Open Thread 10 FEB 21

Submitted by QMS on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 3:00am

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elements--fire-cassiopeia-art.jpg
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“The past is always tense, the future perfect.”
Zadie Smith
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Good morning and welcome to your Wednesday edition of the C99 open thread.
A safe haven to post whatever is on your mind.

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Todays element is fire. Have already touched on Wood and Water in previous posts.

metal (金), wood (木), water (水), fire (火), and earth (土)

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In Traditional Chinese Medicine --

We’ll take the Fire Element as an example to clarify how the Five Elements may work in relation to a person. In TCM, a person is considered of a certain Element type, that is, one type that is dominant. Note that the other elements always work in a person also.

As for the organs the Fire Element is connected to the Heart and Small Intestine, as for the Season it’s the Summer, the Weather is Hot or Warm, the Direction is South, the Emotion is Joy, Intimacy and Connection, the Color is Red, Tastes are Bitter and Burned, Sound is Laughing, the Sense organ and Sensation is the Tongue and Taste, the Body Tissues are the Vessels.

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Chinese New Year for the year 2021 is celebrated/ observed on Friday, February 12. This year the animal sign is the Ox.

Chinese New Year is the first day of the New Year in the Chinese lunisolar calendar (Chinese traditional calendar). It is also known as the Lunar New Year or the Spring Festival. The first day of the festival begins on the New Moon sometime each year between January 21st and February 20th. The holiday/festival lasts 16 days from New Year’s Eve to the 15th day of the New Year which also happens to be the Lantern Festival.

The Metal Ox year will present its own challenges but just like the Ox itself, it will be a year of hard work, determination and building – or rather, rebuilding. After the chaotic moments of the Rat year, the Ox year will be about rebuilding things to make way for something better.

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Credits:
Elements - Fire Photo -- Cassiopeia Art
Fire Quote - https://www.traditionalbodywork.com/the-five-elements-theory-in-chinese-...
Chinese New Year - https://www.calendardate.com/chinese_new_year_2021.htm
Year of the Ox - https://astrologyanswers.com/article/chinese-zodiac-ox-year/

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The stage is set, curtain is rising, You're on!

Namaste

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 7:32am
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Sun is shining here. Above 20 degrees. Almost balmy.
Fire is an interesting contrast to what is felt outside.
Saying goodbye to the rat year!

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Submitted by Raggedy Ann on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 7:40am
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I am a dragon - will be celebrating in 2024!

Astrologically, we are now in air. We've been in earth signs for 200 years, now we are in air signs. Last time we were in air signs was when we were coming out of the dark ages and into the renaissance. This is our renaissance - let's not waste it.

Been in the low 60's here. Polar vortex arriving on the weekend, with a high Sunday of 28 with snow showers. I hope we get tons of snow - we need the snow pack for the spring run off. Fingers crossed.

Enjoy the day! Pleasantry

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Submitted by Lookout on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 7:42am
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the Ox year will be about rebuilding things to make way for something better.

We can hope! One more mild day here before we cool off again. Still not too bad. High 30's low 40's for highs early next week, but it looks like we avoid the ice storms. I hate ice storms and crashing trees. Baby plants still growing inside. May be week after next will be time to plant out.

Hope you all have a good day. Stay warm!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by eyo on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 8:10am

Arrives tomorrow, FEB 11 21. Good luck to all!

This new moon takes place in forward-thinking air sign Aquarius' territory, which shifts us into a more inventive, creative, and community-oriented mindset. It hits during the height of February's Aquarius stellium, during which seven celestial bodies will be clustered together in this sign — all of which majorly amplify the unconventional Aquarian qualities of this lunation. Prepare to think outside the box when it comes to goal-setting and embrace the full spectrum of your individuality. Not even the current Mercury retrograde period can stop you from channeling the revolutionary energy of this new moon and making much-needed changes in your life.

Wood, fire, Wood, doorknobs, Chief Bottle Washer! Could be a real job title why not:

Sonoma County looks to entrepreneurs to help with forest management

As he walks around his 40-acre property in the hills near Healdsburg, Sam Salmon surveyed the damage from the Walbridge fire that ripped a path of fiery destruction through his forest land last summer.

Other than the redwoods, most of Salmon’s trees will not survive.

“It’s about 80% gone,” said Salmon, a Windsor town councilman. “They have names for these types of trees that don’t have any limbs, they call them ... bottle brush.”

Earlier, Salmon cut down some of his Madrone trees for fire wood, a project that he joked paid for the chainsaw. But he doesn’t know the next steps he may take to clear his forest, but he figures some of that may involve burning piles of debris.

cough cough

Cloverdale Workers Cooperative has a nice ring to it, ding? Where is everyone gonna spend their "coming soon" Biden dollars? I wonder how much it costs to create a workers co-op in Sonoma County, California?
...
When I was typing "Bernie or Bust!" back in the day, I certainly did not mean a brass head of Cesar Chavez in the oval office, but it's a nice gesture. Thanks. For some reason the UFW is nowhere to be seen in these parts, the plantation owners outsource everything to "Vineyard Managers" (don't say Field Boss, that's not hip), who then outsource the hiring of slaves immigrants to local places like "Star Staffing", who just happen to also rotate through the city council seats, and sit on all the fancy charity boards and stuff. PU this place stinks as bad as DC if you ask me, but nobody does. Nobody. LOL

Peace and Love

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 8:23am
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@eyo

That's an interesting element.
One way to get out of the box.

Cheers!

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Submitted by eyo on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 9:04am

@QMS hello, what could wrong with names like that? It made me laugh a little, but by the end I was crying again. Seeing everything through veils of dysthymia is the problem. Regrets.

My state representative I never voted for is named Jim Wood. I liked reading Fred Euphrat is leaving his doug fir and redwood roots to regrow. right on

... A neighbor, Fred Euphrat, will be doing salvage logging on the 400 acres he owns, also torched by the Walbridge fire. He will remove stems from the Douglas fir and redwoods, leaving the roots to regrow.
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Still, there are thriving pockets of timber activity. In 2020, in Sonoma County 10.7 million board feet of timber was harvested at a value of $8.4 million. The vestiges of the once-thriving industry include the family-operated Parmeter Logging Inc. in Cazadero and Redwood Empire Sawmill in Cloverdale where Euphrat sends some of his logs.

The county biomass business contest builds on earlier efforts to cultivate a wood product market related to fire safety. In 2016, state Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Santa Rosa, unveiled legislation that established a working group to expand the wood marketplace that utilizes wood biomass removed from wildfire zones.

The work has been met with pushback from environmental groups opposed to using wood biomass — the renewable energy from plants and animals — as fuel for power plants. The Sierra Club has claimed biomass electricity generation can’t compete with “cleaner forms of electric generation like natural gas, solar and wind” without government subsidies.

Blah blah blah, etc.. Yet another contest to see who can bail out private property owners the fastest and cheapest way possible, without causing too much "environmental group" opposition is how that entire article reads to me... c'mon man! A competition is not a cooperative, but it is all Jim Wood knows I guess. He is a good capitalist Democrat, been around since forever. Perhaps the new moon will catch him a clue. I hope so!

Thoughts and Prayers

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 10:26am
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@eyo

sounds like a good idea
a good bottle brush he should make

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Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 9:13am

In a pinch, use a mushroom to start a fire.

Amadou is a spongy material derived from Fomes fomentarius and similar fungi that grow on the bark of coniferous and angiosperm trees, and have the appearance of a horse's hoof (thus the name "hoof fungus"). It is also known as the "tinder fungus" and is useful for starting slow-burning fires. The fungus must be removed from the tree, the hard outer layer scraped off, and then thin strips of the inner spongy layer cut for use as tinder.

The ancients knew about this fire-starting property of fungi:

Amadou was a precious resource to ancient people, allowing them to start a fire by catching sparks from flint struck against iron pyrites. Remarkable evidence for this is provided by the discovery of the 5,000-year-old remains of "Ötzi the Iceman", who carried it on a cross-alpine excursion before his death and subsequent ice-entombment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadou

Miles and miles of Mycelium under the ground making dirt not war as eyo mentioned.
I think the mushrooms say this:

This world of ours is always changing...
not for the better, or the worse, but for life.
If the storms come and the water rises...
If fire scorches the land...
Or darkness descends...
We will be here, working. As we always have.
Extending the network, building community,
restoring balance, little by little.
One connection at a time.
It may take a million years, or a hundred million.
But we will still be here.

from Fantastic Fungi
edited by Paul Stamets

Thanks for the OT and the intro to Michele McKlaughlin.
Stay warm all of you in the cold country.

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 9:24am
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@randtntx

countless times in the woods with only a flint and striker
coulda just grabbed a 'roon. Live and learn.
The piano is nice.

peace

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 10:12am
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Originally it was thought that there were 2 sets of skiers caught in it. One group knew that the danger was high as chose a safer place to ski that day and had already done several runs before the avalanche caught them and they died. Another group was making its way uphill when they got caught and were able to dig themselves out. However, there was one more group of skiers that were involved and on hung on to a tree and rode it out. He helped dig others, but sadly.

I posted it yesterday, but doesn't seem anyone saw it. Sad story.

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Submitted by eyo on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 11:47am

@snoopydawg and I share your sadness. There were four people swept away from beaches during the last King Tides around here, even though there were plenty of warnings they are getting more ferocious and people still don't pay any mind. "Accidents happen ~shrug~"

This kind of death from disaster should go under REPORT ALL INJURIES I think. The society around me is just growing more callous and ignorant it seems. "We" are not going to make any progress by not paying attention to the affects of an unstable climate, no matter how hard we color stuff green. I am just trying to get used to it, the breakdowns.

Thoughts and Prayers

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 12:09pm
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@eyo

I still feel very connected to CA and especially the Bay Area and read about those deaths. Yes there are plenty of warnings about how dangerous the tides are or just sneaker waves in general. I remember camping at Wright's beach north of SF and 6 miles north of Bodega Bay where I camped just off the beach and when the big waves were blowing in I stayed well away from the beach and kept my dawgs away too. I have never thought allowing them to swim at certain beeches was a good idea.

These people who died skiing knew the risks and took them anyway. I did many of the same things when I was unkillable in my 20's. Wake up calls are hard to head.

Thanks, eyo.

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The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt

Submitted by Granma on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 10:16am
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And possibly freezing rain, starting Thursday. This area is not well equipped for snow. I think no place can be really equipped for ice or freezing rain. Grocery stores have been. People know they are not going to be able to get out once the snow starts.

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 10:21am
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@Granma

we are way out in the boonies
stocking up and laying low is our
way of life, winters especially

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Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 10:58am

and battling disinformation. It seems never-ending.
Here's an interesting article in Counterpunch about forest fires in the West.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/02/09/how-the-west-burns-and-why-loggi...

A new documentary titled The West is Burning continues to promote a flawed narrative that large blazes are a consequence of “fire suppression” and “fuel build-up.” Starting from this perspective, it promotes policies like thinning the forest and prescribed burning to counter the large blazes occurring across the West.

Another problem is that except for Greg Aplet of the Wilderness Society, none of the featured speakers in the film have any special background in fire ecology. Interviewees include forestry professor Jerry Franklin, WELC lawyer Susan Jane Brown; Nick Goulette, a community organizer; Shirlee Zane, a California county Supervisor; and Mark Webb, a former judge, and promoter of mills in John Day, Oregon. All these people, to one degree or another, are advocates of thinning the forest.

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Submitted by magiamma on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 11:40am
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open thread right? So what is the best tomato knife ??

Inquiring minds want to know? I just learned that there is such a thing.

https://www.victorinox.com/global/en/Products/Cutlery/Paring-Knives/Swis...

in other news

N.J. weather: Up to 5 inches of snow today for North Jersey. Next winter storm could pack bigger punch.

https://www.nj.com/weather/2021/02/nj-weather-up-to-5-inches-of-snow-tod...

y'all have a great day - stay warm if you in the path of - take good care

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Submitted by enhydra lutris on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 12:19pm
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@magiamma

has the store logo instead of Victorinox on one side - "Nordic Knives : Solvang, CA" and the other side says "Messermaster - Germany : NO STAIN X55 CR MO V14" accompanied by a little dude who is probably garbed as a blacksmith. I've been a lifelong knife user and treditionalist (serrations only for rope and cordage work and bread) until I was gifted it and I swear by it, so that Victorinox design would appear to be A+ and their steel is way cool too.

be well and have a good one.

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Submitted by travelerxxx on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 3:24pm
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@magiamma

We use a (now discontinued) WÜSTHOF 4103. It was originally advertised as a "tomato knife," but frankly I've used better ...especially for the money. Nothing with "WÜSTHOF" on the blade is cheap.

The two best tomato knives I've had are long gone. It was a tie between a Victorinox and some old serrated Robeson (if I remember correctly). Frankly, our old cheap-ass Ginsu paring knife probably works as well as anything.

Now, for some decent tomatoes.....

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 11:50am
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extremely sharp, holds an edge almost forever
(depending on the cutting surface -- use wood or softer plastic)
can not be sharpened like steel
corrated edge is good for the tomato skin
no tear out, but watch your fingers!

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Submitted by lotlizard on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 11:55am
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Forecast for tomorrow is some snow on top of the 3 inches already on the ground, high 25°F, low 9°F. Brrr. ♫ I wanna go back to my little grass shack in Kealakekua, Hawai‘i…

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 11:59am
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Is our winter work out
replaces mowing the grass in the summer
and raking leaves in the fall
digging the gardens in the spring
who needs a gym?

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Submitted by enhydra lutris on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 12:34pm
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I think I'll salute The Ox (aka John Entwistle) today and get it done with.

Be well and have a good one

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 2:10pm
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Dr. Gregory Michael – a 56-year-old obstetrician-gynecologist who ran his own practice at Miami Beach’s Mount Sinai Medical Center for more than a decade – died in January of a brain hemorrhage. He had received a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine two weeks earlier, and immediately developed immune thrombocytopenia, a rare and sometimes fatal blood disorder.

Michael is one of at least 36 people to have developed the condition after receiving either Pfizer’s or Moderna’s coronavirus vaccines, according to a New York Times report published on Monday. The cases were self-reported to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) before the end of January, meaning more people could have developed the condition since then.

Immune thrombocytopenia is a rare condition affecting an estimated 50,000 people in the US. The condition is caused by the body’s own immune system attacking the platelets that are the component of the blood responsible for clotting. With their blood unable to clot, patients often develop internal or external bruising, which may look like a rash. In several cases like Michael’s, the condition has caused massive hemorrhages or strokes.

One patient contacted by the Times suffered heavy vaginal bleeding two weeks after receiving Moderna’s vaccine and required platelet transfusions and steroid treatment to survive. Another woman was hospitalized with bruising and bleeding blisters in her mouth just a day after receiving the same shot. Her condition deteriorated to the point where doctors concerned that a slight knock would trigger fatal bleeding were afraid to move her from the hospital bed

Millions more have received the vaccines without any side effects. My uncle got his 2nd one a few days ago and only felt faint for a bit and now feels like he has a chance to survive COVID. I sure hope people are getting the immunity that they think they are. Still seeing people coming down with COVID and lots of people did in Israel, but no further info has been seen to see how bad it got.

If you know anything about how captured the FDA is as are most of the others you cannot trust the information given to the VAERS website because they can gobble thousands of cases of the same incident and make it seem that it only happened once, not those thousands of times they were injured. It is a scam and a cover up on score with Hitler's camps, IMO.

I do not trust my government. Haven't for some time, but lately it just seems that everything is a scam for someone to get rich. How many unqualified people got involved with the COVID epidemic money making schemes?

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Submitted by enhydra lutris on Wed, 02/10/2021 - 2:28pm
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@snoopydawg

something quite similar, her immune system was wiping out her platelets to the point she needed transfusions and steroids. She eventually got past it, nobody knows how/why. I think she got it after she took up line dancing, but I doubt that there is any causal relationship.

be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --