The Weekly Watch

You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone

Open Thread Image.jpg

Appreciating things like our natural systems, friends, family, and perhaps most important, our health isn't a talent I (we?) often exercise. I had an episode last weekend where I damaged a leg muscle, I think by lifting a log, but I also climbed on two different roofs the same day. I normally have such good health, that I fail to count my lucky stars. This week has been a different experience. I woke last Sunday with a painful leg and back and it hurt to walk. I'm on the mend and everyday I have become more mobile and agile, but it put me on this train of thought that we need to practice more gratitude for all our gifts and good fortune...big and small. So today let's appreciate our situation and look for some good.

Big Yellow Taxi
by Joni Mitchell

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel *, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum *
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that DDT * now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

© January 7, 1970; Siquomb Publishing Corp

Pink Hotel: Although Joni's own words suggest she wrote this on Maui, the Pink Hotel in this song is most likely the Royal Hawaiian in Honolulu. The romantic and legendary Pink Palace, built in 1927 is the landmark hotel on Waikiki Beach. Here, amidst serene gardens behind the coral-colored facade, you can still find the special ambiance of old Hawaii and its gracious island hospitality. The Royal Hawaiian has 526 beautifully appointed rooms, located in either the elegant Historic Building or the modern Tower Wing.
Tree Museum: Dave Donelly, reporter for Honolulu's Star-Bulletin, informs us that: "'Big Yellow Taxi', by the way, was written about Hawaii and the "tree museum" she sang about where they charged you to see the trees was Foster Botanical Garden"
https://jonimitchell.com/music/song.cfm?id=13
“I wrote Big Yellow Taxi on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart…this blight on paradise. That’s when I sat down and wrote the song. When it first came out, it was a regional hit in Hawaii because people there realised their paradise was being chewed up. It took 20 years for that song to sink in to people most other places. That is a powerful little song because there have been cases in a couple of cities of parking lots being torn up and turned into parks because of it.”

I took a backwards approach this week...literally and physically. Wednesday I decided to load up the smoker with chicken for a few friends coming by on Thursday. I use one of those charcoal cones/cylinders that uses newspaper to get the charcoal lit. Once it got the charcoal going, I dumped the red hot coals into the smoker. As you can imagine, when the coals are poured they go everywhere, which made me back up, trip on the bag of charcoal, and fall on my ass. I was back up in a jiffy, but now sore and back to hobbling. I finished getting the smoker stoked and set up, and managed to put on the chicken. As I walked back inside holding the empty chicken tray, I turned to kick the door shut. For some reason I used my good leg to shut the door and stood on my once improving but now weakened leg. Adding insult to injury, my leg didn't support me and down I went again within 20 minutes of the last time right on my ass. Well now that sure set me back. I'm on the mend and have recovered to where I was about this time last week. That episode inspired the essay... Because I for one take my good health for granted.

However, JtC's piece on Friday about the draft stirred some memories and made me realize several things we've lost over our lives. So I thought it might be fun to see what other C99ers though we have lost...things we didn't even recognize till they were gone.

This week I've been listening to several pieces about Julian:
Chris Hedges talks to documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist John Pilger about the upcoming appeals hearing in London for the Julian Assange case. (25 min)

On Sept. 26, Yahoo! News published “Kidnapping, assassination and a London shoot-out: Inside the CIA’s secret war plans against WikiLeaks.” The article detailed discussions within the CIA to kidnap or assassinate Julian Assange. The revelations came a month before a hearing in Britain’s High Court that will see the U.S. government appeal a decision that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be sent to the United States to face espionage charges. These revelations also coincided with the arrest of an Icelandic man who played a major role in the FBI’s case against Assange and who has now admitted he lied in his testimony about Assange to U.S. federal investigators. The most recent revelations, coupled with the numerous legal anomalies of the Assange case, including leaks that show that the Spanish security firm at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London where Assange sought refuge for seven years, turned over recordings of his meetings with his lawyers to the CIA, amply illustrate that the judicial pantomime carried out against Assange is a political persecution led by the U.S. government and the CIA because of embarrassing and damaging revelations about the inner workings of the US military, intelligence agencies and the political class repeatedly exposed by Assange and WikiLeaks. The goal of the U.S. government is to shut down WikiLeaks, and organizations like WikiLeaks, and to make an example of Assange, who if he is extradited to the United States faces 175 years in prison, to dissuade others who might consider replicating his courageous reporting. The upcoming appeals hearing is on October 27 and 28 at Britain’s High Court, London.

CIA Plans To Kill Julian Assange 'UNFATHOMABLE' (Jeremy Corbyn, Richard Burgon, Kristinn Hrafnsson) (15 min)

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson and Richard Burgon MP at the Belmarsh Tribunal, which featured some of the biggest names in international politics and journalism speaking in solidarity with Julian Assange, who faces 175 years in a super-max prison in the United States should British courts decide that he should indeed be extradited.

The case against the journalist Assange is clearly the CIA versus free speech. But Julian's story is paralleled by a corporate persecution of a lawyer, Steven Donziger, by Exxon against whom he won a settlement...

https://www.nationofchange.org/2021/10/22/the-persecution-of-steven-donz...

After winning its case against Donziger which will deny him and his clients the right to collect on their successful suit in the United States, Chevron was also awarded $3.4 million in lawyer’s fees in 2014. With additional court fees and fines, Donziger is liable to the tune of about $10 million.

As Donziger recently said, “I, with other lawyers, helped Indigenous peoples in Ecuador win a historic $9.5bn pollution judgement against Chevron for the deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of cancer-causing waste into the Amazon. That’s a historical fact. That case has been affirmed on appeal by 28 appellate judges, including the highest courts of Ecuador and Canada for enforcement purposes. So why am I the one being locked up? I helped hold them accountable.”

In a case that began in 1993 and dragged through the courts until 2011, the plaintiffs Donziger represented won just over $18 billion in damages (later reduced to $9.5 billion by Ecuador’s highest court) from Texaco, a liability transferred to Chevron, who appealed the decision, at times claiming because they had never had operations in the country themselves they shouldn’t be liable for the actions of a company they purchased after the damage was already done.
...
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had this to say about the treatment of Steven Donziger in U.S. courts, “The charges against and detention of Mr. Donziger appears to be retaliation for his work as a legal representative of indigenous communities as he refused to disclose confidential correspondence with his clients in a very high profile case against a multi-national business enterprise.”

Chevron’s case heavily relied on the testimony of the Ecuadorian judge accused of taking the bribe, Alberto Guerra, who later publicly recanted the testimony that Chevron’s case against Donziger hinged on. Nonetheless, Judge Kaplan’s initial 2014 judgement hasn’t been overturned. It’s been reported Guerra received at least $326,000 and a car from the oil and gas giant and was provided the services of an immigration lawyer after being relocated to the United States by the company.

“I have been attacked and demonized for years by Chevron in retaliation for helping Indigenous peoples in Ecuador try to do something to save their cultures, their lives, and our planet in the face of massive oil pollution. That’s the context for why we are here today,” Donziger told the court after his sentencing this month.
...
The influence Chevron has been able to wield over U.S. courts in their scorched earth campaign against Donziger is a worrying sign on many fronts. In terms of climate change, it begs the question: If a fossil fuel company can’t be held to account for the very obvious harms they’ve deliberately caused in the past, what chance does the environmental movement and civil society generally have to rein them in and prevent even greater, globalized catastrophes in the future?

Working hand in hand to control global outcomes and maximize profits ... the mafia branch of government (CIA) and the corporations that pull all the levers of power.
So what is new? Awareness (I hope). What is gone? Innocence. This is not the America I was brainwashed to support. When you really look at it, it never has been...from the genocide of our first nations peoples to the enslavement of anyone we managed to capture and convince owed us their labor. As I look at the genocide of the Palestinians by our supposed allies to the destruction of the Amazon and its indigenous peoples, I wonder what has really changed?

Time it was
And what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence
A time of confidences

Long ago it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They're all that's left you

The CIA has been doing horrid things my entire life, but I only clued in 20-30 years ago. The CIA engineered the Korean and Vietnam conflict, did their best to create a Cuban war, and tortured many with their McCarthy ploy and anti-communist rhetoric, including stars like Paul Robeson I go so far as to think H.A. Wallace was ditched and H.S. Truman installed to insure the creation of the CIA and the dropping of the A-bomb.

Why didn't people notice? There was great social change afoot, as people gladly became suburbanites and tied themselves to automobiles and so much more that goes with that lifestyle. Watch just a few minutes of these two clips to remind yourself of that social turning...

The Suburban Wasteland: How the 'Burbs Kill Us, Fast and Slow

...the epidemic of car fatalities and the ever-growing rate of a wide range of chronic illnesses among Americans. While other factors are important, our nation's dispersal into car-dependent suburbia is a bigger factor than many realize.

I think most of you are somewhere near my age and remember the time in our youth when everything appeared rosy, but really wasn't. The slow degradation of unions and labor rights began in those days and despite a few labor protests has accelerated till today. Moms weren't forced to work, but most began a career to help the family get ahead. Divorce became ever more prevalent. In retrospect, the suburbs are one of the factors helping the dissolution of family. We became a society stuck in little boxes in large complexes of people we hardly knew....a far cry from our tribal origins and sense of belonging.

But I digress, For that tendency isn't gone but continues to flourish.

As I began this process of thinking of things I appreciate I thought after the last couple of odd years we've had, that having a partner has been a gift. It has been a weird situation to navigate in these times, and having someone to help parse the puzzle has been a gift. We've discussed various approaches if one or the other dies. I'm hopeful for another 20 years, but that's kinda pushing it. Who knows what we'll see in the next couple of decades (if we make it).

I'm grateful to live in a forest. We are in a sea of green in a satellite photo. We're only a quarter mile from NPS Little River Canyon Preserve. So we have pretty good bird activity. However, we've had to stop feeding the birds as the bears keyed in on the feeders and kept tearing them down. Despite this little oasis of forest, our forests are being consumed. We've got two saw mills in town, one specializing in furniture quality wood and the other using white oak to make barrel staves. Thirty or more miles away along the Coosa River is a paper mill which we can sometimes smell. It consumes vast quantities of wood. A study of SE forests suggested over the next 50 years:

  • Forested land will continue to dwindle.
  • The region will get hotter, and probably drier.
  • Wildfire season will be longer, and more dangerous.
  • Shrinking forest land and changing climate will stress many animal and plant species.

As go the forest, so go the insects and birds.

Some studies have documented insect declines. Others have documented bird declines. But scientists hadn’t connected the two — until recently.

In a study published in Ornithological Applications, researchers found that declines in native plants — and the resulting drop in insects — may be causing the number of terrestrial, insectivorous birds to fall.

“Invasive species have penetrated ecosystems and replaced native plants just about everywhere. Human-dominated landscapes make up a huge area,” said Doug Tallamy, a professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware who conducted the study with his University of Delaware co-author Greg Shriver. “When we allow that to happen, it decreases the insect populations our birds need.”

Others suggest this species decline is related to pesticide use.

Ongoing declines in bird population and diversity are being accelerated by the use of neonicotinoid insecticides, according to research published in Nature Sustainability earlier this month. The paper comes on the heels of a groundbreaking study released last year, finding that the United States has lost 3 billion birds since 1970, a roughly 30% decrease from that time. This new research adds further detail to losses that have occurred within the last decade, as farming patterns have shifted increasingly to the use of pesticide-coated seeds.

Like Joni sang to start this rambling conversation,
"Leave me the birds and the bees...please!"

I don't want to wait till it is gone to understand I'm grateful for it. There are many studies into the benefits of gratitude. Here's one popular press example.

When we practice gratitude we are actually training our minds to be more positive.
There are actually some fascinating physical associations that can occur.
When we practice gratitude and positive thinking, there is a direct effect on brain chemistry.
When we focus on gratitude and happiness we get to control the release of chemicals and neurotransmitters in the brain.

choose to be grateful_0.jpg

So yes, I'm still a bit sore and having to limit my activities, but this too will pass. Besides it could have been much worst, breaking a bone, tearing a ligament or tendon and so on. This time next week I suspect the injury will be relegated to a memory.

I hope you'll share some of your insights into those things we've watched disappear, and explain why you're glad for your experiences. Have a wonderful Sunday!

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Comments

Sorry to hear of your falls while smoking those chickens. Hope you heal up OK.
Some things I miss from the past --
- interest bearing savings accounts
- working on vehicles before the black box magic era
- the value of a dollar being above 25 cents
- being able to afford doctors and dentists
- peace with honor
- clean water and air
- hitchhiking
- American made goods
- small local businesses like hardware stores, grocery stores, service stations
- helpful cops
- truth in advertising
- living without pain

Perhaps the memory is fading, as I know not all of the "good old days" were always good
but nature seemed a bit more consistent and less extreme way back when.

Thanks for the OT!

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Lookout's picture

@QMS

I too remember those things. Lockdowns etc may have been the death knell for most US small business. Interestingly, small farms have been thriving..selling out produce and products. May be it is time to return to 1900...with bikes, horses, and village life.

Well thanks for the visit and memories!
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhD9e2SzytY]

Thanks for the memory
Of things I can't forget, journeys on a jet
Our wondrous week in Martinique and Vegas and roulette
How lucky I was
And thanks for the memory
Of summers by the sea, dawn in Waikiki
We had a pad in London but we didn't stop for tea
How cozy it was
Now since our breakup I wake up
Alone on a gray morning-after
I long for the sound of your laughter
And then I see the laugh's on me
But, thanks for the memory
Of every touch a thrill, I've been through the mill
I've lived a lot and learned a lot, you loved me not and still
I miss you so much
Thanks for the memory
Of how we used to jog even in a fog
That barbecue in Malibu, away from all the smog
How rainy it was
Thanks for the memory
Of letters I destroyed, books that we enjoyed
Tonight the way things look, I need a book by Sigmund Freud
How brainy he was
Gone are those evenings on Broadway
Together we'd go to a great show
But now I begin with the Late Show
And wish that you were watching, too
I know it's a fallacy
That grown men never cry, baby, that's a lie
We had our bed of roses, but forgot that roses die
And thank you so much

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

@QMS That got me.

I remember that we had school banking, teaching the value of compounding interest.

Each of the kids in my class had their own bank books and weekly, with money from our parents, the amounts were deposited and we learned about how money can work for us, not just be spent.

This was so long ago, in a country no longer recognizable....and admittedly, a middle class school teaching middle class children about a world that would be rosy for us.

In college, my economics professor said that anytime you could lock in a 10% rate, take it----and I did. Almost impossible to believe that rates on Certificates of Deposit once hit 14.5% for a year.

Now, savers are punished. The banks use our money and all we get for it is inflation.

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NYCVG

@NYCVG

varecia_rubra.jpeg

Somehow negative interest rates are a thing now ??

missed on my list ..
air travel before the TSA

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Lookout's picture

@QMS

...and they pay you to borrow more. That's about as upside down as you can get.

Have a good day hanging around!

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

[video:https://youtu.be/c8-BT6y_wYg]

Gratitude for good health and whatever is gratifying in our lives is surely the key to a longer saner life.

OTOH,
[video:https://youtu.be/pojL_35QlSI]

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NYCVG

Lookout's picture

@NYCVG

to recognize the good around us. Hope there's plenty of good in your world this morning!

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

@Lookout You're right.

contentment is better

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NYCVG

Azazello's picture

I've let my subscription to The Nation lapse after 30-some years. I quit Mother Jones too. I'm sticking with In These Times and Harper's. I will never quit Harper's.
From this month's Index:

Percentage change since 2019 in the number of Republicans who say that large corporations benefit the country: -44
In the number of Democrats who say so: +22
In the number of Republicans who say that financial institutions benefit the country: -21
In the number of Democrats who say so: +30

And this, important and thought-provoking, from the July issue: History As End, By Matthew Karp - 1619, 1776, and the politics of the past

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Lookout's picture

@Azazello

Dimwits support banks and corporations and both support endless war. I saw a similar reversal about censoring attitude too...dims all for it, Thugs against.

Have a good day anyway!

All those labels don't really mean much. I'll look forward to your article, thanks for the link. You might enjoy this political conversation...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJnzA-ZvXt8]
Neofascist seizure of America’s state governments

Chris Hedges discusses the seizure of state government by American’s homegrown neofascist movement with the historian Paul Street.

The creeping homegrown Christianized fascism that is steadily gaining power in the United States is most evident not in Washington but in state-level politics. Some 150 million Americans live in fully or mainly “red states,” where state politics and policy are completely or largely in the hands of a neofascist Republican party. There are 22 states where Republicans control the governorship and legislative bodies. There are 15 states where the Democratic party controls the governorship and legislative bodies. And there are 13 states with divided governments. In the “red” states such as Texas and Florida laws are being passed to suppress voting, outlaw abortion, forbid honest discussion of white systemic racism in public education, ban local governments and school districts from enforcing minimum wage ordinances, prohibit local vaccine and mask mandates, cut pandemic-related unemployment benefits, reject federal Medicaid dollars to help the poor receive health care, and persecute undocumented workers and their families. The nation’s most retrograde corporate political funders and operatives – the Koch-backed “fifth column” culprits in historian Nancy MacLean’s book Democracy in Chains – have long focused heavily on politics and policy at the state level. State politics, with the collapse of the local press and its consolidation by a handful of corporations, is an easy mark. It is rarely covered and almost never in depth. Corporations, for relatively small costs, can buy the loyalty of state officials and banish those who do not do their bidding. What is happening, as the historian Paul Street writes, is that in the white nationalist “flyover” states, Republican neofascists are hard wiring these jurisdictions to orchestrate this creeping coup with Leninist discipline.

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

Azazello's picture

@Lookout
I've been reading Chris Hedges for a long, long time but I think maybe he's stuck in the past. I don't think there are any fascists, neo or otherwise. There are no socialists or communists either. I believe that those 20th categories are no longer useful and that they constrain our thinking. My slogan for this is: There Are No Systems.
I live in a "red state" but 20th century European history has nothing to do with it. There are no sound trucks blasting the Horst Wessel song, no brownshirts battling communists in the streets. Republican neofascists with Leninist discipline ? Please, these loons are not fascists.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Lookout's picture

@Azazello

as I said above...

All those labels don't really mean much.

And sadly I'm to the place where I don't think politics do either. The discussion centers on voting rights. My comment was what does ballot access mean when people like Bernie and Tulsi are NOT allowed to appear on the ballot cause the party controls the primary. The Seattle socialist says the democratic party is a dead end for socialists, and I think the system is so captured we're better off moving on as best we can.

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

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Lookout's picture

@humphrey

France...

Thousands of 'Yellow Vest' protesters rallied in Paris as part of nationwide demonstrations against the mandatory COVID pass on Saturday.

The protest comes after the French parliament voted on Wednesday in favour of the law to bring in the mandatory sanitary pass until July 2022.

Similar rallies took place in major cities across the country.

https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2021/10/24/2595110/yellow-vests-gathe...

Italy

Protesters from across the political spectrum gathered in Milan on Saturday to rally against the COVID Green Pass.
Demonstrators chanted ‘Tireste chiama, Milano risponde’ (Triest calls, Milan responds) in reference to the Italian port city where anti-pass protests originated.
Protests in Trieste have been ongoing since last Friday after the measure became mandatory for all workers in Italy.

https://mediaautoresponder.net/2021/10/24/italy-opponents-of-covid-green...

Even around the US
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (WATE) — Hundreds of federal employees or contractors in East Tennessee will be required to get their COVID-19 vaccination due to an executive order from President Biden which includes employees at Y-12 and ORNL in Oak Ridge.

A freedom rally was held on Saturday in Oak Ridge to protest these mandates.

Cecil Carmichael currently works at ORNL and went to Saturday’s event.

“I’ve worked there 37 years, 10 months, and 19 days,” he said. “It has been a good place to work in the past.”

However, he said now his job is on the line because he’s decided not to get the COVID-19 vaccine,

“I asked for the religions accommodation but the only accommodation they were willing to give was to send me home for 60 days without pay and that’s just not acceptable.”

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

@Lookout That's my new idea.

Not marches. or demonstrations. or General Strike.

No Buy Day. No internet purchases. No store purchases. No Buy days announced well in advance so that people can get the food and medicine they need before the No Buy day.

After the first No Buy day, TPTB will scoff.

After the second No Buy day, they will be concerned.

Our power to speak and make our will known will grow. From this beginning, real change becomes possible.

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NYCVG

Lookout's picture

@NYCVG

you can tell because they lust for our dollars. Love your no-buy days...wonder if we could last a week?

I like John's last verse of imagine...(as I sing it)
Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can
no need for greed nor hunger,
a brotherhood of man

A sharing society would be quite different.

Have a good one!

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7 users have voted.

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

@Lookout of a One Day No Buy day.

Then, another one.

Repeat.

Not a punishment for people and their needs. Lengthy No Buy Day periods would stress too many of us who lack the resources to plan and buy ahead of time.

No Buy Days can be a Warning that there are more of Us then there are of Them.

No Buy days should be on ordinary week days and widely publicized as way to make our ignored voices and lives heard.

This makes sense to me. Maybe not to many reading this. I'd love to be informed if my idea is nuts.

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4 users have voted.

NYCVG

Lookout's picture

@NYCVG

Somewhere in my dim memory was a day or two of no gas purchase days. Expanding the idea makes sense to me.

uh oh...looks like one of those false planted memories...
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/viral-gas-out-day-april-1...

A "Gas Out" Day Idea To Lower Gas Prices Is Going Viral But It's Been Proven To Be Ineffective And Inaccurate

The fake effort appeared to have started as an email chain in 2000. Then it spread again on Facebook in 2012. Now in 2019, it's gone viral on Twitter and become a meme.

Still think it would be a good idea!

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4 users have voted.

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

@Lookout is shot down easily.

My idea is bigger.

All Purchasing of goods and services stopped for 24 hours.

This can work.

Which may be what dooms it.

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4 users have voted.

NYCVG

Lookout's picture

@NYCVG

Expanding the idea makes sense to me.

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

@Lookout

There is widespread dissatisfaction with the way things are evolving. The problem is that one is required to turn to alternate media to find out what is happening as the MSM is controlled by TPTB. The brainwashing of the public continues.

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Lookout's picture

@humphrey

just trying to reinforce your message.

People are fed up with mandates, dictates, lock downs, restrictions and requirements.

oh yeah and low pay for shit jobs.

Have a good one!

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

@humphrey .

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NYCVG

Dawn's Meta's picture

@Lookout

What's Happening in France

Macron cracks down. More state sponsored violence

Yellow Vests ‘Season 2’ begins – are Season 1s always better?
The Yellow Vests are back! But Macron promises more and harsher repression, while the corporate media, both French and foreign, look the other way.

The Yellow Vests poised to restart marching in Paris: The Bastille monument is in the background and a “Stop the genocide of the Gauls” sign is at the head of the demonstration. (All photos by the author - Ramin Mazaheri).

So glad you posted the Jilets Jaunes movement. This links to Twitter posts, videos and text.

What do I miss: right here is a big one - protests without the militarized police. France police just a few years ago would march with the protesters because they had common cause.

Now Macron has managed to split off at least some of the police and military to convince them we are not all part of the citoyens.

I also give thanks for and miss the years of plentiful Salmon moving up rivers at all times of the year and from two year old fish to seven (which we called 'Hogs', and yes they were big. Nothing under forty five pounds.)

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

Lookout's picture

@Dawn's Meta

with an all out BLM vs defund the police war didn't work out well here in the states either. Police are still funded, and in fact got a raise and more military equipment. You can't make it up. The oligarchs recognize the need for mercenaries. Welcome to neofeudalism.

Hope all is well on the homestead. Your garden sure looked nice. We took a peek at the sweet potatoes that have not been dug, and decided to give them another week or so. All the best!

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

After all this isn't like what happened with regards to Ben and Jerry's announcement previously.

https://www.rfi.fr/en/middle-east/20211024-israel-to-build-over-new-1-30...

The announcement from the housing and construction ministry in right-wing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's government said tenders had been published for 1,355 homes in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War.

Those new homes add to the more than 2,000 residences which defence sources have said in August would be authorised for West Bank settlers.

Final approval is expected from the defence ministry this week for those homes.

Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh, speaking at a weekly cabinet meeting, called on world nations, and especially the United States, to "confront" Israel over the "aggression" that settlement construction poses for the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian Authority will be keenly watching for a response from US President Joe Biden's administration, which has said it opposes unilateral Israeli settlement construction as an obstacle to the two-state solution to the conflict.

About 475,000 Israeli Jews live in settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law, on land Palestinians claim as part of their future state.

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6 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@humphrey

To see the US tell the World Israel has the right to defend itself as they commit genocide....as if genocide was their defense. Too much.

Then bitch about China's treatment of it's Muslim population. Really too much!

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8 users have voted.

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

@humphrey The same economics professor who talked about locking in high interest rates in 1962, was a Palestinian who taught me about Israel/Palestine.

Which explains how ghastly I understand all of Israel's actions concerning racism/Arabs/Palestinians to be. I learned about it from a Palestinian. Not AIPAC. Being Jewish has never confused this issue for me.

And on the Jewish theme---I wonder how many readers here understood the Jewish undercurrent in Dune.

Just a tid-bit: in Dune, Paul Atreides is called the Kwisatz Haderach. The Way. The messiah, kind of. From my limited Hebrew, I can tell you that Ha is "the" and Derek is "Way." Kwisatz also has a hebrew word that it closely resembles.

Trivia. but interesting.

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4 users have voted.

NYCVG

Lookout's picture

@NYCVG

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dune_2021

I loved the Dune books...read several...never liked any of the film versions. Went to school with many Jewish folk of several sects, but really don't know much about it. Never have been very religious. What has always puzzled me is Israel as a Jewish state being as arrogant as the US in its own superiority. It is the crossing from religion to political domination which I just don't tolerate well.

Well, may be this will be a good film of Dune, a fun intergalactic story!

A mythic and emotionally charged hero's journey, "Dune" tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet's exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence - a commodity capable of unlocking humanity's greatest potential - only those who can conquer their fear will survive.

Edit to add 3 min trailer...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPcrB4OC1TE]

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5 users have voted.

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

@Lookout

why does this shit get broadcast?

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4 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@QMS

Without saying the c word I would say it is obvious fear can kill rational thought...same could be said of TDS.

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4 users have voted.

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

@QMS The little death that preceeds total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

And when it passes thru me, Only I will remain. (paraphrased) Repeat. and repeat.

Words to live by. then and now.

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5 users have voted.

NYCVG

touch with reality.

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8 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@humphrey

his recent article was also good...
Behind NATO’s ‘cognitive warfare’: ‘Battle for your brain’ waged by Western militaries

Western governments in the NATO military alliance are developing tactics of “cognitive warfare,” using the supposed threats of China and Russia to justify waging a “battle for your brain” in the “human domain,” to “make everyone a weapon.”

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8 users have voted.

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

A Juan Guaido clone will save the day!

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-10-22/blinken-accuses-ni...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega on Friday of preparing a sham election next month and trying to establish an “authoritarian dynasty” amid a wave of arrests ahead of Nicaragua’s Nov. 7 vote.

Blinken, who visited Latin America this week with stops in Ecuador and Colombia, welcomed a vote on Wednesday by the Organization of American States expressing “alarm” over Nicaraguan government actions it says will undermine the election, in which Ortega seeks a fourth consecutive term.

https://ticotimes.net/2021/10/22/oas-resolution-calls-for-free-elections...

Costa Rica joined 25 other members of the Organization of American States (OAS) in condemning repression in Nicaragua and calling for fair elections.

The resolution urges Nicaragua “to implement without delay the principles of the Inter American Democratic Charter and all internationally recognized electoral standards, including agreed-upon electoral reforms, with a view to holding free, fair, and transparent elections as soon as possible, under OAS and other credible international observation.”

It received 26 votes in favor — including the United States and Costa Rica — with seven abstentions and one absent (Nicaragua).

The votes in favor were: Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, The Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, United States, and Venezuela.

Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines abstained from the vote.

https://www.zee5.com/articles/eu-considering-new-sanctions-against-nicar...

Madrid [Spain], October 19 (ANI/Sputnik): The European Union considers introducing a package of sanctions against the inner circle of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega if the elections in this country do not meet democratic standards, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg

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6 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@humphrey

Ben called out the tactics
in Sept...

The US Congress invited neoconservative regime-change strategists to discuss the next stage of hybrid warfare on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, which will likely involve creating an economic blockade, refusing to recognize the legitimacy of President Daniel Ortega, and borrowing tactics the Trump administration used in its coup attempt in Venezuela.

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6 users have voted.

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

@humphrey Barbados has won its freedom from Britain recently.

Another entity casting off the Imperialist stench.

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4 users have voted.

NYCVG

mimi's picture

and I am not glad about that experience. To answer your question blockquoted below.

hope you'll share some of your insights into those things we've watched disappear, and explain why you're glad for your experiences.

I miss my mother It took me 70 years to understand how strong and smart she was.

I appreciate that my son is still alive and survived 'his' war in Iraq and I fear the day when he loses his strength and health.

I miss the times when I still liked to talk to people who could understand my life. There were never those times. So what? It was what it was and it is what it is and it will be what it will be.

Basta.

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3 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@mimi

Bernie still had a chance in 2016. I think like many in our community, I matured in my understanding that the dimwit party would never allow Bernie to be it's candidate. They could still taste the failure of McGovern form the 72 election when the corporate dims crossed over to vote Nixon.

With maturity often comes realism and a loss of hope. Despite all that, I remain hopeful about my existence through whatever awaits. But not naivety about the unfolding mess on a multitude of planes or levels. It won't be pretty, but I can't honestly paint a bright picture of mankind's future...I can imagine it, but not see it come to fruition.

Can't you imagine a friend you can teach about your life? Cause I can from far over the sea. Be more American and talk with folks, even strangers, and be less a reserved German. Which I hope I'm saying without offense.

Wishing you happiness and release!

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5 users have voted.

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

mimi's picture

@Lookout
that coming to the US from Germany in the early 1980, following a black African (not an Afro-American - big difference) to the US because he got a job in DC, can you imagine that I had not ANY personal contact to ANY American?

Of course you might say, that's my own fault and blame my reserved Germaness for it, but I think til today that that was not the reason for it. There were just no Americans around in my direct vicinity either at work, nor in my neighborhood, nor among my - what I would call my husbands fellow Africans - nor among all of my work colleagues among my employers' employees?

I knew personally exactly ONE American, who worked as a correspondent for the German Press Agency, where I worked part-time as an office archival cleaning lady. He was already quite old and known as a correspondent for UPI (United Press Ingernational), when UPI was still around. (Tried to search for him online and - well - be welcome to the shittiest online archives of the internets - nothing there about him)

OK, I am gettig tired to explain my life.

Have a good one and yes, white Americans - as far as I could watch them interacting with my husband - were the most uncomplicated, outgoing and polite folks. Germans among my husbands work colleagues were the most 'reserved' ones. ie so reserved that they did not want to shake hands with me, when they understood I was his wife. That happened on the rare occasions I accompanied my husband to the IMF's (Internationa Monetary Fund) Christmas party.

Who cares anyhow. It is completely unimportant and irrelevant. I think I met my first Americns at meet-ups and yearly kos events. I guess I was so interested in reading dailykos, because that was the only way to 'get to know Americans' for me. I opened my mouth too much and I guess made a lot of 'enemies' that way.

/end of comment

Tired now. Have a good day.

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3 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@mimi

hope you can make some friends where you are now. I'm a people person. It helped as a teacher, and I practiced liking all my students. Some of the best teaching advice I ever got was that even the kid that drives you nuts "aren't so bad once you get to know them".

Here's a couple of ideas...
1 min joke
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l1z4Avj6LQ]

...and a more serious article with practical ideas.
https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/making-friends
This article suggest joining a club or class. If you particularly have an interest in Americans there is an Americans in Berlin group (unfortunately it is on facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/35803918997/

I've been lucky in many ways. Even as a kid I never met a stranger, and can talk to most anyone...even those with whom I disagree (though I may change the subject to weather or some easy topic).

So wishing you the best and a life with friends!

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3 users have voted.

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

mimi's picture

@Lookout
I have to get out of my current situation and role as a caretaker, property manager, legal representative of a family member here. That is very difficult. But as soon as I have liberated out of it, you can be sure I 'do my own stuff'. Absolutely.

It will come... Smile

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2 users have voted.
zed2's picture

Lookout, do you have a heat pad? Whan I pull muscles or ligaments or have joint injuries, I find that continuous application of heat helps the impacted by injuries heal much faster.

Also, when joints are involved, especially the back, i find that small pinches of resveratrol 50% extract powder taken in small amounts, buccally, in the cheek several times a day, helps start healing off within a few days, if you do it at regular intervals. It may take a while for severe back pain to start to heal but it works. This is well documented in the medical literature, its not hype or fluff. Resveratrol actually helps heal joints - it has a unique influence on cartilage and bone healing. A friend who had a really severe lower back injury found that it went a long way towards healing his lower back injury. (unfortunately he still had to get surgery which his government paid for in its entirety..) You can read much more on pubmed

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7 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@zed2

I've been alternating ice pack and heating pad with good results during the day. Evenings are more problematic, but slow steady improvement.

Again thanks for the suggestion!

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4 users have voted.

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

zed2's picture

They are still angry about Somoza's ouster decades ago.

Didn't a Somoza speak on HRC's behalf in 2016 at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, the one where they hired actors to cover up their decredentialling a very large number of delegates for another candidate who was drawing much larger crowds, a measure that cant be faked like Facebook or TWitter "followers" or bought on like social media accounts..

Could people vote, was that signaling behavior or not?

The young woman was not a right winger she was an advocate for the rights of handicapped people, and was not offensive in any way.

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3 users have voted.
gulfgal98's picture

Sometimes it is difficult to find gratitude in trying times, but often that is when we need it the most. The last two years have been more difficult than normal. I personally have had to let go of a lot of things that used to be important to me just to maintain my sanity.

This weekend, I experienced enormous gratitude because I was able to visit with my very elderly mother, age 99. We had a wonderful two nights and one and a half days together. And I am so very grateful for this visit because I know every visit with her could be my last.

When I arrived home this afternoon, I was greeted by my little black, furry, terrorist pomeranian, Baci. Of the eleven dogs my husband and I have had over the course of 44 years, Baci is the one dog who has missed me the most when I have been gone. And while I am the most important person in the world to him for only ten minutes after I come home, I relish those ten minutes so much.

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10 users have voted.

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

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

Lookout's picture

@gulfgal98

My Mom is 90 and still getting around (if not kicking). I don't see her as often as I would like, but every couple of months. I understand the sentiment, every visit could be the last.

We miss our pets. All have passed, and yes we'll get more, but after some long awaited travel.

So nice to "see" you today. I've missed your insights and peaceful nature.

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8 users have voted.

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

I am not one to focus on hope. I am more into attempting the best path or best decision, then prepare myself to be disappointed to some degree. I am not prone to depression. I will find something helpful to do for my fabulous inner circle of family and friends, find something to enjoy, find wonder in learning new things, and I can listen to wild and wonderful musing all Friday night long, dance all over the living room with my favorite partner, and find the will to make all this last.
I thought I had bought the last vehicle I would ever need, but gas prices and the distance between my home and my future retirement property will get super expensive with rising fuel prices, and will get closer to wearing out my work truck.
I will try to make a deal on a Mazda CX-30. High fuel efficiency, enough room for packing essentials, but the key is power and acceleration. I want instant speed when the need arises, and this little thing is by all accounts, a muscular little SUV.
I look forward to having one.

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2 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Lookout's picture

@on the cusp

...it only hurts when I laugh (just joking, but pain is almost gone)

I like your attitude:

I am not prone to depression. I will find something helpful to do for my fabulous inner circle of family and friends, find something to enjoy, find wonder in learning new things, and I can listen to wild and wonderful musing all Friday night long, dance all over the living room with my favorite partner, and find the will to make all this last.

Doing not being filled with sorrow and regret is my way too. Little car sounds like a good idea. We almost bought a little electric car last year, but realized we could buy lots of gas for the purchase price. My big truck is the gas hog at 20 MPG, but we use it mainly for farm chores or camping. Our other vehicles get 30+MPG so we decided against the purchase. We are 3 miles from town and have both an e-bike and electric golf cart if SHTF.

Good things to think about and plan for. Glad you can keep a good attitude...sure makes life more pleasant. All the best to A & B!

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2 users have voted.

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