CONGRESSWOMAN LAURA FRIEDMAN ON PROTEST CHAOS IN LOS ANGELES

 

DEFINITION OF TRAITOR - TREASON

TIME : BENEDICT ARNOLD TRAITOR (Definition of TREASON)   This article from 2018 concerns President Donald Trump and Treason.  Excerpt:  Not that the definition of treason is complicated.  To the frustration of the President's critics, Article III, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution narrowly defines treason against the United States as consisting 'only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort."  Americans shared this understanding of treason, rooted in English Common Law, even before the Constitution was written.

SHUT UP TRUMP ! BRENT RENAUD - AMERICAN JOURNALIST KILLED BY RUSSIAN MILITARY

Ex President Donald Trump cannot shut his yap as if he is still campaigning for another bout of Presidency, going against President Joseph Biden, not even at this time of catastrophic invasion by Russia of Ukraine.  In my opinion his behavior is quite possibly treasonous to the United States of America and all our allies who believe in Democracy. Basically he is touting his relationship with Putin and his comparatively macho stance with Putin and thus Russia, as compared to the gentlemanly approach of Biden.  He says this war against Ukraine would not have happened if he were still President.  As usual, it is all about HIM.

Which were YOU on the schoolyard?  THE BULLY WHO STARTED THE FIGHT?  THE GANG LEADER?  THE PERSON WHO GOT PICKED ON?  THE ONE WHO TRIED TO BREAK IT UP? Did you walk away and decide it was best not to get involved because you didn't know who started it or what the fight was about?

Yea, Trump and Putin have a lot in common: They are both Bullies who spin Fake News. Evil people mess with our minds, and that is what if felt like every damn day of the Trump Presidency. Sick of being confused by the Princes of Lies, people felt they had to choose between being a member of a cult (The Republican Party) or dealing with the trauma that cult inflicted on the rest of us.  You had to choose sides.  For someone like me, whose beliefs were moderate overall - it was especially excruciating. What happened to honest debate? 

Does an ex-President have a 1st Amendment Right to Free Speech? Yes, he does. He should be reminded that citizens of Russia do not. Those who protest the war or anything else in Russia are being arrested. It is only because of those who have dared risk this arrest - and unknown future - that we know that all Russian people are not in agreement with their government  Does he have a moral obligation to speak the Truth? Yes. However, there is The Truth and then there is His Truth.

How do we know what information is True?  We rely on JOURNALISTS.

The killing of a journalist who might reveal the Truth through reportage Brent Renaud, is telling.  

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This morning one of the first news stories I picked up was that bombs had hit Lviv which is twelve miles from the present Polish border.  An airfield that was used for training and staging of Ukraine military air force was bombed.  Strategic?  Sure.

Remember the reports of Russian jets flirting with the borders of various countries a while back?

That WAS the hint of war to come.

C 2022 Christine Trzyna

PITY THE NATION by LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

SHORTWAVE RADIO BROADCASTS INTO UKRAINE INFORMATION

The BBC is using WWII technology to get news and information into Ukraine.

The BBC is using shortwave radio broadcasts which are in English. This is in response to programing by various news outlets including Voice of America and the BBC itself being shut down by the Russian Government.

15735 kHz is the band to use from 4 PM to 6 PM Ukraine time

5875 kHz is the band to use from 10 PM to 12 PM Ukraine time.

Please spread the word.

RUSSIAN OLIGARCHES HIGHTAIL IT ON THEIR SUPERYACHTS - GREAT BRITAIN NUMBER ONE PLACE WHERE BANKS LAUNDER THAT MONEY

A spate of news articles and YouTube videos: One, this morning, said that there was evidence (I suppose surveillance from above) that a number of Russian Oligarches are heading back to Russian on their Super Yachts. I WONDER IF THEY WILL STOP IN MONACO?

I reason that they might not be on the boats at all. 

The idea is to get them back to home turf where they cannot be seized.

Watched a video of Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressing the issues, most about Ukraine, some local, and thought it was wonderful that one of the Members of Parliament, brought up that GREAT BRITAIN IS THE NUMBER ONE PLACE THAT CORRUPT RUSSIANS LAUNDER MONEY THROUGH THE BANKS THERE.  

Fantastic!

Wish I was familiar with the face and names.

I WAS IMPRESSED WITH HOW TO THE POINT THE MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT WERE AND HOW RAPID THE PROCEEDINGS. JOHNSON DID NOT BLINK. HE WAS PREPARED OR ABLE TO ADDRESS EACH AND EVERY QUESTION.

Contrast this a bit with watching a full video of President Joseph Biden's State of the Union Address and the members of Congress. Let us say that there is also a protocol such as a number of people called to escort the President to the podium.  I was dismayed at the disorder and lack of formality most of these people had prior to the proceedings.  WAS THIS A COCKTAIL PARTY?  The only people who showed respect - not just for our President - but for the importance of this speech to the United States and the World were the Supreme Court Justices and Military.

Some of these people were on their cell phones.

Could they not conduct personal business out in the hall or afterwards?

As for his speech, it is true that sometimes Biden stumbles on words and we know that he has overcome a speech impediment in the past and this is not about aging. This is a kind of disability but it did not stop him from working hard and achieving.

Those who wish to condemn him on that basis should know that two of our best Presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were significantly physically disabled which one hid and the other coped with prescription drugs. They were aware that they needed to hide these disabilities.  However, for those who are disabled, they show remarkable strength and fortitude. 

C 2022 Christine Trzyna

SUNDAY MORNING SUN DEFIES HORRORS OF WAR

THROUGH THE DRAPERIES OF MY BEDROOM COMES THE SUN.  Have to get up early to take my dog out.  Go back to bed.  Snuggle for warmth. Have to go to the store for groceries this morning. Don't feel like getting dressed. Would like to read one of the books I ordered in but have been watching one YouTube video after another to follow developments and listen to opinions about what's happening in Ukraine.  Of course I support Democracy over Dictatorship. 

Musk links Ukraine to the Internet from space.

McCain was right.

Our intelligence was right. 

Thinking of various people I've met over the last couple years - in stores, in coffee houses, taking walks... who informed me that they did not TRUST our government.

Walmart dog food isle:  Man and his wife and I start talking about all the dog food coming in from China on those backed-up ships and dog food shortages and prices going up.  Start talking about nonprofit groups that spay and neuter at no charge. Man says they called everywhere after having cats and dogs - kittens and puppies - arrive to their yard.  Have you tried Sam Simon? Conversation, lead by husband, turns to why they are not wearing masks, not taking vaccinations, and fast forwards to his list of governmental agencies you cannot trust.  His list includes the FBI.  "They are all corrupt," He says.

I know I have to get out of the conversation at that point.

I still think the United States of America is the best.

I wish them a good day and move on.

On my list of things to buy today is dog food.

I see the film of refugees heading for the Polish border especially and people in their winter coats and hats, pulling wheeled suitcases, and some of them have brought their pets along.

A  white chihuahua in a lady's arms.

HUMANS IN A DOG'S DISGUISE

My human in a dog's disguise is sleeping a lot.  Some days she wants to half run around the block, some days she doesn't want to get out of bed, or goes right back in...

Has Putin gone mad?

How will this play out?

We are on high alert for nuclear war.

C 2022 Christine Trzyna

THE SHIPS NOT COMING IN

There are over a hundred ships full of containers waiting to get into the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.  There are trains backed up 35 miles into Chicago.  Truckers with empty containers and nowhere to put them are dumping the containers on streets in Wilmington - even blocking driveways. 

Tied into this is that Dollar Tree and 99 Cents Only Stores can no longer stick to their nothing- over- a -dollar price policy; sadly this is also effecting the pricing of food that they started selling when they got sensitized to the fact that millions of Americans rely on some form of food money from the U.S. government. 

Yesterday a woman told me that at her son's school each child has been given a card with a $300 food benefit.  No questions asked.  No income verification needed.  

When I took my dog for a walk this morning we went past a school and saw that some children had dumped their plastic bags full of food onto the street. These contained yogurt, sliced apples, a tiny burger, chips, and a couple other snaky items. As children they do not have to earn the money to buy these things and neither do their parents who cannot afford to feed them. We the People are trying - some of us anyway - to take care of our own.

I think those ships waiting to come to port are full of junk and mostly plastically easily breakable throw-away junk that will be in our land fills for hundreds of years, crap that people do not need, but I know they are also containing food.  Canned food, including cat and dog food which does not have to bear the place of origin on the can, is also coming from China. 

On my way home from work I stopped in at these stores looking for some inexpensive canned vegetables and there was none.  But I noticed there was meat and fish - protein - at Dollar Tree while the shelves had not one can of beans.

I have to admit I never much thought about one of the nations largest ports being in Los Angeles County or how that factored into the economy here.  It's still a mystery to me.  I know this, however, all that incoming means that the American economy is depending on factory production elsewhere and those manufacturing jobs were exported too and that is the fault of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

I met a Longshoreman recently.  He has spent his life, it seems, driving vehicles off ships, but he owns a house because of it. He can barely stand to do the last few months before he retires and keeps stalling them out, not sure what is next for him.

At Vons, a local grocer not known for the lowest prices, I couldn't believe it when I saw some ground turkey for $6.99 a pound. I skipped the produce section entirely.

The woman with the son who got a $300 food benefit card at school tells me she just spent near $300 sending a box of things to her mother-in-law in Guatemala - including dried beans.  They don't have beans in Guatemala?  I suspect she is married to an "illegal" and there is some form of fraud going on there but I don't really know that.

Meanwhile, I follow what's happening with President Joe Biden, who is under attack because he is trying to do the right thing.  Yes, his age is showing, but then, so was Ronald Reagan's.  Not the constant crisis, the constant self promotion of Trump, who got us used to daily doses of anxiety and flash, Biden seems dull, but he has gumption and morality.  Remember that? Remember the Real Gospel - the feed, cloth, and shelter Gospel - rather than the "Prosperity Gospel?"

You have to have a fortune in the bank not to feel what has happened in our economy due to the Covid-19 shut downs. In recent years I've met more people who not only believe the End Times are coming but cannot wait to be raptured.

C 2021  Christine Trzyna

INTO A BIDEN ERA

The Trump era has felt like chaos to me from the beginning. Because of his hyperbole, I feel it may take some time to adjust to President Biden's more sedate, statesman way of speaking. Oh does he and do we have one hell of a mess to deal with! Covid-19 is the biggest problem. It's a world wide problem. Tied in with a closed down economy, I fear all that comes with hunger.

I know that this country has some rich people who are quietly giving to address the need for food. There's also many commoners who have been volunteering to pick up, bag or box, and deliver food, ready it for distribution, and are change. 

A recent survey of local food resources I did showed that local grocers had raised prices on everything to what the market will have to bear ($1.50 for a small can of beans from an American brand), that there were shortages at food banks, that a grab and go lunch at a church was cancelled long ago, as were lunches at local senior centers. However, there were a couple food distributions going on that I hadn't heard about and they're at branches of YMCA and YWCA!

I decided to volunteer for a couple hours just to see how it's done. The boss said to expect lots of produce. A handful of us put together about 10 "homeless" bags and then about 25 bags for those presumed to be able to cook. There was a lot of produce. There was also a generous donation of Trader Joe's prepared salads expiring that day.

There was such an excess of not yet ripe organic tomatoes, which the boss said would end up in a "landfill" that volunteers were told to take some home. So today I'm going to make a homemade tomato soup from the dozen I took and eat it, hopefully in a relaxing manner, while watching the swearing in ceremony.

A couple hours in the hot sun with rubber gloves dripping with sweat, and I was at my limits of participation. But I had to wonder. If this produce were more reasonable in price, couldn't more people have their pride in buying it? And, are stores taking tax deductions based on high retail prices?

As I prepared to go, people on foot with carts and people in vehicles - some SUVs of recent make - began to line up.

C 2021

100 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF WOMEN's SUFFRAGE RIGHT TO VOTE

I have not always voted.  I started out voting every year.  Then in California, I got confused.  I also, though thinking of myself as informed by reading around issues, including Pro and Con arguments provided to California voters, have voted for some things that I regret.  Such as, I regret voting for three strikes = life in prison.  I sat it out for some time because I also felt that straight ticket, thoughtless party politics voting was beneath me.  And because I felt that there was no one I was especially thrilled with.

I've come full circle to believing that voting needs to be exercised.  I don't want to be part of the problem of people being elected and new rules going into effect simply because so few people voted.

Sometimes you have to give it your gut instinct or your best guess.

BLACK LIVES MATTER BUT LOOTING BURNING and VIOLENCE MAKE PROTESTS A MOOT POINT

I was busy helping a friend garden.  We didn't know that riots had begun, that looting, burning, and destruction had replaced the expectation of a peaceable BLACK LIVES MATTER demonstration around the country.  We didn't know that Los Angeles had an 8 o'clock curfew until well after our meal together, when we turned on the news. Watching the coverage, I was disgusted.  Where was the Black Lives Matter leadership?  Why were individual city mayors speaking up but no-one from Black Lives Matter?

A couple hours later, I got my dog and went to bed. I shut out the lights and was laying back when a boom and bright flash of light zipped past the curtains - a blast aimed between houses that illuminated the room. 

My neighbor is Black.  He has a White wife.  He has a Black son.  They are nice people.  His work van is out at the curb.  Shit!  Was someone in the neighborhood attacking them?

I put the lights back on. Got out of bed. Worried, I opened the front door and looked out for the possible source of the blast.  Across the way a family was having a birthday party. They are Hispanic. There were lots of adults and children over there.  Why wait until past 10:30 at night on a Sunday to set off fireworks?  I watched as a large white blast went up over the street between us flowering into a stadium-worthy sparkler.  Needless to say, this is illegal behavior and insensitive to both Coronavirus-19 and the fact that people were pillaging all over town.  Taking advantage that no police would come. Setting nerves already raw on edge.  What a horrible example for all those children!  Their back yard is small.  What if they had been injured or set my neighbors house on fire?

I was tired from yard work so I slept.

This morning I woke to watch videos of destruction all over the country.  Countless businesses - many small one family businesses - looted or destructed.

I learned that a church in Washington D.C. built in 1815 in which just about every U.S. President has worshipped once, was burned down. I think as a child I toured that church on a trip to Washington D.C.  The Lincoln Monument graffitied?! 
I mean, the LINCOLN Monument!?!  Lincoln, credited for freeing the slaves.

HOW DOES THIS HELPS BLACK LIVES MATTER?

I know the answer. So do you.
It doesn't help whatsoever.  Actually, it's made things worse.

It HURTS the cause.

HOW DOES THIS HELPS THE UNITED STATES ECONOMY?
Did anyone who looted ever intend to BUY what they took?

Well, good luck getting hired.

I saw expensive vehicles pulling up and looters throwing things into trunks and getting in and driving away.

TELL ME HOW SOMEONE WHO CAN AFFORD TO KEEP A CAR can't afford to buy their tennis shoes, their cell phones, their computers?  Because I've been too poor to own a car or buy new shoes and have gone without a personal computer or a phone and I know it's not easy - or cool - but it can be done without resorting to criminality.

SHAME SHAME SHAME SHAME SHAME on YOU! 

For doing it, for helping it, for putting up with it.


C 2020 Christine Trzyna

HURRICANE DORIAN LEAVES BEHIND SHOCK AND BEFUDDLEMENT

And so Hurricane Dorian destroyed an island or two of the 700 islands that make up the Bahamas and the loss of life and missing persons might not be well understood for months.  Day and night I searched for new YouTube testimonials and videos that were not PR for charities proving that they were there helping.  As criticisms came in about the Bahamian government's handling of the disaster, in particular unwillingness to reveal the death toll, so came the many testimonials of people who saw others swept away.  One testimonial from a child was that they were swimming and saw a lot of dead bodies in the water.  How many of the 2500 people who have been reported missing will prove to be alive? If 70,000 to 76,000 people are homeless and have lost everything, and 2500 are on lists of the missing, and about 5000 people have been transported to another island, or in some cases to the United States, well, do the math.

So here is what I think:  SHOCK has numbed and befuddled many, including officials.

Some bodies may wash up on shore but it seems more of them are deep under the sea.

DNA will be used to identify many.

And there is a politeness involved.  If a dead body cannot be identified, and the loved ones cannot be located, who is there to tell?  Who is there to come claim a body?

It comes at a time when there are easily 50,000 homeless people just in Los Angeles - County.  My guess is it's more like 150,000.

Every day people live like they lost everything to a Hurricane.

Is it smart to build an entire new town in the same place?

I remain unable to answer.


C 2019  Christine Trzyna

EMPLOYED - HOMELESS - HUNGRY : TALKING TO STRANGERS

I remet him on a tourist tram.  He was using the free tram to get to free showers.  

His story several weeks ago ignited my desire to write to Bernie Sanders. So I did. A few days after Bernie announced his ideas about going after the richest of the rich, such as Jeff Bezos of Amazon. 

The man - 40 something - had been working for an Amazon warehouse, he said.  He had not made enough to rent in the area - not yet.  He was doing a good job.  He was neat and clean. He looked fit.  His hair was short.  He's a WASP. Then they found out he was sleeping outdoors, which is called sleeping rough.  They called him a bum and told him to get out of there. OK, maybe there is more to the story, such as differing opinions.  But I believed him.

I wish Bernie had not used the term Socialist Democrat when he was running for President of the United States because we Americans are afraid of anything Socialist. Is it Socialism or is it Judaic-Christianity?  The real thing - not the greedy, materialistic, the hell with you, I got mine, that some of us now associate with both groups because of our personal experiences with them - is what Sanders endorses, even if he never set foot in a church or temple.

Someone once told me it says in the Bible that there will always be poor people. The Bible again... as a Big Excuse. If you want this country to be "one nation under God" (i.e. God first, country second) if you want this to be a "Christian country" think about it.  What would the Jewish radical Jesus do?  What would a genuine human do? 

Where are the psychologists on the front lines of social change? I learned in Psych 101 that one of the goals of the profession was to make the world a better place.  I also learned about the needs pyramid.  Basically, it is not true that poverty makes you a better artist (or a better anything). Actually, you produce best when your basic needs are met.  Only then can you go beyond survival. Being an artist is often like being a surfer; it helps if you grew up with wealth, this I learned to be true through the years. You only have the audacity to be an artist when you're poor - and then you're usually exhausted from working for a living - too exhausted to paint. Asking someone who does not know where they will sleep safely or who does not have enough to eat and is stuck in survival scrounging for their basic needs to be met to also work full time is asking a lot - too much.  All their resources are to stay alive.

Is there enough?  Are we really the "richest country?"

The man who got fired by an Amazon warehouse left the county where he was working and homeless to come back to LA to be homeless and find warehouse work, which there is plenty of, especially in the business of shipping packages from Amazon or forwarding them. He's got the skill of a fork lift driver, that helps.  Will he ever make enough to afford to rent?

Ask yourself when you order from Amazon how you are complicit in this scenario.

On the tourist tram he had good news: the local Work Source had sent him on some interviews and he'd been hired to start in a few days.  The bad news?  He had already used his EBT benefit (turned on as a restaurant benefit - i.e. fast food - due to his homelessness) for the month.  He also had no money for bus fare to get to the job in three days. It would then be the middle of next month before he saw either GR or a paycheck.  I wanted to give him the bus fare but didn't have any money on me to do that.  I was able to direct him to a local place that has a community meal outdoors.

Gracie and I decided to go by there at the end of our afternoon. We saw him sitting alone - with a pile of food in front of him - a few extra sandwiches on the side.

He put a forkful of pasta in his mouth and grunted.  He speared another forkful. He was eating fast - like someone who hadn't in days. A tear sprung from his eye.  He lifted his head up to look at the sky - or maybe Jesus or God - and said, whispering, Thank You!

C 2018 Christine Trzyna  All Rights Reserved

NEON TREE

COLUMBUS DAY MEMORIES

We celebrated Columbus Day when I was a child.  These days here are alternative theories about who "discovered" the American continent.  The Celts, the Norse, or the Chinese, for instance. 



We're sensitized to the idea that there were Native Americans here for centuries before anyone "discovered" America, and that the idea that a European discovered the continent is part of a marketing ploy or a mythology that this was a vast country for the taking, absent of any people with land rights.



I once won a Columbus Day poster contest.  I was proud of my crayoned images of Spanish with stripped pantaloons pants and Spanish flag on the beach.  I was given the prize of one brand new dollar, which I still have.



I once met a man who was so into Christopher Columbus that he went to the very beach that Columbus landed on as a vacation one year.  He is the last person - the only person since I won that poster contest as a grade-schooler - who got to see my poster.



These days there's a more than a suggestion - a whole book - on Christopher Columbus as from a family named Colon and Jewish.  Don't know how he got that Christian - Greek given name Christopher.

JOURNALISTS AGAINST JOURNALISTS?

video expired.  Taken down December 2024

Have been reading around Edward Snowden since the first reportage in newspapers, on the Internet, and in YouTube videos, I chose this video which expresses some of the concerns I have about the effect of both the NSA / U.S. Government monitoring electronic communications of everyone who uses cell phones and/or computers as well as the legal issues involved from all angles.

Having studied Journalism in college at a time when anyone with any ambition wanted to be the one who got the most important news out to the public, at a time when hard news, not soft, was important, it concerns me that a journalist who wrote about Snowden and the information he wanted to leak would be considered criminal for doing so.  Let us not confuse Journalist who are doing their jobs and the people and events they cover.  A news EZditor also has a great role in determining what will be printed and thus influence history by choosing what to print or not, but a good editor is on the side of the Journalist. A  Journalist relies upon and reports to the Editor.

Was it Edward Snowdens intent to shut down Journalism, Newspapers, and the Media?

Just the opposite.