The USA's Midwest is about to suffer massive heat wave as it celebrates its Independence Day with many sporting events, stifling humidity, record temperatures, and lots of high-pollution (particulate matter of 10 microns or less) fireworks displays, including Dictator Trump's Washington DC circus spectacular. Claims are that this will be the single biggest detonation of firecrackers and hand bombs in the history of the country (not counting its many "shock and awe" displays over the head of other countries the imperialist USA was dominating and illegally bombing and occupying and robbing blind).
It occurs to us that this whole "summer" thing is a social construct. It is. What does "summer" mean. There are all those associations and connotations, but everyone knows it's when the sun's out, the clothes are mostly off, school is on break, and there's going to be a vacation, road trip, partying, and just plain old hanging around, maybe making some money.
It's a break from the routine. It's time away from the prison of the school system and the [bleep] warden who thinks s/he runs the place. Think of Project X or American Graffiti. Ah, summer, there's nothing like it. And this is Southern California, so all the more reason.
We say summer begins when school lets out. That was a week or two ago. Like gender assignment, who needs an objective measure? Well, many people do. And so we have the solstice, the astronomical measure that seems so scientific. But every American knows that summer begins on Memorial Day(May 25); that's the social reality overriding whatever others try to say is only objective and nothing else. It's both.
It runs through Labor Day (the unofficial end), a fake American holiday to remove Americans from the worldwide Labor Movement and May Day (May 1st), which idealistic socialists fight for, collectivists dream of, and New Age communists and college Marxists cheer for.
Prices start at $2,000 and go up to $6,300, all under $10,000!
The cheapest car in the U.S. today (was the discontinued Mercedes' Smart car at $24,000 then the Nissan Versa at $18,000) is now the Nissan Sentra at $23,000.
Average new car in U.S. costs $50,000.
The model shown here, the Bestune Pony, is only $4,800 (the Playful Pony), the Petite Pony ($6,300)
(Frankie Norstad) April 22, 2025: Frankie Norstad sits down with Laurie Scott, founder of Regrow Altadena—a grassroots project literally rooted in healing. What began with a rescued pothos [popular houseplant] and a shelf of propagated succulents has blossomed into a powerful community effort to re-green the landscape of Altadena, one plant at a time. Scott shares how this initiative grew from personal loss and a deep love of gardening into a broader mission to reconnect neighbors with nature, hope, and each other. Together, they talk about everything from soil remediation and native plants to the quiet grief of losing more than just a house—like the beloved garden pots passed down from family or the fig tree that somehow survived. It's a conversation about rebuilding not just structures, but ecosystems, memory, and meaning. For anyone looking for tangible ways to nurture resilience and re-root themselves, this episode is a beautiful place to begin.
Focus: This panel looks at how communities can strengthen resilience by building and sharing assets—whether it’s local knowledge, renewable solar power, water cisterns, public gardens, or neighborhood fire detection systems. We’ll explore how these shared resources not only improve safety and sustainability but can also generate new streams of community revenue. Panelists will discuss models that turn community-owned assets into long-term economic drivers, keeping value circulating locally while protecting against climate and infrastructure risks.
People-Focused Mobility – Saturday 9/13 at 6:00 pm
My mobility is more important than my marriage
Focus: How we move shapes how we live. This session explores the future of mobility in Altadena, from safer walking and biking infrastructure to accessible public transit and EV adoption. Panelists will share visions for reducing traffic, improving safety, and creating people-first streets that connect neighborhoods, support local businesses, and reduce emissions. The discussion will highlight how mobility can be both sustainable and deeply rooted in community needs.
Building Better – Saturday 9/13 at 6:30 pm
How tiny is big enough? Love of natural wood
Focus: This panel highlights innovations in resilient and affordable building design. From modular homes and ADUs to climate-ready retrofits, panelists will share strategies for rebuilding smarter, faster, and with long-term sustainability in mind. We’ll explore how fire-resistant materials, energy-efficient systems, and equity-centered planning can create housing that not only shelters families but also supports healthier, stronger neighborhoods.
Light Equity – Saturday 9/13 at 6:45 pm
Taming urban light pollution is very important.
Focus: Street lighting is more than infrastructure—it’s about safety, connectivity, and community well-being. This panel will look at how next-generation lighting can reduce energy costs, improve public safety, and expand access to digital connectivity. Panelists will discuss how “light equity” ensures that all neighborhoods, regardless of income or geography, benefit from resilient infrastructure—empowering communities through solar-powered lights, Wi-Fi hotspots, and adaptive lighting that protects people and ecosystems.
Sunday workshops
Future Altadena – Sunday, 9/14 at 5:00 pm
How will we get around in the future?
Focus: This panel explores how Altadena’s unique history of neighborhood identity and grassroots organizing shapes its path forward. We’ll discuss the role of micro-communities in building resilience, how thoughtful commercial and economic development can strengthen local identity, and what lessons from Altadena’s past can guide a more equitable and sustainable future. Panelists will share perspectives on housing, small business growth, cultural preservation, and creating opportunities that reflect Altadena’s diverse community fabric.
Clean & Healthy Living – Sunday 9/14 at 5:00 pm
Good food's sustainable food that's healthy for all
Focus: Resilience is not just about surviving disasters—it’s about thriving every day. This conversation will focus on health, wellness, and sustainability in daily community life. Panelists will discuss the links between clean energy, indoor air quality, access to green space, and healthy foods. Together, we’ll imagine how Altadena can ensure all residents benefit from a cleaner, healthier, and more equitable future.
Focus: As climate threats intensify, protecting the home has become a frontline strategy for community resilience. This session will examine practical approaches to “hardening” homes against fire, flood, and extreme heat. Panelists will cover everything from defensible space design to roofing, insulation, and retrofits that reduce risk and save money. We’ll also look at programs and funding streams that make these upgrades more accessible for at-risk households.
Focus: Fire risk and rising heat are reshaping how communities manage their landscapes. This panel explores how native vegetation, shaded corridors, and green infrastructure can reduce wildfire risk while lowering urban heat. Panelists will discuss approaches to land stewardship that balance ecological health with public safety, and how residents can turn yards, parks, and public spaces into buffers against fire and extreme temperatures.
Light Equity – Sunday 9/14 at 7:00 pm
What can one person do? Plant seeds?
Focus: Street lighting is more than infrastructure—it’s about safety, connectivity, and community well-being. This panel will look at how next-generation lighting can reduce energy costs, improve public safety, and expand access to digital connectivity. Panelists will discuss how “light equity” ensures that all neighborhoods, regardless of income or geography, benefit from resilient infrastructure—empowering communities through solar-powered lights, Wi-Fi hotspots, and adaptive lighting that protects people and ecosystems.
Mysterious Old World: Sumerians, did they invent everything? They claim to have invented nothing. It was all given to them by the Anunnaki, those who came from the sky. Ask Zecharia Sitchin. But 6,000 years ago and longer, in a place called Sumer (reminiscent of Mt. Sumeru in Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain cosmology), there lived a people in Mesopotamia doing miraculous things they should not have been able to do.
No one seems to have told the rest of the country, but where the sun sets (West Coast), the sun rose this morning to a new spring. Everything is green and sunny, cool and moist, and a person's thoughts lilt towards thoughts of
The Spring Equinox, also known as the vernal equinox, is one of the four solar festivals of the year. The equinox — which translates roughly in Latin to “equal night” — is when the sun sits vertically above the equator, making day and night equal across the planet.
The Spring Equinox officially marks the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and there are celebrations around the world to usher in longer days and springtime. [This is the real traditional New Year's Day, when the Earth (Tierra, Gaia, Bhumi) renews herself in preparation for another cycle.]
In some cultures, this day also marks the beginning of the new year, which in Iranian (original Aryan) culture is called Nowruz. The Spring Equinox is a brilliant time for new beginnings [like maybe a nice spring cleaning], no matter how one celebrates on March 20th.
This is the best time to begin a regular meditation practice, graduating to walking meditation, mindfulness in nature, and deep stillness to see things as they really are.
An outfit just for practice helps.
Do the basics: Put on all white. Find a quiet spot apart from distractions. Use this spot over and over again. It becomes powerful. Set down a mat and cushion (a bundle of leaves or grass is enough to get the tailbone higher than the knees). Sit. Inhale deeply. Release. Do it again a few times, without forcing the air out. It's just about letting go completely, so completely that the body hangs as if held up by a clothing hanger, not stiff, not slack.
You're a baby in white, so go easy.
Straighter is more comfortable, even though it doesn't seem like it at first. Posture is important to attention. Bring (advert) the attention to the present moment, this moment, and to stay in just this moment, remain aware of the breath. Which breath? This breath, just the one happening now all by itself. Become the watcher (not the commenter, fixer, improver, slowdowner, or anything else), just the watcher. This is mindfulness -- clear awareness of the present without evaluation.
Whoa, what a trip! What was that? I want that again!
Set a time limit in advance and keep it. Even if it would be nice to go longer because it is going so well, know the time of rising. Even if it is going horribly with raving lunatic thoughts of a psychopath with lurid fantasies and wrath, lust and revenge, delusion and a lightshow, know the time of rising. The mind will thank you later.
Ten minutes is a good start time, slowly working up to an hourlong sit. That seems impossible now, but in time, whaddyaknow, it suddenly is possible. What changed? I'dunno. This practice is about persistence. It does itself and then there is no effort. The enemies of that are expectations, unsettled greed or desire for achieving something, and the Five Hindrances. They will come to hinder. They are already present. They can be overcome. But whether or not they have been overcome, persist. This is spring. This is the beginning. Have "beginner's mind" in place of the "monkey mind" that usually rules the cage. Smile. It helps.
Instructions are confusing because it's so simple.
It is easy to say that "meditation is NOT about thinking." That's clear. That's easy to see. Don't indulge thought; just let them be by turning your attention to this subtle breath that keeps changing. What is difficult to grasp is that "meditation is NOT about not-thinking." Not-thinking may happen. It doesn't matter. As that is not the goal, if it doesn't happen, it's okay. Giving attention to one object and bringing attention back and back again and again ("Begin again" as Sharon Salzberg says) is what is important.
Feed me, Phone-Momma! Feed me more!!
The mind like a petulant and insolent child will resist. Let it. Bring it back. Do not scold it or become upset. Let it be. Surrender completely to this moment, whatever is in this moment, not being moved to do anything no matter what the mind says it must do. See what happens. Could the mind be wrong no matter what it feels or demands or insists is true?
How did Siddhartha Gautama do it?
We'll never see things as they really are so long as we keep believing that we already are seeing them that way. We have never been seeing them that way. If we had, we'd awaken. We'd be enlightened, which is to say, Dependent Origination would make sense. And it doesn't, does it? (Hint: It's a practice, not a theory). That's a whole different kind of meditation called insight (vipassana) after getting good at this kind, which is called serenity (samatha). Don't jump ahead. Let it go. (If all else fails, sign up for a free 10-day Goenka retreat. Everyone should do at least one in life).
When you think of pyramids, you think of Mexico, home of the largest known pyramid (Cholula) or maybe Bosnia and Indonesia with their mountain-sized pyramids that science is reluctant to certify as manmade structures. Maye it's Sudan, the country with the greatest number of pyramids. Sudan? (Which country has the most pyramids? It’s not Egypt | IFLScience). Formerly Buddhist Indonesia not only has an ancient and massive pyramid, it also has a Buddhist pyramid in the largest excavated Buddhist temple complex in the world, Java's Borobudur with its mysterious "bell" stupas atop it, each with a time traveling Buddha statue built inside it. It's very mysterious, with a pyramidal volcano in the distant mist. Egypt? Oh, yeah, the Giza Plateau has some famous African structures. There may even be more in the surrounding countries, showing how prolific a great people in the past were in passing on their technology and architectural expertise. They may not have been Earthlings or fully what we call human. But whoever built them, they must serve a purpose, like the black power plant in Alaska, that impossible structure in Antarctica, the one on Mars and maybe the Moon and a few other planets...what's going on? What were these magnificent buildings really for? The USA has some, too, across from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula in a place called Cahokia. Lop the tops off and no one takes notice, but keep or restore the points, then suddenly they stand out like sore mysteries demanding explanation, like those superannuated structures in the Grand Canyon that keep the name but are eroding away. Okay, okay, so what if Mexico was mad about making pyramids? And Egypt, and mostly Sudan, so what? But China?
These prehistoric Chinese pyramids in China should NOT exist
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Universe Inside You, Feb. 11, 2025; CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
A rare alignment of all the planets is about to take place. Make sure to catch it
(The Secrets of the Universe) Jan. 10, 2025: This January, six of the seven planets in our solar system will be visible at the same time. Among them, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn will be easy to spot with the naked eye, putting on a show that’s perfect for stargazers of all levels.
But it gets even better. In February, this planetary alignment will turn into a seven-planet parade, with Mercury joining the lineup — an event so rare that it’s a must-see for anyone fascinated by the local cosmos.
Visit bit.ly/sotumova and get 10% off on 6-inch and 8.5-inch MOVA Globes with code SOTU. How this content was made: Auto-dubbed
audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated. Learn more
On the barren, cold expanses of Mars, a discovery has rocked the scientific world. The recent Mars rover unmanned mission has uncovered mud formations that tell tales of wet and dry spells spanning millions of years.
Could this revelation enhance the argument for life having existed on Mars? According to the research paper titled "Sustained wet-dry cycling on early Mars" published in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Nature, the answer looks promising.
At the core of this breakthrough is the discovery of distinctive hexagonal patterns. These shapes, as scientists understand them, emerge when regions experience extended periods of wetness followed by prolonged dryness.
While it's been acknowledged that Mars holds remnants of dried rivers, lakes, and even seas -- a testament to its once wet environment -- the finding that Mars underwent wet-dry cycles multiple times potentially revolutionizes our understanding of the planet's past and its suitability for life.
Related stories: New study sheds light on origins of life on Earth
New discovery substantially rewrites history of life on Earth, scientists find Origins of Life?
Scientists create RNA molecule that follows Darwinian evolution
[Is or was there life on Mars? Of course there was and is, and the U.S. government knows it, and Andrew D. Basiago told us all about it, as did Enterprise Mission Hoagland, and the NASA photos before being smudged, scrubbed, and deleted. The humanoid life is now underground because of the atmosphere, but it is inhabited. And it may also have interdimensional beings, too.]
William Rapin, the lead researcher of the study and a distinguished scientist at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Toulouse, France, commented, “We now have for the first time vestiges of times that could have been conducive to the origin of life.” More: NASA's Curiosity Rover may have found evidence of life on Mars
The lies in the skies exposed: “He who controls the weather controls the world.”
FrankenSkies is an 80-minute social change documentary regarding the solar geoengineering and chemtrail agenda that affects every living being on earth.
The struggle of bringing awareness to this subject, despite the obstacles of a socially engineered populace and the military-industrial complex with its endless resources, is palpable in this awakening truth feature.
A well-timed, eye-opening exposé, this film reveals the campaign to normalize chemical cloud formations through atmospheric aerosol dispersals.
Up against a normalization timetable encompassing a controlled media and an indoctrinated educational and political system, activists ask the question: Are you consenting by your silence?
A shocking and informative documentary on climate engineering, frequency control, and CIA manipulation, the film’s narrative unfolds through a historical timeline of experimentation on humanity, bringing us to a modern-day lab that encompasses the air we breathe and dictates when and where the sun shines or fails to shine… More: frankenskies.com
Beware: Agenda 2030 is coming!
Also see Geoengineering Watch (on chemtrails, aerosol dispersing, climate management)
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