Strictly Political

 

Saving the Rain Forest

Francisco Elle is haunted by the faces of children he could not save.

It's what drives him deep into the dense rainforests of the vast Sierra Madre mountain range day after day, carrying a heavy wicker bag full of fresh saplings on his shoulders.

His lean figure ducks under a thick ceiling of leaves. Even with his glasses falling to the end of his nose, he manages to avoid being tripped by exposed tree roots as he hurries along a faint trail to his latest tree planting site.

Following him is tough going, especially as clouds roll down the hillside brushing the tips of the branches with a fresh mist of rain.

He once made a living chopping down these trees which had taken centuries to grow. Now in his 50s, he has turned from illegal logger to forest ranger after witnessing what he describes as "nature's revenge".

More than 1,000 people were killed when Francisco's village, along with several others, was washed away by a landslide in December 2004.

"I saw lifeless children all lined up on the street while the houses were all destroyed. There weren't any houses left, even ours was gone. When I remember the things we did, I feel helpless," he said during one of the few breaks he was willing to take that day.

Does he feel guilty about his past?  He turns away in tears. After several minutes, he answers: "I blame myself. Maybe if I didn't cut trees, maybe it wouldn't have happened."  READ MORE...

Female Bodybuilders

 

Europe's Most Misunderstood Country

Stretching 192km, the Peak of the Balkans Trail bridges three previously war-torn nations and crosses through some of the continent's least-explored landscapes.

Hiking through the green valleys and wildflower-strewn meadows under blazing sunshine, with the gunmetal-grey Albanian Alps towering overhead, I was struck by the utter remoteness of this landscape. Unlike Europe's more famous alpine resorts, there were no hotels or ski lifts in sight. 

Instead, the sweeping setting evoked a startling sense of isolation, and I couldn't help but feel I'd entered a back-of-the-wardrobe secret land that had somehow evaded the attention of the outside world.

Stretching from Northern Albania into southern Kosovo and north-eastern Montenegro, the Albanian Alps are better known by their local Albanian (Bjeshkët e Nëmuna) and Serbo-Croatian (Prokletije) names – both of which mean "The Accursed Mountains". 

Yet, the question of how these serrated limestone slopes got their unusual moniker remains something of a mystery.

According to local legend, the devil escaped from hell and created the jagged glacial karsts in a single day of mischief. Some say the alps' name stems from a woman who cursed the mountains when she was trekking through them with her children on a scorching-hot day and couldn't find any water. 

Others claim Slavic soldiers gave the mountains their name as they struggled to march through them. In a way, the peaks' puzzling origin story is something of a metaphor for Albania as a whole.  READ MORE...

Raccoons

 

Pen & Ink Artist

 

French Baguettes At Risk

Recently described as "250 grams of magic and perfection" by President Emmanuel Macron, the French baguette is at risk from surging energy prices, with some bakers warning they can no longer afford to fire up their ovens.

Already struggling with sharp hikes in the price of butter, flour and sugar over the last year and a half, the prized industry is now alarmed by astronomical electricity bills looming in 2023.

"It was absolutely inconceivable to me that a power bill could make me close my shop and stop my life here," Julien Bernard-Regnard, a distraught baker in the village of Bourgaltroff in eastern France, told AFP by phone.

He is still coming to terms with closing his doors for the final time in early December having decided that continuing his business, built up over the last five years, was impossible given the cost of electricity.

"I had to renew my contract at the beginning of September and it increased by three and half times," he said.

His monthly power costs rose from around 400 euros ($420) a month to nearly 1,500, while shopping around for an alternative supplier brought no relief.

"I'm in lots of online groups with other bakers and on social media. There are bakeries closing every day. Some have bills that are multiplied by 10 or 12. There's someone else 40 kilometres (25 miles) from me who's just shut down," he added.

In a country where the availability of crusty daily bread is a political issue fraught with danger for any government, Macron's cabinet is keen to show it is doing everything possible to safeguard the nation's 35,000 bread and croissant makers.  READ MORE...

Female Led Marriages Work

 

Pakistan Closes Due To Market Crisis

Pakistan’s government has ordered measures to conserve energy, including closing all malls and markets by 8:30pm (15:30 GMT), as the country grapples with a crippling power and economic crisis.

The cabinet-approved measures are expected to save the country about 62 billion Pakistani rupees ($273m), Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told journalists on Tuesday.

Pakistan finds itself strapped for cash as money expected to come in under an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme has been delayed. Its foreign exchange reserves now barely cover a month of imports, most of which are for energy purchases.

The defence minister said additional measures that will take immediate effect include shutting restaurants and wedding halls by 10pm (17:00 GMT). He said some market representatives had pushed for longer hours, but the government decided that an earlier closure was needed.

Asif also said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had ordered all government departments to reduce electricity consumption by 30 percent.

The measures are being implemented as Pakistan struggles to quell fears of a default after the $1.1bn in IMF funding was delayed. Islamabad has differences with the IMF over a review the agency is conducting of policy and reforms it is requiring in Pakistan. The review should have been completed in November.  READ MORE...

Words of Wisdom

 

England's Biggest Wind Turbine

Work to build England's biggest wind turbine will start in February.

The 150-metre structure will dwarf the other turbines already in Avonmouth, Bristol, when it is finished.  Around 100 tonnes of steel and 1,000 tonnes of concrete will be needed to build it.

Project development manager David Tudgey said the turbine would be a "real testament of hope for the future".  It is hoped it will be up and running by spring, providing low-carbon electricity to 3,500 homes and saving 1,965 tonnes of CO2 per year.

The turbine is owned by community group Ambition Community Energy and planning permission was granted by Bristol City Council in 2020.

It is one of only a handful of onshore wind turbines to be approved since new planning laws came into effect in 2016 which made it much harder to build them.

The government vowed to relax these rules earlier in the month, after backbenchers threatened to rebel.  Charles Gamble, from Ambition Community Energy, said it was "quite a difficult site" because of the turbine's size.  READ MORE...

Painter

 

House Republicans & the US of A

 

I am embarrassed for the Republican Party, now that 2023 is here and the GOP has the majority in the House...

What is going on in the House is no different that the former GONG SHOW on TV...

I wouldn't vote for a REPUBLICAN now if you paid me...

On the other side of the coin, I wouldn't vote for a Democrat either after listening to all their lies and what they have done since Biden became President.

This country's leadership SUCKS...

• We deserve to become a 3rd rate nation
• We deserve piss poor education and educator
• We deserve crime and violence in our cities
• We deserve an increase in drug addiction
• We deserve immigrants to ruin our quality of life

I am so glad that I am retired and 75...  Cannot wait to see what the next generation does after experiencing what this one is doing...

There won't be anything left but Billionaires and IDIOTS...   and, people like me.

Pond Fish

 

Colossus

 

Checking Boxes

 

African American Artist - Kara Walker

Kara Elizabeth Walker (born November 26, 1969) is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes. Walker was awarded a MacArthur fellowship in 1997, at the age of 28, becoming one of the youngest ever recipients of the award.  She has been the Tepper Chair in Visual Arts at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University since 2015.

Walker is regarded as among the most prominent and acclaimed Black American artists working today.

Walker was born in 1969 in Stockton, California.  Her father, Larry Walker, was a painter and professor.  Her mother Gwendolyn was an administrative assistant.  A 2007 review in the New York Times described her early life as calm, noting that "nothing about [Walker's] very early life would seem to have predestined her for this task. Born in 1969, she grew up in an integrated California suburb, part of a generation for whom the uplift and fervor of the civil rights movement and the want-it-now anger of Black Power were yesterday's news." 

When Walker was 13, her father accepted a position at Georgia State University. They settled in the city of Stone Mountain.  The move was a culture shock for the young artist. In sharp contrast with the multi-cultural environment of coastal California, Stone Mountain still held Ku Klux Klan rallies. At her new high school, Walker recalls, "I was called a 'nigger,' told I looked like a monkey, accused (I didn't know it was an accusation) of being a 'Yankee.'" 

Walker received her BFA from the Atlanta College of Art in 1991 and her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994.  Walker found herself uncomfortable and afraid to address race within her art during her early college years, worrying it would be received as "typical" or "obvious"; however, she began introducing race into her art while attending Rhode Island School of Design for her Master's.

Walker recalls reflecting on her father's influence: "One of my earliest memories involves sitting on my dad's lap in his studio in the garage of our house and watching him draw. I remember thinking: 'I want to do that, too,' and I pretty much decided then and there at age 2½ or 3 that I was an artist just like Dad."

Setting Aside ONE THIRD of our Planet for Nature

It's being called a last chance for nature - 100 countries backing calls to protect 30% of the planet.  The aim is to reach this goal by 2030 and conserve forests and other vital ecosystems in order to restore the natural world.  The "30x30" target is the key ambition of the UN biodiversity summit, COP 15

But as the talks in Montreal, Canada, move into their final days, there is division over this and many other targets.  Biodiversity refers to all living things, from polar bears to plankton, and the way they fit together to sustain life on Earth.

Scientists have warned that with forests and grasslands being lost at unprecedented rates and oceans under pressure from pollution and over-fishing, humans are pushing the Earth beyond safe limits. This includes increasing the risk of diseases, like SARs CoV-2, Ebola and HIV, spilling over from wild animals into human populations.

Under the proposed agreement, countries would sign up to targets to expand protected areas, such as nature reserves. It draws inspiration from the so-called "father of biodiversity", the biologist Edward O Wilson, who called for half of Earth to be protected.

But there is debate over how much land and sea to include, and some scientists fear the targets may be diluted.  READ MORE...

Existential Threats of Truth and Reality

We see TRUTH as something that is relatively easy to understand in that, one either tells the truth or one lies...  but, it is not that easy when one is not saying anything.

For example, when one media outlet reports that there are illegal immigrants coming across our southern borders and another media outlet does not report that at all...  which one is telling the truth?

Just because something is reported does not make it true, nor does not reporting something make it true either...

So what then in TRUTH?

Is my truth just my reality and belongs to no one else or is reality shared?  And how many people must share that reality in order for it to be perceived as truth?

Here is another example...

What about the theoretical?

Some physicists believe that everything is composed of very tiny vibrating filaments of energy called strings, but they cannot be seen...  it is just a theory.

Where is the truth in this and is that truth enough to create a reality?

Yet another example...

We live in the present truth of time.  What is happening right now.  But, a second after that reality of time, it is gone.  

• Where did it go to?  
• Did it really exist?  
• Was it real?  
• Is that time reality our truth?

Some say that truth is whatever that is written down by those who won the war.  And, while that makes sense...  it may not be that truthful...  for example...  do you think that the history of slavery would be written any differently if it had been written by slaves instead of slave owners?

Of course it would...

So, is our slavery history not correct and if so, then it is not truthful...  and the reality of slavery is fundamentally different than we think its reality has been portrayed.

This is a serious existential threat...  to our future as well as our present...  however, it does not really impact the past as the past has already happened and cannot be replayed...  replaying the past is not the same as retelling the past.

Who is responsible for accurately conveying the TRUTH that ultimately creates our REALITY?