When the rich wage war it's the poor who die (3/14/2022)

“When the rich wage war it's the poor who die” is a quote by the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. Now we all know that Putin is filthy rich and has secret bank accounts all over the world, but somehow, I don’t think this is why he started the war in Ukraine. Yes, he mentioned some bogus or false excuse for starting it. Moreover, he is able to control the Russian media with his message (this weekend he shut down Instagram to the Russian people). In addition to being a war criminal, he is a gaslighter. I am sure tRump must be jealous!

From my end it looks like Putin started the war from a more ideological origin than a financial one as Sartre concludes. He seems to want to cobble the old Russia back together, while using some strange pretext or outright lie. And who suffers? The soldiers from both sides. Russian soldiers who are dying, deserting, not knowing what or why they are doing what they are doing. Neither do their loved ones at home. Let’s not forget all the Ukrainian people. They suffer even worst. Their homes, hospitals, schools etc. are indiscriminately bombed.

It are the poor, the innocent who die for a cause of a few, maybe one deranged leader and his misguided ideas. He or they are not only rich and therefore hungry for power, this time he is also insane. This has to stop!

Hotels 4 and 5. A view from the road, Fairfax and Staunton (3/11/2022)

My travel and in person teaching has resumed in earnest. Driving to the locations, in motel rooms and even in the classes there is no way of avoiding of being exposed to and talking about the stupid war that Russia is waging in Ukraine. It appears that everyone in my classes is willing to accept the higher gasoline prices and know whom to blame for it: the Russian president (more about this below). But, as I mention in a previous post it is good to be back out. Since the last post on teaching, I have taught live in Richmond (no overnight travel), Fairfax and in Staunton (all of course in Virginia, more about that later in this post, as well).

At the Homewood Suites by Hilton i  West Falls Church in Northern Virginia.  This is a great place, were it not for the view from my room which was of the back of a strip mall and dumpsters.

No this is not me after drinking a beer, but I was demonstrating how the timer on your camera works to my students in a photography class that I taught this week.

In the meantime, it has been difficult to tear myself away from the television these past few weeks to do something productive, like writing a blog post. The war in Ukraine, the atrocities that Putin and his army is inflicting on that country and its people (like bombing a maternity hospital and killing innocent women and children) is keeping me in its grip. What is really upsetting me are the falls pretexted that he is using for the war and from what I am hearing the way he is preventing the people in Russia of finding out that it is all based on a big lie.

There are no Nazis in Ukraine that are killing ethnic Russians. The president of Ukraine is Jewish and calling him a Nazi is an insult to the Jewish people. Soldiers are killing civilians, and they are slowly becoming war criminals by the order of just one deranged crazy person: Putin. On top of all this countries like China, North Korea and Vietnam are telling their folks the same shit. Honestly, the international community should issue an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes and revoke his diplomatic status. When he sets foot in any other country, arrest him and haul him in front of the International Court in The Hague!

Enough ranting. My travel did afford me some distraction, including the ability to try out some different restaurants and different beers and believe it or not, wine. For example in Fairfax, I got to eat Lebanese and Korean, while in Staunton I ate an exotic grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup that I washed down with a glass of wine at a wine bar named the Yelping Dog. The second night an old friend and his wife took me to their favorite local pizza shop. In other words, it was a somewhat cheesy week for me but enjoyably so. I even visited a new microbrewery for me: the Seven Arrows Brewery in Augusta County (Waynesboro). They make some darn tasty beer!

The red IPA by Seven Arrow.  A very nice a good tasting one!

The final hotel photo!  This one was taken in Staunton at the Holiday Inn. A nice hotel, I have been coming here many times.  I love the view of the golf course.  All the photographs I take of me in my rooms based on an exhibit we saw a few years ago at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts on Edward Hopper the American Painter. 

The one thing that I found to be different now is the room service. I always stay two nights in a room. Pre-COVID folks would come in your room to clean it, give you clean towel and make your bed. Now, probably to save money, this does not happen. I have to go downstairs to ask for more coffee for my in-room coffee maker. I think it is fine, I am sure it is difficult to get good help for the wages these hotels are willing to pay.

In both overnight travel cases; however, the drive was bad. At those times, I miss Europe and the ability to jump on public transportation like the train and zip from point A to point B. We had a big storm this week and there were many trees down on the road between Charlottesville and Richmond. This meant tree cutters everywhere and traffic delays. The week before I was stuck in Northern Virginia traffic with bad tires that were losing air. C’est la vie.

As you can see here, just a very superficial update and in the hope that this blog still penetrates the Russian sensors (I used to have a lot of Russian readers) I wanted to let them know about the big lie that they are being told about the need for this war. As I mentioned in my past post, my heart goes out to the Ukrainian people and to the Russian folks as well, especially those who oppose this insane war but are afraid to express themselves.

I am upset (02/26/2022)

I am upset! Who wouldn’t be? As a lot of you, my readers know, I am politically opinionated when it comes to U.S. politics, but I usually stay quiet when it comes to international issues. But no longer!

This world has been plunged into a war that is completely unjustified and started to stroke someone’s bruised ego. Russia has invaded Ukraine under false pretexts. Supposedly, according to the Russian leader Ukraine is being led by neo-Nazis and that is a bizarre statement to claim of a Jewish president. I am sure there are much deeper reasons for the invasion, and there is no need to go into it in this blog. I just want to register my displeasure and anger with the situation.

I have been glued to the television and the news. I am extremely concerned about the situation in Ukraine. Now, since the publication of my blog, 2% of my readership has been from Ukraine, and they ranked 4th in countries of origin. My thoughts, prayers and solidarity are with you. I have to admit, 15% of my audience is from Russia (you guys ranked 2nd). My thoughts a, prayers and solidarity are with you who oppose this stupid war but are afraid to express yourself. We have heard the reports of arrests of protesters and opposers of the war. I realize you are being ruled by a ruthless dictator. May he rot in hell!!!

On the road again (Hotels 3: Virginia Beach) (2/22/22)

One year and eleven months ago after returning from a teaching gig in Lynchburg the then governor and the department I work for decided that we should temporarily shut the office, stop all traveling, and start teleworking. We were completely in la-la land about COVID or the Corona virus, and figured this would be temporary, maybe till June or at worse, September. Ah, little did we know.

So, after teleworking and teaching online we decided that 2022 was going to be the year that we were going back into the classroom. And there came Omicron: We had to cancel January classes. Again, email student the sorry emails and reschedule everything, from hotels to meeting rooms, etc.

One of the things I was looking forward to, was returning to real live teaching. Remarkable as that may be for an introvert like me, it is not a thing about being around people, but more about being able to read their facial expressions and get live feedback. These interactions are invaluable compared to talking to a Webcam.

Finally, live teaching started in February. I became the proverbial “canary in the coal mine,” I was going to try it out for the rest of us. Well, I now have taught four live classes and honestly these classes were exhausting but exhilarating. So maybe I am not an introvert? I really don’t know any more. I enjoyed the one on one so much more than the web-based classes. Maybe it’s just the format; colleagues of mine tell me that since our recent switch to Zoom things have gotten a lot better. Zoom allows you to turn on and view the webcam of your students and makes it more personable. That is of course if the students are willing to share their camera. However, the format that I had been using was not very personable and you have to rely on typed questions in a question box which do not allow for a free- flowing discussion. In addition, you don’t see people’s faces and really cannot have a good follow up discussion. During breaks you cannot have any personal interactions with folks.

Overall though I was good to be able to directly interact with folks. It was just much easier to respond to questions and to enter into fun deep discussions.

Then finally the travel. While somewhat scary to be on the road again; my father-in-law recently survived COVID and I do not need to be afraid of bringing it home. I assume I would survive an infection (knock on wood). Eating out is kind of fun again, although I need to watch out for my waistline again. I have been the main cook at home during these past two years of COVID and I am slowly running out of inspiration. I always told folks that I love to cook, I never thought it would get old, but somehow it does. It is nice to eat something different and sample different flavors to bring home and try them out here. Variety is the spice of life, or so they say.

I watch some different TV, drink a beer and just relax in my motel room. So, what’s not good about it? Maybe sleeping in a strange bed; loneliness, although I don’t mind eating alone; and the drive after teaching a whole day will get old after doing it a few times. Who knows?

My third photograph in the Hopper tradition (little did I know it would take such a long time for the third one).  This was taken in Virginia Beach at the Holiday Inn.  You can see the Atlantic Ocean in the background (Marocco or Portugal over the horizon).

Cruel to be Kind (2/4/2022)

Nick Lowe wrote the song with the same title of this post some time ago (1979) and somehow this week I was reminded of at least the title. Then came a poll from George Washington University that I saw on TV where one of the statistics was that Republicans’ (or conservatives) dearest value was freedom while for Democrats (or liberals) it was ethics (and civility). This hits home for me very hard after what transpired this past week, but let me explain.

First, let’s look at Lowe’s lyrics. It starts out with:

“Oh I can't take another heartache
Though you say you're my friend, I'm at my wit's end
You say your love is bonafide, but that don't coincide
With the things that you do
And when I ask you to be nice, you say

You've gotta be cruel to be kind, in the right measure
Cruel to be kind, it's a very good sign
Cruel to be kind, means that I love you, baby”

These first few words of this love song are enough but the words “cruel to be kind“ are repeated over and over. What happened this week? Monday morning when walking my dog Jasper in the woods behind our home, I discovered that someone with 4-wheelers or ATVs had gone into the woods, driven the trails and torn through the Grafton pond that I have been following for the past 20 years, and probably shown you photographs of here in my blog. These ponds are habitat to the endangered Mabee’s salamander, barking tree frog, Harper’s fimbristylis and pond spice. Angrier and angrier looking at all the destruction I walked home. I called the game inspector for the park. She came to inspect the area and she later told me that the vandals destroyed four ponds. By the way, the area is posted; it tells visitors that no motorized vehicles are allowed and that we all need to stay on the trails.

At least the tracks were still visible in the snow that had fallen on Friday night.  You can see how high the water sometime is in the pond by the yellow pollen line near Jasper's tail in the bottom picture.

The inspector tell me that the culprits also went onto Federal (National Park Land) and this has become a Federal, State and local issue. She asked me who I thought it was that did this. Kids three houses down from us have been terrorizing the neighborhood with their ATVs and dirt bikes for the past weeks, I tell her. We were walking the woods on Sunday morning at 11, the woods were pristine, and just before we got home we heard the ATVs start up and the kids were leaving home on them. Around 4 pm when we took the dogs around the block the kids were pressure washing the ATVs in their driveway, the ATVs were covered with mud. I also told the inspector that this could all be circumstantial. She told me that law enforcement would definitely be on their way to check things out and talk to them and their parents.

I put a note with photographs on our development’s Facebook website about what had occured. I called the culprits vandals and called it vandalism. I mentioned that law enforcement was looking into the matter. I wanted to make sure that folks understood that the national park and the city park could easily deny us access to the area. I purposely never mentioned kids or what I told the inspector. I intended my note to be cruel to be kind and let the guilty or at least their parent soul search about what had transpired. I was also afraid that this incident would ruin it for us all and that we would be denied access to the woods. It brought out a few comments that wondered if it were the kids that were terrorizing the neighborhood with their ATVs, but mostly remarks about how terrible it was. But then it started, civility went out the window. Parents started to defend kids:

• They needed to be able to go outdoors
• We have all these natural areas behind our development but we can’t enjoy them (by the way, I enjoy it every day)
• They had no place to play with their ATVs around here
• Who are we to tell them what they can do and cannot do
• This is public land and should be open for all to us they see fit

Some folks became amazingly defensive of their kids, while in my post I deliberate did not accuse anyone and did not even hint at the fact that these kids were suspects. They became uncivil, abusive and in fact fighting for their freedom. This became particularly apparent when I asked the simple question: “so teach them (kids) they can get away with breaking the law and destroying the environment?” Here I saw exactly what I learned just now the difference between Republicans (65% of the electorate in our development) and Democrats (the other 35%), abusive and very vocal about freedom versus ethical, environmental and empathetic, respectively. You also saw whose kids did it; that the parent’s know it, they came out in a hurry and that they were trying to shelter them from the authorities.

At this point, I needed to stop all comments to my post and the administrator of our Facebook page had to remind folks of the rules of civility. Here I was trying to be protective of the environment and of people’s enjoyment of it; however, my post ended up to be too “cruel to be kind” (to some). That is why that song popped up in my head. It seems that we are increasingly loosing civility in our society and more polarized; another example of schismogenesis at work!