Wednesday, April 20th 2022
Zelinsky wants weapons. He wants weapons and he is telling us that carrying a Russian passport will be a mark against its holder for generations. He is saying that to be known as a Russian will be a mark of evil.
I really don’t like objectifying people and prefer to take folks one at a time. At the same time, it’s hard not to recognize patterns especially when in real life you notice the similarities from people who come from like cultures. People behave in a similar way to others who come from the same place.
There has been a question about nature versus nurture for a very long time.
Nature is what we think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other biological factors. Nurture is generally taken as the influence of external factors after conception, e.g., the product of exposure, life experiences and learning on an individual.
The true obvious answer to this question is both. There is a genealogical history that we carry with us. Certainly, external forces get into our genes and travel with us through the generations but obviously, we are influenced by our environment in our own time as well. Put a person, regardless of their ethnic heritage, in a tremendously comfortable situation or in a tremendously uncomfortable situation and you will see results that touch their personality.
I’ve also heard it said and found from personal experience that though cultural and ethnic identities have similarities, on a person to person basis, people can find a way to get along. Aside from all of our differences, human beings as a species have traits that we all share. In this context, we all need to eat, we all need to breathe, we all need to eliminate waste products from our body and we all crave some level of societal interaction. This is true for all humans.
We also share traits with what we call animals on this planet. This is obviously understood because of the amount of people who keep “pets”. We are well aware that there is a level of communication that we have for one another and that any sentient being has a sense of compassion and a need for warmth and safety and a decent environment.
We have in the world these days though certain groups of people who are pushing an incredibly difficult argument on us. We have people with great access to the media pushing social insecurity, hate and violence on us all and seem to be doing everything they can to keep us as uncomfortable with each other as possible. There are people in the world with great access to the media who are making money from being antagonistic to our basic natures.
In my opinion, understanding that I am speaking about the oil business, the armament business, the business of the military and the meat industry are all very rich based upon people being frightened and alienated from others. This fear and alienation is based either on an ideological reason such as ethnicity over geopolitical affiliations or even simply on some kind of visual thing such as one sex, age or skin color. And most certainly the world is divided by those with the money to buy enough time, space and freedom and those who are obligated to be touched by the world because of a lack of financial freedom.
I wish I could say that the war in Ukraine was a specifically unique thing. I wish I could say that it was absolutely a war between Brothers but it’s not. What is happening in Ukraine now and that has been happening for either 8 years or 80 years or 800 years has always been influenced by many factors. Not the least of which now is simply money. Money from the oil business, money from the weapons business, money from politics and money even from benevolent organizations.
It’s a war that is fundamentally against poverty on both sides. It is a war where there are those who have a lot of money sitting as oligarchs over people who have nothing. It is a war about slavery and manipulation of the truth and it is a fight for resources that the world would be better off without.
In these circumstances, it is identical to every other War on the planet today and every war that we have seen throughout history. And if we are talking about the argument of nature versus nurture, War has been a part of all of our lives for generations upon generations.
War is fear. War creates fear. And unfortunately for everybody, fear is Big Business.
If we want to stop the war in Ukraine, we have to take the money out of it. The resources at hand in this war are oil in the Black Sea and perhaps human slavery based on how many people become enslaved financially or otherwise because of the conflict. Remove oil from the equation, there’s nothing to fight about. Remove need from the people and we have peace.
Need = War. No Need = Peace.
And finally, putting a mark on all Russians is probably going to happen. I noticed this even within myself that when I find out that someone is Russian, I immediately start staring at them and looking for specifically obnoxious Russian traits.
Ironically, this is not new. A lot of people automatically hate Russians because of having been subjected to living under their rule for many years. Russian people tend to be very nice up front, incredibly giving at the beginning because of their cultural identification. At a glance and at a first meeting, you might think that the Russian people are the nicest folks in the world.
This is extremely similar by the way to the English who also are quite benevolent up front and especially so with new people. It comes from being hated for the sins of the country you come from.
It’s also really true for Americans. It’s also really, really true for Americans, for Germans, for most Europeans and for basically everyone whose geopolitical heritage has been one of theft, rape and murder.
People are apologetic for their ancestors.
However, we also have those who are not very apologetic at all. In this war, we have the same argument as the Nazis used that they are a part of a master race who have the right to be empirical and colonial and enslave others because of whatever reason nature or nurture has bestowed upon them.
Or in other words, our environment sucks because people will not stop poisoning our environment. And because our environment sucks, our nature is and has been being forced to adapt to living at War. And this vicious cycle never wants to end. It is an addiction for the people who have money and power from this misery and they never stop feeding us more addiction just to keep the cycle going.
I say that it is time to break our addiction to misery. I say it’s time to break our addictions to hate and violence. I say that it is time to break our addictions to slavery, to money, to drugs, to the oil business and to violence. I say it’s time to wake up and start working to clean up our messes and to take care of ourselves and our planet.
It’s 4:20 a.m. on April 20th. This is my prayer and hope for peace in the world. Next year, let’s all be in peace.
Let’s start today off with this:
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As Hager explained, a group of Californian teenagers ritualistically smoked marijuana every day at 4:20 pm. The ritual spread, and soon 420 became code for smoking marijuana. Eventually 420 was converted into 4/20 for calendar purposes, and the day of celebration was born. Apr 20, 2021
The short answer is racism. At the turn of the 20th century, cannabis—as it was then commonly known in the United States—was a little-used drug among Americans. With the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, however, many Mexicans began moving to the United States, and they brought with them the tradition of smoking marihuana. Amid a growing fear of Mexican immigrants, hysterical claims about the drug began to circulate, such as allegations that it caused a “lust for blood.” In addition, the term cannabis was largely replaced by the Anglicized marijuana, which some speculated was done to promote the foreignness of the drug and thus stoke xenophobia. Around this time many states began passing laws to ban pot. – Britannica
Is smoking cannabis bad for you?
There is no easy answer for this. Smoking is eventually negative for your health and your lungs. As a comparison though, we can ask this question:
Which is more harmful, tobacco or cannabis?
A large-scale national study suggests low to moderate use of marijuana is less harmful to users’ lungs than exposure to tobacco, even though the two substances contain many of the same components.
Actually, that was an easy one. Everybody knew the same answer the moment I asked it.
I personally do not want to drink alcohol. So we can ask a similar question:
Which is more harmful, cannabis or alcohol?
The short answer is obviously alcohol. Alcohol is one of the most addictive substances in the world along with tobacco. And certain people prefer not to include alcohol’s effect in their lives simply because they don’t want it.
What are the effects of alcohol?
Over time, excessive alcohol use can lead to the development of chronic diseases and other serious problems including: High blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, and digestive problems. Cancer of the breast, mouth, throat, esophagus, voice box, liver, colon, and rectum.
What are the effects of cannabis?
You are free to explore this as you like. I’m going to take a stab at this myself. It inspires pleasure.
pleasure /ˈplɛʒə/ noun
a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment. “she smiled with pleasure at being praised”
Some people hate pleasure and happiness because of something traumatic happening to someone before or they have it as a precaution.
I like this one. I have seen many examples.
Speaking of pleasure, it’s time for some breakfast. It’s a little early but I don’t feel like laying around today. I want to get outside and do something but it’s still dark out. I quit early yesterday and I guess the amount of time that I allowed myself for rest is now conflicting with clock time. My body’s had enough rest and wants to go. Look how fragile all of this is.
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News
I like this guy. Retires from the job that includes blood testing and the first thing he wants to do is get high… (my apologies for the lack of embed but go check it out on YouTube and then come back)
Then we have this which is pretty weird but maybe other people will have more of an affinity for it than I do.
Here’s our guy again a few months later and he seems to have figured things out beautifully.
***
The breakfast today was a little interesting. The food stores are getting kind of slim. I need to bring up potatoes from The Root cellar. But what I had today was some quinoa and red lentils with a little more water than it needed. And I also cut up some cabbage and tossed in some local spices and then let some fresh cabbage be available for some crunch. Is this too simple?
Well, it was amazing. It was delicious. It was a little savory and it went down very easily and right now I have a great deal of energy. Also, the soup was very warming.
I don’t normally buy quinoa because it’s a little expensive. Everybody knows it’s this SuperFood so they charge maybe two and a half or three times more than for other grains or pseudo grains that are available. It’s also probably not particularly Passover correct I guess. I could look but I don’t really care.
I just know that what I wanted was some soup. I’ve got a tiny bit of a cold from working outside when it was snowing and wet and soup is probably good for you.
I learned about soup for breakfast when I lived with my daughter’s mother and her family many years ago. Her mother used to wake up early in the morning and make a pot of soup. I am not much of a sleeper so I watched her do this many times and the act of putting a pot of soup on to feed her family gave her great happiness.
Up until this time, I had never heard of soup for breakfast. I’m sure I had it in my mind that soup was some kind of a precursor to a larger meal. Maybe it was a snack. I knew that in Asian cultures, it would be the center of a meal that would also include vegetables or side dishes and rice or noodles. And I knew about particular types of Russian soups and Jewish soups I guess. But I had never thought that soup was breakfast until that time.
If you’ve never tried it, you should. You probably don’t need to overthink it and really, I’m kind of opposed to ridiculously complex recipes or trying to recreate some concoction or other that somebody said had a name. I am a kitchen improviser and I usually just go for what I have. Mixing good ingredients gives good results.
This is what happened this morning. Quinoa is tasty. It’s supposed to be remarkably healthy. Red lentils are tasty and I know for a fact that they are very healthy. Water is good. Human beings like water. This local spice mix I have is pretty tasty. What else? Easy. Try it for yourself.
Meanwhile, I guess I’m going to dig a little dirt. I like getting a workout in the morning and I like doing physical things instead of going to a gym or running. I like getting my workout doing something purposeful. I think that’s a hell of a philosophy really. It’s a practical philosophy. That’s why I like it.
***
Just two quick points.
I got a message from someone who will remain anonymous asking me why I’m not publishing pictures of what I’m doing on Instagram or Facebook or VK. They told me that it’s difficult to believe me without pictures and they advised me that most people prefer looking at pictures to reading. I would probably be more successful if I used pictures instead of words.
I also had a friend come and visit me one time who seemed shocked at the actual size of my place. It was not what he imagined.
My point here is that I like it better this way. The world is fixated on visual images. I prefer literacy and logic and thought. Staring at each other is an absolutely empty exercise for me and I am tired of making choices based on visual stimulation.
When I was younger and hornier, my eyes would go to magazine covers with attractive models on them. Sex equals money. Most probably, I got involved with my ex-girlfriend because she was visually very attractive. Most probably, a lot of my thinking and actions in my life were because something visually worked or didn’t work and I made my choices based on image rather than conscious thought. And most probably, this got me into trouble way more than it actually helped.
I’ve been single for a long time. This simply means that I haven’t been married officially or legally or religiously. I have not made any public promises to be with someone since I broke up with my ex-wife manny, many years ago. However, I have had relationships with women that went on for some period of time. There was a beginning with a great honeymoon, a middle section of diligence and normalcy and then the negativity starts and the thing comes down like a house of cards. I am told all marriages are like this. You can say I’m a bad person for having done this but I seem to have avoided quite a bit of legal entanglements by not officially getting married and keeping all of these relationships between friends.
One other thing I have learned from these relationships however is that someone’s visual appearance is both important and unimportant. I have been in relationships with women who for one reason or another consider themselves unattractive and I have been in relationships, usually these are briefer, with women who are ridiculously attractive. The only wisdom I have gained from this is that women are way more visually oriented than I am and I end up with more quality time from women who do not expect a great deal of attention from the world. Women who get hit on constantly are a pain in the ass to be in a relationship with. Women who don’t draw a lot of attention are very comfortable to be with.
As for me? It’s really hard to say whether I am attractive or not. I don’t think I am but some people seem to think so. I did not grow up believing myself to be a golden god. In fact, I grew up believing myself to be rather horrible. Probably I was overweight and people don’t like fat people. I was also Jewish and people don’t like Jews. Or, I have never in my life given a damn about clothes and a lot of people simply hate people who don’t care about their clothes.
At a glance, I always lost. I mean, I understand what it feels like when you notice somebody is staring at you. In my later life, I learned that this eye contact business was much more associated with a fishing hook than a chance for a little comfort. People trying to make eye contact with me want money more than they want my sympathy and company.
What I learned though about myself is that I have quite a bit of talent for quite a few things. I am pretty smart and always have been. As a sportsman, I was a quality player even great in a few places and taken as a whole, I have never had any problems believing in myself as a worthy human being. If we have to measure ourselves against each other as being qualified or unqualified, I won enough competitions to know who I am. I won enough challenges not to worry about my sexuality or virility or masculinity or viability. I’m cool with being me.
I just have never gotten affirmation visually at a glance so I don’t believe in it. All of my relationships, all of the social interactions that I have prized and enjoyed and invested in in my life came from people willing to take a second look. Folks who dismiss me because of a first glance are universally people I have wanted nothing to do with. I don’t swim well in shallow Waters and I am bored too easily with non-conversations.
Or in other words, I’m not interested in my image. I’m interested or I want people to be interested in my substance. I want people to be interested in my words. I want people to take my work as an artist seriously. I want people to take my thoughts as an idealist into their consciousness and I want people to expand their ideas so I want to be respected as a teacher. In fact, the simplest way to say this is I want respect for a hell of a lot more than what I look like.
So the same is true for this project of mine. I could easily tell you the parameters and for the most part, I often have. The size of these garden boxes and how many meters of garden I have or how many fruit and nut trees I have planted or want to plant have all been mathematically popped out there. It’s just a garden.
But if you really want to know what this looks like, you should contact me individually. I’m not interested in making my work this year available and dismissable at a glance. I’m really not interested in image making or qualifying myself in some easily dismissable and swipeable way. If people are too obsequious and empty to give me 20 minutes of attention to walk through one of these daily writings, what the hell do I need them for? This is not mass marketing. These are just some good ideas about how to live better in the world.
The second point I wanted to make is that one box is now finished. I could put more material in there if I wanted to but I have enough now to plant in and I have more room to do this again next year and probably the year after.
I still have the other boxes to do and I will be digging for a few more days and maybe well into next week. But as of the moment, one box is ready for planting. Hoorah!
***
April 20th is celebrated internationally.
From Australia to London, Canada to Amsterdam, America to Scotland, here’s how the world will be celebrating cannabis this 420. 420 is almost here. And for the cannabis community, it’s the best day of the year. If you are curious as to what’s going on this year, then you should know that a lot of fun is in the works.
April 20 has become an international counterculture holiday, where people gather to celebrate and consume cannabis. Many such events have a political nature to them, advocating the liberalization and legalization of cannabis.
According to CannabisCulture.com, in 2014, 420 marijuana rallies were held all over the globe, including in Peru, Austria, New Zealand, Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Italy, South Africa and Australia. So if past years are any indication, this year 420 will continue to be a worldwide celebration.
An Israeli smokes a marijuana joint in Jerusalem on April 20, 2017 during a rally at the Rose garden, to celebrate 420 and to express their defiance of current laws. Sitting in small groups on mats shaded by trees in the Rose Garden just across from the Knesset, participants lit up as the clock struck 4:20 for the local version of the traditional worldwide April 20 pro-marijuana events, known as “420” rallies.
April 20th isn’t just national weed day; it’s international weed day! This year, with the coronavirus pandemic still requiring many of us to maintain our social distance, large gatherings of cannabis lovers are frowned upon for different reasons than usual. But just because several larger 420 events have been canceled or postponed doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate the holiday on your own or with your pod. While you’re partaking, why not take a look at how 420 is celebrated across the globe.
Just sayin’. I’m not the only one who thinks this way.
***
Okay, you win. My friend just called me on the phone and told me that I was bullshit. My entire speech about not being visual and wanting people to be literate was just talking. I was afraid of having pictures of me taken because I’m so ugly and I don’t want people to see how genuinely shitty my situation is. It was all very negative but this is what he said.
Well, I don’t agree with anything in that. Personally I look like what I look like and my land is what it is and my house is what it is and I like it here and that’s the only thing that’s important.
But if you just can’t live without a picture, right here is a selfie I just made next to my garden box. It’s spring time so you can see that we have fresh grass growing and some leaves are just starting to appear on the trees. Yes, I have lost some weight. I practice a vegan diet and I get a lot of fresh air and exercise. Cheers.
***
13 runs and two boxes finished. I’m kind of out of gas. I’m taking a break and there is no one here to tell me otherwise. Let’s all give thanks for such situations.
I would be remiss if I did not name some clinical positives about the use of cannabis. So let’s start with a simple question: what are the medicinal positives of cannabis?
Reduce inflammation and relieve pain. Control nausea and vomiting caused by cancer chemotherapy. Kill cancer cells and slow tumor growth. Relax tight muscles in people with MS
This is from Johnson & Wales University and it is mostly about CBD, another aspect of marijuana that is not particularly connected to THC, the element that gets you high but still has remarkable medical properties
7 Potential Health Benefits of Cannabis
1. Lowering blood pressure
A study conducted by JCI Insight in 2017 found that CBD lowered the blood pressure of human participants. It reduced their resting blood pressure as well as their blood pressure after stress tests including mental arithmetic, isometric exercise, and the cold pressor test.
2. Reducing inflammation
CBD has been proven to help reduce inflammation and the neuropathic pain it can cause, according to a study by the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research.
3. Preventing relapse in drug and alcohol addiction
A 2018 study discovered that CBD can be useful in helping people who suffer from drug and alcohol addiction. A preclinical trial with lab rats determined that CBD reduced the stress-induced cravings, anxiety and lack of impulse control that often cause people to relapse.
4. Treating anxiety disorders
Anxiety is perhaps the most common affliction that people have used CBD for, and a preclinical study found that CBD could be effective in treating generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
5. Treating gastrointestinal (GI) disorders
A recent study found that CBD and other non-psychoactive cannabinoids can effectively be used to prevent and treat GI disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis and more. CBD’s anti-inflammatory properties are key to reducing and preventing symptoms.
6. Preventing seizures
Decades of research have gone into using CBD to treat epilepsy and other seizure syndromes, and a recent study showed it can have positive effects in reducing symptoms and seizure frequency.
7. Fighting cancer
Not only has CBD been used to help alleviate the effects of chemotherapy, but studies have also found it can prevent cell growth and induce cell death in cervical cancer cell lines and it has numerous anti-cancer effects that can help prevent a variety of cancers, treat tumors, and benefit the immune system.
Beyond these seven benefits, there are even more still being researched and tested. It’s our hope that students in our new Cannabis Entrepreneurship program will play a key role in building the future of this industry.
The following is from Healthline:
The following list of marijuana benefits are some of the most commonly discussed in scientific research, as well as anecdotally.
Pain management
The cannabinoids in marijuana may reduce pain by altering pain perception pathways in the brain. This may be helpful to treat conditions that cause chronic pain, such as:
- arthritis
- fibromyalgia
- endometriosis
- migraine
- It may also minimize cancer treatment side effects, like loss of appetite.
- In some instances, medical marijuana is reported to help replace the long-term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen, which can have negative side effects.
Reduced inflammation
CBD in marijuana is thought to help reduce inflammation. In theory, this may benefit inflammatory conditions, such as:
- Crohn’s disease
- irritable bowel syndrome
- rheumatoid arthritis
- Decreasing inflammation in the body can also improve overall health.
Neurological and mental disorders
Due to its effects on the limbic system, doctors sometimes prescribe marijuana to treat the following neurological and mental health conditions:
- anxiety
- epilepsy
- multiple sclerosis
- Parkinson’s disease
- post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Tourette syndrome
Sleep management
The relaxing effects of marijuana may help improve sleep disorders, such as insomnia. And improved sleep may also occur when pain is reduced from marijuana usage.
Does it sound good to you? It sounds very good to me as well.
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By the way, how about the investment aspect of legalized marijuana. Any thoughts on that?
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Just thought I would check in one more time here this afternoon.
Today ended up to be kind of a busy day. I got to the government office and did the paperwork to get some wood. Apparently that’ll be tomorrow or the next day by tractor. It’ll probably be 2 or 3 days work to put this giant pile of wood in order.
I managed to finish three boxes before giving up. I just got tired and didn’t want to do it anymore. It’ll be there tomorrow morning. It’s always there in the morning. I like this place and I don’t mind the work that it takes but I noticed that I can’t keep it up all the time. I do get tired.
I’ve got the water jugs filled up on the tools put away and it looks like my working day is coming to an end.
Right now, I’m enjoying sort of an epic macaroni dinner. Some chickpeas and sunflower seeds and some tomatoes I found at the market. Cabbage and onions and spices of course. Very tasty, very spicy and I’m just guessing but most probably very filling.
So this is me basically checking out and punching my card.
However, there is just one detail. On April 20th at exactly 4:17 p.m. and I have no marijuana whatsoever. Nothing. Zip, zilch, zero.
Why? Well, there are two real reasons. One is that it’s extremely illegal and this country is not really run democratically and everybody is afraid of everything. The other is that the friends I used to be able to turn to have dried up and gone crazy. Personally, or blame some kind of import nonsense that showed up last year that made everybody crazy. I don’t know what was in it but as soon as everybody tried it, everybody went nuts. I don’t know specifically why except that apparently this is what they wanted and it changed everything for everybody.
So, with more than a little longing and regret here and watching the clock turn over as if it was New Year’s and I was in Times square watching the ball fall, at exactly 4:20 p.m. I wish you all peace and happiness and freedom and brotherhood and togetherness and understanding and consciousness and good health. One of these days, we will figure it out. Possibly someday we will become better than we are. But as of this place right here and right now, it’s fucked.
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