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.

SUN SUN SUN HERE IT COMES

 

MENTALLY ILL CHRISTIANS DELIGHTED THAT END TIMES HAVE BEGUN - TALKING TO STRANGERS

The other day I decided to take my dog and go to a local coffee house, a place I have not been since mid December. 

This place was open all through Covid shutdowns and, I learned a bit late, has an anti-vaxer owner and became an anti-vaxer hangout. I'd avoided going anywhere nonessential until after I was vaccinated but for a single round of shopping that first Covid Christmas. Then, last summer I decided it would be OK if my walks with my dog went beyond the quiet less-populated suburbs into a more citified area and to this coffee house which has outdoor seating.  I'd scoot in with mask on to order my coffee - usually the organic Guatamalan - and back out where I'd left my dog and her carrier. There were some trees that cast shade during the hottest part of the day, and it was never insufferable outside as a result.  I took work with me but welcomed conversation; if the men who sat with me and told me their stories were not personally interesting to me, I imagined a couple of them might inspire some interesting characters. 

Although I noticed that few other women actually spent hours there, that the crowd seemed to be mostly men who had known each other for years who stuck together, I was hungering for good conversation.  I befriended an aging punk rocker who spent all his time writing and recording new music and never mentioned any connection I might have with musicians.  A narcissistic sex addict wanted to be friends and tell me all about his women; some of the details were excruciating. And once in a while a missionary type woman would show up over there, with her dog. She was clearly obsessed with Jesus.

I was told by a man I met elsewhere that it was an ex-alcoholic/ex addict crowd and that by even being there, this was assumed about me. He advised me to go to a different coffee house that was owned by an ex law enforcement officer. This connection of a coffee house with drug addicts and alcoholics was not so surprising. Just about every independent coffee house I've ever hung out in had that AA/NA group, if not crowd, and to them I'm an outsider.  Still, I have to appreciate their desire to get off their substances and stay off them. The independent owned by the ex law enforcement officer was more shiny, bright, and new, and much more expensive.  It also lacked the prerequisite jazz playing in the background.

By summer's end, I was feeling through with the coffee house. There were two people who were there often who I cared about as human beings, both good and decent people who were having a very hard time of it and attempting to be stoic about that. Too stoic. I would think that I needed to go by there and check in with them even though I knew what I could do to help was very little. I also knew this truth about coffee houses. They are bars without the drinks. Any friendship you make at a coffee house depends on you going on down there. If you go away, no one will come looking for you. They may gossip about you for a couple weeks when it's clear you have gone away, but they will not come looking. If a friendship extends past the coffee house, if you make and keep plans to go and do things with someone you've met in one, then that relationship has the potential to become an actual friendship.

What also happened was that the trees got pruned within an inch of their life and in the wrong season. The butchered trees defied death while the sun bore down and the anti-vaxer owner and his employees seemed to be bothered by any request to put up the umbrellas, which they have. I began to wonder if he intended to rid the place of those of us who liked those outdoor tables. I began to wonder if he wanted to drive us indoors, where it was daring to go without a mask and some anti-government conspiracy types knew better than anyone else. This move did have the effect of loosing customers. Rumors swirled that he had enough and was letting his lease go and that the long time employees knew their days were numbered. Then one day in December I and my dog showed up and discovered that the outdoor tables had been removed. There was nowhere to go but in. And my dog was not welcome. 

I arrived at the coffee house the other day and found it closed. There were workmen around.  I heard it would reopen in a few days, so I decided to head for the coffee house that was owned by the ex law enforcement officer.  

As I sat outside the woman who I'd met previously showed up with her dog.  Immediately we started talking about the war in Ukraine. Then another person showed up, a man, with a dog that was wearing the full costume of a Service Animal. I may be wrong, but this person struck me as transgender - a woman who was appearing to be a man.  It was not about hands or feet.  It was his body type, slender with hips, the complexion that showed no evidence of facial hair, the short haircut that could work on male or female. He said he knew an ex beauty queen who was trying to escape Ukraine and was using his cell phone to send maps and directions, and giving advice such as that she should not wear jewelry or makeup, tuck her hair into a cap, dress like a man.

He said that they did not have this information available in the Ukraine.

I wondered about that.  

(I checked web sites in Ukraine after this conversation and found them to be up.)

The man and the woman who is obsessed with Jesus connected.  They agreed we were in the End Times. They believed our government was not telling us Everything. They connected this to vaccinations for Covid.  Being dictated to.  Not having choice.  Already I was thinking, "Here we go!"  Since I'm a liberal, I think they have the right to their opinions. 

"My great-grandma said that when the German soldiers came through town, at least they were gentleman, but when the Russian soldiers came though, the women hid."  I said. This is one of the reasons I personally have an innate distrust of Russians, which probably is not fair.

(This morning I picked up the first article I found in which it was reported that women were being raped in Ukraine.)

Ask me if I will always be a feminist, and I will tell you, "So long as there is rape."

The man shook his head yes, and went on his way, trying to save his friend, somehow.

The Jesus-obsessed woman sat at a table with me, offering to buy me coffee.  I refused.  My dog gave a sharp bark to her dog, a warning bark, because she cannot see well anymore and has become more frightened, which I explained to her.  Her dog was not just taken aback but took offense and barked a lot at mine.

She brought up the End Times again, and with an eagerness, with a total belief that this is what is happening. 

I mentioned that when I searched for news on the situation in Ukraine, some YouTube videos were coming up about Fatima - the third prophecy - the story that long ago when the third prophecy was read by the then-Pope, he fainted.  It had to do with Ukraine and Russia. Supposedly some bishops in Ukraine were asking the Pope to Consecrate both countries to the Blessed Mother.

This revealed my Catholic heritage, I felt, and I knew the Jesus-Obsessed Born Again was probably in some form of Protestantism that deplores the very idea that any woman, even the Mother of the Savior, should be idealized or be prayed to.  "Everything must be prayed in Jesus' name," was the usual outcry.

I watched as the Jesus Obsessed Born Again woman adjusted herself in her seat, a far away look in her eyes.  I knew she was thinking about what she should say to me.

I shifted the conversation to Evil.  Evil was something we could agree on.

"You should read the book, People of the Lie, by M. Scott Peck," I said.  It's interesting.  Every chapter is about a gradation of evil.  He says that people who are perfectly possessed cannot be brought back through exorcism, but that he's participated in exorcisms and his psychiatrist peers need to consider that someone may not be mentally ill but possessed. Peck was a Christian by Conviction.  I know evil exists and I've met people who are evil in my lifetime, even someone who I think is possessed."

She looked at me.

She asked me if I was fellowshipping anywhere.  I said no.

She invited me to the Bible Study at her church.  She said, "Would you meet with a group of women - it's just one night a week" making it sound harmless and easy - like selling Tupperware.

"Where is it?" I asked.

She told me where first by location, then name.  I knew about this church.  I once knew someone who was deeply involved there.  I was thinking, "Crap."

I didn't say yes or no.  I felt pressure.  I knew she put pressure on me out of the goodness of her heart.  She was clearly worried that I was not "affiliated" and in danger now that the End Times were unfolding for sure.  I knew that I did not want to argue with her.  She was a nice lady with a dog who mine had barked at and entitled to her Obsession.  As Obsessions go, one with Jesus is probably not a bad thing.

Instead I mentioned the woman I knew who went to that church.  I mentioned also that I heard the minister had been sick with Covid. (They had continued to meet for services unmasked.) I said I had heard that the woman who ran that Bible Study had a husband who had almost died, been in intensive care with Covid.  

"Thanks Be To God," the Jesus-Obsessed woman said. "Jesus redeemed him."

She wanted my phone number.

I gave her an e-mail instead.

The church she belongs to says it is non-denominational and Bible based.  I happen to know they are also Right Wing, anti-feminist, and Republican. Not a good fit for me.  For some reason every single person I've ever met who goes there is intent on getting more members.  Maybe they are a cult.

But then, I don't at this point think I will ever be a member of any church.

"Well, read that book, because as you probably know, there are some people who go to churches and temples and mosques who are still Evil people."

***

Yesterday I went to the library to return a book and there was a security guard out there on the sidewalk in front.  Also it appeared from a distance that someone was selling sunflowers - the national flower of Ukraine.  I said hello to the guard and asked him if the person was selling sunflowers - a fundraiser?  He didn't know.

I said I had spent much time watching every video, reading every article, and felt concerned that some people seemed to be delighted with the idea that this was the End Times.

The guard stiffened and said, "THAT IS WHAT MY BIBLE TELLS ME."

***

I worry about so many people out there HOPING that the End Times are here, that whatever happens, all that violence, is part of God's Plan.  (Just like Trump was part of God's Plan.) This God's Plan they talk about is OK to every form of violence, even nuclear war, because of the result; a thousand years of peace. I think, yea, because people will be struggling to survive for a thousand years, so few people will be left on earth. Or maybe it will be a thousand years of peace because there will be no humans left on earth. Another thing about this God's Plan is that this is God and we cannot question Him and we also cannot do a single thing about it. We are supposed to go along with it, if we die, well everyone dies right?  (Sounds just like some anti-vaxers I met to whom I have had to say, "Yes but I AM NOT READY TO DIE!")  

Putin was photographed a while back bowing to the Russian Orthodox icon of the Blessed Mother.

C 2022  Christine Trzyna

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

SPIRIT NATURE'S WAY

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

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT : LOOSE CANNONS : TALKING TO STRANGERS

Went to the library to order in some books. A memoir and a biography.  It seems these are the two genre's I read mostly these days.  Distanced from fiction.

But every few hours I check the news on the war being staged in UKRAINE.

I try to imagine what it would be like if there was combat in the streets here.  If apartment buildings were being hit by missiles here.  If thousands of women and children were taking shelter in the subways, without food and water. If men eighteen to sixty were told they must not leave the country but must stay and fight in any way they can. 

Reports that Putin is actually mentally ill.  Suggestions that he has been affected by a Covid infection - something wrong with his brain - not thinking straight.  Notions that he wants to recreate the Soviet Union as his last effort before he leaves office.  Notions that he will never resign or retire.

Sean Penn in Ukraine filming.

At the library there was a woman who told me that she had just gotten out of a mental hospital. She said so much was going wrong in her life that she just couldn't take it any more.  She's been trying to find her adult son.  She suggested that he was involved in criminality and was an addict.  She had to find him.   He was somewhere in LA. I had to wonder if he was the main cause of mental distress or if she hoped he would help her.  Too many people lost to the maze of drug addiction.  Too many criminals, sociopaths, who deliberately seek out those who need escape, to hook them, to traffic them.  Too much evil.

A boom goes off in the neighborhood.

Somewhere down the street - possibly in a house - there is someone who likes to shoot off something once in a while.  A gun or perhaps something in the category of a firework. This person always does this at the exact top of an hour.  I imagine this person to be a man and imagine the man going outside into a yard. And usually at a time when many people are sleeping. Just one loud and unexpected boom.

Does he feel relieved after he destroys the sleep of others?  Is he discharging an emotion?

Is he someone who should be bearing arms?

"I feel overwhelmed," I said to the woman at the library.  "It's all so much bigger than me."

On the walk home I encountered some workman blocking a sidewalk in front of a house that looked like it needed some refurbishing.  Old trees had been beheaded months ago and their trunks stood in front of the house. I asked a man," Are the trees dead? Is there any sign that they are going to sprout?"

"It's been six months.  No leaves," he said in accented English.

We agreed that the trees were too traumatized from beheading to be alive.

"Where are you from?"

"Hungary."

The man told me he had gone back and forth to Hungary for some years and then one day he realized he was not going back.  He was from the southern part and had been born in what is now Yugoslavia.  He talked about Hungary being chopped after World War II, so that it's now one third the size that it was before.

I knew about that.

"Do you think refugees from UKRAINE are going to flood into Hungary?"

"No, they will go into Romania.  The border with Hungary is small.  Romania," he said.

What is it like to flee with nothing but a rolling suitcase, not knowing where you will be safe, where you will sleep, where you will find a bathroom when you have to use one? 

Here in America, our refugees are the homeless.

One place to go is the library.

C 2022 Christine Trzyna

YESTERDAY and TODAY : TALKING TO STRANGERS

Yesterday outside the library there was a woman laying on the cement under the porch with a little viscous dog protecting her.  I thought I heard her moaning.   I asked her if she was alright.  

"My arm hurts" she said.

"Can you sit up?" I asked

"A little," she said.

Then she curled into a fetal position and started to cry, openly..

"Are you OK?" I asked

She cried, "I want my mother."

***

My eyes feel strained.

My chair is uncomfortable and my back feels tweaked.

Actually, I've been typing for hours today, lots of things to attend to and several long letters I may never send. Really, I want to stay in bed all day tomorrow and read, and pretend I have no problems.  I would feel guilty if I did.

What is the point?

To what shall I turn my attention to now?

I saw a librarian I like smoking a cigarette.

We await definitive news about the possible invasion of Ukraine by Russia.  I hope not. 

The ships are coming in, the empty containers are stacked, there are ads out all over for truck drivers.

I'm still wearing a mask every day when I go inside buildings.

I got one of those free three-mask packs that the government sent out to pharmacies for distribution. 

The prices at the grocery store are so high so suddenly it's frightening. What really got me was seeing gallons of water, supposedly bottled in the mountains north of here, at fifty cents higher. 

Children who are getting free food at school are littering the neighborhood with it, not appreciating it, just throwing it to the ground on their walk home. Pizza, salad, carrots, apples, oranges, nuts, burgers, in wrappers, littering the lawns. I have lost my pity for them.

My dog is still alive but more fragile than ever. I know she cannot live forever. I'm not ready for her to die.  I check on her when she's sleeping. I tell her I love her more frequently.  She is going blind, one eye much worse than the other.  She moves her head from left to right to scan. She scares more easily.

The slum lord with the empty building near me fake-tried to rent the remodeled unit. We all know that she does not want to rent it. 

This past weekend garage sales started.

After three days of unseasonably hot weather, it turned cold and it hailed!  Tonight I will be under blankets again.

AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT...

STOP BUYING THIS HORRIBLE ENVIRONMENT CRIPPLING STUFF NOW! (OVER A DECADE OF CHRISTMASTREE-LESS CHRISTMAS!)

TOTALLY UNNECCESSARY - OFTEN CRAP FROM CHINA (or some other place that manufactures easily breakable and discardable crap) - YEARS - SOMETIMES HUNDREDS - TO "BIODEGRADE"  - the WORLD does not need the pollution!

ARTIFICIAL CHRISTMAS TREES.  A Germanic Pagan custom that spread throughout Europe and brought to the U.S. and other parts of the world - supporting electric lights, various decorations - sure a tree can look beautiful, even inspiring.  Those little lights are so fragile that they easily malfunction and break so you have to buy more.

If you must, buy a live tree that can be replanted, use your old decorations or make new ones from biodegradable materials - or go without.  If it's Christmas in your heart, it will still be Christmas.

So much razzle dazzle decorating is crap that breaks and needs replaced.  You do not have to recreate Whoville to have a beautiful holiday.

This will cut down on the Christmas tree bonfires too.

Consider putting your ornament collection in bowls to set on tables...

ARTIFICIAL PLANTS and FLOWERS.  Ever think it's a real succulent and it's plastic?  Some people use fake plants outdoors as well as indoors.  If you are too busy or lazy to water or don't have a green thumb go without.

For gifting stop the bouquets that will be dead in a week and go for live plants that can be transplanted or kept in the house. If you must have cut flowers, consider using them in a compost heap.  For weddings and other events consider live plants with just a few cut flowers woven in.

PLASTICS:  Plastic has it's place but everywhere should not be that place.  Oh the plastic shit all over the sidewalks waiting for landfill pick ups.  Especially children's broken toys,  

It's out of your site but not really gone away.

FAKE GRASS which is really plastic or synthetic carpet. Really bad for the environment.  Weeds will still poke through at the perimeter.  Whatever you use as a grass substitute, you still need the natural drainage that actually filters into our aquafirs.  Consider having your own little subterranean clay "pot" beneath your soil that will retain rain water.  Plant over it and you'll reduce how much water you need to grow native plants and small bushes or trees.

BOTTLED WATER.  More plastic - and it will leach into the water if you reuse the bottle.  Three reuses is all that's suggested for most of these plastics.  Some of us remember life when we did not take water everywhere with us.  Maybe the earth was cooler then, but we were alive and well without guzzling huge amounts of water.  Water can be filtered at home and taken with you in aluminum or other containers.

This is the short list.

EVE BABITZ DIES

LA TIMES EVE BABITZ WHO CAPTURED AND EMBODIED .... the culture of Los Angeles, dies at 78 by Mark Olsen, Staff Writer

EXCERPT : Her writing described a world of decadent glamour with fine-tuned detail but also a sense of open-hearted joy, often shared with the dishy candor of a close friend deep into a soggy late-afternoon lunch.

ANNE RICE DIES

LA TIMES OBIT ANNE RICE DIES AT 80 

I'm not a huge vampire fan but I loved the book and the film Interview With A Vampire. The film has a scene in it which has informed a particular nightmare I had a few years ago. Anne as a writer of these and other Gothic tales, often played with the grays between bright white good and dark black evil, between animal instinct and human morality.

OVER 150 HAVE SIGNED ' A MORE SPECIFIC LETTER ON JUSTICE AND OPEN DEBATE" RESPONSE TO CANCELL CULTURE

DAILY MAIL : DOZENS OF ACADEMICS, JOURNALISTS BLAST CANCELL CULTURE 

***

As soon as you're thinking "I better not write that" or "I better edit that" because you are afraid of being not politically correct, not woke enough, or because you fear being punished for not cancelling, you have basically SELF CENSORED.  I agree, this blocks creativity.

Worse than that, we begin to feel we cannot report our personal experience or our own reality because IDEALISM is supposed to replace it.

Sometimes I think this is all part of the whole POSITIVE THINKING culture as well.

ANNE LAMOTT on WRITING : WHY PERFECTRIONISM KILLS CREATIVITY

THE MARGINALIAN: ANNE LAMOTT - PERFECTIONISM KILLS CREATIVITY 

Excerpt: What makes Lamott so compelling is that all of her advice comes not from the ivory tower of the pantheon but from an honest place of exquisite vulnerability and hard-earned life-wisdom.  She recounts her formative years and where she headed once she e3ncountered that inevitable fork in the road, where we can choose between being shut in and shut down by our traumatic experiences, or using them as fertile clay for character-building.