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There Is Always Russia

18 Sunday Oct 2020

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It is 3:00 AM in Richmond, Virginia USA. In Moscow, Russia it is 10:00 AM. The faithful are worshipping at a magnificent Chutch filled with icons. They are chanting their chant form, знамены,

This is the Russia that defeated Hitler, the Russia that tossed out the Communists after 75 years. The spine of this nation are the women in baboushkas, dressed for a morning in the 40s (8°C).

The priests reverence the altar, the Body and Blood of Our Lord have been sanctified. The camera now zooms in on an icon , most likely from the 18th, possibly the 19th Century, Madonna and Child.

As a people the Russians prevailed over Hitler, then Stalin. They wear the masks against COVID, but do not practice rigid social distancing. A virus doesn’t phase them that much. They chant, along with choir. A grandfather holds his granddaughter as they reverence two icons.

The people who know they are sick, who ask for healing will receive it.

I should go back to bed.

Not A Time For “Gotcha’s”

17 Saturday Oct 2020

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I have been watching a major American political party collapse over the course of the past year.

We’ve seen the culmination of several ongoing scandals, involving money at the core, in just the last week.

We have a juvenile understanding of politics in America, on a par with how we follow sports teams and athletes. We are basically fans, giving only secondary consideration to how our team and standard bearers will exercise power once they attain it.

The major parties, Democratic and Republican are more analogous to sports conferences, The National Conference and The American Conference if you will. Within the party/conference are factions analogous to teams, e.g. The Clinton Faction or The Bush Faction. A party faction in power would dole out the largesse, such as cabinet positions, ambassidorships, a ride on the space shuttle, an unmerited burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

The House of Cards began its collapse in 2016 when an outsider ran for President and won. All of a sudden how the parties did business came under scrutiny. Within the administrative state, career civil servants wielded power, unelected power, though many did have a party affiliation. A young civil servant may begin their career 25-30 years ago when one Party gains power, then rise to high levels of authority as the party to which they are affiliated gains or regains power. They are ideaologically sympatico with one party or the other, and will exercise their partisanship on their federal government job, rather than merely at the ballot box.

Were the partisanship just limited to protecting, say, the snail darter or Common Core, the prejudice would be annoying but not overbearing or too detrimental. But what happens when the political faction leaders are corrupt, e.g. they enrich themselves and their families / cronies? The party loyalty of the career bureaucrat enables the corruption of the faction leader to flourish.

Civil servants in the Department of Justice tried to “throw” the 2016 election. They failed in their mission and were caught.

Now corrupt figures in the previous administration (Obama/ Biden) have been discovered. Family members of administration leaders are alleged to have taken millions, perhaps billions, of dollars from potential adversaries of the United States of America.

Discovering corruption is no longer a “gotcha” moment. The question of leadership and service by loyal elected officials has now been raised. There no longer exists any perverse sense of smug satisfaction.

This is a tragedy beyond calculation. The nation has been damaged, on a par with not merely the 9/11 attacks or the Watergate cover-up, but Pearl Harbor. Actually the damage done is more like Fort Sumter, because we’ve done this to ourselves.

Words Fail

14 Wednesday Oct 2020

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I have nothing to say.

There is pain, heartache and I don’t know why.

I have a good life. I’m grateful for the blessings in my life.

I have walked away from many things that offer only regret and grief.

Hope this feeling is over soon.

Typically Woke At 3:00 AM

08 Thursday Oct 2020

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It is 3:13 AM Eastern Time, North America. I am watching a Russian Orthodox Liturgy from somewhere in Russia. It must be a special day because the cathedral is well attended for a Thursday morning.

I have been busy the past couple of days, throwing trash out, putting boxes away,vacuuming dusty carpets, and cleaning in general. It is an oddly sad time, the clutter is like an old friend, as is the chaos, it exemplifies.

Back to the Russians, for a moment. These monks can sing!!! A Capella. There is no organ.

The Russians don’t seem particularly worried or guilty about being white. We Americans think that the garbage, literally garbage in some cases, we fret about are the concerns of the entire world. Truth be told, some very powerful people want to, like to, strive to, mess with your head. By that I mean, disturb your world view to make you and everybody else more receptive to their point of view. Uncharitably, we denounce such activity as ” brain washing”, or propagandizing, but if you, or a loved one is involved in this enterprise, then chances are, you prefer the term “Public Relations”.

I will not participate in the collective lie about “white privilege”. Sorry. I’m white and my life is pretty damn difficult. The scourge of substance abuse has affected me. I have known loss, betrayal, estrangement, the death of loved ones same as everyone else. If you cut me, I will bleed, just like Shylock

I’ve had enough..

What If?

05 Monday Oct 2020

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Love doesn’t look like what we think it should look like or feel like?

We all run around with ideas in our heads about love, or,more accurately put, sex and relationships, that we get from movies, TV, romance novels and, especially, pornography, of what we think love is.

We come across a human being that we like and we aren’t afraid of them and they haven’t hurt us yet, so we pursue this relationship, really not much more than carrying on a verbal and nonverbal dialogue. If the person doesn’t blow us off, we continue the pursuit, the inquiry as to whether this person, might actually love us or fall in love with us.

But are we in love, do we want to fall in love, or are we merely pursuing validation that we are not the horrible person that we are afraid we are in our most private and destructive thoughts?

Maybe finding True Love is the Search For The Holy Grail. As a goal, it is unattainable, but we will not be deterred.

How would we know if we found True Love, by the intensity of the orgasm, names together on a deed, children? All of these are questionable indicators. Yet we press on. Perhaps the best we can do is take what the other has to offer.

29 September. Awake.

29 Tuesday Sep 2020

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I went to bed around 11:45 last night, after cleaning up the dirty dishes, pots, and pans. I don’t know why I even expect to sleep through the night.

I know that I can find a Russian Orthodox. Mass on You Tube, broadcast live from St. Petersburg. The liturgy will calm me. Will it cause this sadness to leave? Who knows?

I’m watching a train pulling intermodal freight containers somewhere to load on container ships and take, either empty or full, to a port , somewhere in the world. There they will be emptied of their contents and filled, or simply filled with factory output of that region and shipped somewhere else in the world

Industrial output continues, despite the dystopian diatribes, because we need the shoes, chinos, machine tools, auto parts, condoms or brassieres the world’s factories produce. It is that simple.

Sorry folks. Our minds may think any number of thoughts, but our feet will always need shoes.

“It” Creeps Back In, Then Leaves.

22 Tuesday Sep 2020

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I’m sitting here and negative thoughts, midnight black humour, creep back in to my consciousness.

In my dystopian nightmare, funeral homes will offer “End Of Life” Care, including euthanasia. The funeral home would advertise free euthanasia with every “pre-need” cremation or burial package. I know. That’s sick. Really, really sick. Just try and get it out of your head.

I’m trying to get back on track. First Justice Ginsburg dies. Then I watch some “British Hangman”Albert Pierrepoint videos on You Tube. And pretty soon, the macabre had seeped into every pore of my body.

I’ve started an emergency course of Cartoon Therapy. Popeye. Yes. I’m going with the big stuff. Maybe a nap is in order

Later This Afternoon

Rather than the nap. I took my power walk. I saw my neighbours and the dogs. Pekinese, Beagle, Yorkie(?), and, new to the neighbourhood, a French Bulldog. (Yes, they are cute!).

So with the miraculous help of my neighbours and their pets, it’s looking better. I feel the fresh air deep in my lungs, the simple beauty at the cusp of the seasons.

2.4 miles of restorative exercise.

Legacies 2020 Russia & America

19 Saturday Sep 2020

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Today, at a Cathedral in Ekaterinburg, Russia, TVSOYUZ is webcasting a liturgy with chanting, reverencing of the Holy Icons, lighting the long, tapered candles.

A young man in vestments, his long red hair in a ponytail chants before an icon in a rich baritone voice. The choir consists of four women, all wearing baboushkas, chanting melodically. Their chants and prayers are a contrast to the atheism proclaimed in Russia a century ago.

Ekaterinburg is where, 102 years ago, Nicolai Alexandrovich Romanov, his wife and children were murdered by the Bolsheviks, ideological first cousins of Anti-Fa and, on the strength of their manifesto, Black Lives Matter. Czar Nicholas II is now a martyr and saint. He and his family died for the Faith. Their icon is reverenced. The contemplation of an icon, in Orthodox and Catholic tradition, provides a window to God. Icons include the statues to the Saints, Our Lady and Our Lord, recently destroyed in America.

The Russians, you see, know how stories like Portland, Seattle, Kenosha, Minneapolis, and,now Rochester, end. They paid in blood, a million times over, at the hands of Lenin, Stalin, Berea.

As we watch the Götterdämmerung of American Liberalism, we mourn the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She lived to see American women rise to positions of power, in the professions, academia, politics, and government. American women attained equality, even breaking the glass ceiling of mendacity, venality, and incompetence, long the private realm of the George Wallaces, Jimmy Carters, and Richard Nixons.

Assuming she was lucid enough, she heard a Black Woman cheer the murder of another human being, calling the man “trash”. She saw, on the news, Leftist radicals, block the entrance to a hospital, where a wounded female deputy sheriff was being rushed after being shot in the line of duty. This is what equality in the workplace looks like in 2020.

But the liberals and feminists will continue to be driven by their illusions, hoping their dystopia won’t end as Russia’s did, discredited and disgraced, in the gulags and psychiatric wards.

I can safely guess that Portland and the rest of burning America was not Justice Ginsburg’s vision.