Welcome to September, 2018 —

Sunday, September 2nd, 2018 — +25˚C / +78˚F with a humidex or +27˚C/ +81˚F @ 6 pm Atlantic Time in New Brunswick, Canada —

 

— After a conversation with my friend, Doug Otterson, I realized he has a lot to say, but isn’t quite sure his comments have enough validity in a lot of situations, being that he’s still living in New York State and only spending every second he can spare here in New Brunswick —

— So I’ll repeat a lot of things that resonated as being reasonably topical for us here and now, especially during this political – Provincial Elections – season.

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– Tweeted by @paulEDawson – ‘We need a new economic model… [ That won’t kill the only planet we’ve got here ] ‘-

— “With New Brunswick Provincial Elections coming very soon, we don’t hear enough credible information from the Green Party on any issue that might get them elected in any significant numbers,” – Doug Otterson ( in love with a New Brunswickian )

 

Andrew Scheer tweet

– This is not an endorsement of any political party or philosophy – The above is a copied and pasted political spin Tweet – Do not blindly accept anything in a political message as being true or worth contemplating –

— “Every time I see the head of your Federal Conservative party on television, either in a paid political ad or sound bite in a newscast – I cringe. I don’t know whether it’s just that this guy, Andrew Scheer, has the unfortunate bad luck of having the facial expressions and demeanor of a psychopathic compulsive liar who believes he has the right amount of charismatic presence to convince the weak-minded that anything he says is the truth and that he should be granted unlimited political power and have every word he utters worshiped by everyone – or is this guy a complete Trump-like jerk whose body language should warn us that he can’t be trusted at all? Or is this just my Astrological Scorpio-ness clouding my ability to see the real world through untarnished clarity?” – Doug Otterson, { who might only admit to not believing 1,000% in his perceptive judgment to anyone but a very close circle of good friends. }

 

Anti Trump Tee Shirt

– “Make America Morally Bankrupt Again?” –

— “Oh, cool, I gotta get me one of those tee shirts, too bad I couldn’t wear one at work -” — Doug Otterson on seeing the above photo and message while checking in at twitter this afternoon.

 

– Tweeted by @OffGridFestival —

— “Enterprising engineers in India have turned garbage into cheap, almost free, prostetics – especially for impoverished children. Hey come on, guys, get on the stick over here – Instead of complaining about the amount of garbage clogging up your land-fills and crying about the supposedly incredibly high monetary cost of collecting and dealing with that garbage – wake up and get out there and find stuff that is highly use-able and use it -” — Doug Otterson.

 

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— Okay, so whenever Doug blasts through on his way to hanging out with his lady-love for a couple of days or weeks, we do have some interesting conversations and the phrase, “Jeeze – we gotta learn to ignore this political nonsense before we waste all our time reacting to it -” comes up half a dozen times a day.

 

— & Now my own two cents worth: “If a politician, at any level of government, says anything along the lines of, ‘As you know – the only revenue we get is through taxes.’ That politician is a bold faced liar. According to a forensic accountant, WalterBurien@CAFR1.com, taxes comprise only 1/3 of the real income stream at any level of government – Federal, State or Provincial, County, or local municipal – and they have learned to ‘cook their books’ in such a fashion as to make assets look like liabilities. ‘We should demand that politicians at all levels submit to forensic budget auditing and threaten the { ‘ice holes’ } who have been lying to us all along with public humiliation and possibly – evisceration. They have been receiving multiple income streams all along to the point where all levels of government can and should cease collecting taxes altogether and should have no problem at all providing everybody with more and better services than they currently do, all the while they are falsely crying poverty.’ Any time a politician opens his or her mouth and the words, ‘Jobs’, ‘Leadership’, ‘fiscal responsibility’ – or they point their fingers at members of another political party and try to blame them for everything that’s ever gone wrong in your life. — They are lying!”

— “I do believe that what we should laughingly refer to as our ‘modern culture’ has left itself wide open to a severe attack of HONESTY – And if the ice holes who are holding political power realized how many of us out here have functioning ‘B.S. Meters’ connected to our brains, they would all be running for their lives.”

 

~~~~~Jim

Politix As Usual?

Thursday, May 24th, 2018 —> +14˚C / +57˚F —> ‘Kinda Grey’ & partly cloudy @7:27 pm in Atlantic Canada —

Democracy in Trouble -

– “Politix As Usual” Romanian Style? ‘Coming Soon’ to a street corner near you? –

 

— I almost missed the above tweet – I’ve been avoiding Twitter and Facebook lately – && ***! – The European Union is instituting some strong Data Privacy legislation. – We probably need to do that here, too –

 

7:27 pm web cam shot

– 7:27 pm Web Cam Shot –

 

— Um, with all the political sleight of hand going on lately – I’m pretty much in the same boat with everybody else – I get a nightly “WTF?” reaction to the network news political reporters. …

 

— I started writing this ‘post’ to tell you about my latest possible insight into the Donald J Trump – Kim Jong-un circus. —> I can’t be 1,000% certain that I got this right, but it occurred to me that Kim Jong-un probably seemed a little too happy to announce the ‘denuclearization’ of Korea. — It hit me like a flash of lightning that he probably believed that his sabre-rattling tactics had won him a very clear { in his mind } victory and South Korea would ‘behave itself’ and not allow the big bad Amerikans to point their nuclear weapons at North Korea ever again. – I’m thinking that the Chinese probably guessed that he believed this and set him straight, saying, “No – if you go along with this – Donald Trump wins and you will have to give up all your nuclear ambitions and hand over all your nuclear weapons and allow United Nations inspectors free reign over all your future research.”

 

— Like I said, I can’t claim this is the pure Gospel Truth from the vocal chords of God Himself { or Herself } but it felt like a divine flash of insight when it occurred to me.

 

~~~~~ Jim

 

Friday, April 27, 2018 – Flood Waters Threatening Near the River In Fredericton, NB –

Friday, April 27th, 2018 —> +7˚C / +44˚F – Still Dark & Mostly Cloudy @ 5:45am in Atlantic Canada — Today would have been Uncle Tom’s Birthday —

- Web Cam Shot This Morning -

– Web Cam @ 6:40 am Atlantic Time – Most of the snow has melted from this angle –

— I didn’t get out to see it – Still at least slightly under the weather with a stomach bug – But the St John River is rising higher that we’ve seen it here since we moved into this area in2014 – The 6:00 pm news showed a guy pointing to a tree with flood waters rising to a point almost near the ‘generational high point’ of 2008 with the all time high from 1973 a little bit higher than the 2008 mark. I think the markers were bits of wood nailed into the tree trunk 🙁 – But I hope the tree isn’t in any pain over that.

— I took the plywood tent off from over our Smoke Tree after Cathi got up and got herself ready to work from home today. 🙂 – I hope I didn’t hurt the tree by limiting the amount of sunlight that reached its leaves in my attempt to protect it from damaging snow and ice falling from the roof of the porch beside it – I guess we’ll see in the near future.

— Anyway, Not quite as ‘blehhhh’ as yesterday – but nowhere near 100% yet – Sigh –

~~~~~ Jim

Sunday – And my stomach is upside down.

Sunday, April 15th,  2018 —> +3˚C / +38˚F & ‘clear’ @ 6:08 pm in Atlantic Canada —

gradual snow melt in driveway and up the wall.

– WebCam shot around 12:30 pm today –

— Got up around 9, waddled to the washroom + back into the office – checked email and made sure my computers hadn’t blown up over night. –  I was going to exercise and meditate at 11:00 am —

 

— But – as 11:00 am approached – I felt my stomach flip over and it was so weird I thought something awful and major had happened on the world stage – so I ate some instant oatmeal and parked in front of the television and there was nothing that drastic in the news. – Nothing very positive either.

 

— I forget when Cathi got up,  but I fell asleep and woke up with Justin Trudeau trying to justify demanding that the proposed new Kinder-Morgan oil pipeline out west go through B.C. from Alberta – and his arguments sounded like the big business oil baron elites bought and sold him. He belabored the same stupid points over and over. He did not show the map of all the pipelines all over Alberta that make one more look like the world’s most intense maze. He tried to convince everybody that Canada will go bankrupt { some idiot said the price of gasoline will go up by $2.00 per liter if we don’t put that pipeline through} – { Bull Chips! }

 

— He tried to say that this new pipeline will generate lots of good paying jobs for nice Canadian workers.  I have noticed that any time a politician opens his mouth and  “Jobs” comes out –  you might as well stop listening because nothing like the truth is about to follow. In other words = “Bull Chips!”

 

— Many times more jobs are generated by renewable energy resourses and the manufacturing and service industries that surround renewables. It’s like fourteen times more jobs are generated by renewable technologies than those monopolistic big oil b.s. jobs.

 

— “We can’t depend on our long time best business partner – the ‘USA’ – because, well you’ve heard the news – we have no idea what they’re going to do next.” —> So he wants to get in bed with the Chinese??? Gaaa! { The Chinese people I know are wonderful. Their mainland government is nuts. }

 

So yeah, blehhhhh – I’m still feeling uneasy here – there may yet be another shoe about to drop.

 

— blehhhhh —,

~~~~~ Jim

The Play Of Light And Shadow { No – we’re definitely not in Kansas – }

Sunday, March 4th, 2018 —>  +1˚C / +34˚F with light rain { actually looked like very fine – almost invisible snow was falling here } @1:23 pm in Atlantic Canada —> On Marcia Logan’s Birthday { And Michaela M.’s & a couple more people who might not want to be reminded that they’re aging —

 

Fashion Statement?

– “Fashion Statement” –

 

 

— { I did not expect the above photo to load full sized. }

 

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1.

 

I count my ‘mindless pursuits”

among the most productive form

of therapy

available to me

-when in the course of another day’s

fierce concentration

I find my ‘self’

where my brain says, “NO!”

and flatly refuses

to even attempt

to solve another

mind numbing

dilemma –

And then

a mindless game on a computer

or other ‘device’

may not seem like much

but if it’s engaging

enough

the deeper reaches

of my mind or soul or -?

-whatever-

often sighs with relief

as my ‘conscious’ mind (fried)

allows that simple solution

(I couldn’t see)

come bubbling up out of nowhere

in spite of all the conventional wisdom

our contemporaries spout

and try to live by

and act like they believe

we all should-?

 

 

2.

 

“Getting Somewhere?”

 

Moving the new desk into my cluttered office

I can’t move without knocking something over

but I look around

And hey – there’s more space in here –

 

( don’t tell Cathi – I’ll never hear the end of it?)

March 4th, 2018

 

 

 

“the Play of Light and Shadow”

 

Working all night

on keeping this world together

with duct tape and anybody else’s discards

after an un-predicted

catastrophe

brought earthquakes –

shattered homes

shattered lives –

 

There’s nothing to do

but keep on moving

-pull one more

piece of debris

from another collapsed

home

in the hopes that

someone under that mess

may still be alive –

 

Then – in the morning’s first light

old “Rescue Central”

sent in the relief team

and, exhausted –

we turn around and blink

dumbfounded at the piles of rocks and bricks

that just the other day

was a thriving neighbourhood

And I stare at the friend I’ve been working along side –

wonder where she finds the strength to do this –

and the two of us gasp and stumble toward nothing like ‘home’

numb to everything around us

until the play of light and shadow

on the one untouched masonry hacienda anywhere

for miles in any direction –

takes our breath away

we can almost imagine children

running around, playing

happy and free and

care-free?

Yes, we’re both  mesmerized –

Then she sighs and looks around at the hills and the jungle and the river –

“This place really is beautiful, ya know?”

March 4, 2018

 

= = = = =

 

~~~~~ Jim

Aggrivation With Scanners & One More Reason To Hate Google

Saturday, March 3rd, 2018  —> +2˚C / +35˚F — Overcast and ‘Dark’@ 905 pm in Atlantic Canada. —> on multiple Birthdays day – Tom Poplawski, Elsa C., Ian Punnet — and the anniversary of the release of  ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ by Pink Floyd. —

 

— Moving stuff around in my “office” here these last couple days, I found some real treasures when I opened envelopes I don’t remember seeing before. { Might have been something someone handed me at a ‘Life Celebration’ { A funeral by a euphemistic name? Although we did try to keep it positive, my mother always was an ‘Earth Angel’ – She just dropped the ‘Earth’ part} }. And trying to get these scanned has been a buster-

 

Brookses, Bordens, Georges + Wellingtons

– Extended Family Portrait – circa 1950 –

 

— Really don’t know when the above photo was taken. Standing, left to right, Dorothy May Brooks Borden, Robert H Borden, Dorothy Eleanor Borden Wellington, Robert C Wellington Jr, Edith Grace George Wellington and Robert Carlson Wellington ( Senior ). Seated: Willie Brooks ( nee Willie Brooke ) Eliza Morgan Brooks, Clarence  George. & dat’s me on my Great Grandmother’s lap.

 

– I think this is World War II Liberation Money. It was the last thing my father gave me before he shuttled off to the Spirit Realms. –

 

— I thought he’d given me Liberation Money from the Philippines, But this looks Dutch to me.

 

Backside

– Back side of the above Liberation Currency –

 

— So, the first thing I tried to scan – on our mono laser printer ‘all-in-one’ got as far as ‘Scan to PC’ – and the danged thing would still be spinning, looking for the PC if I didn’t mercifully ‘pull the plug’ – { Hit the ‘Off” switch. }

 

Me in the 70's

– Me in the early 70’s at my Borden Grandparents’ 45th Anniversary Bash –

 

— Don’t know the exact date on this one either. There was a big party at my Aunt’s ( & Uncle’s ) in Milford. The photographer was a young guy, friend of my sister, Sharon.

 

Me?

– And, This was me at a ridiculous hour of this morning, trying to figure out a clunky old data base. –

 

— Weird things happen when your cursor gets too close to the ‘camera’ icon.

— And a lot of very odd and frustrating things kept coming at me today.

— So I soaked in a bathtub full of hot water until my brain turned soggy – { shhh, I won’t admit that the brain was soggy before the incident with the tub full  of hot  water –

— And later I reconnected an old scanner that seemed to be working, but it wanted to save everything as pdf files. { What the —- }

— The latest schnarr frustration came when I had to email the photos in small groups because the computer that can connect to the clunky old scanner doesn’t know any other way to do things, and now it decided it can’t use firefox and google chrome wants to send everything to a google drive so it can steal all your private information and sell it to the highest bidder. — and after I said “NO! Do not involve Google Freakin Drive! – it did anyway and then google freakin drive would not let me download from their freakin cloud, I could look at it, but I couldn’t touch? Or use anything? — Are you kidding me?

— Yup, so – every step of the way between thinkin’ I could scan and share a couple photos and now as full of flying monkey wrenches.  – Which – I hope – I managed to duck –

— { Quack quack already — }

— Sigh —,

~~~~~ Jim