Wednesday, April 13th 2022
They say that every dog has its day. The war is not over but today, the dog won.
***
Good morning. It’s 7:30 and I am in my ex partner’s kitchen. I am in post breakfast afterglow this morning. Spelt kasha with (teary eyed emoji) steamed factory vegetables with a few champignon mushrooms and her patented cardamom coffee. Very nice. And to make a spring Tuesday morning even easier, the Giants are crushing the Padres out in San Francisco. I have the last few innings playing on my phone and barring a life scarring turn around, we can call this a w for the orange and black. Well, orange and white today as you can see by this picture.
The conversation is about Garden planning as you can imagine. It’s spring time so we are giggly talking about all of the things we can plant and watch grow. I’d like to pick up some sweet potatoes and see how they want to live with us. I’m also planning one place in the garden to plant бобы, which in English I believe are called mung beans. A very rough and tough bean variant that grows on Long singular stalks in a garden with peanuts. Why not? There’s a lot of bad things to say about global warming and it’s probably the end of the world as we know it. Then again, if we are going to be jealous of desert regions, we might as well take a shot at growing some desert food.
I also got a gift from my ex partner that I do not find insulting at all. She gave me two canes, one a permanent length and the other adjustable. I don’t use them generally except on Saturdays when I’m not feeling particularly athletic or workerish. But no shame, it helps to have something to lean on. Also, I think the handle would be wonderful for lifting up the skirts of young girls.
Okay, forget I said that. It’s spring time. Let’s just call it an old man’s springtime joke.
Without the aid of a walking stick, my plan is to visit at least one of the two markets this morning. I want to see if I can beat our current price on a usable but inexpensive water pump, perhaps 25 m of 0.75 hose and maybe even an extension cord. I don’t know why I’m suddenly All In on an electric pump but you know, we really can do a lot with a tiny little bit of electric help. I don’t really know where civilization is going and I’m not sure if I will have solar panels on my roof to pay for the electric pump myself within a few years, but water is precious and we’re going to need a way to move it around.
And yes, I can also use it to make a functional shower which will definitely be nice when the weather gets hot and to clean off my bike and get the sand out of the gears so that my drivetrain lasts longer. All positives.
Other than this, maybe I need to add some nuts. I eat a lot of nuts and raisins for snacks with tea in the evening. Actually nuts and fruit are my snacks all the time and if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times that it is the greatest bicycle food ever invented. I don’t care what factory creates what weird modern crap for bicyclists to make use of, you can’t reinvent nature. I wish more people would remember that phrase. You can’t beat or reinvent nature.
I can do that mathematically by the way so you understand this.
N/G + x = S
N/g is nature or God, x is any human intervention and s will be our universal sign for shit. This goes along with our previous mathematics that C = shit, C meaning any capitalistic Enterprise.
The answer to this statement is always laughter because people cannot imagine anything other than the way things are. Pragmatism is a staple of old school Russian culture and it has been the mantra of Masons for time immemorial.
“We don’t worry about the things we don’t see, we work with what is right here in front of us”.
This would be glorious advice if we would only take it. It is perhaps the greatest irony of the world that it is the most seeable thing in the world that this capitalistic Utopia we have created, this block of poison gas that useless people swim around in every day trying desperately to find some paper that might possibly have some value to put in their pockets doesn’t work. It does not bring happiness or satisfaction, it is not sustainable and what is most obvious to the eye is that we never stop chasing these worthless drugs.
I know that I’m repeating myself these days. I feel like I might have gotten to the end of my knowledge already. I’m currently leaning on one of these walking sticks and truly, it is a comforting thing. I can walk without it but it helps. I don’t need it but it adds a percentage of stability. I can’t work with it but if I’m not working, it’s nice.
The question however is whether this is a tool or a crutch. The obvious and pragmatic answer is that it actually and physically is a crutch. It is the definition of a crutch and its function is to be a crutch. We shouldn’t really argue about that except we can.
Am I leaning on this thing because it is a genuinely helpful instrument to help me get from one place to another or am I leaning on this thing as a way of avoiding things that I should be doing? Am I using it as a purposeful instrument or am I relying on it instead of doing what needs to be done myself?
This is a linguistic thought that came to me many years ago. It’s not necessarily about drugs but it came about when considering factory drugs or even recreational drugs and their purpose. It has more to do in this regard with whether something is an addiction that controls you or an instrument that you control.
The most prominent argument for me because I am a public advocate for marijuana, a lot of people know very well this dubious and horribly soap operaish tidbit about me, is whether marijuana should be compared to alcohol or other narcotic drugs.
The US has a scheduling plan for drugs. I think I’ll use Google to explain this:
What is the scheduling plan for drugs?
Schedule I
Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Some examples of Schedule I drugs are: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy), methaqualone, and peyote.
Schedule II
Schedule II drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with a high potential for abuse, with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence. These drugs are also considered dangerous. Some examples of Schedule II drugs are: combination products with less than 15 milligrams of hydrocodone per dosage unit (Vicodin), cocaine, methamphetamine, methadone, hydromorphone (Dilaudid), meperidine (Demerol), oxycodone (OxyContin), fentanyl, Dexedrine, Adderall, and Ritalin
Schedule III
Schedule III drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence. Schedule III drugs abuse potential is less than Schedule I and Schedule II drugs but more than Schedule IV. Some examples of Schedule III drugs are: products containing less than 90 milligrams of codeine per dosage unit (Tylenol with codeine), ketamine, anabolic steroids, testosterone
Schedule IV
Schedule IV drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with a low potential for abuse and low risk of dependence. Some examples of Schedule IV drugs are: Xanax, Soma, Darvon, Darvocet, Valium, Ativan, Talwin, Ambien, Tramadol
Schedule V
Schedule V drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with lower potential for abuse than Schedule IV and consist of preparations containing limited quantities of certain narcotics. Schedule V drugs are generally used for antidiarrheal, antitussive, and analgesic purposes. Some examples of Schedule V drugs are: cough preparations with less than 200 milligrams of codeine or per 100 milliliters (Robitussin AC), Lomotil, Motofen, Lyrica, Parepectolin
The genuine understanding of this list is its application for either having or not having medicinal use. This is the governmental argument but it is not in any way the medical or physiological argument. It is also unquestionably a capitalistic argument as much as anything. The only proof of that that is needed is to see that drugs like Xanax are considered non-dependent despite how many deaths we have seen publicly due to prescription drugs and yet natural drugs from plants naturally occurring in nature such as marijuana, peyote and psilocybin, substances that have been seen as medicinal for millennia, don’t make it into the acceptable use list.
This would kind of be similar to saying that homemade alcohol is illegal and factory alcohol is not only legal, but advertised and readily available.
C + x = S because C = S
Another question I have about this wonderful legal scheduling is where is alcohol? Alcohol is one of the most addictive substances known to man. Just like sugar, it drives human beings crazy to have it available to them and yet we push it as exactly a self-medication. Why exactly isn’t alcohol on this list?
I myself would add a few more drugs to this list. I would at least consider two more substances as a part of the tool or crutch argument. Where is meat? And where are automobiles? If it has been medically and scientifically proven that processed meat is a carcinogen, obviously there must be some kind of narcotic effect that goes along with eating it. If it is an unhealthy substance such as implied by all of the substances on the above list, why doesn’t it at least have a government warning?
About cars, this is easy. I look at my neighbors and I ask about this egregious 20-year-old poison machine that they seem to need every single day of their lives. There is not a moment anywhere during the weekly or monthly or yearly schedule where an idea doesn’t come into their head that they need some time alone in their automobile.
“The world be damned. Everyone does it. I do this for my comfort.”
These are literally quotes from my neighbor justifying their use of a car. They smile at my foolishness. I see drug addicts. I see people who cannot control themselves. I see people who are totally and utterly addicted to the feeling of power that they get when they sit in this car. And that they do not care one iota about the ecological damage that they cause to all living things by running this ridiculous engine every single day seems to be exactly the behavior that we attribute to the lowest form of narcotics users, junkies, the people that destroy families and ruin lives. They are gas junkies and there is no observation in the world that tells them that this incredibly unhealthy activity should be moderated in any way.
Why do we insist on legal moderation of one drug but no legal moderation of others? This is an absolutely stupid question because the answer is capitalism. If there is money to be made, it’s not dangerous anymore. And you can go back to that film I pointed out yesterday about the corporatization of marijuana in the state of California. The moment there is potential to make money from it, suddenly it becomes a very available thing.
So let me close this start with some footnote links.
Is sugar an addictive substance?
Some studies have suggested that sugar is as addictive as Cocaine. People often enjoy the dopamine release that sugar brings. But due to the addictive nature of sugar, long-term health effects like obesity and diabetes are a risk of sugar overindulgence.
Is alcohol an addictive substance?
Yes, obviously.
Is meat an addictive substance?
Other studies have linked meat consumption to heart disease, diabetes, strokes and several other types of cancer. And yet many people are still eating meat. This may be because meat and other animal-based foods contain opiates and other drug-like chemicals that cause people to get “hooked” and keep craving more.
You can copy and paste my questions just like I can but something tells me if you have read me this far that you already know the answer to the following questions.
Are cars addictive? Is war an addiction? Are guns an addiction? Is power an addiction? Is money an addiction?
If the basic question is whether something is a tool or a crutch, if it is necessary for survival or something that is simply done as an escape from reality, I think the answers are obvious and clear. You tell me what you think is correct. I side with science.
***
It’s about 11:30 and I am crashed on the floor of my ex partner’s apartment. I just got back from the market where I managed to save about 33% on our water system. 20 m of hose, 20 m of electrical cord and the same water pump we were going to get just got transported back on my back. I am too old to be a truck.
It was a very fruitful trip though and it was very enjoyable to visit with Zhen and vika. They are using some new type of coffee by the way which is very tasty. More drugs we can add to our list as being questionable but lovely to have access to.
I also got a new set of headset bearings and a pair of new pedals. I don’t quite need the pedals yet but I’ve noticed my left one is starting to lag and this is usually a good sign that says it’s on its last legs. I don’t buy expensive pedals because I don’t really have access nor do I have money but they do sell pedals with sealed bearings and you can get a year or two out of them without problem. I’m currently riding without toe clips because that’s just the way life is but I seem to be getting along just fine.
While I was there, I ran into another Zhenya, a fellow bicyclist who opened a conversation with me while looking rather emotionally and teary eyed at my fixed gear. He is a sales manager who works in town exclusively by bicycle. His reasoning is that his company refuses to pay for gasoline and so far, he has had no problems with people criticizing him about arriving in something other than an automobile.
He was very proud of showing me his carbon fiber ride. He is what we would call a gram weenie and he had actually taken the trouble to measure all of his bicycle parts so he would know exactly how much weight he was pushing. He’s riding gears right now and he mumbled something about his wife and fear etc etc. But it’s spring time and he knows the difference. He is longing for his sexy and he regrets selling the frame. This is what he told me and he showed me the pictures.
Please understand me, this was not his ex-girlfriend, this was his ex bicycle. He really missed his sexy but he had been forced to sell it because his wife thought he needed a safer bike.
This led to a conversation with my mechanic friend Zhenya about why we do not open up a fixie branch here in Pinsk. Agreed, it is a limited market now but one can either serve a market or one can build a market. If we had parts available and people understood what we could do, there would be some money in it. And because we’re talking about fixed wheel bicycles, there would be some love as well.
Part of this argument was me explaining to salesman Zhenya that mechanic Zhenya was perhaps the best wheel builder in the region if not the entire Republic. And this is not just my gratitude for the wheel set that he gave me but the logic behind it. To keep the price down, we simply bought a reasonable set of rims intended for a disc brake setup. Because the stopping power would come from the disc, there was no need for the metal strip for the brake pads and therefore there was less material needed. A genius decision and unbelievably beautiful Wheels to ride on.
Another green business? 100%. Where is the investment capital and what can we possibly do to stop this ridiculous War?
When the conversation landed on the war, as all conversations invariably do these days, I mentioned that another friend had said that we not only will have another record year for global warming and therefore more drought but also we might have famine this year.
Mechanic Zhenya came up with a rationalization that I hadn’t thought of before. He said that this war was not only a forced gentrification of Ukraine in that rebuilding all of the destroyed buildings would cause both debt to Russian and European Banks but also the use of outside building materials. More business for The outsiders. But also, because this war was waged in the springtime, it has upset the entire planting schedule for the country. They will not be making their own food or have lost the ability to do so on a large scale and therefore will also need to import. These imports will also come from Russian and European sources.
This of course adds both new irony and a taste of disgust to our president’s making public his agricultural plan for this year. Not only are we not taking any note of global warming or changing our agricultural practices towards anything more sustainable, we are also thumbing our noses at Ukraine and pointing out that they will be buying our food from us out of necessity during the coming year.
This is why I like buying locally. You meet the best people when you stay local. You meet people who you will see again instead of people who you meet only for a minute before they fly away back to their own country with your money in their pocket.
***
One other notation from my conversations at the market today. I brought up sandbagging as a tool of reason to my fellow bicyclist friend.
Sandbagging: to deceive or coerce someone to get something you want. When you pretend that you’re terrible at basketball just so you can beat your cousin in one-on-one, you sandbag her.
The trick was to make love to his wife badly enough that she noticed. When she asks what the problem is, you mention how much better exercise riding fixed gear is.
I’m not sure if I’m sorry about saying this or not. But there, I said it. Sorry, I’m feeling my oats this spring.
Are fixed gear bicyclists better at sex?
Answer: of course. Fixed gear riding is sex.
***
It’s about a quarter to three and I am back in the village. Everything is put away, it is very warm and I am sufficiently tired not to want to do more. Additionally, my legs are a bit chewed up right now. I don’t really go cycling often enough to be used to it and today took me to my limit. The bike feels wonderful. There is no doubt that the bike feels wonderful. But I am done and sitting in the cool of my kitchen and I don’t really need to do anymore. Maybe this will change in an hour or two but I would not Bank on it.
One interesting note from the cab ride home, my favorite friend and driver points out that there was a time when you could tell who smoked and who didn’t buy the color of their lungs. Now, with so many cars on the road all the time, it is no longer clear because everybody has black lungs.
Stopping by the local store, I asked the lady running the place what percentage of her business was with alcoholics. “Oh,” she laughed, “that would be a lot. If we only count alcohol and cigarettes, it is probably everything that keeps us in business.”
I went on about buying the store, allowing locals to sell their produce and saved foods here, getting rid of all of the alcohol (she opined that they would find it wherever it is), and replacing it with locally grown cannabis. Also the produce of our grandmothers and grandfathers.
“We would all be rich and you would be known as one of the great beauties on our Town’s calendar.”
Her smile was enough to let me know that she liked my dream.
Not everybody likes my dreams. A lot of people just want to tell me in their most pragmatic certainty what the world is like right now. We all know what the world is like right now. We can all see how happy everybody is (sarcasm), how interesting life is (sarcasm) and how bright all of our futures are (ridiculously overstated sarcasm).
Everybody talks like this here by the way. Every time you get into one of these conversations amongst friends, it’s always a pity party. People like to give their negative opinions because everyone agrees that they are correct. Most people like listening to my future thinking or my ideas of how we could create a better future but usually, it’s no more to them than a party trick. They don’t really listen to me, they are just amused how the bear in the zoo can mimic Russian words.
It’s a serious question about what it would take to create genuine change. The thing of it is, it can’t be bought. I’m talking about this utopian vision I can’t stop having. There’s no amount of money that can possibly pay for this. The only thing that will work is genuine agreement to work for it.
This would require a vote and probably a referendum changing some rules in our constitution. That’s not really such a big deal because we changed the Constitution all the time. The thought process would be that anyone who comes to power can rewrite the Constitution to suit their wills.
This has been proven by the way to be the truth by the political agenda of the United States of America. Some time ago, the Republican party began acting pretty non-democratically. They started to throw away individual thought and replaced it with group voting. More and more ironies all the time but this is downright communist when you look at it. Not only communist but downright Stalinism.
We would need to vote out the possibility of this by the way. We would need a constitution that guarantees a free vote. We would need a constitution that utterly disallows coercion and demands that the people have a voice that is sacrosanct in decisions of public policy.
You have to do away with this public official job. I’m in, everybody can be a bureaucrat for a period of their lives and everybody can kick in to make sure the infrastructure is running well. If we have a public transport system, we need to make sure that it runs okay. Food, clothing, shelter, basic medicine and practical education needs to be kept functioning. We need people to oversee these. It doesn’t need to be lifetime jobs and people do not need to go into government to make their money. We can just take turns.
But we have to get rid of these lifetime appointees of the public trust. Somebody said that people have a right to tell us how to live and what we can do and what we can’t do. We can have changing committees that oversee Land Management and food management and make sure that people are getting along okay. We just can’t have people holding power or working for people who hold power. We cannot have people getting a lifetime pass to be above the law. That’s just not kosher and it has never worked.
Amazingly, we have this invention called the internet and we can use it to communicate with each other basically anywhere on the planet. Notice how clear the signal is even during a war when soldiers can contact their mothers and tell them not to worry. Look how easily we talk to each other. How can it possibly be that with this ability to genuinely speak to each other, we cannot allow people to make decisions concerning their own neighborhoods and regions? If people can talk to each other and read and write the language color why is it so impossible to invite everybody into the vote?
Sure, we will always have corruption I’m sure. You cannot create a Utopia without breaking a few vegan eggs. But as utopian thought, that’s what the Constitution would be for.
For example, we have our constitution that we don’t do this for the money. It can be right there in black and white that we do this to continue our existence on the planet Earth. We can pretty much write it in stone that there is only one God, nature, and nothing and no one comes before it. No matter what bright ideas we come up with, we juxtapose it against global ecology. No matter how smart we are, we don’t harm the planet.
Can you put it in the constitution of a country that we absolutely guarantee clean air, water and land? Can we absolutely promise that we will do nothing to poison ourselves? Can we make it absolutely clear so that we can be trusted amongst ourselves to be true people that we will not allow our fellow man to be without food, clothing, shelter, basic medicine and practical education?
Right about here would be the place where you click like if you agree that this is possible. Right about here is where you would place your comments.
You would not do this for my sense of ego, you would do this as a part of your daily opinion. Why not? Why not have public votes about what we do with our money and our resources? Why not have public votes about whether to go to war (no possibility of a yes vote), allow people who steal from the public fund access to our money (absolutely zero chance) and whether or not we should make our decisions based upon oil money (not in anyone’s lifetime).
How would we live? We go to work, do our job and then go home. We can amuse ourselves with music, art, literature, sports and games. We can extend education and communications. We can all get to know each other and learn from each other. We can figure out a way to have public squabbles be settled in a reasonable way and we can spend our extra energies being good to each other. Keep the sick people comfortable, keep the old people happy, keep the young people happy and generally keep the place clean.
It’s no big deal. It’s our home. Everybody wants a clean house to live in. That’s all we’d have to do. Just keep the house clean and everything will be fine.
***
How about no private cars? What was the story in China several years ago?
China’s capital, Beijing, has announced measures to combat worsening air pollution, state-run media report. They include taking half of the city’s four million private cars off the roads on days when there are serious levels of pollution.Oct 17, 2013
The government began encouraging private car ownership in 1994. Chinese economic policies are designed to nurture domestic automakers and make car ownership accessible to people who half a generation ago thought themselves lucky to afford a bicycle.
Just saying but maybe they were right the first time. It seems now they have an air pollution problem which will contribute to a public health problem which will contribute more to the economic problem because it will put more stress on the public health system which will cost everybody more money. And of course, all of this money leaves the country and goes to the oil business. Thank you very much for the cancer gentleman. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.
I don’t believe I’ll getting an answer to this but I will ask anyway.
How many private cars are in Belarus from 1997 to 2022?
Anybody else see any patterns appearing or notice anything special going on here especially in connection to the year? Anybody want to doubt me why I am complaining about the quality of the air in town? Anybody have any questions about public health? Anybody have any motherfucking questions at all?
***
There is just no getting away from it.
I’ve got a fire going in the warm room and it is very nice. The weather is extremely beautiful and it’s really hard to say whether I was cold or not. I didn’t feel like I was getting sick or anything but I wanted to warm things up anyway and now I’m glad I did. I’m kind of chatting with my ex partner about some ivy that she has found. We’re going to plant it at the base of the fence facing the road and probably raise the height of the fence a little bit to allow even more ivy to grow. This will be a dismissal of my neighbors as much as a very nice closing of our property. If the vision I have in my head comes to fruition, we are going to be surrounded by beautiful greens. I don’t believe it’s going to be claustrophobic, I believe it’s going to be heavenly.
Then I look around the internet and all I can find is more brutality and senseless violence. The level of disaster in thoughts concerning this ridiculous War is almost as sadistic that’s the word itself. I’m beginning to think that the media loves this. It’s almost as if there is finally enough blood to cause interest.
I talked to a reporter in Florida about some personal issues that I thought the press might be interested in but I was told that there was not enough blood for people. They are apparently so insensitive, so inured to violence by the constant barrage of it depicted in the media, you have to go way over the top to cut through. If you can’t save an entire planet with a group of superheroes, you really can’t make a movie. It’s got to be Overkill or it’s just not enough to make the headlines.
I’m not doing anything really. I am writing this last page, heading down to the number 32 in the right hand corner, and trying to land this like a pilot without computer help. It’s just my job. I’m like a taxi driver just trying to get my ride to where they want to go in one piece.
All I want is quiet. All I want is quiet and peace of mind. All I want is to let the noise go out of my body and my mind and just do what I have to do to help this Garden get to harvest. I just want to do whatever work I have to do to have something to eat and a lot of beauty to look at.
I’m supposed to be known for my irony. I don’t know what this actually means to other people but I think it means that I’m clever. I just hope I’m clever enough to compensate for the amount of damage I caused to this field. I know nature will do anything to grow, all living things wish to live. Last year I did almost nothing and wasn’t sad about it one bit. All of my neighbors screamed at me for all of this work I was supposed to do on a completely rotten foot. They didn’t give a shit about my physical condition for how much pain I might be in. They just like pushing.
I don’t really think I’m feeling anything from them this year. I’ve met them all and I know who they are now and I don’t give a damn what they think or what they say or what they need. I do not need to be a good neighbor to anyone here because I never met anyone who knew what a good neighbor was. And that’s a great irony because when I came here, everyone I met was a good person. I think I have some graphs and pictures up above that explain what time historically all that started to change.
This year though I am working a lot. I just hope nature approves of my efforts. We’ll see.
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