UKRAINE AND RUSSIA : WHAT WE DON'T GET ABOUT RUSSIA

RUSSIA is so huge that it expands through ELEVEN TIME ZONES.  All that land, all that space, but it wants Ukraine, which is the size (square miles not shape) of our state of TEXAS.

Why not use the billions of dollars dedicated to destroying UKRAINE and UKRAINIANS to build a new city within Russia, improve infrastructure, and so on?  (Pick a good spot and build an all new city!)

Why do Russians have no apparent concern about a generation (or two) of young men being wiped out, leaving Russian women with fewer men to partner and mate with?

***

What seems "good" about Ukraine actually going into Russia to advance their cause?

We do not believe that the Russian people actually realize what is going on. We think the information they are being given is not honest and many of them may not understand what's been happening. Hard to believe, we know, but that's what we think.  As Ukraine goes after bridges and military targets, never the less the strikes within Russia INFORM the Russian people, YES THIS IS A WAR. 

Are the Russian people without an opinion?

***

We hope for an end to the violence, the ecological disaster, and a comfortable peace between the two countries.

RAY BRADBURY said

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."
- Ray Bradbury

WHAT'S REALLY STINKY ABOUT LA?

The smell of skunk marijuana is everywhere, seeping through user's pores, tainting their clothes and backpacks. Everywhere - on the street, on the bus, in buildings, and at events. It's nauseating and alienating.  

So many people who self medicate with pot... on a daily basis... 

As I said to a friend, who has a pot plant growing on his apartment porch, "Remember when you would encounter some person who spoke to you, and you were almost knocked out by the alcohol on their breath - pure dragon's breath.  And you would think badly of them, because here was a true alcoholic who could not make their way through life without it?  Same thing with these people who have the smell of skunk saturating their very being..."

For the record, I was and am all for legal medical grade marijuana. I've met the cancer patients who say it makes all the difference.  I've had the professor who lamented that her mother's eyesight could have been saved. But some people are addicts and I don't think anyone should or can trust street drugs.  My friend who grows his plant says he has chronic pain and smoking makes him forget that pain.  I say to him "Don't you want to rid yourself of the pain so you don't have to forget about it?"  He's with the VA and the VA is federal and the doctors there are not at all comfortable about anyone's use of marijuana, home-grown and legal. I realize pain-killers by prescription can be addictive too... I do... But then we get into what smoke (and second-hand smoke) do to the lungs... Or what prescription pain killers do to the internal organs...

Ugh.  It's all bad.

I hate the smell of skunk.

C 2024  Christine Trzyna

I WOULD HAVE STAYED IN THE PRIMORDIAL SOUP

I loooved this animation.  All my friends loooved it too.  It's silly but profound.

THE FORTYISH BOY GENIUS and THE PLIGHT OF THROWN AWAY CAREGIVERS

THE FORTYISH BOY GENIUS and THE PLIGHT OF THROWN AWAY CAREGIVERS

In recent times, I met a most interesting and unusual person, for when he was sixteen he quit school to give care to his very ill mother, and she died when he was thirty eight, and he was there for her that entire time.  And no his siblings were not.

And now he's alone, uneducated formally - not even a GED - and regularly pontificates on a great number of subjects. I imagine this is like Jesus in the temple, teaching the older and established rabbis, though religion is of the least interest to him. His world view is honed and he will tell you, authentically, that he's a Republican and why.  He's detail oriented to a fault.

History, biochemistry, medicine, and so much else, he studied book by book for all those years while he remained at home as the one who cared for his mother and the others in the family went on their way - into mental illness, drug addiction, whoring, or some other less virtuous life.

So much we don't want to ask, such as where his siblings are now.

He's one of several people I've met in recent times who fit a profile. The child who sacrificed and then got thrown out of the family and/or thrown out of the estate/will.  It's disgusting.  It makes you suspicions when you meet someone new who says their sibling is caring for their parent.

So he's near forty and he's a genius no doubt, and the other thing about all those years at home and reading the equivalent of college level books, enough to be worthy of a Ph.D. in something, is that in conversation he needs to be always right. He takes over and dominates just about any conversation on any subject, and you imagine all those years when it was just him and his mom, not much social, not too many to talk to.  He's making up for time. 

And then you wonder, was his mother selfish? Why didn't she submit herself to another caregiver or a series of them, an assisted living, a nursing home - and free him to have a normal life, to finish high school and go on to college? Why didn't they leave the apartment? Was it financial? 

She's dead. He's dead broke.

She hasn't been dead long, so I ask: "Have you had any signs from her?  Any visitation dreams?"

He says no and doesn't believe he will.

He says he's trying to bulk up after not having enough to eat for some time.

Also, he's going to test out of the GED.  Take a certificate course somewhere and become a techie first.  Then he donates plasma for money.  He says he'll get rid of storage as well as quit smoking. (He smokes though he has all sorts of advice about which vitamins and minerals are best for what ails you.)

What will he encounter in college?

I imagine him making it through many classes with ease but also being frustrated because he's going to think - or know - AND HE COULD BE RIGHT - that his knowledge is in conflict with what is being taught. It would probably take the PhD to actually be able to further an original thought. College is a whole lot about conformity in order to excel.

But we all think he will go far.  Especially if his mother is there for him while on the Other Side.

C 2024  Christine Trzyna

PRIVACY or NONDISCLOSURE ?

I met someone several weeks ago, someone who is profoundly hard of hearing, which isn't the same as deaf.  He walked over to me and gave me a note that said "I'm a punk rocker and a skateboarder but I have a good heart."  He and I interacted with notes and then texts, as there was no way I was going to learn American Sign Language fast enough...  We had a lot of laughs as we both made errors in understanding.  He showed me his art; I understood what he was doing even if it wasn't so appealing to me.

But what really did he want with me?

So one day I said, "My girlfriends are teasing me that I have a boytoy."

He said, "Hearing that excites me."  

"Well, I'm not Madonna or Cher. I can't have a boytoy."

We laughed.

On June 19th, he joked.  "Don't fall in love with ME."

So I began to wonder about him.  

I decided he was too young for me in general.  That had a lot to do with his boyish appearance.  Shorts - tennis shoes - a cap on his head.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"No comment," he said.

"Are you married?  Have you been married?"

"No comment."

"Do you have children?"

"No comment."

And so it went.  There was nothing he was easily willing to admit, and, as my girlfriends pointed out, he had not asked me the same questions.

"I respect women." he said. 

"If or when you're my girlfriend, I will tell you those things."

The girlfriend posse agreed with me.  No woman in her right mind circa 2024 becomes a man's girlfriend without knowing these basics before she gives it consideration.

The girlfriend posse also got into the act of trying to trick him into revealing some information.

You know this game. "What's your zodiac sign?" "What high school did you go to?" "What year did you graduate?"

"What was your favorite superhero when you were growing up?" he asked me.

"I don't think I ever cared about superhero's" I said.

"When I was growing up, the Green Hornet was my favorite."

I pulled out my cell phone and looked up Green Hornet.  It was only on the air for one year, 1966. (But it might have been in reruns.)

"Were you born between 1950 and 1955?  1956 - 1962..."  I asked.

He laughed.

He texted me, even after we spent some time together, and it went like this.

A 5  - buzz, a 4-buzz, a 3 an the a H e L L O.  Then "Can I ask you a question?" It seemed to me that this was all like an alarm clock.  Even when I put the phone on silent, so I could go to sleep.  I started to feel pestered.

Then one night the question was "That ex-boyfriend of yours that you had coffee with the other day, how long ago did you break up with him?"

"He's still a friend.  None of your business," I said.  No, I didn't just say, I retorted.

I was started to loose interest in all this.  The fun of the game was over.  I became suspicious of his unwillingness to disclose. Was he hiding something? 

I'm a private person myself, actually.  And I understand that we need to protect our privacy because we are in a world in which Identity Theft is rampant.

There was also the guessing game of what his surname was.  As this man is Hispanic and his surname begins with a K, I had guess Kastaneda and Kardashian, which he said made him LOL....  The icon with the tears pouring out of his eyes had been selected.

Then one day I tried one more time.  I asked him how old he was, if he was or had been married, and if he had children, and he said No Comment each time.

Our friendship could go no further.  I respected his boundaries.  I told him "I respect your privacy and I think we have spent too much time with each other lately and should just see each other around."

He didn't get it.  He didn't take it well.

It was then I decided that how many years old he was didn't matter.  He was simply too immature...

C 2024  Christine Trzyna

I'M NOT SWAYED

I've been reading Daily Mail UK (though it is irksome) since Edward Snowden was mysteriously stuck in the airport... The headlines and "reportage" is heavily slanted against Biden and Democrats....  (Daily Mail is the second most read news publication in the world.)

I'm not swayed.  I'm still a Democrat. I read with the saying "Take It With A Grain Of Salt" in mind.

I've managed to avoid buying anything from Amazon, supporting retail employees and small businesses, for years on end.  Tried six different stores recently for a product that used to be on the shelves.  Three of them offer me to buy it on line....  I hate to admit it but after the final visit - to a Walmart - I'm letting a friend who has Amazon Prime buy it for me - I'll pay him back.

I'm not swayed.  I'm still supporting retail workers and small businesses.

My cell phone keeps prompting me to use voice, to use assistant, to use AI, and damn it but recently on the Internet I got a prompt from google to use a FINGERPRINT or facial recognition to get into the g-mail I was forced to associate with that phone in order to get updates. I will not knowingly allow my phone to record, I will not use assistant or AI.

I hope I die before we are all forced to get chipped.

I'm not swayed. I still think privacy is something that is our right as humans and something worth protecting.

Recently I experienced a barrage of Fundamentalist Christianity.

I'm not swayed. 

I still think Roman Catholics are Christians, I still think the Bible cannot be taken literally, I still vote with as much intelligence and research as I can muster, and I still think LGBTG people are not condemned to eternal hell.

I attended two Juneteenth events.

I'm not swayed.

I still think the national anthem is God Bless America and that Lincoln set forth the Freeing of the Slaves (even if he was assassinated by the time Slavery was ended.) And Racism,  horrible, is not always going in one direction from White to Black.

C 2024 Christine Trzyna

Note on July 17, 2024  Sorry, because the Star Spangled Banner is the National Anthem, but since so many people cannot sing it - and singing it becomes spectacle - I think of God Bless America as the one most of us retreat to.  My point it, at Juneteeth celebrations (I attended TWO) it was suggested that Americans with historical slavery ancestry have a separate nation because they have their OWN NATIONAL ANTHEM.... divisive!

TWELVE THIRTY : THE MAMAS and THE PAPAS

Though I didn't live in the canyon when songs like these were being recorded,  there's still a vibe ....

if only you travel it at the right time...

MAD AS A HATTER : LARKIN POE

TUPELO HONEY : VAN MORRISON

 Remembering my dog who died two years ago...

AWAKE : THE LIFE OF YOGANANDA : CHRISTINE TRZYNA DOCUMENTARY FILM REVIEW

Excellent - simply.

 

STILL : ALANIS MOR|SSETTE

COME HOME : ANDERSON PAAK

 

I played this one dozens of times...and can't get it out of my mind.  

Thinking of my musician friend Christopher who plays and teaches base guitar. (And could show up on a moped with a fluffy dog named Molly.)

Strong base on this one...

Thinking of my artist friend Tony who said he could not relate at all. He says he gave it all up and cannot stretch canvas or paint any more. Tony this song is a painting.

SPILL THE WINE : ERIC BURDEN and WAR

This song had to be at the front of "World Music." It was considered a novelty tune, something to dance to at the swimming pool.

96 TEARS : QUESTION MARK and THE MYSTERIANS