I remember when my small town lost its last family owned and run pharmacy — a beautiful, old, turn of the century store and a high quality company that the family had managed over four generations of pharmacists. In fact, the pharmacist-owners had loved their jobs and helped each other in work while simultaneously knowing most of their long-standing customers and[Read More…]
There is not much that I can do for Laura except to extend myself in a loving way to her. I learned of her through a mutual friend and decided that I wanted to do something supportive of her since she has suffered a great deal. Therein I want to soften her suffering and try to be a little bit[Read More…]
In general and on average, people in the USA are supposedly the biggest drug users in the world. They are taught from practically birth that if something is wrong, there is no need to have any discomfort physically or psychologically. Just take some medicine or a bunch of medicines and your life will be alright again. Besides, you deserve happiness[Read More…]
Those to whom we all owe substantial recompense are primarily people in the mid-south of the planet. This is because that is where the brunt of the desirable resources are and the people in the lands with these riches often barely make enough money to live. In fact they are often heavily exploited and we need to pay them back[Read More…]
What is capital? The recently deceased economist David Fleming suggests that it is comprised of financial, natural, social, material, human and scientific/cultural assets. I, myself, would add energy assets in the mix because, obviously, those who control the energy supplies of the world control the world. In fact, any country being in control of the brunt of energy supplies makes[Read More…]
People in the Massachusetts government and in our charities strive hard to ensure shelter for all in my state. Yet many poverty-stricken folks having no charge or low charge housing and food bank food don’t want to be dependent on financial or food assistance. They definitely don’t want a handout, and find receiving it demeaning, belittling and humiliating. Instead they want[Read More…]
It was a brisk September evening in 1983. Strolling down the street, she carried her sleeping baby in a cloth pouch that was somewhat like a backpack positioned to be at her front. The child was warm against her body and the warmth felt good as a buffer against the chill in the night air. Meanwhile all around her was[Read More…]
Many a person knows that “it takes money to make money.” So rather than frittering away financial assets, these many invest money in ways and means that are thought will likely lead to more capital being accrued. Of course, any fiscal gain is often largely predicated on others needing or wanting some product or service which an investor has funded[Read More…]
Eight years ago, I went for a blood pull early in the morning. I was instructed to eat nothing and only have plain water, coffee or tea starting at ten o’clock at night until after the blood extraction the next day. So I decided the day before the procedure that I would have spaghetti and meatballs for dinner as that[Read More…]
Approximately 4% of the population is born with brain anomalies that cause them to be narcissists. In dysfunctional societies, the number of people with this orientation can rise to be as high as around 20%. Partly this increase is due to certain desirable values and norms eroding for some individuals as they advance in age. Then they increasingly become comfortable[Read More…]
Bullying can start at an early age. It usually involves an act of ridiculing and shunning the intended victim, who is deliberately being mistreated. Moreover the bully sometimes is an individual and sometimes bullies can be an entire coordinated group of children assaulting a singled out person. All school aged bullies pick on either one child or a number of[Read More…]
Rosa Parks learned to stand her ground for which she was hauled off to jail. This incident wasn’t the first time, nor the last time, that an Afro-American would be incarcerated for an act of civil disobedience. Her arrest was due to this event: A bus driver in Montgomery, Alabama ordered her to give up her seat in the “colored”[Read More…]
While in a US rehabilitation center, one has to be able to basically accept and get along with an assortment of people from many different cultures, ethnic groups and countries. Indeed, lots of staff members in a rehab place originated from various lands around the world rather than just the U.S. All the while, most of the residents were born[Read More…]
When my grandmother was in her late eighties, she was in a nursing home in which she had lived for around four years. When I was there to visit her, she asked me to kill her. She was serious in the request because her quality of life had significantly deteriorated and she knew that her state of being was going[Read More…]
I am adamant about this topic. I know that the only way forward is to limit ourselves in resource and energy use. In that vein, I wrote to the USA Sierra group that was touting electric cars: “I respectfully disagree with you. From where does the majority of our electricity derive? The answer is fossil fuels. That is obvious. So[Read More…]
Someone who much likes Trump and who plans again to vote for him asked me to provide proof that he is corrupt in presidential dealings. So here is my reply: “The Supreme Court and lower courts ruled against his actions a number of times. The House ruled against him plenty of times and including in impeachment hearings. “He lets others[Read More…]
I’ve come to realize that I don’t conform to ideas of any particular political party, religion, ideology and position in the way that others think the world or people should be or other positions should be. It is because I think and feel independently. Besides I was not indoctrinated by my parents or others. They let me be free. Yes,[Read More…]
I was remembering yesterday about an event from when I was in my twenties. I was sitting on a hard wooden bench waiting for a train to take me to my parents’ hometown from Grand Central Station in NY City. I looked around myself and saw homeless women living there. The view took a while to sink into my being.[Read More…]
I have known this information for some time. M. L. King’s top threesome topics in interest were racism, war and materialism — I.e., excessive consumerism. I am rightfully proud of my support of King. Here’s the scoop: Jewish parents made a deal with a NYC bus company to bus people to the Selma March by exchanging Green Stamp booklets for[Read More…]
At a Quaker Meeting some years ago, a speaker stood up and explained the original meaning of turn the other cheek, which Jesus espoused. The meaning transformed over time to something like forgive and forget or look the other way. Quakers generally don’t lie and certainly someone would have to be mentally ill in some way to share this information,[Read More…]
One of the most fascinating writers about morality is Lawrence Kohlberg. I have read lots of his writings. He initially divided up morality into six stages. Some people are stuck on the lower levels or mid levels of his scale. What can be very interesting Is to look at yourself and others who you fairly well know and find out[Read More…]
I’ll be frank. I use to enjoy playing in certain kinds of sports games, but I don’t like watching sports on tv or in videos. Indeed, I don’t like personally attending sporting events to watch them. Doing so bores me too much, although I do have friends who do like to do so. So I am glad that they get[Read More…]
For those of you who don’t know the meaning of those alphabet letters, here you go: lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, queer, alternative sexually. Now, I will add that there are lots of lesbian seagulls. So don’t imagine for a moment please that we are alone in alternative sexual behavior. I read a factual article on the topic. One of my[Read More…]
I have to admit that I am very enthusiastic about taking the knee. It is a symbolic gesture. Now, my knees are cruddy. They got so bad that twice I was taken by ambulance to a hospital and a rehabilitation center. The fact is that I couldn’t walk and my knees got ruined by saving a policeman’s life. Would I[Read More…]
I remember on MA tv news watching a white man getting arrested in my state by police for verbally harassing a black couple on a motorcycle in his neighborhood. It was considered a hate crime. I recall my black friend leading a peaceful protest outside of an MA library against NH white supremacists together in a meeting there. Library administration[Read More…]
I have had the honor and the privilege to know two Freedom Riders. One was killed for Freedom Riding and had been a friend of mine. Irwin Wadler was my childhood and my young adult dentist. He loved brutally murdered Andy Goodman as I did. So Irwin took up the mantle. He did so willingly after Andy was butchered. Here[Read More…]
The same problem exists in the USA as in India and other countries. Farmers are dumping huge amounts of their produce back in the fields. A pig farmer in America is considering just killing off her pigs since they can’t go to a slaughterhouse and to markets. I saw about this farmer problem happening in various newsfeeds in MA, USA[Read More…]
Those who know me the best know the many number of years that I’ve fought to protect and foster forests, meadows, wetlands, wild animals and peoples across the world, including ones in a lepers’ colony not located in the USA. I started in my direction as a toddler and got better in my associates tasks year by year. Yet as[Read More…]
Let me, please, remind you that I am legally a white, blue eyed, blond Kenyan. And the Masai, my clan, are now dying off from the virus. I’ll remind: Humans have always fought the natural world to bring it into conformity with their wishes whether by slaughtering wolves that would eat them, killing off poison ivy or other means. I[Read More…]
I was raised in a Quaker household. Quakers are considered Christians, although that is a stretch as far as I am concerned since there are atheist Quakers and other permutations. In addition, they can be subversive in exemplary ways. For example: All of my closest Quaker friends of CO (conscientious objectors to killing in wars) status worked in an insane[Read More…]
I know all about these days. And, no, I am not self-pitying over them. Instead I see them as part and parcel of being alive. We all have to endure them and go through rather than around them. After all, all that we have is effort and can’t guarantee outcomes. We can’t change outcomes in general, although can do so[Read More…]
Someone sent me a nasty email that put a vituperative comment about Planned Parenthood selling blood or something related to abortions. A right-winger religiously and otherwise, he seemed irate about it. However, I deleted his message without reading it. It didn’t shock me as it had, apparently, done to him. Besides, he hates all abortions, it seems, even when women[Read More…]
I float down the river. It can be any river imagined. Yet it is here despite a vision Devised to make it real. It stretches back in time To the Big Bang And into a nearly imaginable future Until the Earth is swallowed By a dying expanding sun That swallows our planet fully as it is engulfed. Such ponderous thoughts[Read More…]
In 2018, I read an article about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It is here: https://archive.org/stream/catholicradical/catholicradical-2018-10 The eyewitness acount to the happening included this information: “… August 6, 1945, in Hiroshima, Japan. A short, wiry 37-year- old Basque Jesuit priest served as Novice Master on the outskirts of the city. He tells what happened that morning: “The roof tiles,[Read More…]
Here’s a quotation from “Trump Rex” by John Feffer at https://countercurrents.org/2020/04/trump-rex: “Athens survived the plague, though its democracy was compromised by war and disease. America, too, will live on. But it will have lost some further measure of its greatness thanks in no small part to the man who, however cynically, wanted to make it great again.” Well, in relation, I’m[Read More…]
Am I a Christian? Well, the answer all depends on one’s loose or rigid definitions about what it means to be Christian. I know some people who would say that I am not so since I don’t follow their own particular Christian religion. They also express views that they dislike people of color living in slums in the US, as[Read More…]
The underlying human horror and destruction from the nearly worldwide coved-19 disease is truly daunting. Not to undercut the seriousness of the devastation, but this type of happening is hardly new. For example, consider the Black Plague that wiped out half of Europe and the fact that many British people are immune to Smallpox unlike many Native Americans whose ancestors[Read More…]
One of the most stupid platitudes, an old adage, that I have ever heard is “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” With a sarcastic tone of voice in my head, I think, “Yeah, right.” My friend Jatin lost both of his children through separate ways. The saying is certainly not applicable to him and what about me? Well, I[Read More…]
Some of the accounts that my parents shared with me were surprising to me when I was a child. I didn’t doubt their narratives, but they did seem odd to me as a youngster. The first was about children coming to their summer resort and bringing food allocation booklets. Then my folks would pool the books all together to get[Read More…]
My favorite parts of being in a a rehabilitation place were fivefold: First, I loved helping hurt others. What a blast it was after learning to walk again at the facility. One of my acts included helping a man, Robert, whose short term memory was deficient. So I wrote instructions and phone numbers for him to find his car, his[Read More…]
First, this information at the link below in its second half conforms to the “secret” information that my nephew knows. His is from US government sources that indicate that half of Americans will likely get the virus. Second, his father is writing an exam for tomorrow for some of his approximately 120 students. He is concerned that the remote viewing[Read More…]
Expatriates returning from Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon wait to be retested in a Kuwaiti health ministry containment and screening zone for COVID-19 in Kuwait City on March 16, 2020. In Massachusetts, USA, bars and restaurants are closed except for takeout, schools are closed starting on this Tuesday. They will all be shut for at least three weeks and no gatherings[Read More…]
In recent news, several significant events were simultaneously happening across the world. Here are just a few of the seemingly most relevant ones. Many Californian beach goers are using the wrong sort of sunscreen. They should be using the zinc oxide type. Yet there are just so many people at the beaches in that state with around forty million people[Read More…]
My friend of fifteen years, Dr. John James , was in the fire zone of Australia. He wrote: The first two months of this year has given us a taste of what is to come From the Climate Science page “February 2020, on global average, was the second warmest February since the reliable measurements began in 1880, at 1.54⁰C relative to[Read More…]
I live in a stable neighborhood. It has single family homes, one multiple family home and two homes for two families as far as I know. Many of the homes date to the 1800’s. One neighbor loaned his second family space to a financially poor mother and her child who had fled an abusive man in anther town, the child’s[Read More…]
No surprise is here in this set of images. It’s the economy and the scale issue. Around 7.8 humans are now alive of which many look for work vs.2 or 2,5 billion when I was born. And the number of humans keep rising by 200,000 more every day past birth and death rates equaling out. So the ravaging of[Read More…]
I have tried to provide a warning to others about their staying away from psychopaths. Of course, it is impossible in some circumstances, such as my sister and my knowing four of them while growing up. (Imagine a brother trying to have sex with you since you were thirteen years old. Imagine him continuing this behavior when you are old,)[Read More…]
Watch out, I recommend, for narassistic psychopaths in your life. Often they are kleptomaniacs, who do everything to destroy others and gain something for themselves. I should know since my mother’s side of the family has included males with this dreadful affliction since the 1600’s. Indeed, my sister and I, unbeknown to each other, started investigating this disease at the[Read More…]
I know information about several neighbors. Here in a small nutshell are three of them. Neighbor one supports himself by selling and laying down pesticides. It is a subject about which he knows job-wise. He also knows that he is dispensing poisons that contaminate the air, soil and water supply. Indeed when spraying, he wears protective gear that makes him[Read More…]
I have favorites for this month celebrating Blacks in the USA. There are about ten of them because they are me and I am them. Here is one: “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville[Read More…]
Here is Jim Crow when I was a child in Florida. Blacks couldn’t go to white restaurants, motels, gas stations or bathrooms. They had something called The Green Book when traveling in the South of the USA. It showed where they could go. I wish that I were making this information up. Yet I can’t to save my life. It’s[Read More…]
I wrote to a friend: I want to tell you about two of my fights that infect my bad dreams. One involves a heritage apple farm in my neighborhood. On the plus side Boyleston botanical hill took slips from the trees to keep the genetics going. On the negative side, the farm owner, after the old guys who’d owned[Read More…]
I was taught in teacher training classes never to label children. It can usually only cause damage. I didn’t need to learn that message. Often it is a form of bullying and abuse that I had already seen as a child. Tina Tonkel a classmate of mine was repeatedly shunned and ridiculed at school by her peers. Indeed she had[Read More…]
The banking industry is a giant racket to make money. Here is my experience of the wrong. I had no credit rating at all. So I went off to Bank of Boston (which became Bank of America). With me was all of my verifiable paperwork that I had with me, I proved that I had 120 to 130 thousands of[Read More…]
I have nothing against any religious views unless they face off against my values. Then watch me fly at the wrong that I see. After all, how could I take away a religious view that someone believes that brings comfort and joy? How wrong would be that? So this Christian lady, who I met in a grocery store, told me[Read More…]
Others are often means to making an income or vast wealth for oneself. With the way that the economy is set up, it is the norm. Here are a few examples. They should exemplify the condition. I injured my knees and other parts of my body when saving another person’s life. That action is a no-brainer for me. If I[Read More…]
Tribalism is rampant on both the micro and macro scale. Whether in contentious actions by individuals or entire nations, it kicks into play as a survival mechanism by biological evolutionary roots. This because through it, people ensure that their own group gets the power, territory and goods. So of course there is going to be racism, casteism, hatred of people[Read More…]
This July 2019 photo provided by Peter Westley shows carcasses of chum salmon lie along the shore of the Koyukuk River near Huslia. Alaska scientists and fisheries managers are investigating the deaths of salmon that may be tied to the state’s unusually hot, dry summer. (Peter Westley, University of Alaska Fairbanks via AP) You plan on eating Pacific Ocean seafood[Read More…]
I have dents and bumps On my shanks from soccer. My shins are covered With them and I marvel At their feel that took place When I was a teen And there were no shin guards. My son-in-law is More. He was a professional soccer player, A doctoral physicist and a MD. He is so much younger than me So[Read More…]
A friend of mine sent me this entire article. He prefaced it with: Spot on. S…. The appalling vanity of Western feminists who think Margaret Atwood writes about them | The Spectator Imagine a country where women have no jobs, no rights and are valued only for reproductive success. Imagine a country where girls aren’t taught to read in case[Read More…]
Our three large food banks in MA are now going full force in in my state, I have never seen anything like it. We have one in the west, one east and one middle. The same event is happening across the USA, Our food banks across the nation are full throttle at present. They are cranking out food as fast[Read More…]
I am not good today. Indeed, I am pitiful, but I am bearing witness in the aftermath as I was taught to do as a little girl and onward in time by Quakers like the members of my Quaker family. So bear with me (double meaning). I had a child in my class. I’m usually very good at[Read More…]
I went to Oakwood Friends School since I came from a Quaker family. … I have been on several clearness committees. It is about helping people achieve mission, as well as follow their leading (what Catholics name calling). We sit in silent prayer or meditation. Then we speak. Now there were clearness committees about Quaker Oats and Poughkeepsie, NY. The[Read More…]
I know all about bearing witness. I started doing it when I was five when I tried to help Hiroshima Maidens hosted and put up by my Quaker Meeting when in NY, USA for no charge reconstructive surgery. They stayed with Quaker families who drove them to and from treatments, They also were in a terrible condition, although each[Read More…]
Every person has some flaws. My two major ones, which I remember from when I was a toddler, are that I am sanctimonious and stubborn. … I laugh at myself about both of these tendencies. No wonder that my sister bit me when we were both toddlers for my being this way. Yet it is a double-edged sword. Here, let[Read More…]
I can promise that I will not trample a man to death in NJ during a Black Friday store event as has happened. I will not cause a miscarriage through ramming up against a woman at another store as has happened. I will not get into a grab and punch festival at yet another store while fighting over some[Read More…]
I have an extraordinary sister. She is relentless in her push to serve others. Here are two examples in the following account. https://countercurrents.org/2017/03/03/the-good-sister-a-model-for-us-all/ The Good Sister, A Model For US All! in Life/Philosophy — by Sally Dugman — March 3, 2017. snow. Fourteen months older than am I, my sister was a terror as … Now, we had a little chat[Read More…]
We just had another mass murder in the USA. A military connected person carried it out. I know two Marines. Both have shell shock permanent brain damage AND PTSD. One shot a rifle at a medical helicopter going to a hospital across the lake where he lived when back in the USA. The other raped his own daughter, realized his[Read More…]
Well, the Liar-in-chief is at it again. This time he is trying to enrich his corporate friends by having food boxes sent to poor people who receive food stamps instead of them getting stamps. The CEO’s of huge agricultural companies win out that way… just as they did when excess food from USA was part of loan deals in Haiti[Read More…]
Get Smart if you vote. Read Between the lines, I recommend. Let’s be very clear here. I do not vote anymore. It is because the political system is too broken and we need a third political party in the USA to break the impasse wherein I will not choose a lesser of two evils strategy. My Catholic Worker friends also[Read More…]
One of the topics that severely bothers me involves othering and stereotyping a tribal group of which one doesn’t belong or supposedly doesn’t belong as being bad. Instead one vilifies due to some superficial or imagined difference rather than seeing commonality. In this vein, people only naming Muslims as terrorists in the the USA doesn’t whitewash with me despite that[Read More…]
My daughter, a guidance counselor for around 350 young children in another state from mine, understands that she supersedes me in some ways in terms of her understandings and skills. Ditto for my side of the equation/,matter. I know elementary education in far more replete ways and my language skills surpass hers, too.Yet it is all a case of ça[Read More…]
Here are several key points regarding Brett Kavanaugh during these tumultuous times in the USA: You can like or not like MA Senator Warren. It is immaterial. 2, You can consider her a liar or not. She said that the FBI report, which she has read, contradicts Kavanaugh’s own statements UNDER OATH regarding his behaviors on multiple issues, but[Read More…]
Sexual assault and abuse have happened to me seven times. The incidents all took place when I was younger. They occurred when I was eighteen years old and in my twenties. One: I was on a rush hour subway in Manhattan. I felt a gooey sticky wad of something hit the backs of my legs. It was sperm from a[Read More…]
Here in MA, USA — we don’t put up and we don’t shut up. Here is evidence: Tens of Thousands March Against Hatred and Bigotry in Boston Estimated 175,000 Gather on Boston Common for Women’s March – NBC10 … You should also see our anti-gun marches and others carried out in our state, but they are all pretty much directed[Read More…]
It was with consternation that I read Post Flood Kerala In The Age of Climate Change And Peak Oil by Binu Mathew Here we have studied climate change issues and have developed a timetable to anticipate ways to mitigate climate related problems over the century in Boston. We know about what happens if we do not do so: So[Read More…]
We need new societal patterns. Likewise, people with limited financial means can’t take care of all tragedies. We have our own ongoing in MA right now with recent gas explosions and fires as this picture of a house shows.. Kerala, India has a giant torment with almost two million people displaced and hundreds dead due to a monsoon. Who knows[Read More…]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQbA_Gko5d0 I live in MA, USA. We just had the start of and still have an emergency situation here in MA taking place. Because our towns, cities and villages are connected to each other in advance of problems, we all jump when we learn of problems. We also jump outside of our state and know about what to do since[Read More…]
I sometimes watch a show on TV about New Hampshire while eating dinner. It always includes a history segment and I like it because it puts our current times nestled into a larger framework.. One of the most interesting ones was about Livermore, NH — a long abandoned town. According to the TV show: the town was entirely owned[Read More…]
Of course there are many more than the ones that I will share, but here is a good start. 1.) In the US Virgin Islands if you dig downward for water, you get salt water. So you need rain water, especially for drought periods. So my Dad put in a system wherein the water came off of the roof and[Read More…]
I saw this image and started laughing while also feeling somber. I shared the cartoon with a friend of mine and he sees several problems in relation to it. The first is that humans do not like reality. We do not like our mortality (the fact that we will die) and we do not like having no or little control[Read More…]
I had an opportunity a few months ago of being told I was privileged and was a “nasty” person in terms of many of my attitudes. I found that rather shocking for a number of reasons. The first is that since age five, I have worked my heart out — worked like a dervish perfecting dedicated swirls to be faster[Read More…]
One of my favorite books of all times is one compiled by this person. And you can buy it, too. For example. I bought it for a friend of mine in India out of Amazon.in. You can get it, too. World Tales : The Extraordinary Coincidence of Stories Told in All Times, in All Places Jun 1, 1991 by Idries[Read More…]
By Sally Dugman and associates A group of excited and committed environmentalists and community members have the opportunity to preserve an old farm and heritage orchard at 20 Creeper Hill Road in North Grafton, MA 01536, USA. With the dedicated work of an orchardist, a skilled farmer and community volunteers, we plan to create a community asset and a place to[Read More…]
I have an associate of around fifteen years. I work with him on and off in nanotechnology areas. I have nothing except for the highest respect, admiration and caring for him because he is ethical, kindly, dedicated to serving the best interests of humanity, and he is honorable in terms of using his best skills and understandings to train students[Read More…]
I’ve been working with several environmental and other groups, including ones involving local organic farmers, to try to financially secure a 13 1/2 acre, gorgeous farm with fields and an apple orchard near my home. It also has a very lovely old farmhouse. Many of the apple trees are very old — dating from 1600’s or 1700’s. They were brought[Read More…]
I’m going to lay it out straight because I get worried. … I have no idea about the degree that this following assessment regarding India is accurate or not. I don’t know much about India details. So I am neither agreeing with nor disagreeing with this evaluation. However, I do know this: We are a socialist democracy state in MA.[Read More…]
Whether children or adults, we are not your property! We are not your property when young, as wives, nor as employees! … This week, my sister told me that the choice that our parents made for her (involving removal of seven of her adult teeth as a child, although our father was somewhat reluctant about the procedure) has led to[Read More…]
Every night I hear trains, which are pulling stuff into Boston city, MA, USA. Oh wow, it’s amazing. Some of the engines are pulling more than a hundred cars. Clickity-clack again and again for a long amount of time! Then the next train comes with the same sounds. I try to imagine about what is on their cars: drugs,[Read More…]
I am not the only one who strongly admires and respects the Sikhs. My Governor Charlie Baker, the most popular one in the USA for all fifty states, does so, too. He will always support them on account since they are wonderful in many regards. Why? In part, it is because that he supports ethnic and religious diversity. He[Read More…]
One of my friends right now is in Bangladesh. He’s in the middle of having a shock to his soul or his sensibilities (if one doesn’t believe in a soul) due to having been invited to write an assessment for “ROHINGYA: Bangladesh Mission Report.” Yes, it is hard to bear witness. It is hard to endure suffering and loss on[Read More…]
I have some religiously oriented and nonreligious friends who are absolutely willing to lay their lives on the line for others. In relation, the religiously oriented ones think that they may go up with God after death and thereby find continuance of themselves or think that there is reincarnation, which is somewhat the same orientation (a continuation of consciousness of[Read More…]
US voters seemingly always think that if they try out a new model (like a new type of a car or some other product like a coffee making machine), they will get a different result. The same applies to Presidents. Yet, quickly they see the same old patterns settling into place whether with the Bush Presidents, Obama, Trump or others.[Read More…]
I have thought about indifference and/or fright as being a main cause of US citizens accepting all of the perpetual wars and conflicts that the USA are embroiled in creating and maintaining. They are never ending and they are great for filling the financial coffers of the military-industrial complex, as well as the pickets of some politicians. Does Donald[Read More…]
Recently I came across the following very short film. It reminded me of my heritage and my everything about whom I am, and one of the major ways that I got there. It has to do with the ministry of the stove. Video: Silent worship in a Quaker meeting house where only the fire in the stove is heard,[Read More…]
I am accustomed to having certain friends and family members willing to lay their lives on the line to protect others if need be. They and I have thought long and hard about it. We got firm as a result. Indeed, some of the people who I know have done just that — laid their lives on the line —[Read More…]
When I read Mirza Yawar Baig’s “Silence Is Culpable” at CC, it could have put me into a seething fury if I didn’t control my anger and use it to good purpose (such as trying to foster peace in my own community). It is because I agree wholeheartedly with the stance, as well as find the conditions that are described[Read More…]
One of the oldest intact dolls in existence other than predated wooden ones is from around the 1500’s and belonged to a little European princess. It is in a case, probably an airless vacuum case, in a museum in Monaco. One can look at the the doll and imagine the long-dead child and other children who played with it several[Read More…]
“People speak a lot today about the banality of evil, but not all evil is banal. Some of it is carefully structured and well-thought-out. That’s where the real danger lies.” – Alan Dean Foster Massachusetts has very tough animal cruelty laws. If people are caught abusing and/or neglecting animals, they can face jail time and stiff monetary fines in[Read More…]
Let’s be clear here: I have nothing except for respect and admiration for the writer Jay Janson. However, I do feel contentious about the viewpoint that we are all responsible for deplorable conditions, such as war, as exposed in King Held All Americans Including Himself Responsible for US Atrocity Wars NOT His Government . Here’s my rebuttal to that,[Read More…]
It was with a combination of dismay, delight and amusement that I watched the following two minute spoof because in an offhand way, it reminded of my own government’s lies (and for which many naive voters fall every time that there is going to be a new election for particular government offices). After watching the spoof, I imagined my own[Read More…]
I admit that I am largely alienated from my country’s overall, general society. I have been so for a long, long time. Indeed, I have a permanent state of anomie, something akin to this description at Anomie – Wikipedia, which is an excerpt from a longer characterization. Anomie (/ˈænəˌmi/) is a “condition in which society provides little moral guidance to[Read More…]
It is not enough for us to sign a petition to suggest Chandrashekhar Azad ‘Ravan’ to be released from prison. We must write essays so as to rally and encourage the people rejecting his imprisonment to protest in masse. Whenever I think about him, I start to get tears in my eyes. It is because I can’t imagine losing another[Read More…]
This image shows a US Predator drone firing a missile in Yemen. It is admirable and courageous that many students and others in the USA and around the world want to keep guns out of schools, out of robberies at stores and in home invasions, and out of streets where shootouts often lead to death of innocent civilians, including babies,[Read More…]
I live in a great state of the USA. I do not take this situation for granted since the fight for the condition in which I live is long-standing and ongoing. In short, we have to be ever vigilant to protect our rights and favorable conditions. It is considered the best state in the union — the best out of[Read More…]
Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. – George Orwell In the USA, there are 357 million guns in civilian hands based on federal manufacturing tallies, from subtracting the number of firearm exports from the number of firearms imported to and remaining in the United[Read More…]
People are starving and some are doing so to death. People are homeless and living in streets. People are without jobs and are in poverty. (There are not enough jobs available.) Resource shortages (including water and food in some regions) are coming. Climate change is worsening in dire impacts. Elites want to set up mining, logging and other operations on[Read More…]
On the whole, the USA public is a kindly and responsible lot. For example when the New Hampshire governor called people to action to provide help after the last hurricane to hit the island, 60,000 pounds of food, water and other goods were donated in the state that is called “Live free or die” based on early US Revolutionary tendencies.[Read More…]
A superintendent threatens to suspend students protesting gun laws. But that’s not legal. Curtis Rhodes, the superintendent of the school district in Needville, a small town southwest of Houston, wrote a letter to students and parents that was distributed Tuesday on the social media page for the town’s high school. It began with a reference to the protests around the country[Read More…]
Our MA, USA governor, Charlie Baker, informs us to all stay home or shelter in place as a state of emergency response when weather gets dangerous. We even have emergency response information to keep us updated about what to do and where to go: https://www.mass.gov/orgs/massachusetts-emergency-management-agency Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency ensures the state is prepared to withstand, respond to and recover[Read More…]
We are little grains of sand in an endless beach.
Our unique and relative placement is of no account.
Swept along by tides of time,
Flung and refined (with the rough edges removed)
By harsh unyielding winds of change,
We exist here on no grounds save that we simply are.
My girlfriend Janet Ward started a food bank with a few thousand dollars from a religious leader and a small walk-in closet. Now that very same food bank puts out more than a million meals a year. This is more than a $million US dollars a year worth of food for people who would otherwise starve or partially[Read More…]
The moon gently ascends out of a stand of quiet birch. It backlights them so the edge of each limb, twig and leaf Is momentarily light up and etched with dazzling white brillance. Drenched in light, each lacey bough stands out, blazing in vivid sharp detail. Then as the moon rises away, the birch gradually sink back to being a[Read More…]
The night is dense with thickening clouds That press downward against the earth; No light whispering winds glide across the darkening land. Only silent, transparent dimness reaches out From every direction To smoothly engulf everything. Melting the distinct contours of each shape Into one massive blackness, The night consumes everything And slowly becomes all that there is. Gradually my hands[Read More…]
It may be tragic to think this way, but sometimes I consider that zoos and aquariums are part of the solution to keep certain species alive. It is because our species is directly and indirectly involved in killing perhaps the majority of all living things across the world. Then we are breeding out of control to take over their former[Read More…]
At one point at my parents’ summer resort was a young teenager girl. She was ashamed of herself because she only had one leg. The other had been sheared off around six inches below the hip. So she initially always wore her artificial leg and long pants, even on extremely hot days when everyone else wore shorts. My family and[Read More…]
Co-Written By Sally Dugman and Steven Earl Salmony Some years ago, my mother and another relative of mine went to a funeral mass near Philadelphia, PA. The two of them were the only white skinned people in the church. Nobody batted an eyelid since everyone who knew the dead person knew that he had a deep and long enduring relationship[Read More…]
Picture two parents (couple A) living in a cave eons ago. They don’t have much of a sexual drive and so they only have two children. One of the two gets eaten by a tiger and the other drowns in a river flood. Couple B has a strong sexual drive. So they wind up having ten children. Two die from[Read More…]
My daughter is a guidance counselor, a position like being a school psychologist. She, all by herself, handles a school with 350 children in her role. It is a lot of heavy work with such a huge load of children to which to attend. So you streamline and teach classes to groups and only attend to the individuals worst in[Read More…]
Last night, my last dream had me sitting all of a sudden bolt upright in bed. It was of an event that happened recently (this week) in New England, USA concerning a parent murdering his child and committing suicide. Derry, NH, father killed himself and 6-year-old son by carbon monoxide poisoning It is happening all of the time, too, since[Read More…]
The older that you become — the more trauma that you will have experienced in life. It’s a given fact of life. Trauma can start very young. It did for the thousands of orphans, little children whose parents and other relatives were killed in wars. The loved ones died without being combatants, but were collateral damage as civilians. It[Read More…]
I have a friend in India. His father never made much money, although he was an MD, who worked around ten hours a day for five or six days a week in his profession. Now, why is that? Why paltry wages? Often the people, who came to him, were financially poor. They could not pay for his medical services,[Read More…]
My cat likes to watch some YouTube videos. So we spend around a half hour a day watching them together. Here are two of her favorites. (They are somewhat boring to me.) CAT GAMES – SUPER STRING THING (FOR CATS ONLY) – YouTube ▶ 3:41 Jun 10, 2017 – Uploaded by Gaming Palooza Empire Gaming Palooza Empire. … Thanks for supporting[Read More…]
I was sad to read that Binu, editor at Countercurrents, has been recently suffering. I, actually, have genuinely loved Binu and his family for more than ten years while following their personal and professional affairs. So I was sad to read his words: “I was walking through a desolation row for the last few days. I felt burnt out,[Read More…]
One of my friends sent me this email. Let’s call him P.: Probably most of you have seen seemingly outlandish allegations about powerful Washington figures involved in pedophilia. They seem so outrageous that there is a tendency to reject them out of hand. However, there are a couple of corroborating facts. First there is Epstein’s island in the Caribbean and[Read More…]
Last night I dreamt of an organic farm collective related to cows . On the collective’s milk containers were the words: “By rule and law, this milk is not to be used to kill, trap or poach.” In response, I thought in the dream that it was admirable, but foolish to make such a claim or legal demand. For[Read More…]
In the end, we, all of us, have to ask ourselves whether we wish to have more of everything (manufactured goods, vacation homes, holidays in far away locations and so on) in the short term or do we want to stretch out our use of resources to give the Earth a break to heal and to try to help ensure[Read More…]
I had a dog once, Olivia. She came out of championship ancestors in Brazil. Her ultimate ancestry came out of Newfoundlands and she was gorgeous looking and acting, a lab. Her genetically connected ancestors would swim like hell with all of their muster and all that they could expend out to a cruise, merchant ship, wrecks and drag people out[Read More…]
I felt impelled to write the following essay after reading this evaluation: The ‘ Ogre ‘ Of Violence – Rooted In Childhood by Sheshu Babu … In the USA, we have guidance counselors in schools to help stop violence. One of my relatives, a guidance counselor, runs groups for bullies and for victims of violence. Other means than group sessions[Read More…]
This past summer – on the 54th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech – Dr. Bernice King and the King Center invited me to Atlanta to speak at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Dr. King asked me: “How do we do good to those who hate us? Because that’s where we are today. There’s a lot[Read More…]
I heard a very touching account yesterday. It involved a house for which a whole home burned practically to the ground in a town near mine. So a local Go-Fund site was set up to help the family living there. Then $60,000 USD was raised for the family to restart their lives. Anyone who thinks that this money for a[Read More…]
I used to be proud of my town. It spend close to $280,000 in legal fees (derived largely from my and others’ tax fees) to stop a propane facility directly above the aquifer water source that serves my part of town. The lawsuit for this happening went from state level wherein protection of community, our water supply, our neighborhoods, our[Read More…]
I told Dr. [Bernice] King that we must keep making our voices heard. Not in hate – but in strength and determination. Because the fights over discrimination, over voting rights, over criminal justice, over economic and environmental justice – these fights are not relics of history. We are in these fights right now, every single day. As her father [M.[Read More…]
Letter to a friend: My region of the USA is starting to collapse in some places due to too many people using up too many resources. Eventually the overall economy will collapse since we will run out of fossil fuels and certain other critical resources. … My local water is garbage (fecal material, other potentially poisonous materials, and road chemicals[Read More…]
When I was six, my parents put me in footed pajamas that were cozy and warm. Then they took turns reading me a short bedtime story so that I could have sweet, interesting dreams. Afterwords, they kissed me, tucked the bedding around me and told me that they were going to awaken me in a few hours to listen to[Read More…]
I’ll be the first to admit that I have lived high on the hog for parts of my life. I have traveled to Europe and the Caribbean numerous times each. I was on a huge cruise ship coming back to the USA from France when I was a child. I’ve flown back and forth across the USA for work and[Read More…]
In the late 1980’s, I lived in a different town than my current one in MA, USA. Every now and then, maybe about once a week, an industrial plant about a mile from my home would sound a whistle. Then suddenly the air surrounding my home would be filled with something that smelled sickeningly sweet. It tasted, too, that way[Read More…]
The last time that I voted for a USA president was in the Al Gore vs Bush, Jr. (the shrub in relation to his bigger and more adept daddy, the bush) contention. Since Gore would take my state of MA, USA, I voted for the Green Party candidate since that political group needed money in their coffers and clout[Read More…]
A saying from the Bible’s story of Cain and Abel. After Cain had murdered his brother Abel, God asked him where his brother was. Cain answered, “I know not; am I my brother’s keeper?” Note : Cain’s words have come to symbolize people’s unwillingness to accept responsibility for the welfare of their fellows — their “brothers” in the extended[Read More…]
I know. I sound anthropomorphic. I am assigning human traits to a cat. However, how would you pose it? Last night, I heard a racket outside of my closed bedroom door. It woke me up from a deep sleep. So I went outside to look and couldn’t believe my eyes. Here she was, my female Siamese in a sitting position[Read More…]
We all learn to live with our flaws, weaknesses and shortcomings regardless of whatever they are, especially if they seem to not be changeable. These could include blindness, a limb that does not work right, a temperament prone to anger or, in my case, a sanctimonious nature. I think that I was born with it as part of my genetic[Read More…]
One of my older friends in India had a now dead father, who was an MD and who worked around twelve hours a day. He saw many patients, but his family never got ahead financially. Why? It was because he often gave his services away for no charge to financially poor people (including lower caste Hindu people) and paid[Read More…]
I first learned about Cardinal Law some years ago in a news report. A seven year old stood by a busy road or a highway crying. A woman stopped to pick him up. He had jumped at a traffic light or some other type of stop (such as brought by a stop sign) out of the man’s car. He,[Read More…]
Recently I saw a two year old or so in age on Santa’s lap on a Boston television news program. He was deaf-person signing to his parents the word “help.” Toddler signs for ‘help’ while sitting on Santa’s lap | Daily Mail Online www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5168465/Toddler-signs-help-sitting-Santas-lap.html 6 days ago – Mother shares a photo of her adorable toddler signing for ‘help‘ while[Read More…]
Binu, editor at Countercurrents.org, wrote: The bitcoin bubble could take the world into another economic crash. Writing in the Financial Times and Washington Post, former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said the US economy was on a “sugar high”. He noted that economic growth this year had been driven by a stock market rally that has seen an increase of[Read More…]
If you are not true to your professed position in life, then you are false to everyone, including yourself. If you take up a religious or ideological position, then there are no half-measures in terms of support for the position presumed to be undertaken. I was raised in a Christian family. While I am no paradigm of virtue, I did[Read More…]
“Talking with those farmers in the Tenosique train yard felt, in a way, like a scene from a sequel to the movie The Road in which a father and son walk across a post-apocalyptic North America devastated by an unknown cataclysm. In reality, though, I was just in a typical border zone of the Anthropocene, the proposed new geologic era[Read More…]
It set X number of people in a region and then looked at population numbers and variety (plus numbers for each kind) for other species in that same region. How ambitious a study! How exhaustive and painstaking a plan! It had a large enough sample of randomly selected, diverse regions to cover the matter accurately — i.e., places in deserts,[Read More…]
One of my friends, who is a political conservative/constitutionalist in the USA, wrote me concerning starvation in South Sudan: Then, maybe they should be taught about birth control, and enforce it. Otherwise they are gonna f*ck us all. So no food for idiots who have been living like this for centuries. And now, we feed them so they can procreate.[Read More…]
Recently a friend sent me the following article. It covers lots of excellent and salient points concerning where humanity and the world as a whole are heading into the future. It is “Genetic Feedback and Human Population Regulation” at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225581823_Genetic_Feedback_and_Human_Population_Regulation and by Russell Hopfenber, apparently from Duke University. Abstract Human population growth has been identified as a primary cause of[Read More…]
Many years ago, a friend of mine was hitchhiking with a knapsack filled with his meager belongings, indeed all that he had, in the rain. He was hitching a ride to a summer resort where he was employed to work and it was around fifteen miles from where the bus depot left him off in a nearby town where he[Read More…]
Small scale and massive resource fights are totally understandable while predictable. They’ve been transpiring for millennia because practically everything alive needs to steal energy, directly or indirectly, from something or someone else to continue to exist. This transfer of energy, usually, involves killing. Imagine this happening on the African plains, for instance. There a leopard trounces on a gazelle. Sometimes[Read More…]
Private companies — i.e., Fox News, CBS, “New York Times,” Twitter,Facebook, etc. — can and will slant, shape and selectively share news, and other information in any perspective that their corporate management pleases. This has always been the case since the beginning of writing, talking and creating periodicals, and it’s not stopping now. noun. an employee whose allegiance to his[Read More…]
When I was a young adult, I told my Mohawk friend, Ray Fadden, that I was disturbed by the brutality that lays at the base of life and told him that I had observed that all life proceeds by wreckage of other life. How could it be otherwise in a closed energy system such as we have on Earth? Thus,[Read More…]
I am so used to hate speech and sometimes hate crimes carried out for any number of reasons that it is now in my blood. I’ve been trying to stop them since I was five years old and saw Hiroshima Maidens, civilians, in NYC for reconstructive surgery for missing body parts. The War Was Won Before Hiroshima—And the Generals Who[Read More…]
One of my friends of ten years wrote, “The question of our time is this: Have we now moved past a critical fork in our evolutionary road and will this lead to our extinction? Many scientists today are saying that the answer is YES.” “No” is my opinion as there will probably be small pockets of people in climate okay[Read More…]
An increasing number of people across the world are currently signing a petition The text of the petition reads like this: Dear friends, Eight years ago as UK Prime Minister and chair of the G20, I tried to end the injustice of global tax havens. But as the “Paradise Papers” leak shows, trillions are still being siphoned off to dodge[Read More…]
Let’s be really clear right up front. This statement says it all: I saw my first victims of war when I was five years old. They were innocent civilians, who had been bombed with an atomic bomb in Japan. They were missing body parts and were wrapped in gauze like mummies while in NY, USA for reconstructive surgery. People who[Read More…]
As these myriad examples show — sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Yet nothing can serve as an excuse for giving up the struggle to provide something of value regardless of the way that life personally turns out for oneself in my opinion. This first account I heard from some USA National Public Radio (NPR) program while driving in[Read More…]
My great-grandfather was thrown in prison in Europe when he was aged twelve. He was put in a small mud filled room with water dripping from the mud ceiling and walls. In fact, it was a hole, some sort of chamber dug out underground with a few barred windows at street level up high beyond reach from the inmates for[Read More…]
Years ago, a friend of mine, when we were discussing goodness and malevolence, casually mentioned that even the worst criminals nearly always thought that whatever they were doing was constructive and the problem, then, became one in which different people hold radically different outlooks concerning whatever stands for benefits. In this sense, Josef Mengele (a human representing the epitome of[Read More…]
I was dismayed to recently read that all whites should be removed from societies via interbreeding with darker skinned people. No, I am not making this wackiness up in my mind. it is real and stems from a professor in NYC [1]. Some people, apparently she included, feel that the way to get around the dilemma of all-white families is[Read More…]
Several days ago, I spoke with my sister on the phone about the founding of the USA. For around forty minutes, she shared information with me on the topic. Here is some of it. Recently she went to Monticello on a tour [1] and learned lots of interesting facts while there. This estate was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson,[Read More…]
Part of the hegemonous stupidity or just plain ignorance that many people entertain is that modern democracy originated in Greece, with the French Revolution or with US Constitution writers. In other words, it’s the myth that our most modern forms of democracy came from the so-called whites. (So much for the many diverse lies in our public school books —[Read More…]
An interpretation of the grim, bleak story of “The Fisherman And His Wife”. … Background: “The Fisherman and His Wife” is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale no. 19. It is Aarne–Thompson type 555, the fisherman and his wife. Wikipedia Originally published: 1812 Author: Brothers Grimm Illustrator: Jacob Grimm Genre: Fairy tale Editor: Jacob Grimm ————–[Read More…]
Around ten years ago, I saw photos and read commentary about a factory chicken farm. Here is the description and images reiterated since I couldn’t find the old link. Chickens are afraid of not having ground under them. Yet chickens are left in small cramped wire cages with not enough room to move in any direction except to lie down[Read More…]
My state, Massachusetts in the USA, tops the list of all fifty of them based on sixty separate indices: Overall Best States Rankings | US News Best States https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings This explains why Massachusetts, ranking No. 1 in education and No. 2 in health care, occupies the overall No. 1 spot in the Best States rankings. And it … Excerpted from the[Read More…]
Whenever I need a sharp reminder about being fervent and adamant about hating war, I refresh myself by little remembrances and cues. Here are a few that stand out for me. Some people think that war is good for the economy since it uses resources to rebuild destroyed lands and creates jobs in the process. It supports the industrial-defense industry,[Read More…]
Some people have reluctance to continue in fostering the peace movement. It is easy to want to walk or run away. It is also easy to get discouraged or outright hopeless. Ironically, the first day that I joined the peace moment was the same one that I most desperately wanted to run away. I literally, wanted to flee with[Read More…]
When I was nineteen years old, I walked to a grocery store from my parents’ home outside of a high fence concerning which inside was a mental institution around a mile away from their home. Then there was a vocalized whistle from inside. I turned and saw a mental patient, out for an airing and exercise no doubt, drop his[Read More…]
Recently I was reminded of my chat with a friend, an evangelical Christian whose father, now dead, was a charismatic minister. My friend, a chemical engineer, worked at a high powered nanotech firm when we had the following conversation and I’ve known him for almost twenty years since then. He subsequently went on to Raytheon, a humongous maker of lethal[Read More…]
Two dialectically opposed, prevailing theories are that large scale events (such as wars, famines, plagues, and so on) shape the course of history and, counterpoised, singular beings (like Napoleon Bonaparte, Henry Ford, Adolf Hitler, Mohandas Gandhi, etc.) do so. This, of course, is like arguing over which came first — the chicken or the egg, as happenings mold people and[Read More…]
Many people can’t seem to wrap their minds around the idea that if we want lessening climate change problems and curtailment of other sorts of devastation like massive spills and air pollution, we need to use less fossil fuels. We also have to stop taking away more and more of the natural world for economic development, stop personally using up[Read More…]
Our cave-day ancestors were probably very clever, resourceful, rational, logical and pre-scientific. They had to be so in a difficult world in order to stay alive in a hostile, barely supportive environment. They had to be so to bring generations of us forward 200,000 years for humans to the point that we all now exist. They brought us here[Read More…]
Background information and precursors to this assessment: Growing Up With A Monster In Your Life! and The Bad Brother! The dysfunctional worker: Around twenty-five years ago, my sister, her husband and their three children traveled to our mother’s resort to spend Thanksgiving there. They figured that nobody would be present due to the resort only operating during the summer. Much[Read More…]
Vietnam Napalm attack “Stupid is as stupid does.” — Forrest Gump 25 great forrest gump quotes – YouTube ▶ 7:01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc_JXiRanlI Feb 16, 2015 – Uploaded by PonAdidas Forrest Gump Quotes 1994. One of my friends was drafted to be a soldier in the Vietnam War. He couldn’t wiggle out of the duty since he was not a conscientious objector[Read More…]
I live in the so-called “pinko state,” MA, USA. (I never even once met a Commie here.) However, I can tell you that my state is NOT in debt unlike PA, has a robust plan for WICCA (Wicca – Cultural Approaches to Pediatric Palliative Care …), supports Medicaid (Massachusetts MassHealth (Medicaid) | Benefits.gov) and has UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. This means that[Read More…]
Plum Island, MA “The entire coast of Massachusetts has been compromised and needs to be refortified,” he said. “We keep being told we need to wait for studies. We’re out of time.” – Bob Connors, Storm devastating to Plum Island – The Boston Globe Every time that I see hurricane or major other storm damage, it hits me like[Read More…]
In Massachusetts for a number of years, there’s been a recurrent radio commercial. It goes something like this: There are some great deals on foreclosed homes — really GRRREAAT! Someone had a loss and that is sad, but YOU can greatly benefit by the wonderful opportunity. So, please call [telephone number]. You will be happy you did. Imagine how well YOU[Read More…]
Perhaps the first or one of the first times that this taking the knee action became significant in the USA was when M. L. King, Jr., did it. He like many other defiant individuals of the social order acted respectfully and heartfelt Yet he was not going to stop his actions regardless of consequences, which ended in his murder. The[Read More…]
The truth is that quite a number of Nobel prize winners do not deserve receipt of the award. … Look at Obama (O-bomb-a), for example: Obama’s covert drone war in numbers: ten times more strikes than … https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/…/obamas-covert-drone-war-in-numbers-ten-t… Jan 17, 2017 – The use of drones aligned with Obama’s ambition to keep up the war … Obama ordered more drone[Read More…]
Middle Ages, crusades, against the Stedinger, 1233 / 1234, defeat of Stedinger in the Battle of Altenesch === Children often tend to follow parents and the parents’ socio-cultural group into whatever religious beliefs that the parents have. In other words, they will become a Catholic if their parents were … or a Hindu or a “whatever else.” My parents raised[Read More…]
I met a woman around ten years ago, who told me that she would continue to have children (concerning which she already had five) since she has no intention to ever get a job. She considered the household as her providence of concern and her husband responsible for finances. She proudly added that her husband had just received his CPA[Read More…]
It makes no difference as to your skin color, your religion, your ethnic background, your moral standings, your country of origin, your political views, your anything else. Someone, all the same, is out to “get you.” If you are Muslim. some people are looking to destroy you as they did for this poor child: I reject this butchery of another[Read More…]
Since time immemorial, individuals have banded together into groups (tribes, prides, flocks, clans, companies, towns, religious congregations, nations, etc.) to serve the mutual aims of members. For the most part, they cooperate together, although in a hierarchical system with an organized “pecking order,” so as to compete against other groups similarly formed into collective units. Apparently, such a pattern has[Read More…]
I need your help. It is as simple as that! I have to impress my town that this potential development is a very bad idea. So please sign your name, town, state (province, district or whatever you name it) and country in the comment section. Here’s the situation in a nutshell: Apparently, a couple with a relatively small acreage was[Read More…]
I was disturbed and appalled to read these two compositions: Children Can’t Wait: Taking Steps Towards Their Protective Present – Mahima Sukheja Pradhuman Dies Due To Gross Negligence And Bad Governance – Dr Vivek Kumar Srivastava Whenever I get upset and this is the way that I’ve been since a little girl, I chase that which bothers me like white on[Read More…]
By Sally Dugman I’ve identified four main orientation for some others and myself to rise against the status quo (or norm if a different term is preferred). Here they are: 1.) Extreme fear mixed with horror: My daughter as a teenager had a girlfriend, Megan, whose frail and weak mother kept nearly dying from repeated episodes of breast cancer. It[Read More…]
Across every population of people in the world, there are the same classifications of mental illness. The topic has to be looked at from an empirical, scientifically derived angle and with brain studies using the scientific method of inquiry.The causes are genetic (such as in clinical depression and schizophrenia), brain damage from trauma like repeated head blows as take place[Read More…]
Hurricane Irma: Above is Island Barbuda with 95% or more of everything damaged, including homes, businesses, infrastructure and more. Electricity is expected to be gone for six months, I read. … More deaths are expected as there is no food and no fresh water. So the destruction is gargantuan in scale. Below is Anguilla Island with Irma. Below are[Read More…]
Some of us are not free. We belong like individual pearls attached to a long, long chain to which we will be forever connected and to which we have bondage as the links hold us in placement enslaved. Yes, we are not free. We are enchained. This chain stretches way back before us in time and it will stretch[Read More…]
I have read lots lately on no-go zones across the world. Often Muslims are named and blamed for the contention in dangerous geographical locations and the no-go conditions therein located: Islam & London — Jihad Is Bred in No-Go Zones | National Review Europe’s no-go zones: Inside the lawless ghettos that breed and harbour terrorists So I want to dispel[Read More…]
I’ve been upset to read that some blacks in the USA want to burn down white people’s properties and homes or take them over. It reminds of events currently happening in some African nations wherein whites are being murdered and their properties are being taken over by others. I’ve been unhappy with our recent strife in Charlottesville, VA and elsewhere[Read More…]
Until fairly recently, anthropologists and geologists were greatly puzzled by an unusual finding. Their perplexity concerned the almost total disappearance of humankind many years ago. Finally, they were able to put together the various factors related to this happening and came up with the following scenario. Over much of the Earth, crude stone tools have been found at the[Read More…]
Republicans believe that Corporations are people too !!! So either make sure they pay … [Who does he mean … like himself? – S. D.] In many affairs, the bottom line involves boosting profits regardless of the methods used to achieve this aim. The reason is that unbridled greed can express itself with no limits in sight. Indeed, certain[Read More…]
Last week there was a news account of a woman crashing her car in New England as she swerved off of the road into a tree with an approximate three foot girth and with such force that it broke its top off twenty feet above her car from the impact of her collision. The car, then, caught fire. Driving[Read More…]
Where should be limits in medical intervention? When is enough simply enough? Who’s to pay for any excesses? … It’s an ethical kind as well as other sorts of dilemmas, such as the legal sorts or the kinds related to the emotional trauma involved. Recently an associate of mine, Steve K., sent me this link with the following comment:[Read More…]
There are two states that I think are best in my country, USA. That’s here in MA where I live and VT. My state is called the pinko (meaning communist) state by many people. I don’t think that the moniker fits, but who cares about the way that we are named? I have not met a single commie in my[Read More…]
Several years ago I read a children’s non-fictional book about a young American girl, who had a pen-pal in Holland shortly after WWII. This meant that they wrote letters to each other back and forth about their lives and became long-distance friends. One of the facts that the American child learned was that the war had taken a terrible toll[Read More…]
The day before I graduated from high school, at the oldest coeducational private school in the USA and a Quaker (Religious Society of Friends) one, my parents honored me by a fantastic breakfast and lunch. Then they drove me to school for one last night to sleep there, where I’d boarded for three years, because people from my class were[Read More…]
One’s living in a proactively progressive family is not easy from a number of standpoints. Especially as a youngster, one can feel torn between wanting to fit in with contemporaries and standing up for an altogether different viewpoint and lifestyle — an alternative that could cause one to be ostracized and shunned by peers. Relative to this, I well remember[Read More…]
When I was five years old, my parents bought a television set. It was in 1955 when TV’s became affordable for the common household in the USA. One of the first films that I saw on it was a very scary cartoon of upright vertical accordions hopping around and squeezing down on a stage with a sound as they alternately[Read More…]
My friend, Ashok A. in India, wrote me: “Clearly the main wealth of America lies in the vast territories it has usurped [from Native Americans – S. D.] and holds. I agree, much of the world’s population will perish in this century. We’ll be long gone. Our children – those who survive – will find it in them to sustain[Read More…]
For starters, I needed housing during my stay for a week to visit my daughter in PA from my home in MA, USA while she carried out her undergraduate education southward of me. So my daughter looked for a cheap motel for me. It turns out that it was a welfare motel, a place where low income people live, something[Read More…]
My friend K. Sheshu Babu wrote a statement: If government’s see people as private property, that may be ok because at least they ‘ value ‘ them. But, they see people as ‘ voting machines ‘ which is worse than slaves … The politicians Garner votes during elections and forget that they are in the govt because of[Read More…]
Apparently I have been owned by my USA government from the day that I was born and passed out of my mother. From that day onward, it became illegal for me to kill myself. (What is the judge in my trial case going to do if I try to do so and don’t succeed – put me in jail?[Read More…]
The headline for my town’s local newspaper reads: “Grant secured, library looks toward construction.” Do you think that this news makes me happy? No, it actually makes me glum. The reason is that we do not need bigger, better, more of everything at the expense of the natural world. Our library is fine just the way that it is. It[Read More…]
Around a month ago, my sister said to me, “This world is disgusting.” She knew that I would understand her and, so, she didn’t need to say more. In other words, she had no imperative to explain her meanings, nor an inclination to back them up with facts to prove her viewpoint. She comprehends me well enough in[Read More…]
In the natural world, a mother bear, during a particularly harsh winter in which it is hard to capture prey, will often eat one of her cubs. It will nearly always be the runt unless the larger one is sickly. If she is still hungry and unable to locate food from other species later that same winter, she will consume[Read More…]
A few times a year, my parents took me to a restaurant in NYC when I was very young, indeed under school age. For the occasion, my parents asked me to dress-up – to put on best fancy clothes and shoes, my patent leather ones — all black, shiny and perfect to go out on the town. I complied. So[Read More…]
I asked my employer yesterday about the way that he dealt with tragedy in life, especially since there is so much of it always erupting everywhere. He answered that he tries to find something of joy to celebrate in every day and tries to bring something good to others – other people, other animals and other life as a[Read More…]
Some people have likened the Earth to a relatively small lifeboat wheeling in an incredibly vast sea of outer space. If they also think that the sinking of the Titanic was a sad disaster, they will be heartbroken over the tragic devastation when this sort of decimating occurrence happens on a planetary scale … Some time ago, I read[Read More…]
A week ago, I was eating lunch and turned on the TV. (Sometimes I don’t know the reason that I bother since so much is disturbing to view on the television, such as murders, car thefts, nightclub shootings, wars, rapes and so on, along with nonsense programs.) Yet I did so anyway and saw part of a show about a[Read More…]
Several years ago, Glen Sweetnam, director of the International, Economic and Greenhouse Gas division of the Energy Information Administration at the Department of Energy (DOE), announced that worldwide oil availability had reached a “plateau.” However, his statement was not made known through a major US mainstream media outlet. Instead, it was covered in France’s Le Monde. One could assume[Read More…]
The greed and selfishness that the free market capitalist economy inspires seem to impact every area of social and commercial interaction in consenting societies. It’s not just Wall Street and government leaders caught in the trap. It’s the entire system that is set to keep moving ever more money to the top economic tier by siphoning it from the bottom[Read More…]
Please note that if you have hungry impoverished people in your region, you can find ways to get financial and food donations from various individuals and groups, such as farmers at markets or at their farms, religious groups, charitable organizations, grocery stores and other sources. So they are worthwhile to pursue. While you might not have immediate success on[Read More…]
During World War Two, parents with children in London sent their children to the countryside of Great Britain to live with strangers while not knowing with whom they’d be placed, nor whether they would, indeed, ever see them again. They packed their children’s little suitcases with hairbrushes, toothbrushes, the favorite stuffed animals to comfortingly clutch at night, clothes, shoes,[Read More…]
Is the whole world sacred or, if you’re personally not religious enough to use the term “sacred,” worthwhile and NECESSARY to salvage? Are other life forms other than humans worthy to preserve? Do we need the holistic unity of us all to collectively survive, ourselves, as a species in addition to maintaining the world around us? Do we need[Read More…]
Excellent, short and worthwhile to watch: Man beaten by Sacramento police officer speaks out … caught on camera beating a pedestrian… Excerpted from Washington Post article on the same subject: When Nandi Cain Jr. was seen on video getting slammed to the ground and pummeled repeatedly by a police officer, that was not the end of his ordeal, according to[Read More…]
I’ll be the first to admit that members of our species can show incredible acts of kindness to and sacrifice for others, even strangers. Some will even give up their own lives for strangers. I know this is so and have factual evidence testifying to this being true. However, we do have a vicious side to our natures. … Look,[Read More…]
Several years ago, I saw a dark skinned woman in her early twenties and sporting Nigerian clothes in front of me at a bank ATM station. (I was many decades older than she while also a blond and white skinned. I figured that it was a great opportunity to hear her views about racism in the USA, the country[Read More…]
A few years ago I saw a film of a weak and hungry mother leopard hunting day after day to try to find food for herself and her teenager, a son less adept at hunting than she was due to his being young. It was impossible since drought created water deficits indirectly caused in part by climate change impacts.[Read More…]
The reason that I care about this food issue, although I personally can eat beef any day of the week that I may please since I live in the USA, is really simple. It ultimately goes back to the underlying theme of this poem: “First they came …” is a poem written by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). It[Read More…]
I wish the people in India the best of good fortune in this alarming situation taking place in India so as to end beef farming, the beef industry overall and beef consumption. What will the central government start to dictate next? Will it be clothing styles, lack of public schools for girls or people of lower castes, the diet that[Read More…]
Feeding 9 Billion | National Geographic National Geographic1536 × 1152Search by image “Picture of [a] pig farm in Mato Grosso, Brazil, with sows confined …” [Presumably, they can’t stand, nor move. Stuck in one position, they are forced to lie on one side to nurse after being artificially inseminated. They do so day after day, week after week and month after month[Read More…]
As children, my sister and I used to feel sorry for ourselves from time to time while having a brother, who’s a pathological narcissist. He was by no means easy with whom to interact day after day and year after year while growing up. Pathological narcissism | definition of Pathological narcissism by … medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Pathological+narcissism a psychiatric diagnosis characterized by an[Read More…]
It is sickening, tiring and frustrating to year after year deal with racism and bigotry. What does it matter whether directed against darker skinned peoples, people from other cultures, people designated as less than equal due to a caste system or the fact that some group wants the resources or land that the other group has and, so,[Read More…]
Around nine years ago, I read a very powerful poem called “The Hand.” It haunts me to this day as it perfectly summed up the utter travesty, ugliness and brutality of warmongering activities whether nation to nation or in smaller scale regional conflicts. The aftermath of carnage explained in the poetry was straight to the point. It starkly showed the[Read More…]
Garbage, pollution, toxins, diseases: All can be carried in the air, via the water supply and through the land, itself. Anyone who doubts that this is so needs only to look at what Indian Point nuclear plant, concerning which 17 million people live within fifty miles of it, has done: It doesn’t take an accident at the Indian Point nuclear[Read More…]
My younger brother, Rick, wasn’t meant to be born. That is — he wound up as an accidental birth concerning which my mother had mistakenly gotten pregnant only one month after I was born. Her ob-gyn was alarmed by the occurrence. He was the one, along with my mother and my father since the twosome were co-joined in decision-making[Read More…]
Absolutely, I get deeply angry at the carnage that our species demonstrates towards others of our kind and other species, the ones that are a part of the natural world that we dismantle for economic growth. Yet sometimes anger is necessary as it pushes one to where he doesn’t want to tread and to be someone he’d like to avoid[Read More…]
To do nothing what-soever except minimally (such as recycling garbage) in light of coming climate change impacts for a small portion of the world — well, we know to where this feebly enacted, but basically empty non-action leads. Same-old patterns exist until forcing a change as the same-old ones are no longer workable given changing impacting variables at the[Read More…]
Unavoidably, we all sometimes face seemingly insurmountable tragedies in our lives that can disassemble us in dreadful ways, such as a death of an only child or a deeply loved mate. So what do we do to pull ourselves back together after such overwhelming loss? It’s all about the ways that we use outrageous, totally devastating tragedies in their aftermath[Read More…]
When I was a child, I took it for granted that my world would always be surrounded by the beauty and wonder of many other species included in it. For example, I thought that it was normal to see many mourning doves flap out of a stand of trees next to my home while starting, shortly before dawn’s[Read More…]
Yesterday one of my friends visited my home. I offered her big fluffy kernels of organic popcorn cooked in sunflower oil. I recommend both products: Great Northern Popcorn Organic Yellow Gourmet Popcorn All Natural, 5 Pounds and Baja Precious – Organic Sunflower Oil, 750ml (25.3 Fl Oz). You don’t have these products in your country? Then go for something comparable.[Read More…]
![“A homeless sleeps amid a snow storm outside the White House in Washington D.C., capital of the United States…” [Photo: Xinhua/Zhang Jun]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/homeless1-200x150.jpg "On Finding A Homeless Person In A Blizzard! 752")
Personally if I were to find even one homeless person sleeping in the icy snow not far from my home, I’d make it a habit to always nightly check the area for others in the same condition and, in the least, call a local shelter for a pick-up of him, give him hot tea and a sandwich, as well[Read More…]
Any amount of income above these amounts listed below translates to one’s family presumably not being in poverty in the USA. So no or very few government benefits accrue for those involved in low income status if above the federal impoverishment guidelines. To put it all in a realistic perspective, let’s look at the monthly cost for a one[Read More…]
Hawkeye was one of the most colorful people whom I’ve ever known since the time of my first having met him as a toddler. It was because of his basic life’s position and sometimes unusual choices. Indeed, his alternative selection to the norm as a way to move forward in life was impressive to me. He embodied the Quaker outlook[Read More…]
I’m sick of the wars, utterly sick of all of them. They happen abroad in a panoramic view involving thousands if not a million or more and right on USA soil on a greatly curtailed scale. Sometimes they are big and sometimes they are small. The types that happen within families, I suppose, are small versions and can involve even[Read More…]
I met Mary H. when I was sixteen years old. She was twenty at the time and my parents had been asked by NYC Quakers to take her for the summer months. Her “story” went like this. Born in a fundamentalist Christian Maryland, USA family — she had parents paying for her to attend a university in Maryland. Then one[Read More…]
I couldn’t believe my eyes while flipping TV channels. There on one station are two guys smacking each other upside their heads. All that I could see was them inflicting injury and life-long damage onto each other via teeth loss, broken noses, concussions, skull cracks and so on. Meanwhile the audience is cheering as these two fellows slam each[Read More…]
I’ll be frank. I do not like everyone. For example I strongly dislike Josef Mengele, a Nazi medical doctor who tied a Jew’s legs together while she was giving birth so as to see the medical results. I also do not like Marjorie M. She was the wealthiest woman in the world when I was a child. She sent[Read More…]
I’ve six categories greatly bothering me as I speculate about the future and they’re all interrelated — inextricably connected to each other in myriad ways like a web that can’t ever be pulled apart. Here, though, they are separately and categorically exposed in an artificial manner that abnegates the connections, the fusions and tentacles that tie all together in a[Read More…]
The Lakota, my people in spirit, fighting the Dakota pipeline know. Whatever else is best for us to do as a life aim than to serve helpfulness? Seven generation stewardship is a concept that urges the current generation of humans to live and work for the benefit of the seventh generation into the future.- From Seven generation sustainability – Wikipedia[Read More…]
Many years ago, my parents visited a Masai village in Kenya. Many of the Masai are environmentalists, and know that maintaining assorted wildlife, including a variety of plants in their region, is good for the planet. Simultaneously their orientation supports the tourism industry. It’s because regions in their country rich in biological diversity attract visitors from other countries. Yet they[Read More…]
Fourteen months older than am I, my sister was a terror as a toddler. I understand it from an evolutionary standpoint now, although I didn’t then as a little girl. Often there wasn’t enough food for all for ancient ancestors and the dominant child would get the brunt. It’s like a baby bird in the nest — the stronger and[Read More…]
Be Careful In Selecting An Early Childhood Center For Your Children’s Care! They may look good on the outside — on the skin level. Yet many are rotten to the core! Recently I learned from TV channel seven news reports that 10,000 of the 70,000 early child care centers in Massachusetts, USA are under intense investigation at any given time[Read More…]
I just now read an article that states: Native American slavery “is a piece of the history of slavery that has been glossed over,” says Linford D. Fisher, associate professor of history at Brown University. “Between 1492 and 1880, between 2 and 5.5 million Native Americans were enslaved in the Americas in addition to 12.5 million African slaves.” From Colonial[Read More…]
The President of the USA simply needs to give up dangerous, immoral notions and statements that can only lead to ever deepening tragedy and further horrific conflicts between us and the presumed “Other.” These all-out conflicts simply need to end.
On Tuesday morning after Sunday’s Superbowl football game in TX, USA, I turned on the TV to try to catch the news during breakfast. Every news channel had suspended the news in favor of discussing the parade for the Superbowl football winners from my state of MA. The announcers all sounded deliriously happy or were faking extreme and over-the-top[Read More…]
In my view, there is no major significant difference between legal, illegal or other immigrants (i.e., those with Visa or Green Card status) coming from out-of-state into my region. Indeed, I would be willing to endure the hard trek into the USA from a southern country if I lived in a region wherein there were drug cartels, no jobs, little[Read More…]
I grew up in a Quaker pacifist family. Many Quaker children have a problem to express anger or contention since it is strongly inculcated to “forgive and forget,” assist others like murderers, “love thy neighbor as thine self,” avoid warfare in any form (even in small squabbles with family members when a sibling grabs your toy with which you were[Read More…]
Written to a friend: Look — no sweat about the particulars of here and now with Trump (vs.Clinton) being the winner in the US Presidential election contest. Either way, there’s no big difference when one looks at the bigger, long-term picture. You personally know about where the world is going with increasing human overpopulation, climate change (which according to[Read More…]
At the Brink? Contemplating the Unimaginable Costs of a Nuclear War 
Cruel Prerogatives: Braverman on Refugees at the AEI 
The Perilous Path From Western Domination to De-Dollarization 
From the Contemporary History of the Balkans: Greece and Slavo-Macedonians (1913-1993) 
The Ethnic Violence in Manipur, India, Explained 
New Report Exposes Grave Injustice to Villagers in the Name of Expanding Tourism and Parks in Tanzania 
Ending Opioid Addiction and Deaths through Creative Strategies 
Solitude: A Source of Empowerment 
Dr.K.S.Sharma Turns 90 
The Unholy Origins of Castes in India 
Union Health Ministry placing a cap on new medical colleges in States on the basis of the population criterion violates federalism 
Reflections on the Revolutionary Legacy of Makhan Singh in Kenya 
Armenian civilians flee Nagorno-Karabakh after new offensive by Azerbaijan 
Manipur: a statement of concern and suggestions for peaceful resolution 
Global Leaders Plead for Peace in Ukraine at UN 
Ghosts of the Past: For Israel, War on UNESCO is an Existential Battle 
Keeping Cattle on Public Land Is Bad for People, Cows, Wildlife, and the Planet 
The United States in the World: Making Sense of the Past Forty Years (1981-2023) 
Canadian Youth At Risk and the Discrimination of Marginalized Demographics 
While Searching Worldwide for Terrorists, Uncle Sam Should Also Look in a Mirror 
American Abrams tanks roll into Ukraine 
An open letter to JNU VC – Your association with RSS defies humanism, anti-colonial struggle Indian democracy! 
From Education to Incarceration 
Tunakataa! Saying ‘No’ to Capitalism and Imperialism in Kenya 
Rising Islamophobia and Communal Discord: An Alarming Trend in BJP-Ruled States 
Speak Truth to Power and Pay the Price! 
USA’s Wars Took 12 Million Lives in The Last 25 Years 
US to send long-range ATACMS missile to Ukraine 
In Jawan, Shah Rukh Khan makes us an offer we can refuse 
Nijjar affair poses an existential dilemma 
On the Brink of Famine 
Appeal to withdraw the notification for the public hearing for the proposed Sijimali Bauxite Mining Project 
“Making a thriller from grain” 
Key Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) Likely To Collapse In 2025-2095 
Global Biofuel Alliance at G20: Land vs Water vs Food Security- Has the government addressed the trade-offs? 
The Nijjar Murder and Indian Government’s alleged “involvement”: Reactions and Reflections 
France Will Pull Out Its Diplomats And Military From Niger, Says Macron 
Imperial Footprints in Africa: The Dismal Role of AFRICOM 
Hunger in Africa has its roots in a History of Colonialism and Neo-colonialism 
The Climate March: Magnificent and Misdirected 
My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
