Misconceptions and Revelations

The terms “AM” and “PM” are so ingrained in our daily lives that few of us stop to consider their true origins or meanings. Yet, misconceptions abound, with some of the most popular yet incorrect beliefs being that “AM” stands for “After Midnight” and “PM” means “Past Midday.” These interpretations, while intuitive, do not align with historical facts​.​

In reality, “AM” and “PM” derive from Latin terms used in ancient timekeeping. “AM” stands for “Ante Meridiem,” meaning “before midday,” and “PM” translates as “Post Meridiem,” or “after midday.” This system divides the 24-hour day into two 12-hour segments, crucial for distinguishing between morning and afternoon times in a clear and organized manner​.

Social media, especially platforms like TikTok, have played a significant role in spotlighting these misconceptions. For instance, a TikTok video questioning the meanings of AM and PM went viral, illustrating the widespread curiosity and varying degrees of misunderstanding about these commonplace terms​.

Despite their clarity, the use of AM and PM can sometimes lead to confusion, particularly around the transitions of noon and midnight. The terms themselves do not logically apply to these moments—midnight isn’t after midday, nor is noon before it. Thus, to avoid ambiguity, it’s recommended to refer to these times simply as “12 noon” and “12 midnight” instead of using 12 AM or 12 PM, which can lead to misinterpretations​.

Social Media Spotlight

The exploration of AM and PM found a new audience on TikTok, where a post by Amaya Clarke unexpectedly vaulted these timekeeping abbreviations into viral fame. The simple question, “What do AM and PM mean?” resonated with millions, sparking a flood of replies and shares as users expressed their astonishment and humor upon learning the actual meanings of these everyday terms​.

Amaya’s video, highlighted with a playful tone and genuine curiosity, captivated a diverse audience, illustrating the power of social media to educate while entertaining. The responses varied widely, with some users playfully admitting their previous misunderstandings, such as assuming AM stood for “After Midnight” or PM as “Past Midday,” underscoring the common misconceptions surrounding these terms​.

This instance on TikTok not only brought to light the widespread lack of awareness about the Latin origins of ante meridiem (AM) and post meridiem (PM) but also underscored the platform’s role in disseminating knowledge and sparking dialogue across a global audience. The interaction highlights a fascinating aspect of digital culture: social media’s ability to transform mundane topics into engaging discussions that reach across different cultures and time zones​.

Practical Guidance and Timekeeping Anomalies

Navigating the nuances of the 12-hour clock, particularly around the ambiguous times of 12 AM and 12 PM, requires clear communication and a good grasp of timekeeping principles. The confusions surrounding “midnight” and “noon” can lead to practical issues in scheduling and planning. Here are some strategies to minimize misunderstandings:

1. Use Clear Designations: Instead of referring to 12 AM or 12 PM, it’s advisable to use “midnight” and “noon.” This avoids the ambiguity since neither 12 AM nor 12 PM clearly belongs to the periods before or after midday.
2. Adopt the 24-Hour Clock: For clarity, especially in professional and international contexts, using the 24-hour clock (or military time) eliminates confusion. Midnight is represented as 00:00, and noon as 12:00, making it clear which part of the day is being referred to​.
3. Double-Check and Confirm Times: When scheduling appointments or meetings, especially with participants across different time zones, confirm the intended times explicitly. This helps ensure everyone is on the same page and reduces the risk of missed or misaligned commitments​.
4. Educational Efforts: Ongoing education on the proper use of AM and PM and the benefits of the 24-hour clock can help mitigate common confusions. Many digital tools and devices default to the 24-hour format, supporting this transition and helping users adapt to a more precise method of timekeeping.
5. Practical Tools and Digital Assistance: Utilizing digital calendars and scheduling tools that support the 24-hour format can help avoid ambiguity. These tools often offer the option to display times in both 12-hour and 24-hour formats, allowing users to choose the one that best suits their needs and reduces errors in time interpretation.

Beyond AM and PM: A Journey Through Timekeeping

The journey of timekeeping stretches back thousands of years, marking a profound evolution from ancient civilizations to modern technologies. Initially, humans relied on natural phenomena like the position of the sun to measure time. Sundials, which use the sun’s shadow to indicate time, were among the earliest devices, with evidence of their use in ancient Egypt as far back as 1500 BCE. These early methods provided a rudimentary means of dividing the day but were limited to daylight hours​.

As civilizations advanced, the need for more precise timekeeping led to significant innovations. Mechanical clocks, first appearing in Europe during the 14th century, marked a pivotal shift. These clocks, driven by weights and regulated by a verge-and-foliot escapement, were initially installed in towers of Italian cities. Despite their improvements over sundials, they were not very accurate due to the variable force and friction affecting their mechanisms​.

The introduction of the pendulum clock by Christiaan Huygens in 1656 revolutionized accuracy in mechanical clocks, achieving an error of less than one minute per day. This was a drastic improvement from earlier mechanical clocks, which could be off by several minutes a day. The refinement of clock mechanics continued with developments like the balance wheel and the spring assembly, allowing for the creation of portable watches​.

The 20th century saw another significant advancement with the introduction of quartz watches. Quartz crystals, due to their piezoelectric properties, vibrate at a consistent frequency when voltage is applied, providing a highly accurate and stable base for timekeeping. This development pushed forward the popularity of digital watches and devices, integrating precise timekeeping into everyday electronics like cellphones and computers​.

Today, atomic clocks represent the pinnacle of precision, utilizing the microwave signals emitted by electrons in atoms as they change energy levels. Atomic clocks are so precise that they will be off by less than a second over millions of years, making them indispensable in fields like GPS technology and international timekeeping standards​.

As we look to the future, the integration of new technologies such as optical clocks, which use light frequencies to measure time, promise even greater accuracy and may redefine how we understand and measure the second yet again​.

This rich history of timekeeping not only highlights human ingenuity but also underscores our persistent quest to measure and understand time with ever-greater accuracy.

Time’s Tapestry: Reflecting on Our Temporal Journey

As we trace the lineage of timekeeping from the rudimentary shadow clocks of ancient civilizations to the sophisticated atomic clocks of today, we gain not only a deeper understanding of our technological advancements but also of the human desire to capture and manage the intangible essence of time. The journey from sundials to atomic and optical clocks is not just about technological innovation; it’s about the ever-evolving relationship we have with time itself.

Our exploration of timekeeping reveals a narrative woven with threads of necessity, ingenuity, and aspiration. The progression from observing celestial bodies to harnessing the regular vibrations of quartz, and ultimately to counting the precise oscillations of atoms, shows a trajectory marked by increasing precision and reliability. This pursuit is driven by our need to bring order to our lives, to navigate the world and the cosmos, and to sync up with one another in an interconnected global village.

The future of timekeeping promises even more remarkable advancements. With potential developments in quantum timekeeping and further enhancements in optical clock technology, our grasp on time will continue to tighten, allowing for even more precise synchronization of global activities and navigation systems. These improvements will undoubtedly open new frontiers in science, exploration, and daily life.

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” ~Attributed to Benjamin Franklin

“Well-armed” doesn’t necessarily need to mean militantly locked and loaded. It can just as easily be a higher consciousness metaphor for knowledge. Indeed, a well-armed lamb is a knowledgeable lamb. As Doctor Who said, “You want weapons. Go to a library. Books are the best weapons in the world.”

A well-armed lamb can eventually transform into a lion. In a world of blind obedience to authority, it takes a particular flavor of courage (mostly the courage to question authority) to wake up the blindly obedient (sheep) to the extent of their ignorance, and to poke holes in the unhealthy, unsustainable and violent power constructs (sick society) built by entrenched authority.

The blindly obedient are the lambs. The entrenched authority are the wolves. And the uncommonly courageous are the lions.

As stated in the movie Robin Hood, “Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions.”

MAGA is MAFA:

“Beware of the good and the just! They like to crucify those who invent their own virtue for themselves.” ~Nietzsche

Making America Great Again is Making America Free Again. The only thing that is truly anti-American is anti-freedom. Lambs and wolves are afraid of freedom for different reasons.

Lambs are afraid to lose their comfort, security and safety, and thus cling to it at the expense of freedom. Wolves are afraid to lose their power and are intent upon keeping everyone divided and afraid so that they can maintain their overreaching power. The lion breaks the vicious cycle with small and large acts of courage by checking the entrenched (and thus corruptible) power of wolves.

But how does a lamb transform fear into courage and thus become the brave lion who is capable of keeping wolves in check? The lamb must first put itself in check by questioning why it believes what it believes about the way the world works.

The lamb must ask itself: Are my beliefs merely culturally conditioned by a sick society? Have I been brainwashed into believing a certain way by a religion or political party? Do I just blindly obey out of fear of losing my comfort, safety and security? And, most importantly of all, once I realize I’ve been mistaken, will I cease being mistaken or will I cease being honest?

It’s a tricky tightrope between fear and courage, and the menacing maw of the abyss is ever-present beneath it. The way toward freedom is not for the faint of heart. Which is probably why there are so few lions among men.

A lamb that can manage to question its fear-based lifestyle –which is built upon blind obedience, addiction to comfort, and reliance on wolves to keep them “safe”– is a lamb that has the potential to become, at least, a well-armed lamb, if not a courageous lion.

If a lamb can manage to become a well-armed lamb or to transform itself into a courageous lion, then the next step is to show its teeth (knowledge/courage) to the world.

Shove the first amendment down everyone’s throat:

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” ~John F. Kennedy

The First Amendment gives every American the right to “petition his government for a redress of grievances.” No matter the seeming “goodness” or “righteousness” of that government.

Freedom begins with individuals being free to express themselves. An individual who chooses to remain blindly obedient and silent to unchecked power is an unfree lamb. An individual who chooses to question the chain of obedience with the knowledge it has gained is a well-armed lamb contesting power. An individual who is willing to put everything on the line to maintain freedom in the face of tyranny is a courageous lion.

The beauty of the first amendment is that it maintains the essence of freedom: free expression. Without it, there can be no liberty. Without it, there can only be tyranny.

Well-armed lambs and courageous lions are able to take advantage of the first amendment as a platform for speaking truth to power.

Whether through peaceful protests (Thoreau’s civil disobedience), or revolutionary speeches (MLK jr./ JFK), or hard-hitting political articles, or even radical eye-opening art; the first amendment is a platform for freedom. It must be protected at all costs.

Free speech should never be controlled by an authority. No matter how popular that authority. Free speech is paramount for freedom to exist at all. As John W. Whitehead said, “If the government can control speech, it can control thought, and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry.”

Lest we become a nation of mindless sheep, free speech must be protected at all costs against the wolves who seek to muzzle lambs. It is protected by well-armed lambs and courageous lions with the mettle and the wherewithal to speak truth to power.

Don’t kowtow to the chain of obedience (but don’t be violent either):

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” ~Henry David Thoreau

Never confuse patriotism with blind obedience. Many a cowardly lamb makes this mistake. And many a cowardly wolf uses it to lord power over lambs.

Sometimes being a true patriot means questioning power. Especially if that power is violent, unjust, and overreaching. As Barbara Ehrenreich said, “Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.”

Don’t allow yourself to be brainwashed into believing that everything the government does is for the good and anyone who opposes the government is an enemy.

The government is made up of people. And people are fallible. Likewise, the state. Likewise, the chain of obedience. As Edward Abbey wisely stated, “Since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.”

There must be checks and balances. Fallible individuals checking the power of systems made up of other fallible individuals is the only way to prevent the power within those fallible systems from becoming corrupt. Let alone from corrupting absolutely.

It is vital that whatever we are freeing ourselves for, and whatever freedom we are advocating for, does not violate the nonaggression principle. A truly virtuous system is never directly violent. It is only ever violent in self-defense. The moment a so-called virtuous system becomes directly violent it ceases to be virtuous.

The only moral exception to this fact is when violence is necessary to defend against direct violence –and, even then, only as a last resort. Any attempt to use violence to force others into compliance is a violation of the nonaggression principle and therefor unvirtuous and unfit for either well-armed lambs or courageous lions.

Only cowardly lambs would ever advocate violence as a means toward solving problems. And only cowardly wolves high on power would ever use it to solve problems.

Don’t be a cowardly lamb or a cowardly wolf. Rise above the “need” for safety and security at the expense of freedom and liberty. Become a well-armed lamb contesting all votes and proactively voting with your feet. Better yet, become a courageous lion and dare to become a brave David in the face of the hyperviolent Goliath of the state.

Find the nearest mirror. Look deeply into it. There, hidden within that fabulously flawed human being staring back at you, is the greatest teacher you will never know.

Yes. It’s yourself. And yes, you will never really know it.

The famous inscription at the Temple of Delphi, “know thyself,” is ultimately unattainable. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to obtain it. Enlightenment is equally unattainable, but there’s nothing wrong with striving for it. Self-improvement is still healthy regardless of the fact that you will never be perfect. Socrates’ dictum still stands: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Examining your own life is always going to begin with your interpretation of it. So it behooves you to align your interpretation of it with reality. Easier said than done. Because examining the self is a tricky proposition. The Self is an elusive mystery. It’s masks all the way down perceiving illusions all the way up.

The trickiest part is that only you can experience these masks and illusions. Nobody else can experience them for you. They are subjective. Your experience of them will always be primary to anyone’s interpretation of them. Not even the best shrink in the world can know them as well as you can.

That’s what makes self-examination, and the self-realization that comes from it, so important. Therapists are, at best, guides. Self-therapy is what a therapist directs you towards anyway. So, you might as well make that attempt to begin with. A therapist is good for keeping you on track and preventing you from getting stuck, but there’s nothing saying you cannot learn strategies to do it yourself.

There’s nothing saying you cannot be your own greatest teacher. The autodidact inside you is calling.

Learn your own nature by learning about Mother Nature:

“There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.” ~Rumi

The most powerful way to hear the “voice that doesn’t use words” is through solitude and meditation. Out away from the things of man, where No-mind is free to remind you that you are a force of nature first and a human being second.

This is perhaps the most powerful strategy for teaching your Self to yourself. Solitude and meditation teaches a particular flavor of humility that gets you over your own ego (codependence) and puts you in touch with the interconnectedness of all things (interdependence). It teaches you how not to take yourself too seriously. When you unbecome yourself, you become everything. You’re free to experience interdependence despite culturally conditioned codependence.

Allowing Nature to become your teacher cuts the uninitiated ego out of the equation and then sneaks in the initiated ego, which utilizes Soul as a tool to leverage a heightened state of awareness. From this heightened state comes the deep interdependent realization that everything is connected to everything else.

In this heightened state of eco-melting your third eye opens, your crown chakra blooms in full flutter, and your oneness with all things becomes paramount. You are suddenly out of your own way. You are free to learn what you must learn. You are free to become what you must become.

The cure for the pain is in the pain:

“Doctors study medicine. Teachers study education. Healers study darkness.” ~Mark Lundy

Just as you are your greatest teacher, you are also your greatest healer. Know thyself and heal thyself are reciprocal properties. Mother Nature teaches you this first. Pain teaches you this second.

Pain is inevitable. It’s a part of life. Avoiding pain just causes more pain. Ignoring or repressing pain just causes unnecessary suffering. Although pain is inevitable, unnecessary suffering is avoidable.

As long as you’re able to learn from the pain, it can be a steppingstone. Seen in this way, pain can be an initiation into wisdom (a sacred wound), and a flourishing into Eudaimonia. Which can be quite pleasurable.

Growth is painful (think: exercise and endurance training). Change is even more painful (think: puberty and vicissitude). But being stuck is arguably the greatest pain of all (think: the unnecessary suffering of unhealthy and inauthentic living).

Pain is a guide, a powerful teacher. And if you can gain the capacity to recognize the guideposts and learn the lessons that Pain provides, you will be more adept at adapting and more likely to grow into a healthier version of yourself.

The Daemonic and the Demonic:

“To learn to creatively live with the daemonic or be violently devoured by it. We will decide our own destiny. Let us choose wisely.” ~Stephen Diamond

The daemonic is the hidden genius within you: your latent creativity. The demonic is the hidden shadow within you: your repressed darkness. Ignore them at your own peril.

The daemon harbors vital knowledge and deep numen. It is your genius loci, your inspiring force, your attendant spirit, your guiding power. It is the quintessential teacher inside you.

It dwells in the fire of your passions, in your love and your anger, in your longing and your jealousy, in your happiness and your sadness. If you conform to your cultural conditioning and ignore or suppress its presence, these passions will eventually transform from a daemonic passion into a demonic rage, with potentially devastating results.

Hence the importance of reconciling the shadow. You do this by making the darkness conscious. By paying attention to your deepest wounds. Becoming curious with your deep wounds is honoring them with your attention. If you’re able to honor your wounds, then you will be more likely to reconcile your demons.

It’s not so much that you’ll suffer less but that you’ll suffer better. You will become healthier in the ways that you suffer. And with the demon as your diamond-backed ally, you add a streak of fierceness to your teaching/learning that can be revolutionary.

Have a good sense of humor about your own fallibility:

“Life is a matter of oscillation. Life is vibration. The question is: how are you going to interpret that. Is it tremble, tremble, tremble; or is it laugh, laugh, laugh?” ~Alan Watts

Laughter is the best medicine. It’s salve for the soul. Laughter reduces pain, forms deep social bonds, fosters brain connectivity, acts as an effective antidepressant, and protects the heart. Besides all these scientific benefits, laughter is flat out enjoyable.

It usually happens when you are having fun. But it is also a vital tool to use in the face of tragedy, fallibility and mortality.

Nothing is more powerful and courageous than laughter in the face of that which seeks to destroy you. Allow your humor to shine even as your soul is breaking under the heavy weight of cosmic nihilism. Allow it to blaze through the cracks of having fallen apart and come back together again. As Charlie Chaplin said, “Smile, though your heart is aching.”

Embrace the fact that you are a stumbling naked ape, fumbling over your barely evolved brain. You’re an anxious mammal with a mortal coil. You’re an insatiable beast with improbable reach. You might imagine that you are a mature, evolved being who is above baser animal instincts, but you’re not.

When it comes down to it, you represent a laughably young species attempting to evolve on an extremely old planet which is hurtling through an unfathomably ancient universe. In the grand scheme of things, you are a member of a floundering baby of a species.

Having a good sense of humor is embracing your own fallibility. It’s accepting that you are prone to mistakes; that you are imperfect, and always will be. It’s injecting a little humility into your human-biased disposition.

Mastering the self is mastering humility and humor. It’s embracing absurdity in a heroic sense. One is both humbled and empowered by a good sense of humor. The shadow’s “gold” and the “secret elixir” are then more easily excavated, and brought forth to others, despite the absurd experience of being a creature torn between spirit and flesh, mortality and eternity, tragedy and comedy.

If, as Karl Frei said, “Attitude is the difference between ordeal and adventure,” then having a good sense of humor is the ideal attitude to have, as your own greatest teacher, going on the greatest adventure you will ever experience: the hero’s journey.

The heart’s physical importance not to be underestimated, it supports life, sending the blood of life to the tree-like limbs of our vascular system – but this is an overly simplistic view of what the heart is capable of.

Gregg Braden’s latest research elaborates on the ancient technique of using the heart as an intelligent organ.

The heart’s intelligence has been ignored for far too long. What we’ve learned about the heart’s wisdom, however, in the past several years through the Heart Math Institute and through the research of psychologists, neurobiologists, and res-surfaced wisdom teachings from our ancient past – should inspire everyone to look at the heart in a completely new way.

For those who are not used to using their innate intelligence – that is their intuition — tuning into the heart for answers to the most profound and difficult questions they could possibly drum up might seem ridiculous. Why ask the heart whether to stay in a relationship that is challenging, or even if you should go through with a medical procedure?

It might seem ignorant or even haphazard to ask the heart questions like these, but it has wisdom that the intellect cannot match. Here’s why:

The heart does not send information through an egoic filter.

The heart knows your past, your present, and your future. Its intelligence does not care about your egoic constructs. The heart simply speaks from a completely neutral place.

You can think of it like a close friend who has your best interest at heart, and who does not care about making themselves look good in your eyes.

Hridaya

There is an ancient term that does not have a direct English translation that describes this intelligence of the heart. Hridaya, is the energy which is contained within the heart chakra. This is not just the physical heart, but the spiritual heart. It contains the intelligence of God, or the transcendental mind.

The word comes from the Sanskrit language, and the closest meaning to English would be something like this:

Hrid = center

Ayam = this

Thus, the spiritual heart always brings you to your center. It will not veer away from your highest self, always taking in a 360-degree (and beyond) view of any situation you could possibly face.

The yogi Bhagavan wrote once to explain this spiritual heart in more detail:

“Just as there is a cosmic center from which the whole universe arises and has its being and functions with the power or the directing energy emanating therefrom, so also is there a center within the frame of the physical body wherein we have our being. This center in the human body is in no way different from the cosmic center. It is this center in us that is called the Hridaya, the seat of Pure Consciousness, realized as Existence, Knowledge and Bliss. This is really what we call the seat of God in us.”

Conversely the mind-brain thinks of our past experiences, our past erroneous beliefs assigned to those experiences, and takes all sorts of twists and turns through a conceptual landscape that we’ve created to give us a “right” answer to life’s deep questions.

A Zen Buddhist can also describe what happens when we think with the head (brain) instead of the heart.

We place a fog – a type of perceptual overlay on top of a situation and then add an emotional investment. We call this “real,” but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Yet, we think we have to obtain a siddhi (great accomplishment or miracle) in order to obtain supernormal wisdom or intelligence. So, we go on trusting the false perceptions of the mind-brain.

The Neuro-Biology of the Heart

Moreover, if we were to look at the simple neuro-biology of the heart – there are many more fibers leading from the heart to the brain than from the brain to the heart. This means – as Gregg Braden recently pointed out in a Gaia talk – that there is much more communication being sent to the brain then being received from it.

As the HeartMath Institute explains, the heart also begins beating in the unborn fetus before the brain has even been formed, a process scientists call autorhythmic.

We humans also form an emotional brain long before a rational one, and the heart has its own independent complex nervous system known as “the brain in the heart.”

The heart can also create a level of coherence in the body just through its rhythm, which regulates all its systems, and corrects even diseased cells.

And finally, the electromagnetic field of the heart is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the brain, and permeates every cell in the body. The magnetic component is approximately 5000 times stronger than the brain’s magnetic field and can be detected several feet away from the body with sensitive magnetometers.

How to Think with the Heart’s Wisdom

Here’s what Braden suggests to help us learn to tap into the heart’s massive wisdom: 

1. Focus on the heart (and heart chakra). This sends a signal to the heart that you seek its intelligence.
2. Slow your breathing. This sends another signal to your body that you seek higher intelligence, and not that of the normally stressed, and freaked out ego. Deep breathing calms the nervous system and quiets the brain.
3. Conjure a sense of gratitude, compassion, or love. These are the feelings which trigger an activation of the heart’s energy.
4. Ask your heart a question. The question should be brief and to the point.
5. Everyone will experience the heart’s intelligence a bit differently. You may feel butterflies in your gut, a warm sensation growing around your body, or tingling in your fingertips. You may not feel any bodily sensations, but have a clear, short answer that comes through your mind. Know that it likely won’t need a long-drawn out story to “justify” its wisdom. The heart speaks directly and clearly. If it isn’t try this process again to let your body know that you seek the intelligence of the heart and not the ego.
6. Practice makes perfect. The more often you do this, the easier it will be to tap into the seat of pure consciousness – the Hridaya.

Please republish this article freely with credit to The Mind Unleashed, Johanna Bassols, and with all links intact.

By: Johanna Bassols

Johanna Bassols is the creator of the Soul Reprogramming Method and founder of the Healers of the Light Academy.

There is no bad guy in this.

Activists and advocates for homeless people everywhere in the United States opine ever-tightening legal strictures regarding ‘sharing food’ in public — how feeding houseless people is classified under the law.

According to Georgia State University Police Sgt. Corrigan, a chaplain and head of the department’s homeless outreach, and a plethora of detractors, giving people food serves an acute need, but does little if anything to solve the twin crises of hunger and shelterlessness in the long term — even exacerbating such issues as left-behind refuse, communicable disease, lack of sanitation and restrooms, and more, if allowed to continue.

Indeed, as the AP reports, “About 40 cities nationwide had active laws to restrict food sharing as of November 2014, and a few dozen more had attempted such restrictions, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. Interim Director Megan Hustings said she doesn’t have updated numbers but that she’s heard about more cities considering such regulations.”

However, The Nation painted a more appropriately dismal if albeit embarrassing picture on the status of feeding houseless people — nearly three years ago, in February 2015 — reporting,

“According to a survey of more than 180 cities by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, anti-homeless laws pervade urban spaces nationwide. Roughly a third of cities barred public ‘camping,’ for example, up 60 percent since 2011. Restrictions range from prohibiting sitting on sidewalks to imposing steep fees or regulations that effectively criminalize actions of charity groups, often using antiseptic ‘quality of life’ terms (a tent pitched under a bridge becomes an unauthorized ‘camp’). Palo Alto has banned sleeping in parked cars. Mobile has imposed zero-tolerance on ‘aggressive panhandling,’ which could involve just ‘request[ing] a donation from a person standing in line…no matter how mildly the request was made.’ Last year, ThinkProgress reported, Fort Lauderdale authorized police to bust people who ‘store possessions’ on public property — suggesting that homeless people don’t deserve to have what little they carry with them, let alone ‘quality of life.’”

Notably, it isn’t as if these cities have implemented far-reaching and successful programs to replace the lost assistance of do-gooders.

In essence, critics of public charitable food-giving adhere to two problematic mainstays of thought: that people must ‘pull themselves up by the bootstraps’; but, failing that, ‘teaching them to fish’ — pointing them in the direction of assistance and having them enroll, for example, in return for food — rather than simply ‘giving them fish,’ is the only valid means of assisting the neediest of individuals.

Our way or no way, they seem to suggest. There is no bad guy in this.

“We don’t want anybody to stop feeding people. We just want it done in a way that’s connected to social services providers,” George Chidi, social impact director for nonprofit community development organization, Central Atlanta Progress, averred to the Associated Press, “and not on the street corner because we can’t make sure those connections are being made in these street corner feedings.”

Thus, Atlanta joins a shamefully lengthening list of cities choosing to declare a de facto war not only against the condition of being homeless, but against anyone willing to offer the stopgap assistance of an immediate meal.

Case in point, volunteer Adele MacLean with Food Not Bombs — who takes issue with the whole of Chidi’s position — landed a citation and court summons from another University of Georgia law enforcement officer on November 19, after the awareness and advocacy group refused to cease feeding houseless people in a downtown park when threats to obtain a permit were ignored. Although the offense was ultimately tossed by a judge, she feels the incident and the fallacious premise of her supposed transgression symptomatic of the crackdown on homelessness, telling the AP,

“Food is a human right, and you don’t force people to do what you want them to do by withholding food.”

Atlanta and other cities added to obstacles between houseless people and those who would provide them nourishment, predicating any immediate assistance on their entrée into the impoverishment assistance complex — while simultaneously frustrating activists and advocates with a deluge of impossible red tape making the act of sharing food a laborious chore for those attempting to work within its confines.

Indeed, shady tactics apparently land within the purview of enforcing the law.

According to the AP, attorneys for MacLean say police have gone so far as to disseminate a “misleading pamphlet” emblazoned with the city seal and a statement indicating a permit is required to feed homeless people in public — but it isn’t true. A previously unenforced county law exists, notes Reason — which only saw enforcement beginning around Thanksgiving — but none does explicitly for the City of Atlanta.

Southern Center for Human Rights attorney Gerry Weber, representing MacLean, explained restaurants, food trucks, and festival vendors may indeed require permits from the city — people voluntarily sharing food in public without charge, not so much.

Food Not Bombs was forced to challenge a similarly callous ordinance in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, arguing before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August such crackdowns on feeding houseless people infringe on the group’s constitutional right to free speech, since members share food “as an expression of their political message that hunger and poverty can be ended if society’s resources are redirected from the military and war.”

A decision in the matter has yet to be rendered.

In the interim, charity workers advocating for homeless people in cities across this putatively Great (or, perhaps, Getting There) nation will have to contend with an ambivalent public, ludicrous restrictions, and an eagerly authoritarian body of law enforcement in order to give hungry people food in a public setting.

“I salute genuinely the good will and good nature of all these people,” Sgt. Corrigan insisted to the Associated Press.

“There is no bad guy in this.”

Image: Public domain.

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. Science advances one funeral at a time.” ~Max Planck

1.) White Holes and the Theory of Eternal Black Holes:

“Not only does God throw dice, but he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.” ~Stephen Hawking

Black holes are the most powerful things in the universe. Their mass is so dense that gravity becomes almost infinitely powerful. Not even light can escape black holes.

White holes are the deeply theoretical hidden mirror twins of black holes. Stranger than black holes, white holes are literally the opposite of a black hole. Their mass is constantly being ejected. Light can only escape a white hole.

An eternal black hole is the simplest black hole possible according to the mathematics of Karl Schwarzschild. He came up with what is known as the Schwarzchild Metric, which describes a black hole without spin, charge, or change, and which doesn’t grow or shrink but has always existed.

Basically, the eternal black hole’s singularity exists both in the infinite future and in the infinite past. Wow! And, here’s the fascinating rub, the eternal singularity of the past matches the mathematical description of a white hole. It obeys the laws of general relativity, and the mathematics of relativity is time-reversal-symmetric. So, a white hole could be a big bang. The big bang could very well be a white hole which was the result of a super massive black hole in another space-time that reached an infinite singularity, took a dip in entropy, and then erupted into our space-time as a white hole big bang. Wrap your frontal lobe around that.

2.) Fermat’s Last Theorem:

“Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back.” ~Piet Hein

Fermat’s last theorem was the most notorious problem in the history of mathematics. Pierre De Fermat was one of the all-time great mathematical geniuses. Posthumously, mathematicians discovered many of his proofs in the margins of books. Over time, all but one of them was solved: Fermat’s Last Theorem. It was almost universally considered inaccessible to proof by contemporary mathematicians, seen as virtually impossible to prove using current knowledge.

For three centuries, mathematicians had been trying to find a proof for Fermat’s last theorem. Its fame became world renown. But where other mathematicians failed, Andrew Wiles succeeded. Wiles’ proof is a whopping 129 pages long and contains the usage of many techniques from modern algebraic geometry, number theory, Iwasawa theory, and the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture. All of which were largely unavailable in Fermat’s time.

Published in 1995, it is widely regarded as the proof of the century. Here’s an article explaining exactly why it is so impressive. It has taken years to be fully embraced. But since then, Andrew Wiles earned a knighthood and the 2016 Abel Prize for his efforts.

3.) The Many-Worlds theory (multiverse):

“Applying the uncertainty principle to the universe naturally leads to a multiverse” ~Michio Kaku

Hugh Everett came up with the idea in the 1950’s to allow cosmology to treat a wavefunction for the universe. The many-worlds interpretation resolves the mystery of the conscious observer by the sensible-seeming ploy of including consciousness as part of the physical universe described by quantum mechanics.

Governing the precepts of the many-worlds interpretation, it stands to reason that each and every electron, photon, and proton are in an infinite superposition across the multiverse of reality. The wavefunction of each infinite element collapses only when something (a conscious observer for example) attempts to measure it. In fact, if you want to take the interpretation literally, the photon itself is not even a photon until it is observed. Before observation, the photon is merely an infinite smeared-out wavefunction entangled with everything else.

The many worlds interpretation is sometimes claimed to beat all others by Occam’s razor, on the grounds that it requires no physical assumptions. Accepting it requires only the courage necessary to accept that the same rules that apply to small isolated systems, like bunches of atoms, also apply to larger isolated systems without limit, therefore including the largest possible one –our universe taken as a whole.

4.) Dunning-Kruger effect:

“I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.” ~Socrates, Plato’s Apology

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of illusory superiority that arises when our unconscious insecurities develop delusions of grandeur to overcompensate and alleviate the conflicting feeling of discomfort going on inside us. Put simply: stupid people are less likely to know how stupid they really are and more likely to think they are smarter than they really are.

The opposite of this is the imposter syndrome, where smart people tend to underestimate their abilities compared to others. So, let’s get this straight. If you’re dumb, you think you’re smart; and if you’re smart, you think you’re dumb. Great!

When it comes down to it, most of us are either confident idiots or incompetent smarty-pants. It’s just that some of us are better at recognizing it than others. This short video by John Cleese sums it up hilariously.

The interesting thing is this: You are more likely to be right by admitting that you are more likely wrong than by declaring that you are more likely right. As The Bard himself surmised, “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

5.) Epistemological Solipsism (simulated universe):

“I think therefore I am(?)” ~René Descartes

Also known as the brain in a jar thought experiment, epistemological solipsism is solipsism taken to the nth degree. Basic solipsism asserts that nothing exists but one’s own consciousness. But, existentially speaking, there’s no reason why solipsism can’t be taken further, where one cannot even be certain of one’s own consciousness. Despite Descartes’ cogito ergo sum. Because even our thoughts could be predetermined aspects of reality that cause us to imagine that they are our own.

It could very well be a something controlling a something else controlling a brain controlling another brain, controlling our brain, ad absurdum and ad nauseum. And then there is the idea that everything could be a simulation. Like the brain in a jar meets computation and virtual reality. Even Elon Musk thinks we could be living in a simulation.

Certainty can be a tricky thing. Especially when we are questioning things with a wide epistemological brush using solipsistic paint on an existential canvas. The best we can do is doubt. Certainty seemingly gets us nowhere but stuck in either a cognitive bias, a logical fallacy, or both.

Of course, nothing is resolved by solipsism or the brain in a jar thought experiment. It cannot be proved either way. As such, epistemological solipsists consider this an “unresolvable” question. Making it one of the most powerful as well as the most irrelevant (albeit entertaining) of philosophical issues.

6.) Perspectivism:

“Why should we be forced to assume that there is an essential difference between ‘true’ and ‘false’ in the first place? Isn’t enough to assume that there are degrees of apparency,… lighter and darker shadows and hues of appearance.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Touched upon as far back as Plato’s rendition of Protagoras, perspectivism is a philosophical view coined and expounded upon by Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that no purely objective science can exist because no idea or thought can exist outside the influences of an individual perception. There will always be the influence of culture and context which will always lead to biased perception. And since our perceptions are flawed and we cannot experience the world ‘as it is’, but always selectively, in a way that reflects our values, “truth” will always be limited by our flawed perspectives.

The beauty of perspectivism is that although no way of perceiving the world can be taken as definitively true, some ways of perceiving the world are more valid than others. The validity of the perception is determined by the interpretation of universal laws, and “truth” is determined by integrating different vantage points together regarding the interpretation of those laws; similar to Consilience, the unity of knowledge. As such, the laws are constantly reassessed according to the circumstances and accumulation of individual perspectives through time.

7.) Fallibilism:

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ~Aristotle

Fallibilism is Latin for “liable to err.” It is the understanding that we can never know anything for sure and is implied within the sciences. The basic claim is that all human knowledge could, in the end, due to our fallibility as a species and our inherent hypocrisy, be completely and utterly mistaken. In the most commonly used sense of the term, fallibilism implies an openness to new evidence that may refute a previously held opinion or belief while recognizing that any claim, scientific or otherwise, validated today may need to be revised or even withdrawn in light of new evidence, new disputes, and new encounters in the future. It embraces human fallibility and is therefore a benchmark toward understanding the human condition in relation to an ever-changing reality.

People tend to think that we have only two options regarding our approach to knowledge: certainty and uncertainty. But neither one gets us anywhere and leads to cognitive complacency. Certainty without uncertainty leads to cognitive stagnation. Uncertainty without certainty leads to cognitive trepidation. Between the two, there is a third option: cognitive integrity, which is founded upon implementing the philosophical tool of fallibilism. It’s just a matter of embracing and owning up to our fallibility as a species. Plus, it can prevent us from falling for #4 on this list. As St. Augustine famously said, “I err, therefore I am.”

8.) Saṃsāra’s Punarmrityu (re-death):

“The first truth, suffering, is characteristic of existence in the realm of rebirth, called samsara (literally “wandering”). ~Donald Lope

Samsara is the wandering karmic suffering that takes place between the parenthetic unchanging absolute –Atman (the self) and Brahman (the absolute)– on either end of the phenomenal world. It has been developed into a foundational theory of the nature of existence and the transmigration of the soul, shared by all Indian religions. Shirley Firth explains it in Dying, Death, and Bereavement as, “a cycle of aimless drifting, wandering or mundane existence.”

Punarmrityu, or re-death, is the birth and death process in a new existence. It follows the transmigration of the soul (Atman) through its reincarnations. Basically, Punarmrityu is both the death of the afterlife-life which reemerges into a rebirth into the next life, as well as the death of the life lived after the rebirth back into the afterlife, in which the cycle continues: Birth/life/death; afterlife/re-death; rebirth/next-life/re-death; afterlife/re-death, so on and so forth.

The entire process is known as the doctrine of Samsara (reincarnation), which is attributed to the sage Uddalaka Aruni, and is also based on the doctrine of karma (“actions”), according to which the soul achieves a happy or unhappy rebirth (and re-death) according to its works in the previous life/afterlife.

9.) The Fermi Paradox:

“Perhaps we’ve never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon Earth and decided there’s no sign of intelligent life.” ~Neil deGrasse Tyson

Where are all the aliens? Are they hiding behind dark energy? Are they simply too far away and the expansion of the universe keeps the growing distance too far for any intelligent life to reach any other intelligent life? Are we simply too different? Are we like ants to the advanced aliens who will just crush us when we get too big for our britches? Or is our human-centric bias blinding us to such an extent that we can’t see the answers because we don’t even understand the questions? Could the answer really be 42?

There is no way to know for sure. Perhaps we are simply too young of a species to even fathom the true nature of the universe and what it contains to even begin to beg the question of where all the aliens are. After all, we haven’t even reached a type-I civilization yet. Which leads us to the last brain-flipping theory on our list…

10.) The Kardashev Scale:

Nikolai S. Kardashev was a radio astronomer and among the pioneers of SETI. He is famous for categorizing future civilizations based on their ability to harness energy. Here are the main three (there are also types IV-VII proposed, but we’ll leave it with these three).

Type I civilization: This type can harness all the sunlight that falls on its planet. It can harness energy from its planet’s core. And it can conceivably control the weather, volcanoes and even earthquakes. We would need to boost our current energy production over 100,000 times to reach this status. Carl Sagan said that the Earth is more accurately described as a Type .7 civilization.

Type II civilization: This type can harness energy directly from its planet’s star by successfully constructing a “Dyson sphere,” which captures the suns energy and stores it for planetary use. This type can also utilize its solar system’s gas giants for hydrogen and other gases, as well as mine nearby asteroids.

Type III civilization: This type has gone galactic. It can harness the energy of an entire galaxy, siphoning billions of star systems. This type could conceivably even harness dark energy and dark matter however it saw fit to use it. With billions of Dyson spheres spread throughout the galaxy there will probably also be billions more advanced robots traversing star systems. At this point the mind boggles imagining what humans will be like. Will they even be human as we know it? We’ll never know.

As Donald Rumsfeld, of all people, said, unwittingly stumbling into deep philosophy, “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns –the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

Image: Pixabay

Recently, I had the pleasure of chatting with Sister Kate (Christine Meeusen) to pick her brain about the women’s work. As our conversation evolved, she dropped copious amounts of wisdom on the subjects of marijuana, the divine feminine, and how the mainstream media continues to re-hash a lie about cannabis being a “Holy Trinity.”

Watch the interview below:

A recap:

The Sisters of the Valley farm was founded in 2014, shortly after Sister Kate became known as “Sister Occupy.” During our interview, she relayed that she donned a nun’s habit in response to authorities declaring pizza (due to the tomato sauce) a vegetable. According to her, the development was further evidence of America being a conquered and oppressed nation.

She said,

“I learned from my travels in Europe that you learn to tell the difference between a conquered nation and the conquerers. Go to where the people are conquered, and you see a shabby version of the conquerers.”

After leaving Europe following a messy divorce, “America looked to me like a conquered people,” she said. “We dress like a conquered people, we act like a conquered people. Also, the sign of a conquered people is that you fight against your leadership instead of with it.”

“I was very disgusted,” she added.

When Sister Kate joined the Occupy movement, she felt as if she had finally found her “people.” Those she marched with encouraged her to follow through with her plan of donning a nun’s habit, so she did. “Within one visit, the Occupy movement had dubbed me ‘Sister Occupy’,” said Sister Kate. Before long, supporters began asking how they could join the movement she had inspired. Her response was, “No, you don’t understand! I’m an activist, anarchist, single nun!” 

But eventually, she realized something did need to be organized. “That led to about a three-year discussion before Sisters of the Valley was formed,” she said.

Before Sister Kate declared herself a nun, she spent most of her time delivering CBD oil to the sick and “raising, cooking and cleaning” for a family with six kids. Because of this, she already felt like a nun. As a result, she didn’t find the lifestyle transition too difficult.

Sisterhood and the Divine Feminine

In the interview, Sister Kate goes on to explain that though the women implement pagan practices into their ceremonies, they don’t align with any one religion. Rather, most of their inspiration is drawn from the Beguine nuns, who were the precursors to the Catholic nuns.

She explained that the Beguine nuns were self-empowered, spiritually empowered, natural healers, and scholarly women. Because of this, they were considered “dangerous” and many of them were burnt at the stake. The Sisters of the Valley look to the Beguine nuns as their role models, because they hope to empower new generations of women don’t degrade or cheapen themselves to get ahead.

Sister Kate added that now is a very important time for women in history. This is because change is not only desired by both men and women, it is needed. And finally, females have an opportunity to do better than their husbands, fathers, brothers, etc… This isn’t to say men aren’t needed — in fact, the contrary is true. For sustainable, positive change to result as is intentioned, men and women need to work together.

The REAL Holy Trinity

When the Sisters of the Valley began sharing their vision with the world, journalists were eager to interview the change-makers. However, one reporter made a mistake and wrote that the Sisters of the Valley consider the cannabis plant to be the real Holy Trinity.

As Sister Kate incredulously explains in the interview, one thing cannot be a trinity.

“I think it’s hilarious, because a newspaper reporter said the cannabis plant is our holy trinity. How can one thing be a trinity? No one in the media called him on it,” she said.

However, because the media wouldn’t stop “whispering,” she ended up inventing three traits that make the cannabis plant a trinity. Said Sister Kate,

“Because so many people have said that the cannabis plant is our holy trinity, I actually, in the last couple of days, came up with a cannabis plant holy trinity analogy. That is, that the plant is compassionate, it is cooperative, and it is intelligent.”

So there you have it.

Why Women Should Plant Cannabis To Eliminate Crime

In addition to sharing several compelling anecdotes from people who have improved their conditions with CBD oil and CBD-containing lotions and tinctures, Sister Kate relayed how women can rid the world of criminals by planting CBD-rich strains — which are legal in all 50 states. She said,

“Order from Attitude Seed Bank, out of the UK, strains of seeds that are meant to be under 1 percent THC and over 10 percent CBD. And every women should take the seeds and grow them inside and outside in their yard, and grow them everywhere… Because, one time a thief would steal that weed and try to sell it, and the thieves would be killed because they’re going to sell it like it’s going to get someone high. They’re going to sell it for $1,000/lb, and they’re going to get killed and bingo — we’ve just wiped out all the thieves, and we’re free to go forward.”

“So, my point is women need to grow this everywhere. And then dare the law to shut them down. Because all the laws were made for psychoactive cannabis, not for hemp,” she concluded.

Please watch the full interview above, as Sister Kate talks about many more topics, including why people should use CBD oil, why the nuns’ crops are legal in all 50 states and can be distributed to other countries, the organization’s plan(s) to cultivate marijuana in Canada, and much, much more.

It was an amazing experience connecting with this activist. Sister Kate is proof that one person can make a positive difference in the world. Hopefully, her efforts inspire you. Learn more by visiting the Sisters of the Valley website and Facebook page.

What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news!

Animal rights activists and advocates believe the proposed Pet Rescue and Adoption Act (AB 485) would effectively end the use of breeding operations — termed “puppy mills” (or other species), these massive operations churn out a constant stream of puppies, kittens, and other companion animals, often in abominable, abusive, or neglected conditions — and aspire to choke out retailers who insist on sourcing animals that way.

Legitimate criticism certainly exists in the law’s inherent elimination of choice from the marketplace, as far as the retail pursuit of specific pet breeds is concerned, with detractors pegging a dearth of reliable genetic and medical information available for individual shelter animals, as well as the fact many popular breeds never wind up housed in such facilities.

Proponents rightly point to abandoned and unwanted animals, as the United States continues grappling with an astronomical explosion in feral and stray populations — which the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals reports ‘forced’ the euthanization of at least 1.5 million unadopted shelter companion animals — in just 2016, alone.

“California taxpayers spend over a quarter of a billion dollars every year to house homeless animals,” San Diego Humane Society CEO and President Dr. Gary Weitzman told Huffington Post in an emailed ASPCA statement pertaining to the new bill, adding the strongest potential lies in the elimination of “a main source of sales for inhumane commercial breeders.”

In fact, as the San Diego Tribune points out, well over 200 areas around the U.S. have implemented policies like the California legislation, and have indeed severely crippled pet breeding operations to the betterment of strays and mill animals, alike, over the past decade, and reports,

“California has more than 33 cities with these ordinances, from South Lake Tahoe in 2009 to Oceanside in 2015, to Los Angeles in 2016, to San Francisco and Sacramento this year.

“Most of these rules allow storefronts to sell animals acquired from shelters, rescue groups and nonprofits. In practice, many of the targeted pet-store merchants have gone out of business or been forced to move locations.

“Supporters said the bans are a local reaction to breeders, mostly located in the Midwest, who warehouse dogs and cats like livestock. They said too often, animals, especially breeding mothers, are locked in unsanitary and inhumane conditions without proper access to medicine, exercise and contact with people.”

And HuffPost expounds, “One of the most comprehensive of those measures was passed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in August. Cambridge’s ordinance bans pet stores from selling any non-rescue animals other than fish — meaning that besides dogs and cats, it also covers everything from birds to snakes to small animals like mice, rats and hamsters.”

Advocates reiterate the measure only affects retail sales of pets, and anyone searching for a specific breed would be free to contact an ethical breeder privately — an obstacle critics feel places too many barriers between customer and product, thus threatening to erase the market of many popular breeds never making it to shelters.

“Pet stores represent a well-regulated and reliable source for responsibly raised animals, often breeds which are not readily available nearby,” Mike Bober, president and CEO of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, told HuffPost. “We do think that consumer choice is an important part of this.”

Although Bober’s latter point is again valid, the idea problematic breeding farms are the rarity rather than the rule is preposterous when examined in the context of an unending list of horrendous animal abusers calling themselves reputable to reap profit, supply the vast majority of pet stores — from the little guy to corporate behemoths.

Paul Solotaroff toured an illegal puppy mill as part of an investigation into such facilities for Rolling Stone in January 2017, observing,

“Out the back door and up a dirt trail, the worst was yet to come. A cinder-block kennel, hidden from the street, housed the bulk of this puppy-mill stock: 50 or 60 more parent dogs who’d likely never seen sunlight or spent a day outside this toxic room. They wept and bayed and spun in crazed circles as we toured the maze of cages. Some went limp as the rescuers knelt to scoop them. Each was photographed, then carried downhill to the giant rig at the curb. There, teams of vets from the Cabarrus Animal Hospital worked briskly to assess each rescue. Once triaged and tagged, they were loaded into crates on the Humane Society’s mammoth truck, an 80-foot land-ship with clean-room conditions, and taken to a staging shelter. One hundred and five dogs came out of that house, many of them pregnant or in heat. I turned to John Goodwin, the director of the puppy-mills campaign for HSUS, and asked him how many puppies sold in this country — at Petland and Citipups and a thousand other pet stores — come from puppy mills as dire as this one.”

Emaciated animals, deplorably filthy conditions, disease, parasites, and other issues plague the animal prisoners of breeding-mill hell — and with profit potential tantalizingly large, violation of regulations and animal rights comprise a risk worth taking for the unscrupulous, to the detriment of the pets.

“Most every pup sold in stores in America comes from this kind of suffering — or worse,” Goodwin insisted. “If you buy a puppy from a pet store, this is what you’re paying for and nothing else: a dog raised in puppy-mill evil.”

Matt Bershadker, president and CEO of the ASPCA, added, “Puppy mills house breeding dogs in small, wire-floored cages, separate puppies from their mothers at a very young age, and ship them hundreds of miles to pet stores around the country.”

While the proposed legislation in California might not be ideal, it could save state residents a small fortune, as the San Diego Tribune notes, since “it costs taxpayers an estimated $250 million each year to pick up, house and often euthanize unwanted animals, including more than 800,000 dogs, cats and rabbits, according to the same legislative analysis.”

To begin thwarting the animal abusers on an individual level, the ASPCA maintains a mapped and updated list of puppy mills and pointers for animal advocates on their website, in this link.

Governor Brown has until October 15 to sign the bill into law, but — as to his intentions — remained tight-lipped when the Associated Press requested comment.

(Image: Puppy Mill. Credit: ASPCA)