Wednesday, June 1st 2022
7:00 a.m. and another quiet peaceful morning.
I feel like I’m getting to the end of something that’s been going on for a very long time. I finally had some positive things go my way. It seems like forever since this has happened. I don’t feel completely like I’m out of the woods and of course, you never can tell about random acts of stupidity and violence. We could probably say that it should be expected already and I believe that probably nobody has perfect confidence that the world is going to be okay. But if there are gradations of stress, yesterday I took one or two good steps forward. Always nice.
Of course, my thoughts are not always selfish and there are things in the world that come with scars that never heal. I feel incredibly bad about certain relationships that I have in the world. We all have to live with our choices and unfortunately, you get involved with people you never should have gotten involved with and you end up paying the price for this. Sometimes it’s your own fault for saying yes and then certain times there are just people who force their way into your life with you like it or not. Parasites suck. That’s kind of a pun all by itself but it’s also the truth.
As for dealing with stress, what seems to be working best for me these days is to simply limit the amount of contact I have with people who are just not going to be useful. This is one of the great mistakes in Slovak consciousness. People believe they are supposed to be taken care of. Perhaps in a perfect utopian world, we would use the concept of government to act as a true provider of sanity and public security. This is not What It is Now by any stretch of the imagination and corruption is so completely the norm as to make the concept almost cancerous. But perhaps in a world where we could depend on each other and use public entities to better facilitate this, perhaps we could hang back and rely on the benevolence of Big brother. As of the moment though, you can’t really believe in it. I did not believe in the benevolence of others and I find it hard to associate with people who sit around expecting my benevolence. And there are a lot of them.
This is the issue while thinking about some relationships that are completely miserable for me. The expectation on their parts was that I would be some sort of all encompassing perpetual feeder. The women here are remarkably acidic in their exploitation of men. I know this is sounding like male sour grapes and I am sure the modern rhetoric would throw this at me as mansplaining my own impotence in the world. But if you actually lived here or if you’ve had the opportunity to clearly have a look at your Russian wife or girlfriend, you may end up noticing the unilateral brutality. They are going to get what they want and they really do not care about any ancillary damage along the way.
Consequently, my daughter’s graduation from high school is bittersweet. I am proud that she is an honors student. I am proud that she has developed her musical talent. She’s a smart girl. And this is pretty much the end of what I have to say. Perhaps the inference that I’m stopping here and cannot give more than these three small sentences means something already. I guess it would be even a cliche for this kind of bitterness from an older Jewish man who cannot let grudges go. She grew up with her mom and not with me. She is her mom’s daughter more than she is mine. However, I wish her well. I hope things work out.
One of the negative things about having had a teaching career, especially a teaching career where quite a number of teenagers pass by your desk on their way, is that you end up getting glimpse after glimpse after glimpse of what happens to these people out in the meat grinder. You get a chance to see the anxiety, the same anxiety that I’m speaking about for myself here today, played out on their faces in hundreds of scenarios.
For sure, I’m speaking of nostalgia. I think nostalgia is one of the Great problems with living in the rush and world. At the end of the Soviet Union and even more so right after the bank failures at the turn of the millennia, the place was absolutely on its knees from nostalgia. People were faced with monumental economic problems, problems they had never seen in their entire lives. I won’t equate the pain that people went through to the pain that the ukrainians who have been bombed out of their lives and forced into exile are experiencing at this moment. I could easily equate it to the millions of people stuck under the thumb of Russia who feel the constant weight and pressure every day of their lives. This would be along with the assault on their natural resources, the destruction of their environment, being forced to live in a poisoned habitat for the first time in their history. Being forced to eat unnatural foods first generationally. Absolutely new forms of insanity and epic stress.
I feel a little bit I suppose like my grandmother right now. I’ve been told I’m living a grandmother existence now by hanging around out in the country and gardening everyday. I suppose there are also grandfathers who do this. My grandmother was from Odessa originally. She was the first generation American. She was also my closest relative after I left my family. I spoke to her all the time by phone wherever I was in the world and when I lived in New York, I would ride my bike out to Queens to come visit her every week. She was also my banker and kept my American bank account for me.
She was the one who first taught me about understanding that everybody has their problems. I would talk about myself and she would shake her head and start naming all of the people in her life that she worries about. So many problems. Everyone has their problems. Everyone has their own problems.
Many years ago when trying to enter Ukraine at a discount, this was before Americans had an open door to come in whenever they wanted without a Visa, the ambassador there smiled at me and said exactly the same words. So many problems. Everyone has their problems. Everyone has their own problems.
So it goes. Another page ripped from the calendar, another day come and gone and another 7:00 a.m. session talking about a day to be. As for my daughter, I have no idea what she is planning for herself. She and her mother have done what they have done and I am not privileged to the information. Is this strange? Would you like to blame me for this? They do. They subscribe to this rather abusive “why do you make us hurt you?” Form of fascist association.
There came an end to my desire to live with my daughter’s mother. It’s hard to describe it but her apartment had become a prison for me. Actually, it wasn’t really so much that it was a prison, it was that it hurt physically to be around her. Russians call this becoming allergic to somebody. It was quite similar to when I was in the hospital and they would put someone in the bed next to me and suddenly my covid would explode and I would find myself coughing. Perhaps I am too empathetic for my own good. But during this time, the energy drain was like having my body filled with arthritis. It was just intolerable.
I didn’t really do anything terrible except to find an apartment nearby. All I asked for was that we remain friends and I agreed to be as supportive as possible. I am not going to give the details of the business offer I made but it was sound and real. Unfortunately, my daughter’s mother was advised that power was the only way to deal with me. And that’s what she did. The government agreed with her and life changed. I have legally fulfilled all of my obligations to the letter and without argument. Unfortunately, I simply do not have a relationship worth talking about with my daughter.
We’ve had moments. We made some music for a little while. She visited for a little while. I even tried teaching her English for a while. Inevitably though, she walked out of all those relationships and eventually decided that she didn’t want a relationship with me at all.
Good choice? Great choice. Do I feel bad about this? Unbelievably. Do I suffer from this? Of course. In fact the only thing I have that does not lead me to absolute bottomless despair is my grandmother’s voice. So many problems. Everyone has their problems. Everyone has their own problems. It’s her life. It’s her choice. I have no ownership. When we were together, I did the best I could to be the best friend I could to her. In the end, her mother’s desire for control and pressure disallowed anything nice to happen and here’s where we are. So many problems.
So now we take a step back and we leap up into the air like Superman. And while we are flying, like a drone with a really good camera, we look down over the entire landscape. It’s not just one person or one group of people, it’s hundreds and thousands. It’s all of the children graduating from all of the schools. It’s all of the young girls and boys hitting off into this world. We’re not talking about the optimistic American World. We’re not talking about some place back when communities existed and money stayed locally. We’re talking about a world turned into a garbage dump by corporate takeovers and political pressures to demand that people pay their checks. We are talking about a valueless world where you are seen as no more than a piece of meat. We are talking about a world where there is no possibility to earn a check and the absolute mindset is that the only way to live is to get out of here. But in doing so, you enter the outside world at the lowest possible rung, should expect nothing but exploitation and racial hate and yet have absolutely no sense of belonging for the rest of your days.
Have you heard about the Ukrainian immigrants getting raped by their benevolent patrons yet? Have you heard about the people getting ripped off along the road of tears? Have you heard the stories of hunger, suffering and starvation? Have you heard the stories yet?
Yeah, generally I try not to go down this road too much. My ex partner has a habit of looking for these subjects to talk about with me. They have the most juice for her. I can’t blame her. I suppose in my life I used to press for the juiciest stories as well. I don’t really do that anymore. I don’t really bother people very much at all anymore.
Yes, we are coming to the end of quite a few things. It’s strange to get to these endings in the springtime when the world seems new. I wish her well. I hope things work out for her. And of course, if she ever needs a place to stay, all she has to do is ask.
I guess I’m going to get going now. I should go to town this week. I don’t have a lot of things to do but I do have one or two bureaucratic issues to take care of. Also, I think I want to pick up a pair of knee pads. I find that I end up gardening quite a bit on my knees. It would be nice if I got a pair of plastic capped knee pads if for nothing else than to save my pants. I could probably put something together from an old t-shirt or something like that that would serve the same purpose or perhaps I could even bring a blanket out with me. Perhaps that’s a better way to do it. Why spend money if you don’t have to?
That’s basically it. They say we might get a few sprinkles of rain today and tomorrow. If we don’t get any rain by this evening, I’ll break out the pump and give everything a drink of water. Everything’s growing. All the boxes are full of life. Everything is coming alive here at the beginning of June. I guess I’ll just do what I have to do.
***
Mr Zelinsky is being incredibly optimistic. The 6th packet of sanctions against Russia has taken place but what we can glean from his rhetoric is that Russia is not going to be removed from the oil business anytime soon. Nobody is going to get out of their cars. Nobody is going to stop the economic system that created this monstrosity. Nobody is going to say no to available resources or the possibility of income. Let’s remember also that I am speaking from the perspective of pure ecology and preservation of habitat. Nobody is going to get out of their cars just to save a few Ukrainian lives.
I don’t mean to be cynical but if they give awards at Instagram, I definitely think Mr Zelinski should be in the running. His daily posts from the war are a hit. You can count how many followers, you can count the Ukrainian flags all over the internet, you can count how many public gatherings getting streamed with acknowledgment towards the ukrainians. Hell, even Paul McCartney is waving a Ukrainian flag at the end of his current show. He’s also managed to get a paycheck worth almost $40 billion dollars.
They are not however getting out of their cars. They are not stopping the rat race. They are not turning their eyes to habitat control or to end gun violence. They are not doing anything to stop the flow of money going to the corporations. They are not doing anything to change the situation that created this war. Nothing really is changing.
I also want to say that I’m noticing a particular feeling inside myself. I have had experiences before with electronic entertainment. I have followed a few YouTubers in my time. I even tried to be one myself for a little while. Not my cup of tea. But what I noticed was that when the people I liked started to blow up, they changed. With the influx of money, they became different people. They stopped being likable. They stopped being free. They started to be businessmen and business women. They became something else. More false. Less human.
Of course, I’m just thinking out loud. I’m not dismissing the president of Ukraine in his time of need. I’m not employing cancel culture to an entire country in the midst of an egregious War where tens of thousands are dying and millions have had their lives disrupted or ruined. On the other hand, if you’re on Instagram, maybe you listen to the whole speech all the way to the end or maybe get tired of it and with a flick of your finger there is a short film of animals interacting with each other with a human voice filling in the dialogue. Flick your finger again and you have a rather attractive model from St Petersburg Russia showing you a picture of her remarkable trip to a tea shop on the excellent sugary sweet dessert she has ordered for herself.
***
Well, that was about the most interesting hour or two that I have had in a long time. Let’s see if I can get all of this straight.
Firstly, and I talked to the Barents Observer and it is possible that I will be able to do some work for them. This time I think I might even be working in the Ukrainian language. Very cool. Nothing set in stone yet but this actually might be something else that I can believe in for a change.
Next, I talked to my ex partner about picking up some knee pads. I actually have a pair but they are cloth and generally not suitable for garden use. I was thinking about getting a pair with plastic caps to do gardening in. I went out today with a blanket to put down underneath myself but unfortunately, if you’re going to move down a large row, it’s not the correct instrument. I suppose it would work if you were working in a garden box. Really though, I don’t need it for the garden boxes. I need it when I’m working down on the ground. Perhaps with ridiculous amounts of practice I might be able to do it bending over all day. At the moment, my body has voted no to this.
I don’t mean to ruin this but back in the trades we used to call these cocksucker pads. Don’t hate me or judge me for having said that.
While shopping for these pads online, I asked my ex partner to see if she could find a seriously strong 3/4 inch hose clamp. I have been having a miserable time keeping my water pump attached and at full force. Both the fragile aluminum strap wrench and the homemade wire twist clamps are not reliable.
Then I had a thought and dug into my junk and I found a clamp for my bicycle that actually kind of fits. It’s not exactly the correct size, it’s a little bit small, but it’s held really tightly by a pair of hex nuts and bolts that allow it to be ridiculously tight on the hose and the pump. I pulled the pump out and threw it in one of our water tanks and turned it on and sure enough, it works. I cannot say it works perfectly and I cannot attest that there are absolutely no leaks. If I can find something more perfect, I will go for it. In the meantime, I feel a lot better about life when I actually do need to water my plants. This clamp is not going to pop off anytime soon.
Finally, when I got back to my desk from the hose clamp experience, I saw that I had missed a call from my friend Dima, the guy who cleaned our well. He apologized profusely for missing the phone call, he’s been very busy lately and said he was ready and equipped to come out and get these gutters up on my bar and roof. He wanted to come tomorrow but I do believe I’m going to town tomorrow. A few necessary meetings need to get done and I’d rather go on Thursday than on Friday. He however had no problem with Sunday. So, one year in the making, we might actually be very close to completing a major part of my water problem.
I’m still going to need to pick up a few more tanks and I do believe it’s time to start plumbing the tanks together, especially those that sit under downspouts. But we’re getting close.
Personally, I’m feeling pretty good about life right now. Things are starting to look up. I could use a few dozen items from the crop side of my list to turn around and become positive. I could use a few people to wake up who have been unnecessarily dreaming for a long, long time. But as of the moment, even if it’s baby steps, a few bits of the puzzle fell into place today.
***
Having a look at the front page of the Barents Observer has quite a few stories about how global warming is seen from the Arctic circle. And also, they have a story talking about this sixth sanction package and how it will prevent oil shipments through Arctic Waters. Again, we are talking about preservation of habitat and stopping the pollution of our oceans is equally as important as stopping the pollution of our land and Air. Give them a look generally but in the meantime, here’s the opinion and story from Norway.
On the 30th of May, the European Council adopted a 6th package of sanctions, which has its prime aim on the Russian oil industry and its vast cash flow to the Russian treasury and war machine.
According to the new restrictions, Russian oil exports to European countries are to be banned. By the end of 2022, Russian crude oil, as well as petroleum products, will be barred from entering the Union. A temporary exception is given only to pipeline oil.
The new sanctions will have devastating effects on the Russian oil industry, and especially operations dependent on shipments to EU terminals, like the oil from the Arctic. The Russian energy sector is from before hard hit by sanctions. In previous packages, Russian coal has been banned, and Russian companies are no longer allowed to import key technologies needed for industrial projects, among them LNG plants.
The ban will force GazpromNeft, Lukoil and Rosneft to look for new export routes and markets for their Arctic oil. All companies will see Asia and especially China as a prime target. However, the opening of new logistics chains will not come easy. The companies can send the oil eastwards on the Northern Sea Route. But the complicated sea-ice conditions will be a constant threat to the tankers.
Again and again and again, it’s about nuances and not about getting out of our cars we’re making the adjustments necessary to move to sustainable energy and stop our assault on our habitat. On the other side of the coin, baby steps are steps. Every little bit helps.
***
Okay, this is a serious mystery.
I found something that I could use as a fairly serious clamp for the water pump. I tightened it on reasonably and threw it in the rain barrel that gets the most rain. That barrel was absolutely full after several days of rain when I started. I then hooked up the pump and tested the water pressure and saw that it was working reasonably well. I didn’t do very much with it. I just threw some water on the ivy near the fence and then turned off the hose and came inside.
At this point I wrote the previous section and all of the other interesting points besides that my clamp works pretty well. I think it was about 2 hours ago.
Here’s where it gets weird. I just went outside to collect my goods and at least 200 L was gone from that tank. I only ran the pump for about 3 minutes, five at best. If it was rolling at absolute full blast, the most it would pump would have been somewhere between 30 and 50 l. I didn’t see that it was blowing all that hard. In fact, when I unplugged it it didn’t seem like I took very much water at all.
What is more, there is no water around the tank, illustrating that there might be a hole in it. There was no giant puddle of water near either of the hose connections. In fact, I don’t see 200 L of water anywhere and certainly it would not fit inside a 3/4-in hose. Where did the water go?
Let me say this again. There is no puncture in the tank, the pump was definitely not running and was sitting underwater the entire time. I find it hard to believe that you could siphon 200 L of water out by simple gravity but even if that is what happened, there was no Giant pool of water near the end of the hose or at the connection between the pump hose and the garden hose.
I’m befuddled. I truly don’t get it. How could I have gone through 200 L of water in 3 minutes? I’m going to get to the bottom of this but I’m very serious about every word I just said. This is weird.
***
Right. Well, it never rained. You just can’t believe in the weather reports. My ex partner called me today and asked me if it was raining. It wasn’t. Like I said, she always goes for the juice.
I would not say that today was particularly productive in any way. About the only good thing that happened was that I watched a film about Benjamin Franklin. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that pressed so many buttons in me.
They make many points about the man’s contradictions. He believed in a strict, Christian puritanical life but yet quite liked brothels and was more than a bit of a womanizer even late into his life. He believed in Liberty and personal freedoms and yet had no problem keeping slaves. He was an American Patriot but frankly enjoyed London quite a bit more than Philadelphia and Paris even more than London. He started a fire department but also sold fire insurance. He was in favor of the common Man but had no problems being a shrewd businessman and leaning on his personal wealth for advantage.
This picture is a clip from his personal thoughts printed in his newspaper. In it, he was railing against slavery and doing so from his own feeling that industry was one of the primary facets of being a good human being. Temperance and trying to be humble were among his other favorite attributes. He was perhaps the best known American of his time globally. But he was absolutely a racist.
During his lifetime, he played both sides of the fence in terms of relations with native Americans upon whom the white Europeans encroached more and more as the years went by. Franklin himself printed many of the contracts used to deprive the Indians of their lands and cheat them out of their life’s necessity.
He was a capitalist. He perhaps embodied the American Spirit and perhaps he was of unusual intelligence backed up by a refusal to use alcohol over his lifetime. Maybe just one simple decision along with being a voracious reader and student helped define and improve his intelligence. But he was a capitalist. He was in it for the money. He and all the other founding fathers were in it for the money. He was an incredibly selfish man. And had no problems taking bribes or enjoying being lavished with attention by both the royals in England and in Paris as well. If his position granted him some bennies, he took them.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Nobody sees the hypocrisy.
I think what bothered me the most about watching this film is that I saw a lot of similarities in the things that I believe are important and what he believed are important. He was a man of virtues at least philosophically. The hypocrisy was in his physical failure to live up to his high ideals. He was a writer. He was a fantastic thinker and philosopher. But his ideals overstepped his physical ability to adhere to his own rules.
On the one hand, I see fault in openly naming Benjamin Franklin a hero. Perhaps he was. The electricity, the inventions, the pure industry and literally perhaps being the number one person to help win the Revolution by getting the French to help finance the war against England. But as with all heroes or with any icon that we choose to look up to for any reason, we should never forget that they were just people. Perhaps he was born with a little bit more energy than anyone else. Why not? But he was prone to the same failings and also had to grow into his knowledge and acquire it over time and with diligence. There is no snapshot. Just a lifetime of work.
On the other hand, if not taken as a role model but simply as an idea in and of itself, perhaps he is worthy of note. It isn’t that we need the man and his accomplishments to look at but rather that someone who was well admired in his time and thought of as being of a higher caste is simply an aspiration for ourselves. He was an autodidact. He taught himself. Perhaps this is something we all need. Perhaps it is much better for us to follow our whims and to try and elevate ourselves, our ideals and our knowledge. Perhaps it is best that we teach ourselves rather than looking to others.
But maybe the thing that has me most confused is that we really generally don’t talk about how many people built Benjamin Franklin. He had many, many people working for him in his various businesses. He did not single-handedly do the things he did. He did not build a library and a university with his bare hands, he financed them. In fact, he didn’t really finance them as much as putting together the finances. And he held slaves. There are certain thoughts and observations that he was not a cruel master but he was a master nonetheless and believed until the day he died that the color of one’s skin indicates one’s social cast in the world.
This is eventually the most disturbing thing. Benjamin Franklin was unbelievably White. He had all of the benefits and advantages. Sure, he was a pull yourself up by your bootstraps guy. As a young man, he didn’t drink and he worked and worked and worked until he found himself in an ownership role. But that ownership role was only available to him because of the color of his skin. None of his slaves would ever rise. None of the people working for him would ever be able to eclipse him or even be mentioned in the same sentence.
I find it very hard to love the United States of America. I find it very hard to find emotion when looking at its history or to believe in the ultimate perfection of its heroes. You can blame me for this. The Americans blame me for having moved here and the locals blame me for having come from the states. The oldest joke that I know from here is that the Belarusians do not really understand what America is and the Americans don’t really care what Belarus is. Or was.
Towards the end of the film there was an incredibly interesting point. When the Revolution was finally won and all the treaties were signed, the Americans owned the entire east coast of America from Canada to Florida and all the way to the Mississippi. Ironically, this decision made at the cost of however many people died was made without the permission or decision of the native Americans who found themselves completely alienated from their own land. One side’s victory was the defeat of two sides. And England never stopped being America’s number one trading partner.
Suddenly I sort of Saw the birth of America as being the absolute first step in what it became. It became a dump. It’s a junkyard. I’m saying this from personal experience because I have traveled to 45 of the 50 states. It’s all garbage and all industrial waste everywhere you go. America or at least the United States is a horrifically ugly country to look at. It’s just all garbage. The white Europeans have simply exploited it to death.
This is what I saw in this movie about Benjamin Franklin. All of this beautiful European Christian work ethic and all at the expense of the people who knew how to live sustainably.
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