Sunday, September 11th 2022. Week 36
Apparently the Ukrainian counter offensive is real. It is not as exciting as the news condenses it to seem. It’s a slog. Step by step through the cold and mud. But according to reports, the Russians are not really prepared to hold their territories and whether it is propaganda or not, the genuine majority don’t want the Russians colonizing the territory. This is an honest sentiment.
Again, all of these arguments are moot. All populist arguments are moot. All arguments held under the flag of faux democracy are moot. I mean, people just want to be able to get by, eat, have a house to live in and have some kind of a life that they don’t mind living. All of the politics of ownership and usership and exploitation are just noise made by the exploitation/user/owner class. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
But still, the Americans are backing the ukrainians with money and weapons and it seems that all of Europe would prefer Russia to just go away. This is not to say that I believe the rhetoric of just quitting Russian oil and learning to live without it but that would be the most ecologically sustainable argument. It’s a compromise that says slavery will continue but it at least puts the populist threat against the Russians that perhaps the world can do without it’s natural resources.
You take away their money and they are not such assholes anymore.
I’m not really sure where this particular one comes from but this is an English speaking unit. It’s simply a GoPro sitting on a soldier’s helmet. It’s hard to say what this unit is or who they are attached to. There are a lot of Shadow decisions of course and propaganda and who hears what is always a prime concern. Nevertheless, if you wanted a raw view or at least a reasonably raw view of what’s going on down there, this might be interesting.
And of course this one from radio free Europe.
This is a story of the granddad who turns into a partisan with a found rocket launcher and manages to take out an entire battalion. They mentioned the pluses and minuses of the story. Not everybody believes this as being gospel. Nevertheless, it’s a feel-good story if you’re on the side of the Ukrainians.
As to actual Russian incompetence, I am going to side with that argument. It is my personal experience over the years that they are way more image conscious and worried about how people see them and think of them than they are at being Zen craftsmen or Workmen. I’ve said this a hundred times that I am most free with my respect for people who genuinely have the ability to create or maintain things. I’m especially fond of real Soviet era mechanics with their non-money fixes that actually hold water. It is shocking sometimes how far from the original legitimate money plan the eventual fix is, how well it works and how easy it was. It is a definite life skill.
But as far as the amount of image people they have walking around dreaming of grandeur and a raised social class, they are remarkably brutal and boorish. Add alcohol to the mix, and they are a reprehensible branch of the species. I am quite sure the ukrainians will be quite happy to have them driven out once and for all. And if the weight of the world is that people are tired of having Rich Russians, well, it’s not like they don’t have experience and knowledge about how to fix things on the cheap and live well in poverty. They have a much shorter distance to fall than some of the truly psychotic money people from the West. At least the Russians can go home and grow potatoes and be fine. In fact, I’m sure they will like it a lot better.
If the genuine lesson learned in the West is that they have to play White Christian games without internal combustion engines and only on sustainable electricity and with much, much less moving around, as long as it doesn’t take a nuclear confrontation to get there, maybe that’s a good start.
A friend of mine talked to me one day about the German word Lebensraum.
The concept of Lebensraum—or “living space”—served as a critical component in the Nazi worldview that drove both its military conquests and racial policy.
Lebensraum is a German concept which consists of policies and practices of settler colonialism which proliferated in Germany from the 1890s to the 1940s.
The simple concept is that “we” need something and “they” have it and because we are higher than they are, we can just take it. This is the essence of the Nazi ethos, this is the essence of the Russian push towards Ukraine, this is the basic ethos of the story of the acquisition of the holy Land by the children of Israel in the Torah and this has been the basic ethos of British, American, European and Asian imperialism forever.
What this is, is called a justification. You can claim that you have rights from God or someone else has given the green light for all of this murder and you’re just doing your job but no matter how you slice it up, it’s a justification for theft and murder. I am one of these people who believes that theft and murder are no-nos and pretty much the primary disturber of the Peace that is necessary for free people to live together. You don’t bother other people for what they have and you don’t go around murdering people no matter what. My view includes animals but you can take it at whatever level of understanding is possible for you.
All I’m saying is that it is Nazism. It’s been fascist Nazism for a long time. I’ve been talking about this and writing about this in my own way since I’ve been talking and writing about things. It’s a weird habit to have developed. It’s strange that I have continued. But, heading into the last couple of months of this year’s tour, we might as well get things straight as to what we are looking at. It’s about the practice of Nazism and the effect of Nazism as a trickle down on people who have to live with it.
I for one would be willing to live without Nazism. I would put this on the list of things that I genuinely minimize such as internal combustion engines and services that require enormous use of internal combustion engines. I feel human beings could put their best efforts towards living pretty well without too much help from gasoline-powered motors. We’d be better off without the air pollution and we would be better off learning to live locally and enjoying the space we have rather than traveling out in search of more living room. All of that moving around costs a lot of money and natural resources and 99.999% of it isn’t even a real memory. It’s just an Instagram snap and the hope of jealousy from people you truly believe you’re better than.
***
Well, it’s Sunday morning and a little bit before 7:00. It rained a lot last night, exactly as the weather report said and we’re due for another wet day today. It’s wet and cold and I’ve been mostly inside since the middle of the day on Friday. I’m not going stir crazy. I’m pretty comfortable.
As for food for my day off, I don’t think I did anything ridiculously special. On Friday night, I put a bunch of vegetables in the big pot and used some sesame oil to bring everything together. That ended up to be a noodle dish and I made a fantastic hummus to put some spice and cream into everything. I was pretty proud of this hummus because it was the first one I made with my own chickpeas and my own sunflower seeds. Very rustic and Rich, very flavorful and it added a really nice texture to the veggies and noodles.
My morning meal was a water meal with brown rice and quinoa to go with pretty much the last of the hummus. And then I made a cleanup meal with some junky noodles and the rest of the veggies. Maybe this is not a habit that people believe to be worthy, but I like to put water in the blender as I get to the end of my sauces and spin it a few times and then use that for cooking water. It’s just a little bit of flavor, is a little more efficient about using food and makes the blender easier to clean afterwards. It’s not disgusting, it’s the same food, I just kind of like combining my cleaning and cooking sometimes. Don’t worry, there’s no soap in the food.
Other than that, there were the last of Ria’s apples and some under the bed apples with some toasted sunflower seeds for snacks and I was good to go. I watched some films and slept a lot. I took it easy on my leg which is getting better and better every day. I looked after my health and stayed warm. I laid a couple of fires, not an enormous amount, just enough to keep the room warm. When I went outside there wasn’t really much to look at. It’s very gray and walking is not enjoyable for me at the moment so I didn’t spend a lot of time out in the weather.
As for today, truthfully, it’s going to be more of the same. I haven’t got a lot of things planned. I have a couple of projects that I should probably get started with. I am truly thinking of doing something with the floor of the War room to allow me to keep the same basic lifestyle I have right now but a little more comfortably during the darkest parts of the winter. I’m thinking of raising the floor a few centimeters and putting a layer of insulation in there to allow me to use a floor office. It is an alternative to linoleum.
I believe I also have an interview this morning but I don’t really believe in that much. An old friend of mine wants some English help for his son. I actually like this guy quite a bit so I’m willing to put out a bit on this one. I don’t think I’m going to charge him very much money, I have to charge him something unfortunately or nobody will respect the situation. Not that I would mind a tiny bit of income coming in. Breaking even once in a while might help my overall finances. And perhaps it might be nice to have some work to do over the winter. Why not?
After that, life is really slow right now. I am not sure what my ex partner is going to do with herself. Her plan was to go to a fruit tree festival. I am not going to town to walk around with her, thank you very much. That would be a little bit too much pain even if it might mean a few percent raised to our possibilities for the garden. I’m not that obsessive about it and besides, we have face to face communications. She can just show me what she’s looking at and we can talk about it electronically. What a world, right?
If she doesn’t come up, this definitely makes things quieter. I will be honest that I have quite gotten used to going slower. I’m beginning to notice the difference between being rushed one way or another and I prefer not being rushed at all. This does not mean that I can’t get things done on time, I’m just saying that there is a texture to be noticed. There is a style and a pace that has its own ways about it when you are not obligated to move quickly.
Amongst the nuances of this have to do with food. I’m noticing that with less stress in my life, I’m eating a lot less and the food that I am eating seems to have a more profound effect on me. I’m also no longer thinking that I have to eat as part of any kind of a schedule. Once you are not on a clock schedule but only on a daylight schedule, you tend to address your needs a little differently. If I do not have Windows opportunities to do things, my body talks a little bit louder.
This is an important thing to note for someone who has eaten when he is upset and bored as a part of his lifestyle. I like eating. I am a foodie. But the combination of stress and the times of day and the amounts of food that you eat become intertwined. When you do not have time, you make food choices that are radically different than when you have a lot of time. It also affects the amount that you eat and this is exceptionally so if you start factoring in escapism and the need to specifically relax or throw off the stress of a day spent on clock time.
I think this has become the biggest difference between my ex partner and myself. When we first got together, I thought we had a good rapport and that the only difference was that I am entrepreneurial and she is a worker slave. I tried to get her to join up with me, not necessarily to be my slave but to be Independent together. She never bought it. Now, there is an even bigger divide between us and that everything she does seems to be ruled by the fact that she doesn’t have time for it. No matter what we talk about, she seems to have stress on her communication skills even. There is just no time to say what needs to be said. I’m not talking about deep emotional feelings, I’m just talking about the time it takes to express a thought clearly no matter what it’s about. Basically, she comes off as nervous as the land inspector.
You know I had a conversation about this with the land inspector. It was not really a conversation really. I just wanted to say two things to her but she was in a rush to say all of the things that she needed to say to finalize the deal. Most of what she was saying, she was repeating for the 4th or fifth time. There were a lot of bureaucratic details that needed attention paid to them and she was nervously explaining the entire sheet to me detailed by detail.
The first thing I said to her was that if she wanted to address me respectfully, she should use the name Adam Levovich. This would be my Russian ochestvo, the second name refers to my father’s name. My legal name has what we call a middle name, I was not given a Russian name at birth. What she was doing was calling me by my legal name and using my middle name which is a very absurd way to address me. This is a common mistake people make and I simply said that if she wished to speak to me respectfully, my proper name would be Adam Levovich. She could also call me Mr Goodman and that would be perfectly acceptable to my ears.
Please, I was not telling her to respect me. She could have called me Adam and I would have been perfectly happy with that as well. I was just pointing out the detail that if she wished to speak to me in Russian respectful terminology, these would be the appropriate words bureaucratically.
The second thing I wanted to tell her was that her job was run ridiculously inefficiently because of her desire for perfection based upon the GPS readings. I saw her spend 45 minutes in the cold trying to decide what millimeter was appropriate to plant a small yellow stick. Neither I nor my neighbors truly cared about the placement of this stick. The land she was playing with had gone to wild forest and other than grabbing some fruit from the forgotten fruit trees, taking leaves or digging out the canals a little bit for some better quality dirt, nobody goes in that Forest. I don’t even use it to collect wood.
Yet, when I called before the end of August to find out why she could never finish the bloody inspection, she told me she was absolutely backlogged with work to do. People were buying places and needed to know their borders quickly so they could finish land deals. She had so much work to do and so little time and it was very frustrating. I can understand this.
What I can’t understand is if she is in a business where it is very necessary to get the documentation right, why don’t they reset the tolerances plus minus 1 m and be good with it? Instead of fighting the GPS looking for the absolute exact satellite rendered spot, how about taking a good solid guess and finishing the job in about 3 minutes and moving on? I mean, I have nothing personal against this woman and I don’t feel as though the 15 minute conversations that include waterfalls of bureaucratic minutiae as to what can be expected along with explanations about how harassed she is, I’m just saying that I don’t understand why I need this in my life. I understand she needs relevance and she takes her job seriously. I’m just saying there’s an element of mania here that we probably don’t need.
The mania is caused by pressure. The insanity is caused by pressure. The quest for relief from the pressure is caused by pressure. The addiction to the things that Grant relief from the pressure is caused by pressure. We put our people, we put all people, under stress and pressure. We have too many people looking for an opportunity to put stress and pressure on others. And we have too many self-satisfied people who have nothing better to do than put pressure on others.
This was my problem with my working neighbors. They decided to put pressure on me. This is what I got from the cop when he got the ridiculous call from my neighbor. He decided to put pressure on me. Why? Because my neighbor is under pressure and the cop is under pressure and all my working neighbors are under pressure. And not having any money puts pressure on the street alcoholics and not having enough money puts pressure on the working alcoholics. And everybody is an alcoholic because of all the pressure that never comes off of them.
One small thought about alcoholism and pressure. My daughter’s grandfather was named a hero in the Great Patriotic War and had a pretty good job working on the river during his post-war career. He was Captain mechanic which was a respected title and he would drink as a part of his normal life and as would be normal for the culture. He was a respected man and I doubt too many people put pressure on him to stop.
The moment he retired though, two things happened to him. The first was that he made himself a hobby of making his own alcohol. I guess in English we would call this moonshine but there are words for it in Russian. And I got to try this stuff and it was truly beautiful and remarkable after 27 years in the closet.
The second thing that happened and the reason why all of that vodka had remained in the closet is that he really stopped enjoying drinking the moment the pressure was gone. With retirement and no longer having the need to get on the clock, the enjoyment of escaping the clock had disappeared. There was no urgency or need for escape and it became noticeable that the vodka was not good for his health.
I am beginning to think that the world might be okay without so much outside pressure. We seem to need to invest an awful lot of our resources into security against other human beings. So much of our money needs to be spent on weapons. We also spend an awful lot of our available resources on murdering animals. Murder seems to be the real number one business in the world.
A couple of things I’ve noticed as being different have come from quitting meat and quitting alcohol. It seems that when you take meat out of your diet, there is less violence and urgency in your needs to feed yourself. You slow down a little bit. Once you take the alcohol out of your diet, you tend to lose a little bit of the brutality of life. You don’t just bluntly bully forward and you tend to be more thoughtful about things. Lena is a perfect example of that. For the few months that she was on the wagon, she behaved herself as a pretty well put together lady honestly. Perhaps she was putting pressure on herself to get some kind of reward. Maybe she believed I was that reward. But the moment she threw off the yoke and went back to chasing parties and attention from the local alcoholic set, she went back to being brutal and boorish. Definitely not as appealing as a person.
I actually think people could get by pretty well on responsibility. I think if we weren’t so interested in having a group of people sit in chairs and order other people around, we wouldn’t have so many problems with inhuman pressure. If we were not obligated to fulfill norms of production that included people A million Miles away, we could probably handle our own needs pretty easily. In fact, if we just took the whole system down quite a few notches and paid attention to getting a few basics right, I’m sure society would have quite a bit less pressure put on it. If we took the profit out of life and just paid attention to food, clothing, shelter, basic education and medicine, I bet you people would find ways to enjoy life quite easily. I bet you people would require a lot less room to live.
Can you imagine having the time to explore your thoughts like this? Can you imagine living a life where you’re not particularly under pressure to do anything the vast majority of the time? You know, things still get done. I’m not living in squalor. I’m just covering the basics and not worrying too much about Instagram details. I’m not trying to do anything really other than to live my life reasonably comfortably. I’m just trying to live my life without causing too much harm to the environment or to the people around me. I just live a quiet life.
Anyway, somewhere this morning I think I’m going to have an interview with a potential student and his father. I don’t know if we will find a deal or what kind of deal we will come up with, but unless they flake on me, we have a video conference. Other than that, I need to clean up a little bit from my day off. I need to bring in some wood from the wood pile and have a look around at what the rains have done. I’m still not completely healed but I’m up into the high 80s or low 90s percentage of being healed. I’m pleased with this but it means taking it easy. And maybe I am in conversation with my ex partner about what kind of fruit trees she finds if she goes to the festival and doesn’t mind the horrible cold rainy weather.
Other than that? Not much. I’m not really under any pressure to do anything and I’m not feeling any particular desire to do very much except what I need to do to remain comfortable. I sincerely hope you don’t have a problem with this. But if you do, keep it to yourself. Better to worry about you than me. I strongly suggest that as a good life philosophy.
***
You know, I don’t know why I didn’t get deeper into these guys before now. It seems that I tried a few times but I didn’t have access. There are quite a few people who seem to have reasonably good intelligence on the troop movements. The counteroffensive seems to be rolling right now. Perhaps if the Europeans would agree to some microgram of self-sacrifice and allow themselves to push towards sustainable self-sufficiency, this nightmare might come to an end even before the end of the year.
***
It is like a new world this morning. My legs have been getting better everyday and today I seem to be able to move around not only without too much pain but even feeling strong. I haven’t felt this way in a long time. I don’t want to overdo it but the difference between even a week or so ago and now is like night and day.
I’ve had a chance to go walk around and see what the garden looks like. I have absolutely full to overflowing water barrels. I haven’t had this in 2 months. I understand that this is no longer a genuine necessity of life now that we have sunk a second well. Still, there is quite a bit of residual feeling that comes along with seeing absolutely full water barrels. I might not need this water and really, I might end up just spilling it when we bring in the barrels for the winter. But it is something to have all of this water available for use. Where was it when I needed it?
I have a friend who left Belarus for Cypress and we talked for a while this morning. He says the weather there is very hot, uncomfortably hot and that the air pollution is a great problem. The Russians are welcome there because of all of that good money laundering of a few years ago. And of course they have a conservative government that believes in economics first and therefore everybody is in cars. He says there is some push towards hybrid vehicles or electric vehicles but as of the moment, it’s too expensive and nobody thinks ecologically. Global warming is real.
I’m thinking of something simple for breakfast. I’m thinking maybe of making some soup. I haven’t made straight soup in a long time but I think this might be a pretty good idea. It’s very cold and it’s not going to stop being cold today. I think a bowl of soup to help warm up is the way to go. I have a few veggies to toss in there and some beans and I think I’ll be okay. It doesn’t take much to make a nice soup.
I definitely made a mistake on that drying table by leaving my stuff out there. The fruit doesn’t seem to have been harmed but my apples have been rehydrated. I should have brought them inside before the rain. I was lazy. Well, I was lazy but I knew better. I knew I should have done something but I didn’t do anything and now I’m paying for it. I don’t know whether I’ve ruined them or not. I don’t know if you can dehydrate fruit twice. I guess I can ask.
Can you re-dehydrate fruit?
Forget it. They don’t understand the question. I guess I’ll just have to learn by myself. I guess I’ll bring it in and spread it out and if it dries out again good and if it starts going bad I guess I’m eating this shit for a while. So stupid. But, the thing about lessons in life is to learn them the first time. If you don’t, you will pay for them again and again and again. Luckily, I have plenty of dried apples. Worst case scenario, it’s compost.
I guess I’m just going to do my day today. There’s not much more to pay attention to. It’s just a rainy cold day and my biggest priority is going to be staying warm. It’s a shame about those apples. They tasted good every time I picked a few out of there. It’s a shame to lose them. Dried apples are good snacks.
***
It’s 3:30 in the afternoon and believe it or not, it’s been a raucous day. Physically raucous for me has not been the truth but a lot has happened.
The first thing of interest was that my friend and his young son indeed showed up for our internet meeting this morning. I sent over a children’s book and the boy did his best to read a little for me. Absolutely nothing unusual and I tried to teach him a few things about understanding. I’m not sure he learned them but the fact that the information was coming in, it was proactive for a change which is completely unlike the school system and there was a sense of empowerment immediately, we decided on the deal for at least the upcoming month.
Because of the boy’s age and because I myself am not really thinking of working commercially right now, I offered a very light schedule and a very light cost. I think it was a fair proposition for everybody and I think there will definitely be some positives from this. In any case, everybody’s happy and feels better for the boy’s future. All that has to happen now is that he actually shows up and does some homework and his parents allow him the autonomy to actually get something from the work. In any case, this is practical English Light and if it makes everybody happy, I’m happy too.
We were off the phone for maybe 5 minutes when the natural ESP of the Belarusian woman to feel that there was money in the air kicked in. Immediately after I sent out my bill and all the information needed to get started in the class, my ex partner contacted me from the fruit festival. She had found some wonderful grapevines, some black currant and white currant bushes and several fruit trees that looked really excellent. If it was planting time and we were putting in some new trees, she was ready to go if I was.
Modern miracles indeed. Click click click click, the money went from my account to her account, the trees and bushes were purchased, she called my friends in the cab company to pick her up with her goods and she was up here within a half hour. We didn’t plan today. We simply put the trees off to the side where they will be okay and I am well assured that they’re going to be fine for at least a week exactly as they are. But with any luck, I will be able to acquire some fertilizer and some hay and if Ghenna is in the mood, we can even have some holes dug. If push comes to shove, I can probably dig some holes myself. No reason I can’t.
She wasn’t here very long. She was obligated to get out to the bus for the ride back and only stayed long enough to make sure that I had a quick dose of town covid. It wasn’t really so much of a visit but it was a little visit and I have about 10 new fruit trees and a few new berry bushes. I guess next Sunday is planting day and this week is a good time to pick up the goods I need.
I’ve thought a lot about staging areas and I think I’ve decided on a good place to drop fertilizer and or hey. As far as the hay goes, I’m not really that worried about it but the fertilizer needs to be far enough away from things not to be a problem. I have a few specific ideas about what to do with that but again, we’ll just do this one step at a time and not worry about it too much on the way over.
So that’s basically the story. Money in becomes money out and money out becomes fruit trees and berry bushes. I guess sometimes things work quickly when they’re going to work. I guess I am investing a little bit after all.
***
Wow, just wow.
The Ukrainian counter is starting to look like a juggernaut.
Okay, let’s be fair. This guy stops to press for patreon support. Maybe it’s worth it or maybe he’s telling us what we want to hear. But this certainly sounds like information to me. Too many pictures and films coming from too many specific places. This seems to be what is going on.
“Looking at this (an entire captured brigade of tanks), it seems that Russia is donating more military hardware to Ukraine than the United States”.
Here’s another map reader. This guy includes equipment and personnel losses. According to his estimates, they are saying there was more than a thousand square miles, 1600 square kilometers of land that have been retaken by the Ukrainian army.
This group of films is a little bit more technical. But again, I’m thinking that the presentation is honest enough. I’m not seeing propaganda here.
This last commentator is a former US military guy and he is calling this a complete route. He is saying that the Russians simply don’t have any fight left in them in the North and the ukrainians are simply moving through all defenses. It looks like the Russians are getting chased all the way back to the border.
He also says that the spearhead of the offensive was only 15 tanks. According to this guy, the Russians should have been able to stop the attack but they just didn’t have any fight left in them.
“The Russians have been having problems with logistics and corruption since the beginning. And the effect of constantly degrading their people, shows its effect when the chips are down”.
Truer words have never been spoken.
All of this talk about these military actions is pretty inspiring. For those of us who would be much happier without Russian brutality and usage, it’s a feel-good story. I’m sure for all the people in the world without a real vested interest to have backed the blue and yellow flag, this is a genuine positive. The war itself is not over yet. Days like today are wonderful but you don’t really have giant collapses that Domino into the end of everything. This is the beginning of a positive but there is a long way to go. Even if we have a genuine total victory, the cleanup will continue on more than the remainder of the decade. And if you think like I do and believe the ecology is more important than any of these hysterical cocaine fueled money games, the entire affair is a monstrous setback.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention today being September 11th. I find myself saying something about this day in American history every year. I have a personal experience. I was literally in Manhattan that day. I had been sent well beyond the danger zone by my company. I was all the way in the upper 80s I believe when the actual planes hit the buildings. I wasn’t standing under them or anything like that.
We’ve had soldiers hanging around here in the village all year and I have seen military flights over the forest, seen serious displays of high-tech aerial weaponry and of course we’ve heard the rockets flying overhead. War is a very disconcerting state. War does amazing things to people. It changes them forever. No matter how much bravado you think you have or no matter how little your hand shakes under pressure, life and death is a genuine Gamble and people don’t really come back from it. It changes everybody.
Today was kind of hopeful day in my world. I have a new student. We bought some trees. There’s really not going to be a lot of outdoor work for the next several months. There will be chores but all that’s left is button-up work. But there’s a sense of hope.
I don’t want to make it sound that I have been at the front lines of this year. I haven’t. And when my leg failed, I just basically hung around here most of the time. I’m happy to be able to walk a bit today. I found my limit and things got scratchy but I am up and this is a big change from where I was only a week ago. Maybe next year, we’ll all be better.
All I’m saying is that I have my doubts. I had a little money come in and then it turned around and went away just as quickly as I got it. I invested in more trees. Was this foolishness? WlId it a waste trying to get a little bit more out of my garden despite the water problems and the drought? Why bother? I think the only answer is that it made my partner very happy to buy some trees and bushes. It made her happy to spend money for the future. Today was a day with some hope in it. We’re planting trees for a hopeful future.
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