October 9, 2022

"Russian Bridge is Falling Down"

(Sung to “London Bridge is Falling Down”)

Russian Bridge is Falling Down

Russian Bridge is falling down
Falling Down
Falling Down

Russian Bridge is falling down

Poor little old Putin


And the 2nd Part of Song:

…..Take the key and lock Putin up, 

…..Lock him up……lock him up.

…..Take the key and lock Putin up

….Slava Ukraina!!!

February 29, 2020

Unfortunately, Dec/Jan was the time for Preparation & Containment - Now is the time for Mitigation..

Now as we enter March, the time is for mitigation....entirely different scenario and response.
It doesn't mean you don't prepare, but now its harder. It doesn't mean you don't contain - you do, but its harder now.




We all have to practice good health measures now and here are things you can do:

-Take good care of your immune system. Take Vitamin and health supplements. Avoid Alcohol. Sleep.

-Wash hands frequently.

- Wipe hard surfaces clean frequently.

- No handshaking, high fives, hugs when you greet people. "Namaste" hands held together is a good way to keep your hands from going to someones hand and a slight bow. My kids are doing "Bum bumps" to side in opposite direction or elbow bump if they need to "touch"

- Place a hand sanitizer (non-touch dispenser) or pump near the front door or entrance to your building. (Hopefully if you can find some hand sanitizer - there still are online supply places). If you can't, there are some formulas for making some that you can make a home made batch along with essential oils from Lavender and put in an empty pump dispenser. Encourage anyone coming near your home and entering or in your intermediate community to be sanitizing hands.

- Don't touch the railings, hand rails, door knobs etc. if you can avoid it. Wipe them down or put sanitizer on your hand after.

- Avoid going out or gatherings. Now is not the time to attend conferences, large meetings, sporting events, concert.

- Conduct more video meetings for work. Zoom and VSee are great. Skype Meetings and even Facetime.

- Its ok to NOT go to Church, synagogue, mosque now for next month. Your God will forgive you. (Even the Pope is suspected to have been infected).

- Self quarantine if you think there is a chance you are sick for at least a week - two weeks.

- Avoid and steer clear of anyone coughing or sneezing. Cough and sneeze into the crease of your elbow.

- Wear glasses and gloves if you can - it helps avoid aerosol spray into your eyes and gloves help you avoid touching your face - same for facemasks or scarfs.

- Thinking of a vacation or have one planned in next two months? Postpone it till at least May or June or later and see what is happening and determine then. Maybe instead take a week off in the next month and just stay home.

- Maybe start exercising and yoga at home and taking walks etc. Health Clubs and Yoga Studios might not be the best places to be going as people sweat and gather closely. If you do go, wipe things down before and after and try to be on outskirts away from people.

- Dating? Maybe now is time to have a dating diet and not meeting strangers for a date or even going out on date night or going to a bar and being in close proximity.

- Stock up on canned foods and juices and food that keeps and have at least a month supply for you and your family. Avoid going to the supermarket if you can and use delivery services if you need something. If you have to go to the store - go once a week max and wipe down the handle on the cart or basket and avoid touching surfaces. Don't bring your children to the store. Offer to help elderly neighbors to do shopping runs and bringing grocery goods back for them.

- Stock up on cleaning and sanitation supplies, OTC meds and prescription meds for at least 2-3 months.

- Identify in your home a room that would be where a person in your family who might be sick can self quarantine. Best option is a Master bedroom with its own bathroom. Ideally it would have even access from another means to getting in and out (i.e.. a balcony for fresh air or patio to outside and means for food, supplies to brought to them. Figure literally a way that you could care or be cared for at home and be prepared. In the event of mass pandemic, the last place you want to be going (and may not be able to go) is the hospital or emergency room. You want to keep the community safe and yourself.

There is much more....but these are the things we can do right now ourselves and need to do.

February 7, 2020

Pachamama's Revenge? Coronavirus being linked to a critically endangered animal called the Pangolin

Pachamama is the Quechua word for Mother Earth. I chose this name for DU when I joined DU 16 years ago in honor of Pachamama and work I had done related to the rainforest.

I remember Shamans with the Achuar and the Huararani (tribes who were once mortal enemies) telling similar stories when I spent time with them helping them organize to take on the oil company Petroleum Ecuador and Texaco to clean up the environmental damage to their water sources and tribal lands with oil waste pits and the illnesses it was causing. It was a time where scientists who I met were starting to admit the planet had reached peak oil and that the oil companies knew it and yet were busy trying to figure out their next target of where to get their hands on the resources they knew were dwindling, and of course leaving always behind a path of environmental destruction.

The Shamans and tribal leaders considered Oil to be Pachamama’s blood and they knew she was in trouble. But they said it wasn’t Pachamama who was dying...it was us humans. Pachamama they said will live forever, perhaps in a different form than we know it now, but it would be without humans. She said if humans don’t stop raping and harming her for its resources it will “shake humans off”. Change the dream is what they said. Because the humans in the industrial world with the “dream” we had and what we were making it is really a “nightmare” and if we don’t stop, Pachamama will have her way - her revenge - and it is us humans that will be harmed and she will do it in ways that strike back at humans for their crimes against her.

When Greta Thunberg and so many warn the leaders and the communities to stop and change our ways and are sounding the alarm of an existential crisis, they are correct and sadly too few are listening and ways are not stopping. Pachamama will speak and she has begun. Whether it be unpredictable weather, earthquakes, locust or other natural events there is an event happening that is also a response of Pachamama according to these Shamans....in the form of the Coronavirus and a sweet animal, one of the only in the world without teeth and looks like a cross between an armadillo and anteater. The Pangolin.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinas-push-to-export-traditional-medicine-may-doom-the-magical-pangolin/2018/07/20/8d8c52d4-7ef1-11e8-a63f-7b5d2aba7ac5_story.html


https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/c/chinese-pangolin/

Highly endangered and on the critically endangered list and illegal to hunt and trade, this cute little animal is hunted illegally and traded at the markets in China and the scales sold for Chinese medicines and meat for food. Chinese researchers just confirmed that they have linked the Coronavirus to the Pangolin being traded at these markets in Wuhan.

If this is indeed where the virus originated, Pachamama and the Pangolin will have unleashed a virus on the human population because of human activity and it’s violation of it and while the Pangolin who is harmless and is on verge of extinction, a pandemic of proportions similar or worse than the Spanish Flu will be unleashed and will kill many humans. And according to the Shamans in the Amazon may just be a small taste of things to come because of human activity violating Pachamama.

When will humans learn it is they that are facing extinction?

August 16, 2017

Strafgesetzbuch Section 86a - Important reason why it exists. Time for the US to wake up.

While a majority of Americans are in shock right now and trying to digest what they are witnessing in the last several days with images of torches and nazi emblems, nazi salutes from Charlottesville, VA and the shocking response from Trump since then, imagine what is going through the minds of Holocaust survivors and anyone who has family who died at the hands of nazis or died fighting the nazis.

My family has members who bravely fought the Nazis and yes, some who died. I grew up keenly aware from both my German and Danish family why they died, what evil the Nazi's perpetrated and how it could never be allowed ever again. My family came to America and saw America as the "Land of the Free" and the country that liberated the world from the Nazi's and Nazism. Today, the ones who remember the War or those who died at the hands of Nazis or fighting the Nazis, would be in shock. I am in shock right now. My family and friends in Germany are in shock right now seeing the emblems of the Nazi's and the Nazi salutes being used in 2017 in America. And being defended by the President of the United States. And hearing that President state that the opposition is a moral equivalent or worse.

In Germany, the very symbols and emblems that were being paraded down the streets of Charlottesville, VA and the torch lit images of the nazi salute of stretched arms and the words of "Blood and Soil" (Blut und Boden) are forbidden in Germany and can result in not just arrest, but imprisonment for up to 3 years. That may seem "against freedom of speech" or extreme. I say it isn't extreme enough.

There is a reason it exists and the Germans understand all too well. Symbols and the evil meaning that they represent can destroy a society and kill people.

I believe these symbols, including the confederate flag and symbols of the Klu Klux Klan should be banned from being publicly displayed in the United States. I believe anyone who defends their use, or defends anyone who follows their hateful and evil beliefs is a Nazi and an enemy of our Nation, an enemy of humanity. I believe the US Congress should pass a law that bans these symbols and salutes from being used, similar to how the Germans have done in their country. Stop this evil from growing while we still can.

Today in Germany, Nazi emblems and other emblems and symbols of hate, Nazi salutes in written form, vocally, and even straight-extending the right arm as a saluting gesture (with or without the phrase), are illegal. It is a criminal offence punishable by up to three years of prison as per Strafgesetzbuch section 86a. Some exceptions in the usage for art, teaching and science is allowed.

This is my 10,000th post on the Democratic Underground. Never did I ever believe in my wildest dreams that I would be posting on this topic after watching the President of the United States defend people who use these symbols of hate and live by those symbols of hate and criticize the people who speak out against that hate.

November 9, 2012

7 Key Lessons To Be Learned from the 2012 Election:

Regardless of the political party you support, regardless of where you think this country should go, the following lessons learned from the 2012 election:


1) Math Matters:

Nate Silver and the Mathematicians predicted it to the tee - why? Math. Polls are nice, but math and statistics are nicer. Math and statistics are a science. Science is real. Anyone that says "the numbers don't matter" is just WRONG.

2) Women Matter:

"Hell hath no Fury like a Woman scorned"....ALL of the Republican candidates that made stupid comments about rape went from leading their races to defeat. They GUARANTEED Democrats would expand their hold on the Senate. Women VOTE.

3) Demographics Matters:

The Republican base are scared, angry old white men. And every year, their are fewer of them. In every OTHER demographic - blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, women, young people, LGBT, etc. Democrats have a huge advantage - and those groups are GROWING while the scared, angry old white men group is SHRINKING. If Republicans don't get this basic concept, they will truly be extinct as a party.

4) Number of People Matter, Not Number of Money:

Money may influence elections but money can't buy them - people matter more than dollars.

Republicans out-raised and outspent the Democrats in every Senate race and in the Presidential race - and they got their asses handed to them. It turns out the better predictor of success is not how much money you raised, but how MUCH of that money came from large numbers of small donors ($200 or less).

5) The Supreme Court Matters:

This election was about a lot of things, but one of the big ones was the Supreme Court and all of the Women and demographics mentioned above in Lessons #2 & #3, greatly outnumber the scared, angry old white guys knew that and voted. Which goes back to Lesson #1.

6) Moderates Matter:

The "Republic Party" of Teabaggers and Rush Limbaugh are screaming about having lost their country. That country in their minds existed when slavery existed and before suffrage - that country died along time ago. Or they are saying that they lost because Mitt Romney "wasn't conservative enough." Bullshit. He lost because he wasnt moderate enough... Mitt Romney lost because there aren't enough scared, angry old white men, and the more conservative he got (especially during the primaries) the more he lost the support of all the other demographics. If the GOP decides to go even further to the right, they will never have another shot at the White House or other elected office again. Only real Moderates in the GOP will ever have a chance if they want to save that party. See Lesson #1.

7) Climate Change Matters:

Sandy reminded everyone of that and that who sits in the White House or on "science" committees in Congress matters. Climate change deniers need not apply.

Pachamama

April 16, 2012

Sailing Fans Reeling Over Yacht Race Death- 4 still Missing

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/15/MN6R1O3L4D.DTL

The Bay Area's tightly knit sailing community was reeling Sunday after one of the region's most catastrophic boating disasters in decades - the wreck of a racing yacht near the Farallon Islands that killed one sailor and left four missing.

The wreck happened Saturday when 12-foot waves pummeled the sailboat during the Full Crew Farallones Race and hurled it onto rocks at the Farallon Islands, pitching most of the crew overboard. Three sailors were rescued from the scene, but one, Marc Kasanin, 46, of Belvedere died in the water and four more disappeared in the waves.

The 38-foot racing craft, named the Low Speed Chase, was one of 49 boats competing in this year's contest, which began at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco. The race has been held annually since 1907 and is sponsored by the Offshore Yacht Racing Association in Alameda.

Lynch identified the missing sailors as Alan Cahill of Tiburon, a boat technician in his mid-30s who has a wife and two children; Alexis Busch of Larkspur, who is in her mid-20s; Jordan Fromm, 25, of Ross; and Elmer Morrissey, early 30s, of Ireland.

Several boats turned back Saturday when 25-knot winds and waves as high as 15 feet churned up the waters near the Farallones, but otherwise the race conditions were typical for that area and this time of year, participants said.

Then, as racers were rounding the islands at 2:45 p.m., the Low Speed Chase was slammed by a powerful wave that washed five crewmates over the gunwale near the edge of the main Southeast Farallon Island - which, like the other islands, is formidably surrounded by steep, jagged rocks.

The remaining three on board turned the boat around to rescue their comrades when another wave heaved the boat onto the rocks on the northeast corner of the island, authorities said. Two sailors fell over the side on this second assault but managed to scramble to the shoreline, and the one left on board suffered a broken leg.

Too close to rocks

At least one other yacht was within eyesight, and its horrified crew watched the tragedy unfold but was unable to help in the tumultuous waves.

"If anyone can turn that corner, it would have been them," Church said. "These were some of the best sailors around."

http://www.marinij.com/millvalley/ci_20402905/fatal-yacht-race-accident-farallones-stuns-marin-sailing?source=most_viewed

No link yet.

---

PS: i knew the confirmed dead sailor Marc Kasanin and have raced in the past with him. Three of the currently missing sailors that the coast guard has called off the search for as of last night I know, including Alexis Busch, the only woman on board who is a remarkable young woman, who in addition to being a great sailor, was a Woman Baseball Player - (see Ladybaseball.com). When I used to race, this was one of the races I competed in twice.

Please refrain from making judgments of sailing being a race of the 1 percent and privileged. Any one on DU who sails knows that to be a sailor and part of the sailing community is more than that. There are many who sail and love sailing who aren't rich and often these yachts, while owned by wealthy, will be crewed by people who aren't, both professional and amateur sailors, who sail and race for the love of the sport and of the water.

I am very shook up about this and what isn't in this story which every sailor in the Bay Area and sport knows is that the area where they died is the feeding grounds of the Great White Sharks and near their breeding grounds. Its not in the article and the coast guard isn't saying it and neither are they on television, but their bodies will never be found. I wish nothing more than a miracle that the missing sailors be found alive. But I know better. I know from sailing this area that the risk of hypothermia is so great within minutes if not drowning should you fall in water. its why the crew did the emergency maneuver to retrieve the 4 sailors who were knocked over board, despite being close to the rocks. But if they are dead. i pray this is how they died or were knocked unconscious. Because the alternative is the horror us sailors never want to talk about. And we know their bodies wont be recovered. I pray for their families this morning and send them my love and condolences....

December 13, 2011

We have been in a Depression the last year & worst to be felt is coming in 2012.

While there have been some signs of the economy improving, they are fragile at best & being hindered from being better by the GOP blocking efforts by the Obama administration to provide economic stimulus. But what Krugman chillingly points out is the situation in Europe that is a grave danger not only to itself, but to the US economic & political situation.

The world economy & stability politically is teetering on the edge & dangerously close to authoritarian leanings and yes, revolution. Global revolution.

My family comes from Europe and I spend time there every summer. This last summer was very telling. Discussions in the Biergartens with my German family & friends were of wanting to go back to the Deutsch Mark & closing borders. Some feel very much pangs of Nationalism and others fear of memories from Germanys past. No one I spoke to either in Germany or from Spain, Italy, France or UK felt ok with the austerity measures being proposed & in fact the outrage expressed towards the banks, the EU and their own governments were filled with discussion of revolution & protest should things go that direction.

I fear that in the next 12 months that there could be a breakout of not only mass protests and revolt, but all out revolution both across Europe but also the US. I believe that groups with right-wing authoritarian leanings like the ones growing with power in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Austria, Italy, Spain etc have plans to take things in the direction similar to what Krugman described happening in Hungary. And if any one questions if it could happen here or that the US could become a police state or authoritarian establishment, I suggest looking at where we currently are and the response to the OWS protests around the country.

And dont kid yourself - the various Governments including our own know this is what we are teetering on.