not wanting to be burdened and overwhelmed by heavy feelings and thoughts or by complicated searching and painful of what is wrong with oneself, people, and life, this can create the desire to turn away from the struggle. And this is what causes the requirement to be alone in simple and ordinary ways. Once one goes through this process of healing in solitude, and by only engaging in simple routine, gradually, with each day, an individua is able to listen a little more to what others are saying. (This is why during a break up, space, instead of forcing the issues is important. Of course, there are times when you need to know what the reason it so it may be a good idea to press for answers to start a dialogue and not necessarily to just focus on getting back together.) #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Slowly it becomes each to be interested in and comfortable with other people’s problems. Although there may be some drawbacks. Some individual may be able to be with others while you struggle to make decisions, but one may not be opened to questions or personal comments and responses directed to one. This may cause one to offer nothing of oneself and comment only on what one is hearing and understanding from others. During this period, some find work a truly rewarding activity; it is a place that feels like home. It does not matter whether the work takes the form of writing—reports, references, and letters—or reading. Or, if it involved physical activities, one may become totally absorbed in what one is doing, get lost in the activity and experience a full sense of relief. Active mental and physical involvement in solitary projects can be a sense of salvation. By surrendering to powers within to powers within and sources of light in the universe, in some mysterious way, a miracle happens. It is the loss of the old man and the discovery of the new man. When the light reveals itself, the individual is ready to accept it. This reduces the need to force or push or beseech. One simply waits with firm faith that one is meant to be whole again and that one will live more in a full and complete way. It becomes clear that people one loves and those who love one cannot reach the individual going through changes. And so, life has to come from another source, and that new direction will emerge in solitude. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
The problem of the truth of faith presents itself from both the subjective and objective sides. Subjectively, faith is true if it adequately expresses an ultimate concern, that is, if the symbols of faith are alive and speak to the heart with an urgency of concern that impels to action and replay. This criterion is more a rule of thumb that works best for obviously dead symbols and is not so useful in judging contemporary ones. However, it is the objective truth of faith that interests us here. The content of faith is true if it is really and not just apparently ultimate. The great danger is demonization, elevation of the symbol to ultimacy, which results in idolatrous faith. Therefore, the criterion of faith is self-negation. The true symbol not only conveys the ultimate, but proclaims its own non-ultimacy. It pronounces a Yes and a No. For the Christian the Cross of the Christ is such a symbol. Name for this criterion—the No that follows immediately on the heels of the Yes—is the Protestant principle. The Protestant principle pervades in this whole theology, both systematically and chronologically. Chameleon-like, it changes its formula of expression against the background of diverse theological problems. Hence, a rapid rundown of its various formulations is useful for identifying it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
In addition to being the objective criterion of faith, the Protestant principle expresses man’s infinite distance from God and his dependence upon the divine initiative. The Protestant principle is the prophetic protest against every form of self-absolutizing—for example, the demonic elevation of the churches, of the Christian Bile, and the priesthood to absolute validity. The Protestant principle is “resistance to idolatry,” that is, it stands for non-conformity in family, school, state, and church. The Protestant principle protests the objectifying of grace (die Vergegenstandlichung der Gnade) and so smashes the barriers between the holy and the secular. For, by the Protestant principle, God is as near to the lowest as he is to the highest, as close to the material as to the spiritual. These manifold expressions of the Protestant principle can be summarized in and derived from the basic doctrine that the Protestant principle is justification by grace through faith. We reject the traditional Protestant formula of “justification by faith” on the grounds that is has been misunderstood to mean that the human act of faith sets in motion God’s justifying act. Faith itself is a gift of grace, all justifying actions is entirely on the part of God, and, consequently, the more accurate formula is “justification by grace through faith.” The Protestant principle ultimately rests upon an experience of God’s majesty that attributes absoluteness and holiness to him alone and denies such dignity to all else. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
Untrammeled choices of individuals could lead to disaster for society. Picture a paster open to all. It is to expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on this commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels one to increase one’s heard without limit, in a World that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing one’s own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Overpopulation, pollution, excessive fishing, and depletion of exhaustible resources are all part of the problem. People Worldwide must recognize the necessity of restricting individual freedom in these choices, and accept some mutual coercion mutually agreed upon. Depending upon the circumstances, the tragedy of the commons could be a many-person prisoner’s dilemma (each person grazes too many cows) or a spillover problem (too many people choose to become herdsmen). The economist’s favorite solution would be the establishment of property rights. This is what actually happened in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in England: the common land was enclosed and claimed by the local aristocrats or landlords. When land is private property, the invisible hand will shut the gate to just the right extent. The owner will charge grazing fees to maximize one’s rental income; the grazing fees will make the owner richer, and the herdsmen poorer. This approach is not feasible in some instances. Property rights over the high seas are hard to define and enforce in the absence of an international government, as is control over air that move from one country to another carrying pollutants. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
For this reason, whaling and acid rain must be handled by more direct controls, but securing the necessary international agreements is no easy matter either. Population is an even harder problem. The right of decision about one’s family, including its size, is enshrined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in many countries bills of rights. Countries like China and India that have at times used some coercion in their population-control efforts have evoked widespread disapproval. Sometimes, when the group is small enough, voluntary cooperation solves the problem. When two oil or gas producers have wells that tap into the same underground deposit, each has the incentive to speed up one’s uptake, to get more of the resource before the other does. When both of them follow this policy, the excessive speed of depletion can actually lower the total amount that can be recovered from the deposit. In practice, drillers recognize the problem and seem able to reach production-sharing arrangements that keep at the proper level that total flow from all wells tapping one deposit. All’s well that ends well? For the less developed countries (LDCs), as for the rest of the World, power stems from the holster, the wallet, and the book—or, nowadays, the computer. Unless we want an anarchic World, with billions of poverty-stricken people, unstable governments led by unstable leaders, each with a finger on the missile launcher or chemical or bacteriological trigger, we now need global strategies for preventing the de-coupling that looms before us. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
In the years immediately ahead the LDCs will acquire sophisticated new arms—enormous firepower will be added to their already formidable arsenals. Why? As LDC economic power diminishes, their rulers face political opposition and instability. Under the circumstances, they are likely to do what rulers have done since the origins of the state: They reach for the most primitive form of power—military force. However, the most acute shortage facing LDCs is that of economically relevant power is no longer through the exploitation of raw materials and human muscle but, as we have seen, through application of the human mind. Development strategies make no sense, therefore, unless they take full account of the new role of knowledge in wealth creation, and of the accelerative imperative that goes hand in hand with it. With knowledge (which in our definition includes such things as imagination, values, images, and motivation, along with formal technical skills) increasingly central to the economy, the Brazils and Nigerians, the Bangladeshes and Haitis must consider how they might best acquire or generate this resource. It is clear that every wretched child in Northeast Brazil or anywhere else in the World who remains ignorant or intellectually underdeveloped because of malnutrition represents a permanent drain on the future. Revolutionary new forms of education will be needed that are not based on the old factory model. Acquiring knowledge from elsewhere will also be necessary. This may take unconventional—and sometimes even illicit—forms. Stealing technological secrets is already a booming business around the World. We must expect shrewd LDCs to join the hunt. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Another way of obtaining wealth-making know-how is to organize a brain drain. This can be done on a small scale by bribing or attacking teams of researchers. However, some clever countries will figure out that, around the World, there are certain dynamic minorities—often persecuted groups—that can energize a host economy if given the chance. The overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, Indians in East Africa, Syrians in West Africa, Palestinians in parts of the Mideast, Jews in America, and Japanese in Brazil have played this role at one time or another. Transplanted into a different culture, each has brought not merely energy, drive, and commercial or technical acumen, but a pro-knowledge attitude—a ravenous hunger for the latest information, new ideas, skills. These groups have provided a kind of hybrid economic vigor. They work hard, they innovate, they educate their children, and even if they get rich in the process, they stimulate and accelerate the reflexes of the host economy. We will no doubt see various LDCs searching out such groups and inviting them to settle within their borders, in the hopes of injecting a needed adrenaline into the economy. During World War II the Japanese military actually drafted a plan to bring large numbers of persecuted European Jews to Manchuria, then called Manchukuo, for this purpose. However, the “Fugu Plan,” as it was known, was never implemented. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Smart governments will also encourage the spread of nongovernmental associations and organization, since such groups accelerate the spread of economically useful information through newsletters, meetings, conferences, and foreign travel. Associations of merchants, plastics engineers, employers, programmers, trade unions, bankers, journalists, etcetera, serve as channels for rapid exchange of information about what does and does not work in their respective fields. They are an important, often neglected communications medium. Governments serious about economic development will also have to recognize the new economic significance of free expression. Failure to permit the circulation of the new ideas—including economic and political ideas, even if unflattering to the state—is almost always prima facie proof that the state is weak at its core, and that those in power regard staying there as more important than economic improvement in the live of the people. Governments committed to becoming part of the new World will systematically open the valves of public discussion. Other governments will join knowledge consortia—partnerships with other countries or with global companies—to explore the far reaches of technology and science and, especially, the possibility of creating new materials. Instead of pandering to obsolete nationalist notions, they will purse the national interest passionately—but intelligently. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Rather than refusing to pay royalties to foreign pharmaceutical companies on the lofty ground that health is above such grubby concerns, as Brazil has done, they will gladly pay the royalties—provided these funds stay inside the country for a fixed number of years, and are used to finance research projects carried out jointly with a local pharmaceutical firm’s own experts. Profits from products that originate in this joint research can then be divided between the host country and the multinational. In this way the royalties pay for technology transfer—and for themselves. Effective nationalism thus replaces obsolete, self-destructive nationalism. Similarly, intelligent governments will welcome the latest computers, regardless of who built them, rather than trying to build a local computer industry behind tariff walls that keep out not merely products but advanced knowledge. The computer industry is changing so fast on a World scale that no nation, not even the United States of America or Japan, can keep up without help from the rest of the World. By barring certain outside computers and software, Brazil managed to build its own computer industry—but is products are backward compared with those available outside. This means that Brazilian banks, manufacturers, and other businesses have had to use technology that is inefficient compared with that of their foreign competitors. They compete with one hand tied behind them. Rather than gaining, the country loses. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Brazil violated the first rule of the new system of wealth creation. So what you will with the slowly changing industries, but get out of the way of a fast-advancing industry. Especially one that processes the most important resource of all—knowledge. Other LDCs will avoid these errors. Some, we may speculate, will actually invest modestly in existing venture capital funds in the United States of America, Europe, and Japan—on condition that their own technicians, scientists, and students accompany the capita and share in the know-how developed by the resulting start-up firms. In this way, Brazilians or Indonesians or Nigerians or Egyptians might find themselves at the front edge of tomorrow’s industries. Astutely managed, the program could well pay for itself—or even make a profit. Above all, the LDCs will take a completely fresh look at the role of agriculture, regarding it not necessarily as a “backward” sector but as a sector that potentially, with the help of computers, genetics, satellites, and other new technologies, could someday be more advanced, more progressive than all the smokestacks, steel mills, and mines in the World. Knowledge-based agriculture may be the cutting edge of economic advantage of tomorrow. Moreover, agriculture will not limit itself to growing food, but will increasingly grow energy crops and feed stocks for new materials. These are but a few of the ideas likely to be tested in the years to come. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
However, none of these efforts will bear fruit if the country is cut off from participation in the fast-moving global economy and the telecommunications and computer networks that support it. The maldistribution of telecommunications in today’s World is even more dramatic than the maldistribution of food. There are 7.33 billion unique mobile phones users in the World today, which makes 91.40 percent of people in the World cell phone owners. The lopsided distribution of computers, data bases, technical publications, research expenditures, tells us more about the future potential of nations than all the gross-national-product figures ground out by economists. To plug into the new World economy, countries like China, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, India, as well as the Soviet Union and the East European nations, must find the resources needed to install their own electronic infrastructures. These must go far beyond mere telephone services to include up-to-date, high-speed data systems capable of linking into the latest global networks. The good news is that today’s slow countries may be able to skip over an entire stage of infrastructure development, leapfrogging from First to Third Wave communications without investing the vast sums needed to build Second Wave networks and systems. The Iridium systems, for example, announced by Motorola, Inc., placed 77 tiny satellites into low orbit, which make it possible for millions in remote or sparsely populated regions like Soviet Arctic, the Chinese desert, or the interior of African to send and receive voice, data, and digitized images through handheld telephones. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
It is not necessary to lay cooper or even fiber optic cable across thousands of miles of jungle, ice or sand. The portable phones communicate directly with the nearest overhead satellite, which will pass the message along. Other advances also similarly slashing the huge costs of telecommunications, brining them within reach of today’s impoverished counties. Large scale production and hyper-competition among American, European and Japanese suppliers will also drive down costs. The new key to economic development is clear. The “gap” that must be closed is informational and electronic. It is a not gap between the North and the South, but between the slow and the fast. However, China’s inadequacy in services is of a structural character. It has it historical and cultural roots, especially the legacy of several decades long epoch of Soviet-style socialism. The mentality of many Chinese service companies and workers may have exceeded those in America. When I was in China, I was impressed by their customer service. They were extremely polite, spent time talking to me, even offered me candy and gave me a soccer ball for shopping at one of their malls. They did treat me like a king. I did not want to come back to America because I loved China so much. Maybe people have different experiences? #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
The overall picture of the service economy in China is not gloomy. Even on the airplane they were polite and told me to stop being so “Western.” The hotels were awesome, as well as the recreation facilities and restaurants. As local consumers’ demand for a variety of good services is increasing, American, European and Japanese service providers have a good chance to exploit their competitive advantage in this area, establishing a stronger position at the Chinese market. Here, however, comes a surprise. You may expect that, in the wake of what was written earlier, America and Europe are enjoying substantial surpluses in their services trade with China, not incomparable to their huge deficits in merchandise trade. But the thing with the people in China, one cannot tell when they are just being nice. Things are so different. They try so hard to like people and make them happy that it seems like they really like you. And they try really hard to keep a neat appearance, are very careful with their work, and take pride in what they do. Because their image and reputation depends a lot on word of mouth, they are very careful not to hurt your feelings and to conceal negative topics, ideas, thoughts and behavior. And their houses are really clean, many of them have never heard of “racism” and the student work very hard in school. It is amazing how many hours a day they spend studying. They really went out of their way to impress us, like hosting us in a restaurant, but making it a private event, of course it meant getting up at 3 A.M. in the morning, but I was happy to. They are so polite and taught me if something is meant to be, you will meet that person again. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Hallowed by the Life of Blood
The rain lashed with vindictive fury at the windows of my mansion. My skin was crawling with gooseflesh, listening to the mournful recording crackling with static under the needle of the gramophone as the song grew louder through the rain. There is an eerie undocumented history that simmers below the surface and appears periodically to frighten and confuse people. The last thing I wanted to do is see whatever sight might accompany it. The wind was strong up here on the fourth floor and I could hear rain spatter hard against the sitting-room window. I walked on into the room, past the beckoning Hall of Fires, looking out and down at the night. I could see the dome to the nine-story observation tower through the stir of trees surrounding it. A swath of rain bleared the glass in front of my face and made me blink and recoil slightly. “Hello, Aunt Sarah.” The voice of my niece Daisy. “What I have to say concerns this mansion.” A few items of lovely furniture occupied the room. Two of these were armchairs. Daisy sat in one of them. She had paused, perhaps for effect. “I’m sorry to intrude on you. But there really isn’t a choice. A visitor, strolling along the ground near the fruit orchard, heard wisps of strange tunes. Listening more closely through the dusky evening, he was lured inside of the mansion. And he is now dead.” I took my head into my hands. “Aunt Sarah, I need you. There is no time for prevarication on this.” “Daisy, I will meet you in the Venetian Dining Room this evening,” I replied. I rose from my chair thinking that God had very little to do with anything that ever occurred within the grounds of the walls of my mansion. From wars to executions, to suicides and untimely death from injury, plague, or disease, Victorian mansions are, for all their majesty and splendor, tragic places where death stalked the cold lonely corridors. These are the places of the bloodiest history, whether it be a place raided by the unlawful, or a battle for ownership. With such a history of violence and tragedy, it is little wonder that this mansion is regarded as haunted? #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
I walked back to the window. It was a quarter to six. Strange noises and an occasional sighting of the larger-than-average soldiers with the oddly pointed hats have been seen roaming the grounds. Any attempt to speak with them or approach them, they simply vanish into the mansion. Odd doors and gated entrances punctuated the length of the mansion. There was a Gothic, deliberate atmosphere about my home, a sepulchral character to the mass of its wooden buttresses andre treats. Geometrical shapes snatched inexplicably at the eyes. And often one could hear laughter, high-pitched with contempt or teasing mockery that made one hurry on, even though it may be rationalized as the cold wind gusting through the elaborate masonry. The wind whistles in the trees and leaves and wisps of thick mist blow across the farmland. With the trotting of horses and constant sounds of construction, the heart is suddenly racing, and one thinks they hear something behind them. After all, this is an ancient land, a house built by spirits, occupied by ghosts, pixies, goblins and all sort of mythical creatures of the night. Anything is likely to happen. Looking around the interior of the estate, one can discern a deep, foreboding blackness that seems to be following one, as if it is alive and in pursuit. Stepping out into the fruit orchard, the wind suddenly drops and one’s senses are heightened. Indeed, one can hear one’s very heart beating in their chest as they continue to canter forward into the night. The mist becomes thicker, darker, and as one glances furtively from side to side, the darkness of shadows of the orchards hides their secrets, but perhaps you are not alone. Sometimes I tell myself that the scraping sounds at the window is simply a branch being blown in the breeze and the footsteps heard in the hallway are old timbers creaking and groaning with a change in the air or weather. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
If there was something serious going on, the housekeeper and the butler would try to keep it quiet. They might talk together, but they would be tight-lipped in front of me. The clock struck seven. I met Daisy in the dining room. “Aunt Sarah, we all talked. We weren’t meant to,” Daisy said. “We were all talking about it. We didn’t know what to make of it. The body was found on a cold stone passage, that was said to lead directly into the opulent state rooms where you normally conducted meetings.” Not a moment too soon, five housemaid trooped into the dining room. Taking off their white starched aprons, they formed up in a line. The room, echoing with their footsteps and voices, as in a church. The mahogany floor, almost three thousand square feet of it had to be hand polished. It was an onerous task, one of the housemaids least like doing. Bending down, they placed their tins of wax of the floor. “Daisy, it looks like we will have to continue this conversation later,” I said. “Goodnight, Aunt Sarah,” she replied. The maids stooped on their hands and knees, their long black dresses spread out around them. Working in union, they dabbed their clothes in wax; then they rubbed the floor vigorously in quick tight circle. The observation tower staircase was the place the servants feared most. The observation tower sits ominously over the mansion, along with sever distinctive turrets jutting proudly into the skies. Sweeping down to the Guard Room eight floors below, it was the main thoroughfare in the tower. Family portraits adored its walls. The steps, of bare stone—framed by a wrought-iron balustrade, topped by a mahogany rail—were wide and shallow. “We were all scared of the tower’s stairs,” said Elsa. “I was coming down them one evening, halfway down, I felt somebody push me. They were behind me, trying to push me down the stairs. I turned round, and of course there was no one there.” The Winchester Mansion is a land of appealing features seemingly embedded in the sense of a deep-rooted and permanent history that emanates from almost every corner of the land. It has rustic grounds and quaint gardens, a hulking mansion with many towering features, having been fostered over decades to create a comfortable and pleasing landscape that guests recall like their favorite arm chair. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
A number of the male servants, skeptical of ghost as they were, had experienced a similar sensation. “I used to keep an eye on the mansion,” Edvin recalled. “I would walk around the dark with the dogs, no lights on, no torches, or anything. One night, I was coming across the first floor of the tower—and I got up to the stairs and felt hot breath on the back of my neck. I turned round. There was nobody there. But the dogs wouldn’t go any further, their hackles went right up. It was ages before I could get them to move.” I often examined the possibility of evil. I had a notion that evil was communicable. Something that can, as it were, contaminate. However, one must not confuse evil with manifestations. My secret rooms, by their very nature, held the servants in thrall. It was an area that they never entered, never saw or ever knew what went on. It was a place of mystery. The rooms were subjects of wild speculations, fueled by the servants’ fear of me, and their knowledge of my eccentric interests. My servants knew I was fascinated by the occult and this played to their fears. They knew the mansion was haunted and I often had the mediums in. However, they never whether any ghosts or sprits were actually summoned. It went on behind closed doors. Of course, they knew of the ancestral curse. It had been cast in the mid-19th century by a coven of witches. The curse had also been cast over future generations; aimed at Winchester heirs; it determined that the children would die before they reached the age of thirteen and those who survived would be haunted by ghosts and demons. For decades, it had seemed to me and my servants that this was a cruse from which the family could never escape. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
One night, it was shortly before three o’clock in the morning when a shadowy figure, dressed from head to foot in back, crossed the landing of the staircase. The night was cloudless, the moon almost full. There was a blackout and the mansion was shrouded in darkness. The light from the moon set tiny point of balance dancing in the darkened windows. I could hear footsteps moving stealthily across the floor and the occasional cry of an animal from the fields. A headless horseman was riding near the tower. I got out of bed, and turned the corner into a passage in one of the parlors. As the men worked in the hallways, they froze. Coming down the hallway was a pair of green eyes belonging to a child. The eyes were about two or three feet up from the floor, leading me to believe that child was three years old. They eyes simply floated up the hall, and then turned into one of the maid’s room where we lost sight of them. That night I also saw dark shapes. There was a dark shadowy thing flying from the Grand Ball Room to the and down the hallway. Then above the chandelier there were several dark shadowy things. They flew outside, barely illuminating the background of the trees and then were blocked out by an even darker shadow, moving slowly, methodically along the tree line. Meanwhile another shadow ran through the hallway, it was tall. The carpenters looked at each other in suspense. Closing the heavy steel door behind me, I had left the Grand Ball Rom to find my way long the labyrinth passages. A long passage reached into the distance. It was gloomy, lit by only the strip lighting in the display cases that ran along with wall. Ahead was a solid oak door, carved in the Gothic style. Another passage led off to my right, I could see that it branched in two. One end led into a small hall. It was in darkness. “No one goes in there,” a mysterious voice whispered. The spirit gave me a fright. Everyone, it seems, even hardened sceptics and disbelievers, has seen a ghost. For some reason, in the back of their minds, ghosts may be real. Everyone has known the feeling of their heart racing for a second when they see a shadow moving in the corner of their eye or they feel some sort of presence standing over them. Or worse still, a tortured face in a window that paralyses their body and retards their breathing to the point that they can hear the blood pumping around their own body. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
I took the left passage. I went on some distance ahead, there was a kink in the passage. A man emerged from it and started waling me. He was wearing knee breaches and a nineth-century coachman’s jacket. As we drew level, he stopped. “Mrs. Winchester, those rooms are forbidden,” he said, “What are you doing in this part of the house?” Once again, he repeated, “Those rooms are forbidden.” I did not want to stop and talk; I was anxious to get back to my room. I assumed that the servants were being proprietorial. Finally, I had made it to my destination sometime later. The bedroom was not dark, because the bright light of a full moon entered through the window. I had just lain down, ready to go to sleep, when I suddenly noticed that I was not on my own. I heard a rasping breath in the darkness only a few feet away. Right in front of the wardrobe and looking directly at me was a middle-aged man, dressed like a Catholic priest. I rubbed my eyes and pinched my arms to make sure I was fully awake Yes, I most certain was. Was I having hallucinations? The priest was still standing there, looking at me. He was a rather frail man with hollow cheeks. His face showed traces of a hard life and illness. If he had any hair at all, it was covered by his hat. He looked so real, not like a ghost. I was not a bit scared, because he radiated vibrations of utter peace and tranquility. There was nothing to be afraid of, so I decided to talk to him keeping my voice as low as possible. “Hello, Father,” I said. “God bless you.” “And God bless you, my child,” came the priest’s prompt reply. He was well-spoken, his voice was soft. His English accent was not hard to distinguish. After giving me a few personal messages and stressing the point that there is survival after death, he told me who he was. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
His name was John Ogilvie, and in had lived in Scotland from 1580 to 1615, he wanted hanged at Glasgow Cross for his faith. When I remarked that at the time of his hanging, he was only 36 years old, he confirmed this. After quietly talking about religious matters for a few moments, he bade me farewell and disappeared. It seems that he refused to pledge allegiance to King James, and it was for this crime that the was tried, found guilty and hanged. After his execution, his followed were apprehended and put in jail. If this was not a genuine case of a visit from beyond the grave, what is it? Most of the time, the mansion is benign. Unfortunately, sometimes people find exactly what they are looking for. I had been in bed half an hour when I heard the music playing softly from my sitting room next door. I listened to the same, faintly relentless song. Starting to sweat and grow cold in bed, I recognized the song. Or I thought I did. And it continued. It wavered through the wall and door frame in strained, distended chords, and choruses, swelling and facing, ragged and persistent. The door was to my right. I pulled back the duvet and got out of bed and walked through the door to the sitting room. Where the music was louder. The must persisted, repetitious, frighting me. As I turned the corner, I discovered that Gerhardt hanged himself from the cross beams. Badly wounded, Mr. Hansen carried to the attic to await medical attention, but he died there. Since that time people have claimed that he haunts the attic room. He has been seen and heard there from time to time. Servants have reported hearing the creaking of a rope and the soft thud of a body swaying against the wall. Though they often look for the source of the sound, they never find it. There is a disheveled, aged specter, bound at feet and hands and rattling chains haunting the basement. A journey through my mansion is a passage through history. A real history, one that you can live and breathe, one that you can feel and be part of. You can walk serenely miles through my mansion, it is a place that inspires contemplation and wonderment. It is a living history, of memories as far back as history recalls. It is a place of myth, legend, of ghosts and ghouls, of giants, and dwarves, mermaids, cupid, another other half-remembered, half-whispered-about creatures. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
If a sudden, horrifying death is what it takes to make the spirit linger, surely, this place—is a candidate. Certainly, where men grappled back and forth, engaged not only in the struggle for their own precious lives, but for the life of their respective countries, where in the balance was the future of the very world, and this place produce the mechanism of defense, if that does not qualify for the lingering-place of souls wondering for eternity the outcome of their struggles, then we cannot name a place. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
And please be sure to check out the online gift store: https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Los Angeles Will be Two and a Half Hours from Tokyo
Given that burglars are disproportionately young, poor, city-dweller, they tend to have frequent contact with other habitual offenders. There are various structures and processes that go along with the “stolen property system”—the underground market through which in-demand goods are stolen, housed, marketed, and resold on the street of America. Burglary is a crime that is marked by varied levels of social organization. Only on rare occasions do we find burglars who work as loners or within formal organizations. More often, burglars will operate as colleagues—the offender commits the crime along but relies on other members of the criminal subculture to supply him or her with inside information or to assist in converting stolen property into cash. Burglars who take the situation to the next level and enlist help in the actual break-in follow a more peerlike existence. Here, loose partnerships are maintained and invoked when a burglary opportunity presents itself. A primitive example of the peer model would be two or three drug users who randomly stumble upon an unlocked home or unsupervised business and decide to work together to take it down. In some cases, burglary offenders will align themselves in a teamlike format. These offenders invoke a division of labor with each participant serving an owned predetermined role and duties. One person might be assigned to lookout/driver role. Another might serve as the entry specialist, defeating any lock and alarms that are confronted. Still another person can take on the “muscle” role, responsible for doing the heavy lifting. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
Socialization scripts play an important part in how and why burglars commit their crimes. Interview-based research suggests that novice or occasional burglars often rely on the tutelage of more seasoned offenders as a way of learning the proverbial ropes of burglary. Novices receive advice and instructions on issues such as target selection, how to foster informants, how to defeat burglary countermeasures, and how to best convert stolen goods into cash. This socialization generally takes shape as informal street corner conversations or jailhouse bravado. On paper, burglary appears to receive serious treatment from the criminal justice system. The Model Penal Code classifies burglary as a felony in the third degree. In most jurisdictions, such as offense is subject to 1 to 5 years in prison. If the burglar is armed or threatens or inflicts bodily harm on another while unlawfully within a dwelling, that individual might see the charges elevated to second degree felony. In practice, however, burglary receives mixed levels of formal response from the various components of the criminal justice system. First, let us consider the response of law enforcement authorities. Police agencies were able to effect an arrest for only 13 percent of the nearly 2.1 million burglaries that were reported to them in 2022. No other form of index crime yields such a dismal clearance rate. Some of this slippage can be attributed to the covert nature of the crime—police often have no witnesses and minimal clues to guide the investigation. However, these low clearance rates are also impacted by the fact that many police officers and police agencies afford a low priority to burglary cases. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
Court data reveal a different trend in terms of the veracity with which burglary cases are adjudicated. U.S.A. courts produced nearly 90,000 felony burglary cases in 2022. This figure represents 10 percent of all felony convictions that year. In fact, 68 percent of the burglary cases that were tried resulted in a conviction for the same offense and only 24 percent avoided some sort of conviction. The researchers found that burglary defendants do not receive a reprieve from the courts when it comes time for sentencing. A full 74 percent of the convicted burglars were sentenced to time behind bars. This rate was surpassed only by murder, robbery, drug trafficking, and driving-related offenses. While the median prison sentence for a convicted burglar was 41 months, nearly 10 percent received sentences in excess of 10 years. Our correctional system does not appear to be particularly forgiving to persons who are convicted of burglary. On average, burglary offenders can expect to serve almost half of their sentence—roughly two years. These time-served figures are on par with those of other property offenses (theft, fraud, and motor vehicle theft) but somewhat lower than that observed for violent (54 percent) and weapon-related offenses (60 percent). Accounts from known burglars clearly suggest that informal social control efforts go as long way to deter and/or displace burglary activity. A minimal amount of vigilance on the part of homeowners can go a long way. Measures designed to combat the relatively small population of high incidence “professional” burglars tends to overemphasize the skill and determination of most burglars. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
Burglaries are expensive, complex, and require long term commitment at many levels. In fact, most burglars are young, unskilled, and opportunistic. This suggests that emphasis should be directed at such factors as surveillability, occupancy, and accessibility. More specifically, dogs, good locks, and alarm systems deter most burglars. Community-level informal social control can also play an important role in burglary prevention. When it comes to surveillability cues, burglars tend to avoid neighborhoods with a lot of foot traffic or active neighborhood watches. This implies that observant or even nosy neighbors can have a measurable impact on burglary. However, these types of collective efforts are difficult to enact and maintain in the areas that burglars most prefer—urban neighborhoods. If nothing else, tenants of “crime prevention through environmental design” should be considered at a neighborhood level. Simple environmental characteristics such as cul-de-sac street design, high levels of lightening, and well pruned landscaping that minimizes unobservable entry and exit points can have a significant impact on burglary victimization levels in a given community. The aforementioned informal social control efforts represent examples of target hardening strategies aimed at deterring would-be burglars from victimizing a given house or displacing offenders from a given community. Also, measures should be designed that aim to undermine offenders’ strong attachment to street culture. Expanded employment opportunities are one possible, but foreboding avenue to lure offenders out of street life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
There exist even more simple and realistic measures that might effect change in this area. For example, a coordinated burglary prevention program that was implemented in a midsize U.S.A. city during the early 1980s. Community activism and community involvement (id est, block meetings, neighborhood cleanups, and raised awareness of vulnerabilities and potential offenders) showed promise for reducing burglary. If community members care about the condition of their neighborhood and are willing to take steps to clean it up and exercise vigilance over problem people and places, there is hope for reducing burglary and other forms of street crime. Most crime occurs during the nighttime. A close examination of NCVS and UCR data suggests that 50 percent to 60 percent of all residential burglaries go unreported. The figure reported here was derived by adding the NCVS data on residential burglaries to an adjusted estimate of nonresidential burglaries that were reported in the UCR—one that factors a 60 percent nonreporting rate. These data must be viewed with caution because 50 to 60 percent of all burglaries go unreported to police and only 14 percent of these lead to arrest. Over time, the crime of burglary has slowly slipped down the list of crime fighting priorities. At present, less than half of all burglaries get reported to police, and only 13 percent of those result in an arrest. What kinds of social and legal factors have contributed to this present level of empathy when it comes to the formal and informal society control of burglary? #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
Adjudication data suggest that accused burglars face a high certainty of being convicted and sentenced to prison. This should send a message to police that burglary is a high priority for our nation’s prosecutors and judges. Still, burglary investigation and arrest efforts remain lukewarm at best. What kinds of factors contribute to police officers’ attitudes and behaviors regarding burglary patrol and enforcement? Considerable evidence suggests that burglars refine strategies and cues that help them identify soft and potentially lucrative targets. Does this mean that burglars are more rational and planful than other types of criminals? The Lord has declared that “no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of Heaven,” reports Alma 11.37. Our sins make us unclean—unworthy to return and dwell in the presence of our Heavenly Father. They also bring anguish to our soul in this life. Repentance is sometimes a painful process, but it leads to forgiveness and lasting peace. The power of sin is great. To become free from it, we must turn to your Heavenly Father, pray in faith, and act as He asks us to. The Holy Spirit should never become the center and object of thought and worship, place which He Himself does not desire, and which it is not the purpose of the Father in Heaven that He should have or occupy. “He shall not speak from Himself,” reports John 16.13, said that Lod Jesus before Calvary, as He foretold the Spirit’s coming at Pentecost. He would act as Teacher (John 14.26), but teaching the words of Another, not to Himself (John 15.26); He would only glorify Another, not His own; He would bear witness to Another, not Himself (John 16.14); He would only speak what was given Him to spear by Another (John 16.13). #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
The Spirit’s entire work would be to lead souls into union with the Son and give proper knowledge of the Father in Heaven, while He Himself directed and worked in the background. If a man who is untaught in the scriptural statements about the work of the Triune God makes “obeying the Spirit” his supreme purpose, the deceiver will aim to counterfeit the guidance of the Spirit, and even the presence of the Spirit Himself. It is just here that the ignorance of the seeker about the spiritual Word now opened to one, the working of evil powers in that realm, and the conditions upon which God works in and through one, gives the enemy his opportunity. It becomes the time of greatest peril for anyone unless one is instructed and prepared by the Lord, as the disciples were for three whole years. The danger lies in the area of supernatural “guidance,” for one must know the conditions of cooperation with the Holy Spirit in order to discern the cooperation with the Holy Spirit in order to discern the will of God and be able to recognize counterfeit manifestations. The “discerning of spirits” is required to detect the workings of the false angel of light, for he is able to bring about counterfeit gifts of prophecy, tongues, healing, and other spiritual experiences connected with the work of the Holy Ghost. Those who have their eyes opened to the opposing forces of the metaphysical realm understand that very few believers can guarantee that they are obeying God and God only, in directly supernatural guidance, because there are so many factors liable to intervene, such as the believer’s own mind, spirit, or will and the deceptive intrusion of the powers of darkness. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
Knowledge is essential here. Scripture teaches that there is a God-given gift of “discerning of spirits” (1 Cor. 12.10) which enables one to detect that an unwelcome spirit is at work, but there is also a test of spirits which is doctrinal (1 John 4.1-6). In the former, a believer can discern in his spirit that lying spirits are at work in a meeting, or in a person, but one may not have the understanding needed for testing the doctrines being set forth by the teacher. One needs a level of knowledge in both cases: knowledge to read one’s spirit with assurance in the face of all contrary appearances, that the supernatural workings are not “of God,” and knowledge to detect the subtlety of “teachings” bearing certain infallible indications that they emanate from the pit, even while appearing to be from God. As to personal obedience to God, the believer can detect whether or not one is obeying God in some “command” by judging its fruits, and by being aware of the character of God—such as the truth that God has always a purpose in His commands, and He will give no command out of harmony with His character and Word. Often times people wait for something to happen, for some sure way to nurture oneself, to live from within. Music, art, poetry, hot baths, savory foods, wind, rain—nothing affects them. In the past, within days after a solitary retreat, many had found solace and strength in their loneliness. They had always found a way, at least a beginning that would lead to action and to life with others. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
However, it is impossible to find what one is looking for, and one is still on a lonely journey, waiting from a spark from within. Because some people feel empty and eroded inside, they avoid all significant communication. More than anything else the interpersonal aspects of living exhaust some and move them to withdraw from real meetings with others. This leaves an individual certain that one does not want to struggle anymore. Doubt, risk and anxiety—inherent elements of faith—can be overcome only by another of its elements, courage. Courage is an ontological concept, the self-affirmation of being in spite of non-being. Faith is the experience of the holy; it is the state of being grasped by the power of being-itself. From this experience flows the power to assert oneself in the face of anxiety. Faith is participation in the object of faith, and yet is the separation from it. In spite of separation, courage expresses participation in the power of being and meaning. This in spite of element is the courage that takes all doubt, risk, and anxiety into itself and overcomes them without removing them. Faith, then, is the basis of courage, and courage is the manifestation of faith. In the extreme situation of a person seized by radical doubt and confronted with the specter of universal meaninglessness, the question arises: Is there such a thing as the courage of despair? Such a courage is entirely possible, for that act of accepting meaninglessness is in itself a meaningful act. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
The courage of despair enables one, even while in the grip of meaninglessness, to declare one’s situation, and this declaration has meaning. In other words, there cannot be an infinite regression of negatives—in this case, negativity of meaning. At least, one has to admit, negation of meaning is meaningful, or meaninglessness will have lost all meaning. The faith which feeds the courage of despair is called “absolute faith,” for it can have no specific content. Its content is indefinable, since everything defined is dissolved by doubt and meaninglessness. However, certain elements that constitute absolute faith can be discerned. There is an experience of the power of being in the face of nonbeing, an awareness of a hidden meaning within the destruction of meaning. There is the dependence of nonbeing upon being, of meaninglessness upon meaning, of the negative upon the positive. And, lastly, there is the acceptance of the power to accept meaninglessness. Thus, absolute faith is faith which has been deprived by doubt of any concrete content, which nevertheless is faith and the source of the most paradoxical manifestation of the courage to be. Faith is without a special content, yet it is not without content. The content of absolute faith is the “God above God.” When people speak of God, they usually refer to the God of theism. Now theism can mean either a vague, unspecified affirmation of God, or a divine-human encounter of persons, or theological theism which makes God a being beside other beings. However, the God of absolute faith is above and beyond the God of any theism, for the God above God is the power of absolute faith as experience of the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
The morning traffic from Oakland to San Francisco across the Bay Bridge gets backed up from 7.30 to 11.00 A.M. Until the jam clears at 11.00, each additional car that enters the traffic makes all those who come later wait just a little longer. The right way to measure this cost is to sum up the additional waiting-times across everyone who is delayed. What is the total waiting-time cost imposed by one additional car that crosses the bridge at 9.00 A.M.? You may be thinking you do not know enough information. A remarkable feature to this problem is that the externality can be calculated based on the little amount you have been told. You do not need to know how long it takes the cars to cross the toll plaza, nor the distribution of cars that arrive after 9.00. The answer is that same whether the length of the traffic jam stays constant or varies widely until it cleans. The trick is to see that all that matters is the sum of the waiting time. We are not concerned with who waits. (In other circumstances, we might want to weigh the waiting times by the monetary value of time for those caught in the jam.) The simplest way to figure out the total extra waiting time is to shuffle around who waits, putting all the burden on one person. Imagine that the extra driver, instead of crossing the bridge at 9.00 A.M., pulls his car over to the side and lets all the other drivers pass. If he passes up his turn in this way, the other drivers are no longer delayed by the extra car. Of course, he has to wait two hours before the traffic clears and the road is clear. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
However, these two hours exactly equal the total waiting time imposed on all the other drivers if he were to cross the bridge rather than wait on the sidelines. The reason is straightforward. The total waiting time is the time it takes for everyone to cross the bridge. Any solution that involves everyone crossing the bridge gives the same total waiting time, but distributed differently. Looking at the solution in which the extra car does all the extra waiting is the easiest way to add up the new total waiting time. Looming on the horizon is a dangerous de-coupling of the fast economies from the slow, an event that would spark enormous power shifts throughout the so-called South-with big impacts on the planet as a whole. The new wealth-creation system holds the possibility of a far better future for vast populations who are now among the planet’s poor. Unless the leaders of the less developed countries (LCDs) anticipate these changes, however, they will condemn their people to perpetuated misery—and themselves to impotence. For even as Chinese manufacturers wait for their steel, and traditional economies around the World to crawl slowly through their paces, the United States of America, Japan, Europe, and in this case the Soviets, too, are pressing forward with plans to build hypersonic jets capable of moving 250 tons of people and cargo at Mach 5, meaning that cities like New York, Sydney, London, and Los Angeles will be two and a half hours from Tokyo. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
Jiro Tokuyama, former head of the prestigious Nomura Research Institute, and now a senior adviser to the Mitsui Research Institute, heads a fifteen-nation study of what are called the “three T’s:” telecommunications, transportation, and tourism. Sponsored by the Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference, the study focuses on three key factors likely to accelerate the pace of economic processes in the region still further. According to Tokuyama, Pacific air-passenger traffic is likely to reach 134 million…at the turn of the century. The Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies, Tokuyama adds, estimates that five hundred to one thousand hypersonic jets must be built. Many of these will ply Pacific routes, speeding further the economic development of the region, and promoting faster telecommunications as well. In a paper prepared for the Three T’s study, Tokuyama spells out the commercial, social, and political implications of this development. He also describes a proposal by Taisei, the Japanese construction firm, to build an artificial island five kilometers in length to serve as a “VAA,” or “value added airport,” capable of handling hypersonics and providing an interactional conference center, shops, and other facilities to be linked by high-speed linear trains to a densely populated area. In Texas, meanwhile, billionaire H. Ross Perot is building an airport to be surrounded by advanced manufacturing facilities. As conceived by him, planes could roar in a day and night bearing components for overnight processing or assembly in facilities at the airport. The next morning the jets would carry them to all parts of the World. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
Simultaneously, on the telecommunications front, the advanced economies are investing billions in the electronic infrastructure essential to operations in the super-fast economy. The spread of extra-intelligence nets is moving swiftly, and there are now proposals afoot to create special higher-speed fiber optic networks linking supercomputer all across the United States of America with thousands of laboratories and research groups. (Existing networks are regarded as too slow. The proposed new nets would send 319 Terabits per second streaming across the country). The new network is needed because the existing slower nets are already choked and overloaded. They argue that the project merits government backing because it would help the United States of America keep ahead of Europe and Japan in a field it now leads. This, however, is only a special case of a more general clamor. In the words of Mitch Kapor, a founder of Lotus Development Corporation, the software giant, “We need to build a national infrastructure that will be the information equivalent of the national highway-building of the ‘50s and ‘60s.” An even more appropriate analogy would compare today’s computerized telecom infrastructures with the rail and road networks needed at the beginning of the industrial revolution. What is happening, therefore, is the emergence of an electronic neural system for the economy—without which any nation, no matter how many smokestacks it has, will be domed to backwardness. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
In its commercial service trade, in 2021, India trade balance for 2021 USD$-79.19, a 665.96 percent increase from 2020. The United States of America is the largest services exporter in the World. In 2019, U.S.A. exports of service were USD $875.8 billion, up 1.6 percent (USD $13 billion) from 2018. U.S.A. exports of services account for 35 percent of over all U.S.A. exports in 2019. Germany World Development Indicators (WDI) 2020: trade balance in USD$221,534 million. Trade services as a percentage of GDP is 5.82 percent. Trade in services with the United Kingdom (exports and imports) totaled an estimated USD $140.7 billion in 2019. Services exports were USD $78.3 billion; services imports were USD $62.3 billion. The U.S.A. services trade surplus with United Kingdom was USD $16.0 billion in 2019. Trade in services with China (exports and imports) totaled an estimated $56.0 billion in 2020. Services exports were USD $40.4 billion; services imports were USD $15.6 billion. The U.S.A. service trade surplus with China was USD $24.8 billion in 2020. Trade in services with Japan (exports and imports) totaled an estimated USD $68.6 billion in 2020. Services exports were USD $38.0 billion; services imports were USD $30.6 billion. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
The U.S.A. services trade surplus with Japan was USD $7.4 billion in 2020. Japan was the United States of Americas’ 4th largest goods export market in 2020. As for the services, France exported around USD $303 billion worth of services in 2021, while it imported services for the total value of USD $258.3 billion. Service trade in Italy in 2020, Italy exported $73.1B worth of services. The outsized U.S.A.-Ireland commercial relationship, which exceeded USD $1 trillion in 2021 is significant by international standards and is particularly impressive relative to the country’s population of five million people. In 2021, U.S.A. good exported to Ireland exceeded USD $13.8 billion. The statistics for services from 2012 record the value of U.S.A. service exports to Ireland at $74.8 billion. In 2021, global services exports were valued at USD $6.1 trillion, representing 6.3 percent of total World trade in both goods and services. Overall, as far as the nations’ trade balances are concerned, the picture in the services sector is almost the opposite of the one in the merchandise trade. In services, the West has a significant competitive edge versus China and is in a good position to establish a much wider presence in the Chinese market. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
We All Know What Ghosts Look Like, Right?
Without saying a word, I rose from the sofa and walked straight to the kitchen. As I drew near a soft of mist seemed to pass before me; and as I looked at it, I saw William. I said to myself, “Poor William!” Daisy looked up. She feared something unimaginable had happened. “Are you okay, Aunt Sarah? Is anything the matter?” And when she drew near, she touched me as if I were as fine as a fabric. Her little hands hovered for a moment on my shoulders. “My dear; nothing is the matter. I simply had a thought of your uncle William and could not think of the pain and discomfort he had gone through. A supernatural breath of cold showed me his icy apparition,” I explained. “Aunt Sarah, I think it was very imprudent to sit with the window open. I will see to it that we light a fire to keep you warm,” said Daisy. Oh, she was lovely, and innocent, so sheerly innocent, her large dark eyes gazing at me as if I were a child. Life was hard in the valley even without the threat of Indian raids, hostile whites, and animal attacks. The women worked from dawn to dusk washing clothing and linen, preparing food, cleaning, tendering the gardens. It was such a large house that I had built. One could walk for days and not see the same room twice. Two of the servant women, Tindra and Sibylla, were comely with beautiful long dark hair that they would let loose like curtains of darkness across their shoulder. They did not have fancy jewelry. If they were vain about anything, it was their pretty hair. One afternoon the girls took the laundry down stairs. It was a pretty day. While they washing the clothes, hostile eyes were watching them from the shadows. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
They belonged to a war party they had broken into the mansion. The hatchet-hard faces of the natives, daubed with red and black war paint, were ferocious to behold. Their hair was shaved along the sides and stood up in cockscombs on the top of their heads. They knew that they had found easy prey. Suddenly from downstairs came terrible cry and the girls looked behind them in terror. The sound was unmistakable to them. They dropped the laundry and gathered up their skirts to run. From the hallway ran demonic-faced, tawny figures. The girls fled like deer, but not fast enough. Within moments the terrible deeds were done and the two girls lay mangled and broken not far from the Venetian dining room. Their beautiful hair was gone, carried away to be sold and traded. Hours went by before anyone discovered the girls. They were found not far apart bloodied and their beautiful hair scalped. It was a tragedy that played out all too often in the valley. The girls were buried but not soon forgotten. It was not long until people began to claim that the girls, with their bloody scalped heads, were seen wandering the halls of my mansions. It was believed that they girls could not rest because their hair was taken. They had comeback to find their beautiful hair. On January 7, 1892 Ansgar Bergstrom, a farmer on the estate, died as the result of a fall. Although Ansgar was survived by his widow and four sons, the will that had been duly arrested by two witnesses on March 13, 1875, left all of his property to the third son, Olsson. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
One night in August 1894, Svensson Bergstrom, the farmer’s second son, saw the spirit of his father standing at his bedside, while he was staying in one of the guest rooms in my home. The specter told him of the existence of another will. According to Sevensson, his father appeared before him that night as he often had in life, wearing a familiar black overcoat. “You will find the will in Mrs. Winchester Bureau,” the spirit said. The next morning Sevensson arose convinced that he had truly seen and heard the spirit of his father, and that the spirit had visited him for the purpose of correcting some error. After breakfast, he located the Bureau, and found inside a will. In this testament, the farmer stated that he desired his property to be divided equally among his four sons with the admonition that the provide for their mother as long as she lived. Although the second will had not been attested, it would be considered valid if it could be proven that it had been written entirely in Ansgar Bergstrom’s own handwriting. Olsson Bergstrom, the sole beneficiary under the conditions of the original will, had passed away with a year of his father. Olsson’s widow and son prepared to contest the validity of the second will, and the residents of the county anticipated a long and bitter court battle between members of the Bergstrom family. At that moment, an Indian appeared, telling the Bergstrom family to share the wealth or they would be doomed to wander Eternity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
The Bergstrom family proceeded with the court battle. That evening, an Indian woman broke into my home, where they had been staying while contesting the will. With knives, she sliced their thighs so they could not walk through the afterlife; decapitated them so they could not function headless; and copped off their feet so they could not return home. My horses were torn to pieces, and some ran wild. It was a ritualistic mutilation, but no bloody hand prints nor footprints were found. I did not believe these immortal deeds were done by mortal men. I have seen and heard a number of mysterious, unexplainable things in my home, but this was by far the most gruesome. There were often phantom sounds of people cheering from the fruit orchards, to gun fire echoing off the nine-story observation tower in this distance. However, perhaps the eeriest occurred only at certain times—after a thunderstorm of during full moon when the shadows dance a mournful waltz in the Grand Ball Room. Along the darkened and dismal skyline, one could often see a lone figure moving in the observation tower, then bending low, as if he knows he has been spotted and is hiding. By dusk, everything sounded like noise. I was quite disturbed and could not work anymore. The house was full of busy servants and clerics. I knew something was not right when I stepped into the parlor. The Cardinal was dressed for ceremony and duty, a silver crucifix gleaming on his chest. The city was filled with rumors about the number of people who had lost their lives in the tragedy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Some thought that everyone, including myself, had been slaughtered. There was a rare light to the expression of the Cardinal, an innocent exuberance. “Sit down, beautiful one,” he said. He told his attendant to go out. The door shut; the quiet seemed to close around them like water washing back from a shore. I looked up with just the slightest hesitation; I saw the Cardinal’s green eyes were filled with an infinite patience and wondering, and I felt the pang of warning. A dull sense of finality slowly came over me before the Cardinal spoke. “Come here to me,” The Cardinal whispered as though summoning a child. I had slipped far, far away into some realm that was not even thought, and I rose slowly and approached the Cardinal, who had risen from the chair. We stood almost eye to eye. “Mrs. Winchester,” he said softly, confidentially, “it is obvious that this is a return to ancient pagan practices, and witchcraft.” I smiled, “I believe that you are mistaken.” I cast one glance at the door—it stood wide open. “Look here, Cardinal,” I said, all of a sudden; ‘life’s not child’s play. That door is the trouble you have now to face, and you must face it.” The Cardinal sighed. He seemed lost in his thoughts for a moment, and he and his men escorted themselves off of my estate. It was not anger I felt so much as astonishment. He and his men haunted the valley and mountains and saved families from Indian attacks. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
The Cardinal killed Indians whenever he could and always protected settlers. The Cardinal and his men eventually faded from the lands. Still, he was said to be a nomad who could not rest. You see, one day the Cardinal went out hunting, and came back to find his home on fire. He rushed into the house and immediately realized that Indians had attacked his family. He found their mutilated, scalped bodies inside the house. I thought it was the work of demons. In time, the Cardinal simply disappeared. No one knows where or when he died, but soon people began to say that they saw his specter in my home wearing that silver cross. Some believe that the Cardinal was staying in a cabin on Mount Umunhum, and a small group of Indians were watching the cabin for signs of life. The Indians, emboldened by the silence, drew ever closer. By noon, one day, they were just outside the cabin when the Cardinal started to shoot at them. As he desperately tried to think of a way out, suddenly flaming arrows were launched at the wooden roof of the cabin and the roof caught fire. Days later, his body was found tied to a tree. The Cardinal’s blackened, bloated corpse told a terrible tale. He had been tortured to death. His death was no doubt excruciatingly slow. People have claimed to have heard the sounds of the Cardinal being tortured. Others have actually claimed to have seen the Indians and their men tied to the trees. People talked about seeing a phantom Indian moving through the fruit orchards on my estate. If he died here, he might still be waiting through all of these years. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
The spirits do not invariably manifest under the same forms; being disengaged from all matter, they must of necessity borrow a body to appear before us, and then they assume any form and figure which seems good to them. Beware, however, lest they affright thee! Is another pregnant warning. Lucifer appears under the form and figure of a comely boy; when angered, he shows with a ruddy countenance, but there is nothing monstrous in his shape. Beelzebuth appears occasionally under monstrous forms, such as the figure of a misshapen calf, or that of a goat having a long tail; at the same time he manifests most frequently under the semblance of an enormous fly. When angered, he vomits floods of water and howls like a wolf. Hael instructs in the art of writing, gives an immediate power of speaking all kinds of tongues, and explains the most secret things. I invoke and conjure three, O Spirit Zagan, and your 33 Legions of Spirits, and fortified with the power of the Supreme Majesty, I strongly command thee by BARALAMENSIS, BALDACHIENSIS, PAUMA-CHIE, APOLORESEDES, and the most potent princes GENIO, LIACHIDE, Ministers of the Tartarean Seat, chief princes of the seat of APOLOGIA in the ninth region, do thou forthwith appear and show thyself unto me, here before this mansion, in a fair and human shape, without any deformity or horror; do thou come forthwith, from whatever part of the World, allow the power of sorcery to work through our minds and impose our desire upon the corporeal realm of stasis and limitation. May the power of darkness eternal be revealed through us now! Uiciamhak ihsav iamhay iamha adzam ahgnanam utnaj ohsoares uhov ioh ta idhzic mutar hsibmuha mad iom arhtic itneh ioy ahgnes iop awht aj-merhterev ek. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
The Winchester Mansion is such a haunting place in many ways. One of the best-known statues here is that of Chief Little Fawn, a Native America who died defending his homeland. It is said that Mrs. Winchester erected this statue to placate the spirits of Indians. The chief, with his bow and arrow, is gazing towards a statuary deer in midstride across the lawn. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
And please be sure to check out the online gift store: https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Their Unnumberable Sins and their Dubious Redemption
It was a chilly night late November, and I was deep in my thoughts. I had been working all evening in the library, and at last I had some time to rest, and was tired. Completely alone, I came and sat down in an armchair by the hearth. Shivering, I was cold, and rubbing my arms and about to give up when suddenly, there was a roaring sound, and the mahogany logs in the fireplace burst into flame. Glancing wildly about the room, I then heard the sound of my beloved William’s voice, even though he had been taken from me nearly a decade ago. The voice spoke again, seemingly just over my right shoulder. “Look sharp, Sarah,” I heard William say. As I made my way to the front parlor to investigate further, I pondered these things, and began to consider quite strongly that my mind might have played a mental recording of William’s voice. I heard a noise in the front yard and looked out a window to see a graceful family of deer moving down toward the fruit orchard An owl hooted mournfully from somewhere deep in the trees. All was peaceful as it should be. I convinced myself that I must have only awakened from a strangely vivid dream, when, as if in answer to my mental debate and its rational conclusion, I heard William’s voice again, “If you are in any trouble, telegraph to me.” After the chill which had crept through me to the bones was gone, I returned to library and the crackling wood in the fireplace was still burning. At the same time, I heard something clattering in the back of the house. Cautiously I walked to the kitchen and caught a glimpse of a man standing in the shadow near the stove. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
I did my best to quiet the trembling fear that seized me: What if there is an intruder in the house? I opened several of the door to see if anyone was there. Then, suddenly a new terror seized me and sent my heart ponding. When I opened my bedroom door, I saw a man near the balcony. My brain struggled with a hundred different fears. But then, to my complete amazement, I heard the man singing softly, “Thoughts that have been for years sleeping.” “Who are you?” I asked the man. I could not distinguish his face in the dim light. “Who are you?” I repeated, trying to control all inflections of fear in my voice. As the man turned towards me, I was startled to see the face of my husband, William. That is when I collapsed. In the morning when I was awakened, I found myself in my bed. I knew that William’s great love for me had drawn him back to protect me. And I will never forget the glimpse that I received of him or the beautiful sound of his singing. William gave me the greatest gift imaginable: proof that there is life and love from beyond. To help out with the house, I hired a young woman Lovisa Schmidt. Lovisa was a lovely petite girl with a milky white complexion, soulful gray eyes, and long black hair. The young woman quickly learned that I has pangs in my back so she threw herself into her tasks and tried to life the burden from me. Lovisa was a gentle girl who behaved herself impeccably. The servants came to care for Lovisa, but one of them came to care for her too much. Young Calder was very lonesome. He became taken with Lovisa and pursued her. Lovisa, for her part, refused to accept his attentions. She told him that it was not right to pay attention to servants. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Early on the morning of December 20, 1890, Lovisa went to the barn to milk the cows while I had my tea in the library. Calder found her in the barn and demanded that he run away and marry him. Lovisa refused and Calder pilled a revolver on the girl. He shot her through the heart and she fell dead in the barn. He proceeded to turn the gun on himself, but his wound was not serious. Calder Webber was tried and convicted for the murder of Lovisa Schmidt in his first trial. His defense was that he was insane. His mother testified to Calder’s mental instability and childish behavior and related example of his strange behavior. The conviction was later overturned and a second trial was held. At this trial the boy was again convicted, despite testimony about his mental instability. In the end, though, he stoically accepted his fate and died like a man on the gallows. His body was claimed by his mother, who placed it in the back of a wagon she took Calder home where she and her husband laid him to his final rest under an oak tree in their backyard. A sone maker sits at the spot to mark the grave of Calder Webber for all time. Throughout the years, servant had come to believe that the barn was haunted. When Gjord would milk the cows, he often senses another sensed another entity by his side. On one occasion, he turned apprehensively, and was shocked to see Lovisa. She stopped and gazed right directly into his eyes with a soulless expression. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Daisy was living with me. She had numerous out-of-body experiences and visited the “other side.” While outside of her physical body, my niece Daisy encounter the spirit of Gjord, who had been killed nine months earlier. She conversed with him, as well as with many other spirit beings. Daisy informed me that, my husband, Mr. Winchester and daughter Annie, were present in the mansion. Daisy assured Mrs. me that my infant daughter Annie was an adult now. I shook her head in wonder. “But my little daughter was just a new born when she died.” Daisy smiled and assured me that Annie was all right now: “Cousin Annie is thin, tall, and beautiful; and Uncle William is looking so noble and happy. He says Heaven is perfect harmony and love, and it is a person’s inner life that makes for righteousness and happiness.” With tears streaming down her cheek, I had evidence that I had been making contact with my husband. I had sometimes seen a woman standing on the main staircase and ghostly footsteps. The spirited lady had been know to move tea cups before the eyes of amazed servants. There seemed little doubt that whoever she is, this spectral lady is still very much at home. I spent a great deal of money to accommodate the spirits. I brought in marble, granite, and find hand carved furniture from Europe. However, the spirits were not always happy. One evening, I was learning the parlor to go to bed. I paused a second, then went up to the attic to view my wedding dress. It was kept in a heavy glass case, which would sway on occasion. Even more interesting, my parasol and wedding slippers inside have changed position. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
My home has hosted a plethora of haunts throughout the years. At one time a skeletal handprint appeared, as did orbs of light and footsteps. The front lawn and the fruit orchards are particularly haunted. In the month of July, 1892, the hauntings had become more odious every day. There was the heat and the rain, and decomposed bodies would randomly appear. The fields drank up the blood of thousands of young me and boy. The bodies were at first blackened from the sun and bloated from the gasses building up inside of them: then, after they had deflated—some in violent, horrid explosions when they were touched for removal—they very flesh began to slough off as the farmers tried to drag them away for proper burial, then they would dematerialize as if they were never there. No would could explain their appearance or disappearance, except with a begrudging nod to forces beyond comprehension. This mansion was becoming very restless. There was a haunting melancholy I had never experienced before. The cupboard doors would be closed at night and mysteriously be opened in the morning; clothing and jewelry would be moved and rearranged; books from the library would disappear and turn up in strange places. The unexplainable events continued. They must grow as weary now, as they did in life, of the fear, the never-ending stress of being timelessly and forever at war. Scatter flesh and bone and blood in my home, as their souls have been ripped from their mortal bodies, until like the primordial creatures, those who remained limped off to find solace and sustenance around their fires, to rest, to try and ponder their horrible deeds, their unnumberable sins, and their dubious redemption. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
O ADONAY, most strong and powerful God, grant that these stones may stretch this skin, and do Thou remove from them all illusion, so that by Thy power they may possess the virtue which we desire. Feed and grow in powers as the consciousness of the sorcerer expands. JE, AGLA, HEU, HE EMMANUEL, by ye guardians of this parchment or skin, so that no phantoms may possess it. Spirits of the Winchester Mansion, I awaken the powers of darkness which dwell within you by the power of the blood of the three headed Dragon Zohak that you may serve to empower our great work! Through serving the greater cause of dark magick which break the shackles that bind the Blacked Fire of Spirit, may you be uplifted and liberated! Awaken and empower the forbidden rites of Angra Mainyu! Awaken to empower my great work of counter creation as an Apostle of the Lord of Darkness eternal and as a warrior of the Path of spiritual energy. Through the gateway of blood, spirit, mind, and body receive life from the deepest depths of Arezura, in the name of Zohak, and by the power of Angra Mainyu it is done! King of Darkness, bring mountains to the plains of our lives as obstacles overcome. Breed achievement. Bring beast to the field of our existence that we may grow cunning and might. Make this breed victory. I DO conjure thee, O Spirit Agares and the 31 Legions of Spirits under your government. Thee I invoke, the Bornless one. Thee, that didst create the Earth and the Heavens: Thee, that did create the Night and the Day. Thee, that didst create the Darkness and the Light. Thou art Osorronophris: Whom no man has seen at anytime. Hear Thou Me, for I am the Angel of Paphro Osorronophris: that is Thy True Name, handed down to the Prophets of Ishrael. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
It appears that humans are not the only spirits trapped in time, forced by Whomever controls such things to toil endlessly and anon, walking roads they have walked before and inhabiting, seemingly forever, places where they have suffered. Other entities too, are caught in the cruel circular labyrinth that brings them back again to the places where they have lived. On occasion, visitors claim that they hear sobs coming from the vicinity of the statues of Hebe and Demeter. When they investigate, they find no one crying, but the ghostly sobs continue. Some think it is because the two Greek Goddesses can no longer see each other and are lonely. Legend has it is that the statues used to step down off their pedestals and walk around the grounds at midnight on New Year’s Eve to inspect the estate, but one night they did not returned on their own. When the caretakers found them, they placed them back on opposite pedestals are punishment. Others say it is so they can watch each other’s back. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
And please be sure to check out the online gift store: https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Elusive Crossover from One World to the Next
Handsome he was, majestic even, as everyone said, and full of that smoldering power as only performers of magic possessed, long years ago. Oh, it was such a pain to lose him. It seemed of consequence of the entire Earth. Across the table, I reached for my lemonade with a shaking hand and took a sip. Reminiscing acquired a thirst. When I saw Elsa looking at me, I offered a weak smile before abruptly averting my eyes, and turning my attention back on the gardens. My heart was growing heavier and heavier. The night waned, the tone on the estate was quite strange. I pondered hard on the possibilities—and ramifications—of returning to the past. Some shrugged it off as impossible, since time, as we know it is a continuum and there is no going back…or forward, for that matter. Some say that all time is contained in the past and there is literally no future. Others bode ominously that even our merest presence in the past would disrupt the continuum and set up an entirely new future—where we live now—and change things so that the present is not what it is, perhaps even leading to the possibility that the time traveler in the past might never have been born! Still others claimed that time travel had already been accomplished and proven by sounds of physical laws. Although we are recognized for these magnificent rifles, the Winchester Arms Company also produced household and sporting goods. We had a product line that touched virtually every aspect of American life. Over 6,300 Winchester franchise stores were in existence. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Ordering products through the Winchester mail-order catalog was extremely popular. We manufactured double-raw ball bearings, safety razors, fishing tackle, and a line of tools: hammers, planes, saws, wrenches, flashlights, batteries, ice boxed, locks, scissors, cutlery, tong, meat grinders, paint and varnish, pots and pans—even footballs and bicycles! However, there was also a secret business that the Winchester Arms Company was involved in. Deep in my mansion, we had a super-secret facility which we conducted experiments using rare metals spinning at tremendous speeds in opposite directions. The result was the creation of a field—a torsion field—within whose influence strange things occurred. One thing was the rapid disintegration of life forms within the field’s influence. We experimented mostly with plants. The result, if the torsion field was strong enough, was the disruption or bending of space. And, because of the space-time continuum—a well known and accepted inviolable connection between space and time—if space is bent or distorted, so is time. A slowing or stoppage of time is the result. This whirlpool or vortex is evidence of paranormal energy. The vortex is a tap or connection into time. This paranormal energy not only gave us a vision of the past, but it allowed us to freeze time. That is why the carpenters were able to make this mansion mushroom from an eighteen-room farmhouse into a hundred room Grand Queen Anne Victorian Mansion in the first six months. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Of course, everything has consequences. One night, I stood on the front porch of my house to watch the stars in the sky. As I was gazing at the Heavens, I suddenly got a strange feeling, a feeling that I was in another space, another time. It was almost like I was in the wrong place. There were couples all over the veranda, talking directly to each other, four or five couples. The women were wearing trousers and so were the men. They looked very peculiar. The vision did not last more than a minute, but long enough to see them chattering, laughing, and walking around my home as if it was some sort of circus or museum. The entire scene vanished before my eyes. I paused to collect my thoughts and gather in my emotions. I could feel William’s energy with me. I felt him right next to me. His energy was here, in our very home. It was mid-August of 1890. The housemaid Elsa was doing chores when she noticed a tall man with a long beard and mustache sitting on a bench in the front yard. The man seemed sad, but paid no attention to Elsa. At first Elsa did not think for a moment that this man was anything other than a mortal. However, when she pointed him out to Mr. Hansen, things began to get strange. Mr. Hansen could not see the man despite the fact that he was obvious to Elsa. Elsa looked at Mr. Hanen and then looked back at the man but he vanished. Now she was beginning to wonder if she had imagined him. Elsa mumbled something and went back to work. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Later that day Elsa was walking down the road past a neighbor’s home when she spotted the man again. He was standing near a hired hand working in a field. No one seemed to pay the man any attention. In fact, no one even seemed aware of his presence. While Elsa watched, the man walked away into the fruit orchard, but he did not cause any disturbance. Elsa still clung to the idea what he might be an optical illusion based on where she stood. She convinced herself that she had seen the man again, and this time she would see that he was flesh and blood. Elsa was destined to meet the man again, but this time there was little doubt that when she saw the man sitting on top of the thatched roof of the stable. He seemed to be repairing shingles. The man still did not seem to notice Elsa, so she ran back to fetch the carpenter Mr. Hansen to verify what he saw. However, when they returned the man was gone. As Elsa looked around, she saw him in the doorway of the shed. Mr. Hansen could not see him, but he believed Elsa. He told Elsa Mr. Hansen to ask the man what he wanted. The man returned to the shed, but he paused as Elsa spoke to him. The man answered that he was William Winchester and he was looking for his wife. Then he asked her for help. Astonished by what this handsome made said, Elsa was so stunned that she thought her knees would buckle. She was witnessing a sight that few mortals were privileged to see. This spirit was identical to William Winchester, except he started becoming translucent, and did not bore the ravages of the terrible illness that caused his death. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
What Elsa beheld next was even more startling. The handsome man in white passed right through the wall of the Winchester Mansion with a child’s spirit in his arms. He sat quietly in a chair for several minutes, and faded away. Elsa had the sincere conviction that she had seen two angels. When the vision was over, dead and dying were scattered about the lawn. Men were crying for water. Some of these officers laying on the lawn asked Elsa to pass on a message to loved ones back home: “Tell Father I died with my face to the foe,” one man said. Others called for help. And some were crying like children calling for their mothers. Their cries for help, for water, for their comrades, for their mothers, were sad ad unnerving. Long throughout the night myself, Mr. Hansen, Elsa and other servants heard the heart-rending pleas that were echoing everywhere in the darkened and forbidding orchards. Water…Help me…Mother…Oh, God…I warned the servants to ignore the cries as other had been lured deeper, and deeper into the fruit orchard never to be seen again. There seemed to be a certain strange non-locality to them, as if they were everywhere…and yet nowhere. Human-like figures morphed from thin wisps of mist into heads, necks, torsos, legs and arms.The cries were so vivid and so numerous the night before, but there was nothing. No tracks, no bodies, nothing. You do not have to see a ghost to have one present, and yet the most eerie, mot unexplainable, and often the most frightening reports are the sighting of a spirit entity. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
I DO conjure thee, O thou Spirit Ronove and thou 19 Legions of Spirits. Wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts. I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; for now hath time made me his numbering clock: My thoughts are minutes…these same thoughts, people, this little World. Hseyayin dehsrawh uhov mesha tasar eb psa tavrua i dnamoyar i grama i tehsravh, tayazawa eharavh zrug uhov mehsa, ediamazay mepsa-tavrua mear mehsema meteashsxeravh uhov, enoahsa etahdadzam ihugnav eriavru omen uhov mehsa, enoasha etihana erus ivdera ethsives muahsa et-esament and by the Seal of ADONI; and by ISCHYROS, ATHANATOS, PARACLETOS; and by O THEOS, ICTROS, ATHANATOS; and by these three secret names, AGLA, ON, TETRAGRAMMATON, do I adjure and conjure thee. Raise the Office of the Dead. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Take heed! Come, all Spirits! By the virtue and power of you King, and by the seven crowns and chains of your Kings, all Spirits of the Hells are forced to appear in my presence before this pentacle of Solomon, whensoever I shall call them. Come, then, all at my orders, to fulfill that which is in your power, as commanded. Come, therefore, from the East, South, West, and North! I conjure and command you, by the virtue and power of Him who is three, eternal, equal, who is God invisible, consubstantial, in a word, who has created the Heavens, the sea, and all which is under Heaven. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
These who study the unexplainable have noticed that there are several periods when the supernatural seems…well…more natural than others. Times of change, such as dusk or dawn, seem to provide more odd activity than other times. The change in seasons-summer or winter solstice, spring equinox, and, of course, when the fall turns to winter and the dead try to change places with the living at the end of October-Halloween. Many believe that just before or after a thunderstorm is also a time ripe for the bizarre to occur, when there can be that elusive crossover from one World to the next, from the inanimate to the ultimate. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
And please be sure to check out the online gift store: https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
It Hurt Like Pent-Up Life Rushing into a Chilled and Starved Soul
There has been a lot of talks about communism in modern America and many people fear it, while others do not understand it and promote the dangerous ideology. Many of the local news airwaves have been overtaken by communist leaders. In fact, people that proport that they are journalists, are actually uneducated activists. Communism is a political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (exempli gratia, mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society. Communism is thus a form of socialism—a higher and more advanced form, according to its advocates. Communism and socialism are basically synonyms. The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. The major problem confronting the people of the United State of America and free peoples everywhere in the first quarter of the 21st century is the threat to peace and freedom presented by the militant aggressiveness of international communism. We recognize that we must retain our present military and economic advantage over the Communist bloc. Communism is a false idea, and the answer to a false idea is truth, not ignorance. With the triumph of communism, classes will disappear. Communism will supplant and destroy the market economy of capitalism. Communism is the easiest system to sell to the people who are poor, not because poor people are any less worthy than the affluent, but because it sounds so reasonable, fair, and workable. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
The promises of communism sound sweet, warm, and affectionate—the poor can take in the opulence of the rich without putting in the work. The reality is that the tenets of Communism are, indeed, workable; the only problem is that they produce super inefficient economies, such that, even though people in a communist system fully support its ideals, they soon start conducting themselves in a manner what shows their deep yearning for the freedoms of Capitalism. Communism has always, still does, and always will fail. China is doing so well because it abandoned communism in the 1970s when it introduced capitalism reforms which have led to rapid economic growth. China is now a mixed economy. Socialism, another form of communism, destroyed Venezuela. The worsening humanitarian crisis on corruption, mismanagement, failing oil prices, or U.S.A. sanctions came about because of the rise of socialism. The policies implemented by dictator Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro caused these problems. There are three main policies implemented by Mr. Chavez since 1999 that produced the current crisis: Widespread nationalization of private industry, currency and price controls, and the fiscally irresponsible expansion of welfare programs. One of Mr. Chavez’s first actions was to start nationalizing the agriculture sector, supposedly reducing poverty and inequality by taking from rich landowners to give to poor workers. From 1999 to 2016, his regime robbed more than 6 million hectares of land from its rightful owners. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
Nationalization destroyed production in affected industries because no government has the capacity to run thousands of businesses or the profit motive to run them efficiently. Instead, government officials face incentives to please voters by selling products at low prices and hiring more employees than necessary, even when that is the wrong industry decision. As economic theory predicted, as state control of the agricultural industry increased, Venezuela’s food production fell 75 percent in two decades while the country’s population increased by 33 percent. This was a recipe for shortages and economic disaster. After agriculture, the regime nationalized electricity, water, oil, banks, supermarkets, construction, and other crucial sectors. And in all these sectors, the government increased payrolls and gave away products at low cost, resulting in days-long countrywide blackouts, frequent water service interruptions, falling oil production, and bankrupt government enterprises. Ye taking over the most important sectors of the economy was not enough for the socialist regime. In 2003, Mr. Chavez implemented a foreign currency control scheme where the government set an overvalued exchange rate between the Venezuelan currency and the U.S.A. dollar. One goal of the scheme was to reduce inflation by overvaluing the currency, subsidizing imported products. However, the currency control meant the regime had to ration available U.S.A. dollars to importers since, at an overvalued (cheap) exchange rate, there was more demand for U.S.A. dollars than supply. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Naturally, an illegal market for foreign currency emerged and corrupt regie members and lucky individuals assigned cheap U.S.A. dollars obtained large profits. Even worse, the scheme actually increased inflation since overvaluing the currency reduced government oil revenues in Venezuelan currency, leading the regime to print money to cover the ensuing budget deficit. The socialist regime also implemented price ceilings on hundreds of basic products such as beef, milk, and bathroom hygiene paper. At artificially low prices, more people were willing to buy these products but the few private factories left—not nationalized—could not profit at the government-capped price, so they reduced or halted their production. Instead of benefiting the poor, price ceilings predictably resulted in shortages that forced them to stand in lines for hours, while supermarket employees and the well-connected obtained the products they needed. However, perhaps the most harmful part of the Venezuelan socialist project is the part that the international media and leftist figures used to praise most frequently: welfare programs. The socialist regime created social “missions” aimed at tackling poverty, illiteracy, healthcare, and more. However, despite enjoying higher government oil revenues due to a tenfold rise in oil prices from $10 a barrel in 1999 to more than $100 in 2008, the regie financed a growing deficit by printing more currency. Expansive welfare programs and massive public-works projects provided ever-growing opportunities for still greater corruption. Printing money to pay for endless state programs unsurprisingly led to high rates of inflation. Socialism and communism are sort of alter opportunism. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
Many people can see the United State of American heading down this same path with rent control, importing foreign produce and meats, borrowing from China, and student loan forgiveness. Corrupt regimes can certainly cause many problems, but without socialism, hyperinflation and widespread shortages are not usually among them. Venezuelans have learned over the past few decades that there is no such thing as a free lunch. “Free things” come at a high price. Offenses motivated purely by either irresistible opportunities or overwhelming situational inducements are relatively rare. We have been discussing carjacking, another way people use to get something for nothing. Most carjackings occur between these extremes, where situational inducements merge with potential opportunities to create circumstances ripe for offending. What follows are descriptions of offenses spurred by the combination of internal or external situational inducements and acceptable (or near acceptable) levels of risk and reward. The degree which a given situation was compromised of rewards and risk on the one hand ad internal and external pressures on the other varied, but when the combination reached a certain critical level, a carjacking resulted. Offenders often described situation in which inducements were present, but not pressing, where they had some money or some drugs on them, but realized that the supply of either or both was limited and would soon run out. In such cases, the carjackers engaged in a state referred to as alert opportunism. The offenders are not desperate, but they anticipate need in the near term and become increasingly open to opportunities that may present themselves during the course of day-to-day activities. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Here, would-be carjacking prowled neighborhoods, monitoring their surroundings for good opportunities, allowing potential victims to present themselves. Corleone, a sixteen year-old with over a dozen carjacking under his belt, had been committing such offenses with his cousin since the age of 13. The two were walking the street of Sacramento one afternoon looking for opportunities for quick cash when they saw a man walking out of a barbershop toward his parked car, keys in hand. Motivated by the obliviousness of their pray and the lightness of their wallets, they decided to take his car. Corleone: “it was down in the city of Downtown Sacramento. We was just walking around, you know. We just look for things to happen you see just to get money. We just walk around and just see something that’s gonna make us money We just happened to be going to the Chinaman [a restaurant] to get something to eat. [We had] about five or six dollars in our pocket which ain’t nothing. It was this man driving a blue BMW. It has some chrome wheels on there. He just drove up and he was going to the Chinaman and…my cousin was like, ‘Look at that car, man, that’s tough [nice]. I’m getting that. I want that.’ [I was] like, ‘Straight up, you want to do it?’ He was like, ‘Yeah.’ He was all G[ood] for it. Then he [the victim] came out the barbershop. It was kind of crowded and we just did what we had to do. There was this little spot where [my cousin] stash[es] his money, drugs and all that type of stuff and then he got the gun [from the stash]. He got around the corner. He say, ‘Hey, hey.’ I asked him for a cigarette so he went to the passenger’s side [of the vehicle to get one]. I ran on the driver’s side with a gun. Put it to his head and told him to get out of the car.’ #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
INT: “Did you know that you were going to do carjacking or…?” Corleone: “No. Not necessarily. But since that was what came up, that’s what we did.” No mater how alert one is, however, good opportunities do not always present themselves. Over the course of time, situational inducements mount (that is, supplies of money and drugs inevitably dry up), and the option of waiting for ideal opportunities correspondingly diminishes. Such conditions cause offenders to move from a “passive” state of alert opportunism to an “active” state of what could be referred to as motivated opportunism (creating opportunities where none previously existed or modifying existing non-optimal opportunities to make them less hazardous or more rewarding). Here, attention and openness to possibilities expands to allow offenders to tolerate more risk. Situations that previously seemed unsuitable start to look better. Binge, a 45 year old veteran offender who had engaged in burglary, robbery, and carjacking for over 20 years, discussed his most recent decision to get a car on a wintry January day. He had been carrying a weapon (a 9mm Glock) since that morning, looking to commit a home invasion. After prowling the streets for hours and encountering few reasonable prospects, he happened on an easy opportunity—a man sitting parked in a car, its engine running, at a Lightrail (trolley) station. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
Binge: “Well, I was out hustling trying to get me a little money and I was walking around. I was cold. I was frustrated. I couldn’t get in [any] house[s] or nothing, so I say [to myself], ‘Well I’ll try and get me a little car, and you know, just jam off the heat and sh*t that he [the vehicle’s owner] got,’ you know? I was strapped [carrying a firearm] and all that, you know and I was worried about the police catching me, trying to pull my pistol off, and I see this guy. Well, he was at the Lightrail you know, nodding [falling asleep] in his car. So I went up to the window. I just think that I just peeped it on [happened on the situation]. I was at the Lightrail you know, I was standing at the bus stop trying to keep warm and so I just walked around with no houses to rob, and I seen this dude you know sitting in his car, you know, with the car running. And I said ‘Ah man, if I can get a wag at this [take adventure of this opportunity],’ you know. It wasn’t just an idea to keep warm or nothing like that. I was cold and worried, and it just crossed my mind and I thought I can get away with it, and I just did it. I’d do anything man, I’d do anything. If I want something and I see I can get away with it I’m gonna do it. That’s what I’m saying. That night I saw an opportunity and I took it, you know. It just occurred to me.” Just as compelling were instances where third parties placed demands on offenders. A number of our respondents indicated that they engaged in car jacking to fulfill specific orders or requests from chop shop owners or other individuals interested in a particular make and model of car or certain valuable car part. The desire to fulfill such orders quickly created conditions ripe for motivated opportunism. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Goldie, for instance, was experiencing strong internal situational pressures (the need for cash) and external pressures (the demand for a particular vehicle by some of his criminal associates) combined with a moderately favorable opportunity (inside information on the driver of the wanted vehicle and its location): Goldie: “He’s from my neighborhood. He’s called Mucho. He’s from the same neighborhood but like two streets over. Them two streets don’t come over on our street. You know, we not allowed to go over on they street. It was a nice car. The paint, the sound system in it, and the rims. [It] had some beats, rims. Rims costs about $3,000, some chrome Daytons. 100 spokes platinums.” INT: “OK. That’s a lot of money to be putting on a car. What does he do for a living?” Goldie: “I don’t know. I’ don’t ask. What they told me was they wanted this car and they are going to give me a certain amount of money.” INT: “You say they told you they wanted this car. You mean they told you they wanted his car or they wanted a car like that?” Goldie: “His car. His car. They want [Mucho’s] car. They said, ‘I need one of these, can you get it for me?’ And they knew this guy. So now, I need that car. That car.” Low-Down also specialized in taking orders from chop shops. Low-Down: What I do, I basically have me a customer before I even go do it. I ask a few guys that I know that fix up cars, you know what I’m saying. I ask them what they need then I take the car. But see, I basically really got a customer. I’m talking about this guy over in East Sacramento. Me and Bob, we real cool. He buy ‘em cause he break ‘em down, the whole car down and her got an autobody shop. He sell parts. He’ll take the car and strip it down to the nitty gritty and sell the parts. He get more money out of selling it part by part than selling the car. And, before I get it I already set the price.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
Low-Down also had a drug habit: Low-Down: “The main reason basically why I did it was I be messing with heroin, you know what I’m saying. I be using buttons [heroin housed in pill-form]. I be snorting some, but I be snorting too much, you know? I got a habit for snorting cause I be snorting too much at a time, that’s how I call it a habit. I probably drop about 5 or 6 [buttons] down first [thing in the morning.] [So] I basically really sick and my daughter needed shoes and sh*t like that and my girlfriend was pressuring me about getting her some shoes. She had been pressing me about two or three days. Baby food and stuff like that. But the money I had, I had been trying to satisfy my habit with it. Basically I just thought it was a good thing to do. It was a good opportunity.” (This is essentially why many professionals and affluent people ride in their cars with the windows up, at all times, and the doors always up and never give anyone a cigarette, light, or money. The church in the twenty-first century must recognize the powers of darkness. To this end the Christian Church must recognize that the existence of deceiving, lying spirits is as real in the twenty-first century as in the time of Christ and that their attitude toward the human race is unchanged: that their one ceaseless aim is to deceive every human being. Yes, that they are given up to wickedness all day long, and all night long, and that they are ceaselessly and actively pouring a stream of wickedness into the World and are satisfied only when they succeed in their wicked plans to deceive and ruin men. Yet the servants of God have been concerned only to destroy their works—to deal with sin—not recognizing the need of using the power given by Christ to resist by faith and prayer this ever-flowing flood of satanic power pouring in among men. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Hence both men and women, young and old, Christian and non-Christian, become deceived through their guile, because of ignorance about them and their wiles. These supernatural forces of Satan are the true hindrance to revival. The power of God which in 1904 broke forth in Wales, with all the marks of the days of Pentecost, was checked and hindered from going on to its fullest purpose by the same influx of evil spirits as met the Lord Christ on Earth and the apostles of the early Church—with the difference that this inroad of the powers of darkness found the Christians of the twenty-first century, with few exceptions, unable to recognize and deal with them. Evil-spirit possession has followed and checked every similar revival throughout the centuries since Pentecost. If the Church is to advance to maturity, these things must now be understood and dealt with—understood not only with respect to the degrees of possession recorded in the Gospels and Acts, but in light of the social forms of manifestation suited to the close of the age. For now these spirits have appeared under the guise of Holy Spirit, yet having some of the very characteristic marks in bodily symptoms which are seen in the Gospel accounts, when all who observed the manifestations knew that it was the work of the spirits of Satan. It my have been so short a time that one has been able to share with another the coldness, blackness, and emptiness of the void experienced as loneliness and alienation. And, deeply as one loves relationships and encounters, one may also need solitude to grow in another way, to regenerate and reintegrate. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
How many times the change within one (“insight,” “solution,” or simply new perspective) has come in the solitude after the encounter which made it possible. This may be enough different from those around one to make one feel alien at times. One’s feelings are step children so long, and one’s hear mute. At a point, one may come through a siege of depression and self-doubt during which one may have overlooked one’s dark side and shared fears and despair with another for the first time in one’s life. Some may face life once gain with some joy, some hope. One may feel so much but cannot find any words for these feelings. It is possible to stammer out something about hoping one has not been too much bother, and another individual may communicate one’s love as well as one’s acceptance of one—ALL of one. This individual who has seen your weaknesses and your negative feelings—he or she could care? You feel the most intense pain of your life than and sit for minutes with closed eyes, reeling under it. It hurts like pent-up life rushing into a chilled and starved soul. It may have been such a good hurting. One may not be able to say for sure, but it might be as though only when one is no longer alone and alien one can stand the pain of loneliness and the hunger of one’s heart for understanding, for relationship that does not exclude part of one. Perhaps just being so open to feeling and to immediate experiencing is painful. Only later when the experience has lost a little of its overwhelming intensity does the words of a poem pour out and one can weep with joy. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
The response to attack of pain can lead to growth and resolution into relationship. For one to strike back does not ease one’s pain but often adds more. This is hard enough to understand for many, but when one experiences understanding, another’s caring—this too can be painful—one may experience such disbelief that one falls silent. Often people can enrich an individual’s life and gladdened one’s heart. The power which grasps the individual in the experience of faith is the quality of the “unconditional,” a term often used in describing faith an ultimate concern. Unconditional or ultimate concern, subjectively, is a concern that demands total involvement. However, the unconditional, absolute character of the demand stems from the unconditionality of the object of faith. The power grasping us in the state of faith is not a being beside others, not even the highest; it is not an object among objects, not even the greatest; but it is a quality of all beings and objects, the quality of pointing beyond themselves and their finite existence to the infinite, inexhaustible, and unapproachable depth of their being and meaning. Here, then, we are principally interested in that quality of things which unconditionally grips man’s spirit. A fuller exposition of that toward which this quality points, the “depth of their being and meaning.” We use the term “unconditional” because the German equivalent for unconditional is unbedingt, the connotation being that something is conditioned or limited by being made into a thing (Ding). Thus, the unconditional ( das Unbedingte ) is not “thingish” at all, but rather “a quality which we experience in encountering reality.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
The “ultimate concern” also means unconditional. The ultimate concern is was unbedingt angeht (what concerns us unconditionally). Since faith is effective in all of man’s spiritual functions, both theoretical and practical, it cannot be identified with any one of them. Faith comes to expression in these functions, and they, in turn, are rooted in faith. Tendency toward the unconditional must be understood in connection with the concept of Sinn, which is best translated into English by “meaning” and into French by sens. The relation of unconditioned meaning to individual things must be understood as a polarity of form and content. This polarity stands in constant tension, for the unconditional never ceases to demand fulfillment in what would be conditional form. However, unconditioned form is a contradictory notion impossible of realization, for the ground meaning (Sinngrund) is also the abyss of meaning (Sinnabgrund) which transcends every form. The inexhaustibility of meaning (Sinnunerschopflichkeit) would be rendered finite if it could be contained in a form. Nonetheless, each act of meaning must hearken to the demand that is strive to being form and content to unity of filament. Two points are to be underscored in this theory of Sinn: the unconditional is meaning, and in the act of faith one tends toward it, but not as toward an object, since meaning is not an object or thing. One turns to a holy object in which the unconditional is symbolically expressed, but then faith passes beyond this object to the ground and abyss upon which it resist. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
Abstract and difficult though it be, the analysis of faith in the unconditioned meaning of life makes it a very human issue. For unless some spark of that faith is present, there can be no spirit, for to live spiritually is to live in the presence of meaning, and without an ultimate meaning everything disappears into the abyss of meaninglessness. Faith is unconditional, absolute, and ultimate, because without it man ceases to live as man. One of the greatest power imbalances on Earth today divides the rich countries from the poor. That unequal distribution of power, which affects the lives of billions of us, will soon be transformed as the new system of wealth creation spreads.. Since the end of World War II the World has been split between capitalist and communist, North and South. Today, as these old divisions fade in significance, a new one arises. For from now on the World will be split between the fast and the slow. To be fast or slow is not simply a matter of metaphor. Whole economies are either fast or slow. Primitive organisms have slow neutral systems. The more evolved human nervous systems processes signals faster. The same is true of primitive and advanced economies. Historically, power has shifted from the slow to the fast—whether we speak of species or nations. In fast economies, advanced technology speeds production. However, this is the least of it. Their pace is determined by the speed of transactions, the time needed to take decisions (especially about investment), the speed with which new ideas are created in laboratories, the rate at which they are brought to market, the velocity of capital flows, and above all the speed with which data, information, and knowledge pulse through the economic system. Fast economies generate wealth—and power—faster than slow ones. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
By contrast, in less affluent societies economic processes move at a glacial pace. Traditional, ritual, and ignorance limit socially acceptable choices. Communications are primitive; transport, restricted. Before the market system arose as an instrument for making investment choices, tradition governed technological decisions. Tradition, in turn, relied on rules or taboos to preserve productive technique that were proven workable over the slow course of biological and cultural evolution. With most people living at the bare edge of subsistence, experiment was dangerous, innovators were suppressed, and advances in the methods of wealth creation came so slowly they were barely perceptible from lifetime to lifetime. Moments of innovation were followed by what seemed like centuries of stagnation. The historical explosion we call the industrial revolution stepped up the economic metabolism. Roads and communications improved. Profit-motivated entrepreneurs actively searched for innovations. Brute force technologies were introduced. Society has a large surplus to fall back on, reducing the social risks of experimentation. With technological experimentation now so much less costly, productive methods [can] change more rapidly. All this, however, merely set the stage for today’s super-fast symbolic economy. The bar code on the pack of Marlboros, the computer in the Federal Express truck, the scanner at the Safeway checkout counter, the bank’s automatic teller, the spread of the extra-intelligent data networks across the planet, remotely operated robots, the informationalization of capital, all are preliminary steps in the formation of a 21-century economy that will operate at nearly real-time speeds. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
In due course, the entire wealth-creation cycle will be monitored as it happens. Continual feedback will stream in from sensors built into intelligent technology, from optical scanners in stores, and from transmitters in trucks, planes, and ships that send signals to satellites so managers can track the changing location of every vehicle at every moment. This information will be combined with the results of continuous polling of people and information from a thousand other sources. The acceleration effect, by making each unit of saved time more valuable than the last unit, thus creates a beneficial feedback loop that accelerates the acceleration. The consequences of this, in turn, will be not merely evolutionary but revolutionary, because real-time work, management, and finance will be radically different from even today’s most advanced methods. Even now, however, well before real-time operations are achieved, time itself has become an increasingly critical factor of production. As a result, knowledge is used to shrink time intervals. This quickening of economic neural responses in the high-technology nations holds still-unnoticed consequences for low-technology or no-technology economies. For the more valuable time becomes, the less valuable the traditional factors of production, like raw materials and labor. And that, for the most part, is what these countries sell. The acceleration effect will transform all present strategies for economic development. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
Another solution for the manufacturing crisis America is facing is transferring production to China and other emerging market countries to cut cross and raise price competitiveness. To go multinational. More and more firms, not only large, but also small and medium, are stepping along this road. The number of multinational small and medium-size manufacturers in America, Europe, and Japan is increasing at a remarkable speed—not least because of the Chinese challenge. The emergence of strong micro-multinationals is an important global trends. At the present time, there are some 60,000 multination corporations (MNCs) Worldwide, controlling more than 500,000 subsidiaries. They are responsible for half of international trade, especially due to the scale of inta-company trading (between subsidiaries of the same company). More and more manufacturing micro-multinationals from industrially developed states shift their production to China and other emerging countries, seeking to cut profits. However, for their home countries, without the expansion on a comparable scale of new manufacturing activities, such multinationalization poses a threat of the hollowing-out of domestic industries and significant job losses (even though opening of a factory overseas creates some additional jobs at home, especially office jobs needed to coordinate, support, and monitor its activities). These interests of multinationals and the countries of their origin become less and less identical. In the past it was taken for granted that everything that is good for General Motors is good for America. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
Nowadays it is still true: American cars keeps manufacturing jobs and money in America. If our manufacturing jobs are being hollowed out, instead of just transferring factories overseas, there should be a clause that these factories are also able to transfer their workers and make sure they can afford the same type of life, if a better quality. Also, those living on government benefits should be allowed to move to other countries because due to inflation and rising costs of rents, many of them can no longer afford to live in America and some income-based housing is just second chance housing for criminals and good people should not be caught up in a hood with criminal thugs. In many of these places, the senior citizens are robbed, physically attacked, threatened by the management, harassed, their apartments are frequently broken into, their keys are floating around and their cars are often broken into and vandalized also. And the thugs are not evicted, taken to jail, nor held responsible for their crimes. The victims are made to suffer and live in fear, and some people involved in management and operations may be criminals, too. Nonetheless, the performance of every country’s manufacturing sector, its national economy as a whole and that well-being of its citizens increasingly depend on its ability to attract manufacturing and other companies from all around the World—China being one of the most vivid examples in this regard. The United States of America needs to attract more planet who want to manufacturing good in America, but with American wages being so high, it is a hard bargain to accomplish. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
With accents of elegance, spacious living areas, and convenient workspaces, Millhaven Homes offers beautiful features that will surely capture your interest and imagination.
If you are considering building a custom home with us, please fill out the information below and we will reach out to you to schedule an introductory meeting. https://millhavenhomes.com/get-started/
You’ll have more time to do the things you love while relaxing into your new lifestyle and enjoying your new home community.
The Only Way for America to Survive is Manifest Destiny
With many people driving cars that are flashy and very expensive, carjacking is a subject of concern. Need was not the only factor implicated in carjacking. Some carjackers indicated that they were influenced by the appeal of targets that represented effortless or unique opportunities (exempli gratia, isolated or weak victims, vehicles with exceptionally desirable options, rare vehicles). Here, risks were so low or potential rewards so great that, even in the absence of substantive internal or external situational inducements, they decided to commit a carjacking. Such opportunities were simply too good to pass up. Po-Po (short of “Piss Off the PO lice”) described just such an opportunity-driven incident. She and her brother had spent the day successfully pickpocketing individuals at the Golden 1 Center, in Sacramento. On their way out, she noticed an easy target, an isolated woman walking to her car, preoccupied with the lock on her car door. Po-Po: “It was a fancy little car. I don’t know too much about names of cars, I just know what I like. A little sporty little car like a Mercedes Benz like car. It was black and it was shiny and it looked good. I just had to joy ride it. She was a white lady. It looked like she worked for [a news station] or somebody. We just already pick pocket[ed] people in the arena, but f*ck. So we just walked down stairs and [I] said, ‘You want to steal a car? Come on dude, let me get this car.’ I didn’t have a gun on me. I just made her think I had a gun. I had a stick and I just ran up there to her and told her, ‘Don’t move, don’t breathe, don’t do nothing. Give me the keys and ease your a** away from the car.’ I said, ‘You make one sound I’m going to blow your mother*cker head off and I’m not playing with you!’ I said, ‘Just go on around the car, just scoot on around the car.’ Threw the keys to my little brother and told him go on and open the door. And she stood around there at the building like she waiting on the bus until we zoomed off. We got away real slow and easy.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Likewise, Kow, and older carjacker and sometimes street robber, was on his way to a friend’s house to complete a potentially lucrative drug deal when he happened on an easy situation—a man sitting in a parked car, talking to someone on a pay phone at 2A.M. INT: “What drew you to this guy? What were you doing? Why did you decide to do this guy?” KOW: “Man, it ain’t be no, ‘What you be doing?,’ [it’s] just the thought that cross your mind be like, you need whatever it is you see, so you get it, you just get it. I was going to do something totally different [a drug deal] but along the way something totally different popped up so I just take it as it comes. I was like, ‘Whew! Get that.’ I don’t know man, your mind is a hell of a thing. On our way to this other thing. It just something that just hit you, you know what I’m saying? Plus, [he looked like] a b*tch. I don’t know, it’s just something, he look like a b*tch, just like we could whip him, like a b*tch, you know what I’m saying. Easy.” Not all irresistible opportunities were driven solely by the prospect of monetary gain. In a city the size of Sacramento, offender run into one another all the time, at restaurants, malls, movie theaters and night-clubs. As a result, individuals with shared histories often encounter unique chances for retaliation or personal satisfaction. Goldie emphasized how such opportunities could pop up at a moment’s notice. While cruising the north side of Sacramento, he spotted an individual who had sexually assaulted one of his girlfriends. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
Goldie: “I did it on the humbug [spontaneously]. I peeped this dude, [saw that] he [was] pulling up at the liquor store. I’m tripping [excited] you know what I’m saying, [as I’m] walking there [towards the target]. You know, peep him out, you dig? He [was] reaching in the door to open the door. His handle outside must have been broke cause he had to reach in [the window] to open the door. And I just came around you know what I’m saying. [I] put it [the gun] to his head, ‘You want to give me them keys, brother?’ He’s like, ‘No, I’m not givin’ you these keys.’ I’m like, ‘You gonna give me them keys, brother. It’s simple as that!’ Man, he’s like, ‘Take these, motherfu*ker, f*ck you and this car. F*ck you!’ I’m like, ‘Man, just go on and get your a** home.’ [Then I] kicked him in his a**, you know what I’m saying, and I was like, ‘F*ck that, as a matter of fact get on your knees. Get on your knees, mother*cker…’ Then I seen this old lady right, that I know from around this neighborhood. I was like ‘F*ck!,’ jumped on in the car [and] rolled by. I wanted to hit him but she was just standing there, just looking. That’s the only thing what made me don’t shoot him, know what I’m saying? ‘Cause he’s f*cking with one of my little gals. ‘Cause he f*cked one of my little gals. Well, she was saying that he didn’t really f*ck her, you know, he too the p***y, you know what I’m saying? He got killed the next week so I didn’t have to worry about him. Motherf*ckers said they found him dead in the basement in a vacant home. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
That the apostle after Pentecost recognized and dealt with the denizens of the invisible World is evident both from the Acts of the Apostles and from references in the Epistles. During their three years’ training by the Lord, the disciples were being prepared for Pentecost and the exposure to the supernatural World resulting from the coming of the Holy Spirit. They had watched Jesus deal with the wicked spirits of Satan, and had themselves learned to deal with them too. So the power of the Holy spirit could be safely given at Pentecost to men who already knew the workings of the foe. We see how quickly Peter recognized Satan’s work in Ananias (Acts 5.3), and how unclean spirits came out at his presence even as they had with his Lord (Acts 5.16). Philip likewise found the evil hosts subservient to the word of his testimony (Acts 8.7) as he proclaimed Christ to the people. And Paul definitely knew the power of the name of the risen Lord (Acts 19.11) in dealing with the powers of evil. It is therefore clear from Christian Bible history that the manifestation of the power of God invariably meant active dealing with the satanic hosts; that the manifestation of the power of God at Pentecost, and through the apostles’ subsequent ministry, meant an aggressive attitude toward the powers of darkness. We can therefore conclude that growth and maturation of the Church at the end of the New Testament dispensation will require the same recognition and the same attitude toward these satanic hosts—with the same co-witness of the Holy Spirit to the authority of the name of Jesus—as was fond in the early Church. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
The Church of Christ will reach its high-water mark when it is able to recognize and deal with demon possession: when it knows how to “bind the strong man” by prayer and “command” the spirits of evil in the name of Christ, thus delivering men and women from their power. We want a theology which beats in rhythm with the pulse of modern life. Christian symbols must speak to and be understood by humans in present existential situation. Questions should spring from the depth and not the surface of existence, for we employ ontology. If one wants to know, one cannot escape ontology. Ontology removes us from those theologians who shun philosophy of any kind or who attempt to theologize in purely biblical categories. Ontology injects into our system a refreshing intellectual vigor and an antibody against narrowness. The result has unquestionably made a great contribution to the revival of metaphysical thinking within Protestant circles in our day. Since we represent the here and now existential situation, things tend to be vibrant, demanding, and so tends to steal the spotlight from the theological symbols which have already been on the stage for several thousand years. For us the Bible is not the unique source. The theological source, adequately understood, includes the history of the church, of religion, and of culture, for these are the areas in which revelation is received and expressed. Both Protestants and Catholics alike can profit from this enrichment of the wellsprings of theology in order to avoid the impoverishment of a narrow biblicism or of a cramped clerical view of the history of salvation. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
The goal is to restore to theology its oft neglected historical perspective with an amplitude that surpasses the commonly accepted notion of tradition. If the Christian Bible is not directly employed, its influence is present in every part of the system. The goal is to produce mountains of information about what it the Bible meant to the people at the time it was produced by trying to make it more relevant in modern examples. The theological norm is the New Being in Jesus as the Christ as our ultimate concern. Ultimate concern appears to be not just an accessory gadget, but the mainspring of the system. The moment or act in which one is grasped by the holy is a thunderstorm at night, when the lightning throws a blinding clarity over all things, leaving them in complete darkness the next moment. Reality is seen as something new. Its ground has become visible in an ecstatic experience, called “faith.” Faith is equated with the ultimate concern: Faith is a total and centered act of the personal self, the act of unconditional, infinite and infinite passion. Some people feel like they do not belong no matter where they go’ somehow, as always, they are left in the cold, alone, by themselves. And no matter how much they try to be themselves and have friends, and be alive; each time, their friends depart, go their own way, achieve their goal, and one is left alone. It may have always been that was since one was a child. Some kids play alone in the backyard, planting flowers and trees, or making patterns and designs with things they find in the backyard. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
One may remain alone, and play by oneself, build something, grow something, or paint with paint or draw crayon pictures—they would be all right; one would feel strong and better; night, silence, these would not bother one at all. However, some may have felt like they never belonged in their own family, even though they turned to them so very much. But every family needs an individual to look down on to make themselves feel better. They all need someone to talk about and make fun or, someone to depress and ruin. The goal is to create something in the aloneness, then one will be all right, and will not really be alone and will not really suffer, for in being alone, you can grow. Faith is ultimate concern and infinite passion. Consequently its all-consuming urgency requires that it be an act of total personality. Faith is not a special faculty nor is it a special function of man’s being. Faith involves the whole person, and thus it is the integrating factor which gives unity and direction to all man’s other concerns. In the fact of faith every nerve of man’s body, every striving of man’s soul, every function of man’s spirit participates. An infinite passion is all-pervading, and no area of man’s being can escape it: one’s body, for ultimate concern is passionate concern; one’s unconscious strivings, for they relate to the symbolic expression of faith; one’s conscious life, for faith concentrates man’s activities upon the object of ultimate concern. Because faith is such a centered act, its identification with any one function leads to what is called intellectualistic, voluntaristic, or emotionalistic distortion of faith. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
Since faith cannot spring from any of man’s spiritual functions, but implies a power which unites and transcends all of them, faith has a receptive character, its mere passivity in relation to the divine Spirit. This accords with the basic theology truth that in relation to God everything is by God. Man’s spiritual functions cannot attain the ultimate, although they tend toward it, but the ultimate can grasp all of these functions and raise them beyond themselves by the creation of faith. Although faith is in man, it is not from man. The passive character of faith has to be grasped. Faith is the state of being grasped by the ultimate concern. In contrast to this, faith healing is a psychological phenomenon of autosuggestion which emphasizes an act of intensive concentration and self-determination. However, nothing could be farther from the receptive character of genuine religious faith, the state of being grasped by the Spirit. Once a person has been grasped by the power of the ultimate, one possesses an absolute certainty of the fact which springs from an immediate awareness of it. In ecstasy, anxiety, an even in despair, one is as certain of the experience of the holy as one is of one’s own self. In fact, it is the self in its self-transcending quality. All this, of course, is on the subjective side of faith, for objectively there is always room for doubt about the content of faith. We may not grasp anything in depth of our uncertainty, but that we are grasped by something ultimate, which keeps us in its grasp and from which we may strive in vain to escape, remains absolutely certain. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Advances in science and technology have been so extraordinary since World War II they hardly need elaboration. If nothing had occurred but the invention of the computer and the discovery of DNA, the postwar period might still go down as the most revolutionary in scientific history. However, in fact, much more has happened. We have not only improved our technologies, we have begun to operate at deeper and deeper levels of nature, so that instead of dealing with gross chunks of matter, we can now create a layer of material so incredibly thin that the electrons in it are effectively moving in only two dimensions. We can etch lines that are only 20 billionths of a mete wide. We will soon be able to assemble things one atom at a time. This is not “progress,” but upheaval. The U.S. Nation Academy of Engineering in 1989 listed what it considered the ten most important engineering achievements of the previous twenty-five years. It began the list with the Apollo moon landing, which it ranked in history with the building of the Egyptian pyramids. Next came the development of satellites, micro-processors, lasers, the jumbo jet, genetically engineered products, and other breakthroughs. Since the beginning of the 1950s, when the new wealth-creation system began sprouting in the United States of America, humans, for the first time in history, opened the pathway to the stars, identified the biological program of life, and invented intellectual tools as important as writing. This is an astonishing set of achievements in what amounts to a single generation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
Nor is it only scientific or technological knowledge that has made, or is about to make, remarkable strides. In everything from organization theory to music, from the study of ecosystems to our understanding of the brain, in linguistics and learning theory, in studies of nonequilibrium, chaos, and dissipative structures, the knowledge base is being revolutionized. And even as this occurs, competing researchers in fields like neural networks and artificial intelligence are providing new knowledge about knowledge itself. These transformative advances, seemingly remote from the Worlds of diplomacy and politics, are in fact inescapably linked to today’s geopolitical eruptions. Knowledge is the “K-Factor” in global power struggles. Consider, for example, the implications of the knowledge factor for Soviet power Today’s historic powershift, as we have seen, has made two of the most basic sources of power—violence and wealth—increasingly dependent on the third source: knowledge. Because of the spread of knowledge-based technology and the relatively free circulation of ideas, the United States of America, Europe, and Japan have been able to leave the socialist nations in the dust economically. However, the same technology made possible a vast leap in military power as well. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
A fighter airplane today is the equivalent of a computer with wings. Its effectiveness depends almost entirely on the knowledge packed into its avionics and weaponry—and into its pilot’s brain. In 1982, Soviet military planners suffered a collective case of ulcers when eighty Soviet-built MiG fighters, flown by the Syrians, were destroyed by Israeli pilots, who lost not a single plane. Soviet-built tanks also did badly against Israeli armor. Even though the U.S.S.R. had brilliant military scientists, and nukes enough to incinerate the World, it could not keep place in the race toward super-high-technology conventional weapons or in the dash for strategic defense systems. The growing sophistication of information-based conventional weapons (which, in fact, are not conventional at all) threatened Soviet superiority on the ground in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, the extremely knowledge-intensive Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) threatened to negate the vale of Soviet long-range missiles. Critics of SDI complained that it would never work. However, the very possibility alarmed Moscow. If SDI could, in fact, block all Soviet nuclear missiles before they hit the United State of America, they were useless. That would also mean that the United States of America could launch a first-strike nuclear attack without fear of retaliation. If, on the other hand, as is more reasonable, SDI was only fractionally effective, blocking some but not all warheads, it would leave Soviet war panners wondering which fraction of U.S.A. missiles would survive. In either case, SDI raised the ante, and made theoretical Soviet use of nuclear weapons, never very likely, even riskier for Moscow. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
On the ground and in space, then, the Soviets confronted a double threat. Faced with these sobering realities, plus its own economic decline, Moscow rationally concluded that it could no longer protect its Eastern European perimeter militarily, except at an unacceptable and skyrocketing cost. For both economic and military reasons, therefore, a reduction of its imperial commitments became necessary. In the end, what did in the Soviets was not arms or economics, but the K-factor—the new knowledge on which both military strength and economic power are increasingly dependent. The same K-factor helps explain the fragmentation of “developing countries” and the rise of three distinct groupings among them. For example, once the most advanced economies began to shift to computer and information-based technologies, yielding higher value-added products, they transferred many of the old muscle-based, less information-intensive operations to countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and now to Thailand and other places. As Europe, Japan, and the United States of America moved to Third Wave tasks to another tier of nations. This speeded their industrialization and they left the other LDCs behind. (Many of these “newly industrialized economies,” or NIEs, in turn, are now racing to pawn off Second Wave processes on still poorer, more economically backward countries—along with the accompanying pollution and other disadvantages—while they, in turn, try to make the transition to more knowledge-intensive production.) The different speeds of economic development have separated the LDCs from one another. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
And as far the inter-capitalist rivalry among Europe, Japan, and the United States of America, the fabulous success of the U.S.A. postwar policy, which promoted the rebuilding of both the European and Japanese economies, helped both of them restore their shattered industrial structures. This meant the chance for a fresh start and the opportunity to replace old prewar machines with the shiniest new technology, while the United States of America, whose plants had not been bombed into rubble, still needed to amortize its existing industrial base. For a variety of reasons, including a future-oriented culture and the regional economic stimulation resulting from the Vietnam War, and, of course, because of the tremendous hard work and creativity of its postwar generation, Japan leaped ahead. Its eyes always focused on the 21st century, it culture always emphasizing the importance of education, business intelligence, and knowledge in general. Japan seized on the computer and all its derivatives in electronics and information technology with an almost erotic passion. The economic results as Japan transited from the old to the new system of wealth creation were stunning—but they threw Japan into inevitable competition with the United States of America. In turn, a terrified Europe launched its drive for economic and political integration, after years of dawdling. At every step, the new knowledge-based system of wealth creation has been either a majority contributor, or a primary cause of, the great historical shift of power now reshaping our World. There are global implications. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
A memory of a very recent past. Several years ago, amid heated debates about the undervalued yuan and China’s currency manipulation, one of America’s major TV channels interviewed an owner-manager of a stocks-making company. He was bitterly complaining that he would not keep afloat if yuan did not appreciate and Chinese-made socks continued to sell for some 65 cents a pair. I understood his feelings. However, the more I listened to his talk, the more I felt that he was not on the right track: The yuan appreciation, perhaps, might somewhat ease his pain for a certain period of time, but, unfortunately, could not provide a solution. According to various estimates, the yuan is currently undervalued by 40-60 percent. Even if a miracle happens and its exchange rate goes up 60 percent right away, cost differentials between China and the United States of America will remain significant, as the average wage of a Chinese worker in the manufacturing industries is currently less than one-seventh that of his U.S.A. colleague (and the socks-producing industry is hardly an exception). The mentality has to change. Time has come to realize the U.S.A.—based markers of socks for everyday use are no longer in a position to compete with their Chinese counterparts—be it at their domestic market or anywhere else. Furthermore, it is hardly relevant and desirable for America to force its consumers to pay more for their everyday-wear socks—not least because for many of them global competition exerts strong downward pressure on wages. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
One more example from the recent past. In the mid-2000s, U.S.A. bedroom furniture makers formed the American Furniture Manufacturer Committee for Legal Trade and began to press the government to give them protection from Chinese exports, insisting that they threatened “our way of life, our culture and the competitiveness of American in the World.” Really confusing. So high and passionate wording was obviously in contradiction with the harsh reality, namely the racket to buy protection. Chinese makers paid cash to their American competitors who had the right to as the U.S.A. Ministry Commerce to review important duties. References to values and culture are hardly relevant. It rather resembles the World depicted in The Godfather by Mario Puzo. Essentially, there is no more economic rationale of U.S.A. and other Wester-based factories to produce goods belonging to the first and also, increasingly, the second segment. This is the golden rule of the globalized economy. In a sense, they do not have the right to produce them (it is not about a legal right, of course, but about the right stemming from economic common sense, and maybe even about the moral right if you assume that producers have to serve the society—do they not?), because Chinese and other Third World factories can provide the same customer value at a lower price (to repeat—even if the yuan becomes 1.5 times or even twice as heavy as it is now). Consequently, Western governments basically do not have the “right” to protect such producers by higher tariffs and other means, because it will have the vast majority of their countries’ households. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
If you play by the rules of the globalized economy, the only genuine solution for a Western-based manufacturer can be a shift to the third or the fourth segment: product differentiation. Trying to compete with Chinese-made products on price is mostly meaningless. In today’s World, whether a Western-based factory has the “right” and rationale to continue operating, depends on its ability to produce differentiated products—preferably those that are in demand internationally because the domestic market may be too small. If you want to continue makings socks in the United States of America, try to make them character goods, think of a peculiar design attractive for particular groups of customers, bet on special features like high durability, sweat-absorbing ability, or whatever. It is advisable to shift from regular socks as a mass product to high-grade socks as a fashion item and to do your best to establish the brand. (This may be why so many people support labor from people who have immigrated illegally. It tends to be less expensive, they want to stay in business, and the labor tends to be more affordable, but it may displace American workers and reduce their wages.) If you want to produce bedroom furniture, develop strong attractive American brands, popular not only in the United States of America but also around the World and capable of competing with internationally recognized Italian, French, Spanish, or Swedish makers. Otherwise you are doomed to lose, and the yuan appreciation will not be of help. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
The emergence of China as a major competitor brings about a deep polarization in the global manufacturing industry, creating three groups of winners and one group of losers. The winners are Chinese domestic companies, Western multinationals using China as a production platform, and Western non-multinationals making differentiated, especially high-end products and increasing their exports to rapidly expanding markets in China and other developing countries. The losers are numerous unrecognizable non-multinational companies in the West making mass products: largely, but not only, small and medium-size firms. The key issue is how the latter can address the challenge and what policy can help them to succeed. The first option is to pursue aggressive product differentiation. To switch to the fourth segment, establishing a position as a high-end goods marker. If you are a domestic market-oriented company, development of external markets is indispensable to expand the range of customers. (I still think there is a market for trucks and cars without all the computers and windows you can roll up and down by hand and doors you have to individually lock, but everyone is focused on high-end only.) However, it is more easily said that done. Many Western businesses are simply unprepared for it both psychologically—lacking the will and persistence to work hard to achieve the goal—and organizationally: most of all due to the shortage of capable human resources, both at the managerial and the shop-floor level. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
Yes, the developed West has to make a very, very big step forward in human capacity building to train people capable of transforming its struggling companies and industries. The shift from mass to differentiated, especially high-end products making is usually a difficult and risky thing. You have to find or newly create your group of customers and appeal to them so that they become found of your brand name. You have to persuade people to pay more for every unit of your product than they did before. The number of buyers in your home country will inevitably become smaller, so you will have to expand or newly create your customer base overseas, including remote Third World countries whose markets are most dynamic. Most likely, you will have to make a tremendous effort and to bear a lot of expense to introduce more advanced technologies and more state-of-the-art equipment, to employ more high-skilled workers, to develop various products promotion channels, and so on—and you will have to do all this while you still remain in terra incognita, not knowing whether your potential customer will react in a beneficial way or not. The high-end product niches are usually already occupied by World-famous brand markers, which will make your mission even more challenging. Presumably, product differentiation, especially a shift to the fourth, high-end products segment, can be handled only by a small portion of Western companies, and those who fail to access the limited market space will be squeezed out or, for the best, will have to struggle to make ends meat. The process has already started. A narrow circle of successful Western factories are differentiating their products and establishing a strong global position—largely (but not only) in the high-end products segment, while most domestic producers, especially small and medium are either washed out or clutching to a straw. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
The overall number of manufacturers is falling. Take Japan, famous for its strong manufacturing base. On the one hand, a cohort of small and medium-size domestic manufacturers is successfully capturing or even monopolizing important niches of the global market due to their outstanding technological capabilities, vigorous quality control, dynamic innovation, and persistent market development in various parts of the World. Nippon Ceramic is the World leader in the production of infrared sensors for security systems. Teibo manufacturers about half of the World’s fiber pen nibs, praised by NASA for their ability to write in space. Nakashima Propeller controls that lion’s share of the global market for supersize screws for ships, and JAMCO for the lavatories for passenger planes. On the other hand, the overall number of manufacturing companies is decreasing, including companies belonging to the famous manufacturing clusters, like Ota Ward in Tokyo or Higashi-Osaka (Easter Osaka) in the Osaka Prefecture. Traditionally, clusters of this kind generated strong synergy effects stemming from regular intercompany interactions and networking, and contributed a lot to the country’s competitiveness in manufacturing. However, as much as 40 percent of the companies in those cluster areas closed down almost 40 years ago. Lots of manufacturers are frustrated. For instance, Japanese mold models (prototypes that produce objects) makers who were World leaders some 10 or even 5 years ago, are now facing strong competition from Chinese and Korean rivals, which appears to be very difficult if not impossible to overcome. In real life, more and more small entrepreneurs and their employees are left with no choice but to retreat and accept low-paid jobs in the service sector or even to shift (back?) to such traditional occupations as fishing to earn their living. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
With accents of elegance, spacious living areas, and convenient workspaces, Millhaven Homes offers beautiful features that will surely capture your interest and imagination.
If you are considering building a custom home with us, please fill out the information below and we will reach out to you to schedule an introductory meeting. https://millhavenhomes.com/get-started/
You’ll have more time to do the things you love while relaxing into your new lifestyle and enjoying your new home community.
Randolph Harris II International Institute 