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“Order, tranquility, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets;” might these be a string of virtues that the Stoics strove to obtain in Classical Greece and Rome? No, not quite. They were entries in the list of all the things that have contributed to Maria Branyas Morera’s long life of 117 years of […] The post The World’s Oldest Human Gives Us the Best Advice, Before She Died at 117 Years appeared first on Good News Network.

Column The SF Path to Higher Consciousness The Timely “Why” of The War of the Worlds — From Wells and Welles to Pal and Spielberg Every major adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic novel offers a unique window into the time it was made, from late ’30s pre-war anxieties to the present day… By Dan Persons | Published on August 22, 2024 Credit: BBC One Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: BBC One Could it be that every generation gets The War of the Worlds it deserves? You might think so if you scanned the results of an IMDB search, as I did. Not counting obvious sequels and a “musical drama,” there are at least ten feature and TV adaptations of H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel, all taking on the book with varying degrees of fidelity. That would be one adaptation approximately every thirteen years if they were spread out evenly over time. Of course, it’s actually back-weighted from the middle of the twentieth century forward, with something of a boom in the last 24 years. And that’s before the property entered the public domain this year—I can’t wait for the version that’ll pit a highly-armed Winnie the Pooh against Martian Steamboat Willie. It was a bit of a dilemma for me. I had pitched this piece as a look at George Pal’s classic, 1953 adaptation, taking in for good measure Orson Welles’ notorious radio broadcast, and Stephen Spielberg’s blockbuster remake. But the roster of additional versions nagged at me—I was tempted to sift through all of them, to see what they may or may not have brought to the table. But I had neither the time nor, frankly, the inclination to subject myself to a real-life replication of Groundhog Day with Martian war machines, so I resolved to stick to my original plan. With one exception: A 2019, British “limited series” (remember when we used to call them miniseries?) starring Eleanor Tomlinson and Rafe Spall. All adaptations take liberties with Wells’ original text, of necessity, but this one, written by Peter Harness, went quite a bit further. It drew the background of its protagonists—George (Spall) and Amy (Tomlinson)—from Wells’ actual life, and divided the story into two, interleaving narratives: Going from the original invasion to the Martians’ fall; and picking up five years hence, when Amy and her young son, born after the invasion, struggle to survive in an Earth that’s dying, and where what’s left of government and religion have rewritten the narrative to claim a rousing victory for God and Empire. But what really caught my attention was that it was being presented as a period piece, set at the dawn of the twentieth century, a few years after the time of the original novel. That piqued my curiosity: When I had first read Wells’ novel, as an adolescent and after having been exposed to both the Welles and Pal adaptations, I was left wondering why neither of those attempts were faithful to the original’s setting. There was something very intimate in Wells’ telling, delivered from the viewpoint of a well-educated but otherwise ordinary man, dealing with horrific circumstances. He managed to convey a certain society, a culture, a world, in a way that felt intimately palpable, more so than Welles’ radio dispatches or Pal’s effects-laden spectacular. Watching this series, though, I began to question my original impression. The show was fine in itself, a bit grimmer than we might usually expect (the story resolves with just the barest glimmer of hope); featuring a bit more melodrama than I felt was necessary (but which is pretty much part of British serialized storytelling); and offering a production that is quite impressive in its invasion parts, but that smelled of stretched budget during its post-apocalyptic sequences. Overall, Harness and director Craig Viveiros managed to fulfill their own, unique vision, while remaining faithful to Wells’ original intent of throwing British Imperialism back in the Empire’s face. But, weirdly, in making the story period-appropriate, something had gone out of the telling. An immediacy…a feeling that this was a thing that could happen to me. It turned out that the power of Wells’ novel was not in the timeframe, but in the perspective, written in the first person, letting us see the nightmare through the eyes of the man living it. It’s a weary cliché, but a relevant one: Most frequently, science fiction isn’t really about the future, and horror isn’t about the supernatural. It’s about what we’re dealing with today, about our hopes and our fears right now. Maybe because Wells was the first to imagine our world laid asunder by forces more advanced than ours, The War of the Worlds became not just a specific story, but a template, one that creators could mold to measure how far society had advanced, and how much further it needed to go. Orson Welles saw not only how his time—with a world precariously teetering on the brink of war—could reshape Wells’ narrative, but also how the medium used to convey the tale could be leveraged (maybe “subverted” is the better word) to amplify its impact. The Mercury Theatre on the Air radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds (1938) eschewed in its first act the typical narrative structure, instead presenting its story as a series of live news bulletins cutting into a band concert (poor Ramón Raquello—never got to finish a number). A lot has been exaggerated about the reaction of the broadcast’s audience that Halloween eve—among other myths, it doesn’t appear anyone actually committed suicide. But by the time the show reached its more conventional second act—presented as narration culled from the notes of the respected Professor Richard Pierson (Welles) as he struggles to survive in the aftermath—people were panicked enough to trigger calls for an FCC investigation, and to prompt an apology from Welles himself. Listening to the broadcast now, what’s most striking is the realization that civilization has been in a desperate game of catch-up with communication technologies since long before the advent of the internet. Those who were listening—and especially those who made the mistake of tuning into the show after Welles’ opening narration set up the scenario (again, the number of people who fell victim to this seems to have been inflated over time) —were still acclimating to a medium yet in its infancy, so much so that they failed to notice how shockingly time-compressed everything was, as it was being conveyed. Characters were travelling scores of miles in mere minutes, and an army rallies to the invasion site at Grovers Mill, New Jersey almost instantly. Neither did people notice that their regular ol’ receiver had suddenly attained the ability to relay radio reports from Army flyovers, and desperate communications from ham radio operators, all without ever having to be retuned. (But that lone voice croaking out, “2X2L calling CQ… 2X2L calling CQ…” may be radio’s most chilling lead into an act break.) Nor did a number of listeners think to JUST TUNE TO ANOTHER STATION to see if anyone else was covering this breaking news. I don’t know how much Welles was counting on a contemporary audience’s tendency to wander around the dial until they tuned in to something interesting (the birth of the doom scroll?). He at the very least sensed the public’s vulnerability at a time when, suddenly, the world was pouring into their living rooms. Twenty-something scamp that he was, Welles knew how to take advantage of their receptiveness, to put it mildly. (BTW, let’s all keep an eagle-eye out for deepfakes this election season, people.) Flash-forward some seven decades, and we discover another master of his medium, Steven Spielberg, turning his own formidable skills to a mega-budgeted, big screen interpretation of the tale. Aside from being bigger, louder, and more technologically sophisticated than either the Welles or the Pal interpretations, the 2005 rendition of The War of Worlds separated itself by one notable, but more subtle distinction: Instead of giving us a scholarly scientist as a protagonist, Spielberg returned the viewpoint back to Wells’ grounded level, making the audience surrogate, Ray Ferrier, a down-to-earth blue-collar worker. A hunky, preternaturally handsome, and astoundingly capable blue-collar worker, mind—played by Tom Cruise—but one most audience members wouldn’t have been surprised to find sharing a row with them in the theater. But it was now a century removed from Wells’ society, and Spielberg being Spielberg, the whole canvas of his War takes an especially personal turn. Unlike his predecessors, Ray is a notably flawed hero, a divorced dad struggling through a weekend visitation with his two children—young daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning, in a stunning performance) and sullen teen son Robbie (Justin Chatwin). And Ray is an especially bad divorced dad, showing up late for the drop-off, forgetting to prep for his guests, and most unnervingly, failing to pick up the cues from his terrified daughter as he presses her to sit back and enjoy the cool light show taking place over their home, the one that just so happens to auger the Martians’ arrival. This is, after all, the twenty-first century, and in the twenty-first century—as Spielberg, one of the prime instigators of the trope, has repeatedly pointed out—it’s not just about spectacle, it’s about family. And so, in the director’s telling, Ray will grow as a father, learning to should the responsibility of protecting one young life even as he matures enough to understand why another needs to go his own way. That Spielberg is able to mount a tale of personal growth within a mammoth panorama of global destruction again demonstrates his virtuosity. The fact that, while watching, I was left occasionally wishing he wasn’t quite the virtuoso may say something about how his filmmaking prowess has occasionally exceeded his audience’s capacity to appreciate it. The Spielberg who shows up for War of the Worlds is the one who, as with Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List, wanted not just to make filmgoing an immersive experience, but immerse us in experiences we’d otherwise prefer to skip over. I have no issue with the idea that art—to quote Cesar A. Cruz—should disturb the comfortable, and God knows that we in the US occasionally need to be reminded that we enjoy a comfort that those in more besieged portions of the world can only dream of. But in replicating so accurately the unremitting horror of war landing at one’s doorstep, while presenting it in the format of a big-budget special effects spectacular, the director’s message maybe gets pushed so hard that it exceeds the point of exhaustion. Spielberg’s take is ambitious, smart, and notably respectful to the purpose Wells thought his tales should serve, but for me it was also an eye-popping, compulsive, and ultimately—and unfortunately—unpleasant experience. It could be that George Pal intended his own The War of the Worlds (1953) to be just as unsettling—I’ve spoken to a few people who were just the right, tender age to be traumatized by his rendition. He would have had motivation: The US hadn’t crossed the decade threshold from its victory in WWII; the Korean War was still ongoing and largely unpopular; the specter of the A-bomb still loomed over everything; and the Hungarian-born Pal, having emigrated from Europe to the US in 1939, likely held at best an ambivalent view of modern warfare. But if that was the message, it wound up a bit muddled. The film, directed by Byron Haskin, plays frequently like a standard wartime flick, with the military given respectful due as they determinedly go about trying to fend off the Martian menace, and considerable screentime gets devoted to stock footage of the United States’ mechanized power—the prototype YB-49 Flying Wing is featured so prominently that one hopes Northrop was paying Pal handsomely for the product placement. But you still get the sense that Pal and Haskin aren’t all-in on Cold War militarism: The Martian war machines still manage to run roughshod over our armed forces, and given the A-bomb’s ineffectuality here (and Pal’s subsequent The Time Machine’s grim vision of nuclear war and its aftermath), it’s clear that producer and director weren’t trying to sell us on the idea that Might always makes Right. If only they had been similarly progressive in how they portrayed their characters. Gene Barry cuts a fine, masculine presence as all-purpose scientist Dr. Clayton Forrester (for all you MST3K fans who weren’t aware, surprise!), but the furthest he gets out of hero mode is when a crowd of rioters, seeking to commandeer his truck, kick his ass. As requisite romantic interest Sylvia Van Buren, Ann Robinson has a more thankless task, oscillating her attitude from domestic complacency—her greatest moment of agency comes while serving coffee to a group of soldiers—to screaming hysterics. As for the film’s resident “Latino,” Salvatore… Well… Look, it’s not Jack Kruschen’s fault. At least the character’s treated as an equal among his peers. The film overall displays a whipsaw, emotional dichotomy—perhaps an outcome of its ninety-minute runtime, or just a tendency of filmmakers at the time to lean into well-worn narrative tropes. Sylvia’s uncle, Pastor Collins (Lewis Martin), encourages his niece to pursue Dr. Forrester—having spent all of several hours with the man—right before he himself is vaporized by a Martian death ray. When Sylvia and Clay are forced to shelter in a fifties-cozy farmhouse, we get an incongruous scene of domestic bliss—with Clay complimenting Sylvia on her knack for frying up (pyyuch!) eggs sunny-side—that’s rudely interrupted when a plummeting Martian cylinder reduces the joint to rubble. I’d like to think Haskin was slipping a fast one past the suits in that moment; among his subsequent works would be The Outer Limits’ “Demon with a Glass Hand,” so turning a skeptical eye toward the postwar dream of a consumerist paradise doesn’t feel too out of character for the director. What I am sure of is that, for all Pal’s War brands itself as very much a tale of its time, it’s also earned its classic status. It is a landmark sci-fi (yes, I said sci-fi) thriller, one that invited audiences to revel at the wholesale destruction of the world while they wolfed down fistfuls of popcorn. The special effects remain a cinematic milestone—Spielberg may have brought an insane level of detail (and actual legs) to his CG war machines, but Pal’s ominously floating, manta-like metal monsters, surmounted with fire-spitting, python-shaped armaments, cast a terrifyingly beautiful vision of alien death, one that lodges in the memory long after viewing. And while Spielberg may have paid homage to Pal in numerous ways—turning, among others, the moment when the protagonists are chased through a house by a Martian periscope into a beautifully choreographed tour-de-force—there’s something about the tangible simplicity of Pal’s practical effects that leaves a more indelible impression. In 2005, we got a full-on look at a disease-ridden and dying Martian emerging from its crashed war machine, but it’s the 1953 sight of just a spindly, withered Martian hand feebly reaching out from an escape hatch that continues to haunt. If the milieu of Pal’s The War of the Worlds remains stuck in the clichés of its time—I’m not sure Wells would’ve appreciated the peal of church bells that ushers the film out, taking the whole “God in his wisdom” notion a bit too much to heart—its portrait of a nation still trying to reconcile its recent ascension to a position at the top of the world order remains compelling. It’s kind of amazing, the ball that H.G. Wells got rolling in 1895 and that proceeded to spin its way far and wide into our culture. The influence of The War of the Worlds extends far beyond the story itself, touching everything from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers to Mars Attacks! to Independence Day to Plan 9 from Outer Space. Yet the original tale—with its stark warning about how we see ourselves and how that vision might fracture in the face of superior forces—sets it apart, and the way Wells’ told it has inspired filmmakers across the years to tailor it to their times. I don’t doubt we’ll see more versions in the coming years. If we do, I look forward to discovering how they’ll cast new insights into the world we live in, and what we must do to assure that humanity not just survives, but thrives. The original intent for this piece was to go back to George Pal’s original adaptation, and while I was caught a little off guard by how some of the dramatics had aged, I was overall gratified to reintroduce myself to one of SF filmmaking’s classic efforts. But what do you think? Did I judge any of the versions cited here too harshly? Are there others you would recommend (or warn against)? The stage is set for you in the comments section below. I welcome your feedback, so long as it’s friendly and polite.[end-mark] The post The Timely “Why” of <i>The War of the Worlds</i> — From Wells and Welles to Pal and Spielberg appeared first on Reactor.

By the editor of The Conspiracy Files, Volume 2: More Events the Media Would Like You to Forget Conspiracy theories. What to some is a sign of critical thinking is, to others, a sign of dangerous insubordination. I was taught by my father that a good argument can stand up to criticism and that finding someone who disagreed was a fine way to test your theory. I’ve never been too bothered when folks disagree with me. In fact, I’m eager to know why. I want to learn whether or not I’m missing something. But these days, it seems that I’m in the minority. The “danger” of conspiracy theories The term has long been used in a derogatory fashion to belittle the ideas of a person who doesn’t necessarily accept that everything can be taken at face value.  These days, it’s used to denote a train of thought that is downright dangerous, even an existential threat to civil society. What’s everyone so afraid of? Normies – folks who aren’t big questions of the status quo – used to just shake their heads and smile at the “quirky” conspiracy theorist in their life. They considered it a harmless past-time, an eccentricity. However, now we have the media breathlessly warning people of the innate deadly danger of conspiracy theories and the people who espouse them. Outright FEAR is being stoked. Let’s take a closer look. The FBI warning Back in 2019, the FBI said that conspiracy theories posed a domestic terrorism threat: “The FBI assesses anti-government, identity based, and fringe political conspiracy theories very likely motivate some domestic extremists, wholly or in part, to commit criminal and sometimes violent activity,” the document said. “The FBI further assesses in some cases these conspiracy theories very likely encourage the targeting of specific people, places, and organizations, thereby increasing the likelihood of violence against these targets.” The document continued to say that the bureau reached its conclusion “with high confidence” and based on information it obtained from other federal agencies, open source information, court documents, FBI investigations, and human sources. Yep, this is the same FBI whose own documents concluded that they had investigated the Trump campaign without justification. The one whose director was caught violating DOJ policies and breaking protocol in a lackluster investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Pardon me if I’m not too worried about what the FBI thinks. The academic warning Then we have the people who consider themselves smarter than the rest of us: the academics. The website “The Conversation” boasts that their content “is written by university scholars and researchers with deep expertise in their subjects, sharing their knowledge in their own words.” So it must be true, right? Anyway, a postdoctoral research fellow in philosophy warns us of the “dangers” of conspiracy theories. He kindly dumbs it down for the peons by comparing it to “the floor is lava.” When a child declares that “the floor is lava,” few if any believe the declaration. But that child, and others, begin to act as if the declaration were true. Those who do may clamber onto furniture, and repeat the declaration to others who enter the space. Some children play just for fun, some play to show off their climbing and jumping skills, and some play to appease the child who initiated the game. Some kids quickly tire of the game and wish to stop playing, but like or respect the child who initiated the game, and don’t want to upset that person by stopping. As the game progresses, some take it too seriously. Furniture is damaged, and some get injured while attempting to leap from one raised surface to another. The lava is fake, but real things get broken. More seriously, when Donald Trump claimed that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged,” some officials and ordinary citizens acted accordingly. Whether out of sincere belief, partisanship, loyalty to Trump or financial opportunism, many Americans behaved as if the 2020 election was unfairly decided. Some people acting as if the election conspiracy theory were true assembled in Washington, D.C., some stormed the Capitol building and, behind the scenes, some developed a scheme to submit fake slates of electors supporting Trump’s reelection despite his loss at the ballot box. The people involved in these activities could count on the support of others who endorsed the rigged election claim, even if these endorsements were largely insincere. The costs of acting as if the 2020 election were rigged are no doubt greater than those for acting as if the floor is lava. The costs of acting as if the 2020 election were rigged led to millions of dollars worth of damage to the Capitol building, led to hundreds of arrests for Capitol rioters, led to multiple deaths and imperiled American democracy. My goodness, that’s a lot of rhetoric, isn’t it? I guess he missed that documentary 2000 Mules, huh? Of course, a journalist on NPR said that 2000 Mules is a “wild tale” and a “conspiracy theory” with “absolutely no evidence.” Heck, it’s downright “extremism.” But the film is the latest in a long line of movies that use the tropes and signifiers of documentaries to gain credibility. In recent years, documentary style films about the 2020 election, the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines have spread conspiracy theories and recycled debunked lies. “Documentaries have been used for decades to try to make bad actors and folks who are trying to push conspiracies or push disinformation or push a specific political agenda look more professional, look glamorous, look like something that you can believe,” said Jiore Craig, head of elections and digital integrity at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which tracks online extremism. My question is: what makes their conspiracy theory more valid than the original conspiracy theory? The “assault on democracy” warning The Economist interviewed Nancy Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead about the “dangers” of conspiracy theories. They are the co-authors of the book, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy. Nancy and Russell call it “conspiracy without the theory,” claiming it’s all nothing more than baseless accusations and somebody ought to do something about it. (Emphasis mine.) The new media—social media, of course, but even basic things like internet message boards—challenge the traditional gatekeeping function of editors and producers. Today anyone can say anything to everyone in the world instantly and for free. And because validation of conspiracy claims takes the form of repetition and assent, even the most casual “likes” and “retweets” give authority to senseless, destructive charges (“a lot of people are saying”). We are seeing the political effects of this change and one of the first things we’re seeing is the spread of a politically malignant form of conspiracy without the theory. Can the same technology that disseminates charges like “fake news” or the “deep state” also disempower it? Can political representatives and citizens who grasp the effects of conspiracism, the way it delegitimises democratic institutions, exile it again to the fringes of political life? No one has figured out how to do this yet, short of some form of public- or corporate-censorship of egregious conspiracy-entrepreneurs like Alex Jones or, what is now unthinkable, censoring irresponsible political officials who endorse conspiracist claims. Nancy and Russell believe we need to defer to the scholars. The counter-force comes from the authority of knowledge-producing institutions (that is, courts, expert-staffed agencies, research universities) on one side, and democratic common sense on the other. Wherever conspiracism is reshaping public life, two preventatives are vital: to defend the integrity of knowledge-producing institutions and bolster confidence in the ballast of common sense. After all, it’s only “rational.” Interestingly, painting women as irrational and hysterical was a tool that was used to oppress them for centuries. But I guess it’s A-OK to do that to political opponents. The thing is, conspiracy theories are often more valid than the “news.” When you read those arguments in a bubble, they sound perfectly reasonable. It’s only when you look at them through the lens of the things going on in the United States, and heck, the world, that you see how stifling it is. For a decade, I’ve written about “conspiracy theories.” I’ve shared information and suggested that while it might seem innocent at first, it’s a slippery slope. Then people call me crazy, and then the next thing you know, we’ve slid down that slippery slope, and when we’re in a pile at the bottom, nobody steps up and says, “Whoops, I guess you were right. Instead, they memory-hole (thanks, Orwell) their initial (incorrect) arguments and gaslight us, acting as though they never disagreed with us in the first place. That’s why I put together a PDF book this week with many of the “conspiracy theories” I’ve written about over the past two years. The Conspiracy Files, Volume 2: More Events the Media Would Like You to Forget is a limited run – the book will only be available this week. It discusses propaganda, censorship, Covid-19, the election, world events, dangerous technology, evil plans, and much more. It’s 429 pages, and I think, if you are a conspiracy theorist like me, you’ll find it very interesting how many of these “crazy conspiracy theories” have turned out to be true.(Or will soon.)  You can get your copy here, and it’s name-your-price, starting at just $2. I want everyone to be able to afford to get this information, download it, and remember what really happened before they rewrite even more of our history. The funny thing is that the first volume spanned 10 years and it was only 100 pages longer. (I made it available for the weekend, also – go here.) I can only keep this book on the website for a few days, or I risk losing my ability to take payments. So you have until Sunday night to grab your copy. Repeatedly, we’ve seen our theories and opinions publicly mocked, the purveyors of those opinions defunded and shunned, and the people who believe them belittled and degraded. Sure, some conspiracy theories are truly nuts – but the beauty of free speech means that we can decide for ourselves through research and reason what we believe to be the most accurate portrayal of the facts. If you think about the scientific method, it all starts with a theory. Then the person tests it and holds it up for examination to see whether or not it’s true. Why are conversations looked at differently? I should be able to provide my evidence and converse with someone who provides evidence to the contrary. Nobody should be cast as a villain for that, but it seems rather villainous to silence people for daring to believe something other than what the media tells us is true, without question. Of course, I guess us thinking for ourselves instead of believing what we’re spoon fed is what makes conspiracy theories so darned dangerous. What about left-wing conspiracy theories? The argument that conspiracy theories are dangerous often overlooks left-wing conspiracy theories. All of the things below have been proven objectively WRONG but nobody seems to think these are dangerous. The Covid pandemic started in a wet market because someone ate a bad bat Hunter Biden’s laptop didn’t exist Covid vaccines will keep you from getting Covid Donald Trump faked being shot in the ear All MAGA people are burgeoning domestic terrorists Kamala Harris was never Border Czar Our economy is great Fauci made up the Covid rules as he went along There are a whole bunch more and most of them are about President Trump. Whether you love him or hate him, he didn’t say that neo-Nazis were very fine people and he did not tell folks to drink bleach to cure Covid. Nobody in the mainstream media is running around calling these attacks on the former President a threat to democracy. Nobody in academia is calling the nonsense about Covid that destroyed our very economy dangerous. In fact, you have to really dig to find out anything about those subjects online and a lot of folks still believe them. I’d say that there was a coverup of left-wing conspiracy theories but then I’d sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist. What are your thoughts on conspiracy theories? I’ll proudly wear the tin foil. I refuse to just “absorb” the opinions of the mainstream media. Conspiracy theories give me another perspective, another way of looking at the world. And it’s a way I’m free to take or leave. Just like I should also be free to take or leave what passes for “news” these days. I’m not saying you need to be delusional, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with questioning things, coming up with a theory, and having a conversation about it. Obviously, you shouldn’t use those questions to harm others. Folks who act in violence based on a conspiracy actually are crazy, regardless of whether that is a left-wing or right-wing conspiracy theory. There will always be crazy people out there. But most people don’t do that. They just discuss it and ask questions. Long live the conspiracy theory and the freedom to discuss things. Do you believe in conspiracy theories? Are you “dangerous?” Do you think those conspiracy theories are something that should be silenced? Let’s talk about it in the comments. About Daisy Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, adventure-seeking, globe-trotting blogger. She is the founder and publisher of three websites.  1) The Organic Prepper, which is about current events, preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty; 2)  The Frugalite, a website with thrifty tips and solutions to help people get a handle on their personal finances without feeling deprived; and 3) PreppersDailyNews.com, an aggregate site where you can find links to all the most important news for those who wish to be prepared. Her work is widely republished across alternative media and she has appeared in many interviews. Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceand Survival.com You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Instagram, and Twitter. The post In Defense of “Crazy” Conspiracy Theories appeared first on The Organic Prepper.