Category: 2022

We were watching and listening aghast as thousands of Parents in the US could not find bottled Baby Milk to feed their children, especially those babies who need Hypo-Allergenic Formulas. Imagine that! The US runs out of Baby Milk! How embarrassing! It seemed to me that the TV News anchors were breathlessly updating us on that story every five minutes as the Military Aircraft took off from Ramstein Air Base in Germany en route to the US transporting bottles of milk! Better that than more Military Hardware, I would think!! Anyway, perhaps they should have contracted with NORAD’s (North American Aerospace Defense Command) website and tracked the airplanes with their precious cargo using the same feature which tracks Santa Claus every Christmas from his North Pole Workshop to distribute gifts to the anticipating, excited children? And wouldn’t our talking heads have been gaga goo-goo over that? Hilarious thought!

Otherwise, nothing hilarious about our situation as these past two weeks have found me despondent and, frankly, reluctant to write and have some of my friends tell me that I am being Pessimistic, which, by nature, I am not. However, in observing our Planet and the tumultuous state of affairs that it is in, do I want to be imitating the superficial, artificial anchors especially those on our local news channels who are giggling, upbeat, jumping around and pretending that all is bright and right with the world, being that their only objective is to keep the wheels of Runaway Capitalism churning? Not really! That’s not my objective in life!

That’s why I was happy to hear that the new Chief Executive, David Zaslav, wants more hard News and less Views on CNN. Well, that’s refreshing! It is high time for an updated formula! Let’s see where that goes with the so-called journalists, pundits, experts and anchors who are so full of themselves and of their Opinions! 24/7 hours to fill with mostly repetitiveness and superficiality are what has most Humans tuning off! Good luck. Zaslav!

It is also high time for the war in Ukraine to END! Enough of this dangerous brinkmanship! C-Span had two interesting talks that I listened to on May 21st. regarding this subject. The first was with Mary Sarotte, who wrote Not One Inch, and the second was with Harlan Ullman (he of the Shock and Awe Iraq War strategy that was so terrible!) who wrote The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD (Massive Attacks of Disruption). Their talks calling for a new and comprehensive approach to our domestic, as well as foreign policy made me replay my Memory Reel of our history since WWII, and to how very few nations – if any – in our world have managed to conduct themselves with Wisdom, A Sense of Justice and Equality, Compassion and Foresight. To the contrary, we have been building on the same defunct approaches, mindsets, outlooks and militarism – especially! – that have brought on so much agony and catastrophes to millions upon millions of Humans, while not succeeding in bringing any Peaceful Coexistence to our World! I wish everyone would listen to these authors and so many – so many! – others who are practically begging Political Leaders and American Citizens to heed their warnings lest we not only lose our Democracy, but also doom ourselves and the World as we know it. Scary? Pessimistic? No! It is the Dismal Reality, and we cannot continue to be the ostrich hiding its head in the sand thinking that the predators won’t see it!!

In A Nutshell, and the cause of all our Problems – Domestic and Foreign – all across the World are three things in my opinion:

Misunderstandings. Mistrust. Misinformation.

This applies to relationships, families, countries and everything in between. It is also . . . Oh, wait! Wait! My thoughts and writing are suddenly interrupted by yet another News Bulletin of a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas!!! No! No! No! Not again! For God’s sake, not again! I feel sick, nauseated and enraged! I am mesmerized and shocked by the news, and yet I don’t want to hear another corrupt, useless, immoral, unethical, irresponsible Politician telling us how saddened they feel! Not one more! Disgraceful! Shameful! The Only Country in the World that has become a Slaughterhouse, a crime infested, arrogant, caricature that boasts about being a Country Of Laws! What Laws? Whose Laws? Which Interpretation of these effing Laws are applicable? Whose Version? We decry Corruption in our forums and on our Congressional floors and yet we are proving to be the Prime World Suspect in Corruption! How tragic! How unnecessary! How fixable, but no one wants to fix it! We have become the laughing stock of the entire World! And, across the World, in Ally, as well as Foe Territory, especially those places where we have disrupted, uprooted, pillaged, invaded and meddled – which is most of the world – Ordinary People are saying: You got What Your Arrogance and Militarism Have Been Sowing, America! For us, first generation immigrants to hear, or sense this is so tormenting! How Tragic that we should come to this point due to our Misunderstandings, Mistrust and Misinformation regarding each other as citizens, and regarding our perceptions of the rest of the World!! Not that the rest of the World is any better in this regard, either, and that’s why we are all in the terrible predicament that we are currently suffering from!

In A Nutshell: Vote All The Scumbags who are fomenting Divisiveness amongst us OUT! OUT! OUT! Vote Out Every Single Fossilized, Doddering Political Leader – and his/her Fiefdoms – on the Radical, Extremist, Demented Right Wing of the Republican Party seeking to Talibanize this Fragile Democracy and take us back to the Dark Ages! That’s where our so-called journalists and anchors should be focusing all their energies on, rather than preaching to the choir! Meanwhile Wake Up, America! Wake up! How the hell can all this be acceptable, or tolerable? This country is falling apart at the seams! All our Political Class, Media Corporations, Institutions, Infrastructure are in total and absolute disarray! End this Insanity, Embarrassment and Disgrace! Not tomorrow!

I have often said that Elon Musk’s Genius borders on Madness. I still think so, and, with his impending purchase of Twitter – should it go through – he has the potential of Electrifying social media the way he Electrified the car industry. Twitterdom is holding its breath, as are all his rivals. Will it be a Coup, or a Dud? Incidentally, that the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) supports Musk’s suggestion of Trump’s return to Twitterdom is perfectly in sync with their mantra of Civil Liberties for Everyone! No exclusions! No Politics! Bravo!

Twitterdom is not the only event going on in our world, and while I know that most of you reading this are aware, I worry that many have become either numb, or simply tuned off to maintain their sanity! We cannot do that, because apathy is precisely what evil forces take advantage of in order to run amok with their malfeasance!

Some episodes riveting our attention away from the really serious and dangerous issues are more like Dateline, or Soap Operas than they are real life. However, they Are Real Stories. For instance: the Depp/Heard trial with all its nauseating, lurid and disgusting details? So unnecessary! Then there was that other riveting suspense story of the Criminal and the Corrections Officer! He ended up going to jail again, she, apparently, shot herself and later died. Another gullible, naive woman! Or what about Boris Johnson incorporating Churchill’s riveting words into his speech re: Ukraine! Seriously? Bozo the Clown believes that he can be a Churchill? That’s really hilarious! What a sad testament to Political Leadership in more places than ever! Conjuring up WWII words and images as many Politicians and Media Experts are doing does not make this dangerous war in Ukraine more palatable, justifiable or acceptable! This applies to ALL nations involved!

Despite all that occurring, I often wonder what happens to the Humans who are being ravaged by violent storms sweeping away large swaths of homes, farms and other dwellings in these United States? Are they not worth a follow up? How do they cope? Out of sight, out of mind? Or, what about the heat suffocating India and Pakistan, as well as droughts, fires and famines that are causing more agony in many places, and how those Humans are coping? What about the ongoing wars, protests and unrest continuing in so many countries and how many Humans are being killed, imprisoned and hungry due to that? The news reports seem to pick and choose which are worth getting excited about, and which are not. So do the algorithms of social media that filter out what they don’t deem worth our talking about. What about a Pandemic, that is still killing about 325 people daily in our country let alone elsewhere, and, that according to Bill Gates and Ed Yong (writing for The Atlantic), is not the last one to ravage our ill-prepared systems? Or, the greed and outright lies of oil companies as they rake in humongous profits while raising our gas tank fill more and more? This also applies to all those Industries and Companies taking advantage of the economic situation and raising prices across the board so that Ordinary People are strapped, while the rich get richer! Unfair! All these need our attention, because they ultimately do affect all of us!

And, much as I identify with Ukraine’s tragic Calamity, I am so sick and tired of Zelensky and his daily guilting of the world to do more and more and more! He is acting out his best role yet, and thoroughly milking it to the hilt! Moreover, those World Leaders stumbling all over themselves to show how they can support Ukraine more and, in the process, arrogantly and rudely rubbing Putin’s nose in the dirt, are seeming more and more choreographed than genuine. They all seem to be posing for the cameras, with the Mainstream Media yelling Rah-Rah-Rah rather than interviewing those many wise and sane journalists, writers and retired military who are warning about the dangers of our world events. You will never see them on the Corporate Media Channels who are not in the business of educating people by depicting two sides and promoting enlightenment rather than brainwashing! We don’t even seem to be pretending anymore that this is a Proxy War between the West and Russia. So, is this WWIII happening, although it is being kept localized in Ukraine At The Moment? Will it remain so if no compromise is reached sometime very soon? We cannot be apathetic about all this!

However, and despite all that and more on the world stage, the United States has been up in arms over the Supreme Court leak regarding the possible upending of Roe v. Wade and the criminalization of a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body – which wouldn’t make us much different from what the Taliban are doing to suppress females in Afghanistan. Scary! Moreover, this effort coming on top of all the gerrymandering and redistricting, the restrictions on voting rights, banning of books, which is the same idiocy as the Taliban’s, demonizing of LGBTQ humans in the most inhumane of legislations, chipping away at human rights insidiously and doggedly, inviting bigotry and racism against Jews, Muslims, Immigrants, Asians and the list goes on and on and on! It is terribly frightening, and one has to wonder: is it religiosity, or white supremacy, or simply a power grab that is driving all this and propelling us into the Dark Ages and to the end of these United States as a bastion of Freedom and Democracy?! Should these malicious actions continue unchecked, we will All suffer, All of us, because despite all the issues that need fixing in this country – numerous as they are and ranging from the inane to the outrageous – we simply cannot fix them by substituting a Democracy with an Authoritarian Regime. Meanwhile, neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans are behaving reasonably, or rationally! Both Parties are driving us into the ditch, and we are helpless to really change any of this unless we vote sane and wise people into office. Let us hope that we will do this when Elections come around! Otherwise? Do you want to wait and see what living under an Authoritarian Regime feels like? Really? Wake up, America! Now!

I will end my rant today by expressing my outrage and grief at the deliberate execution of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian-American Al-Jazeera journalist, and at the continuing Catastrophe that the Palestinian people have been suffering from for decades! The draconian, hypocritical, bigoted and savage behavior of the Israeli Government and its settlers continues unabated, while hypocrisy, double standards, racism and the colonist mentality of the US and Western Nations allow it to do so! What is worse than this is the shameful and despicable inaction and paralysis of Arab Nations who have been compromised  and muzzled by signing on to the Abraham Accords, and who are being surveilled by the Pegasus system? It is tragic and disgraceful!