The Most Heartbreaking Thing In My Life Right Now

Entering your septuagenarian decade is a good news/bad news proposition for most of us. We have reached the age where members of our families are no longer with us and some of those old friends we have had since childhood also are no longer with us. We have become those grandparents that we so fondly remember, even though I suspect we all feel younger than our mindset for grandparents. Our topic this week is "The most heartbreaking thing in my life now".

I have narrowed that to two things, the first being personal - the fact that my daughter has Huntington's Disease - the disease that killed my late wife Lynn. Jamie is on a nearly identical trajectory with the disease as Lynn was. Unlike Lynn, having gone through this once with her mother, Jamie is actively aware of what her future holds. I assure you it is not pleasant. There is a treatment in development that could be very helpful called CRISPR - where the defective gene is snipped and removed, thereby eliminating the disease. Duke University in North Carolina is a major player and we are searching for a trial group but have been as yet unsuccessful. Jamie is doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances but there are good days and bad - most typically revolving around our relationship. She struggles with the knowledge that each of her three children has a 50% chance of having HD. 

The other most heartbreaking thing in my life now is the condition of my country. The complete lack of civility in our discourse and the fact that a pathological liar, amoral sociopath has the  attention of nearly half of the population. We have devolved into a society where half of the population embraces the lies and bizarre conspiracy theories of QAnon. The religious far right embraced the lies and conspiracy theories to allow the Supreme Court to be stacked with conservative chistians.  Their hope is to advance their anti-abortion agenda. But, worst of all is the realization that all of the work done on  civil rights matters in the sixties is unraveling before our very eyes. GOP-controlled state legislatures across the country are passing voter registration laws with the intent to suppress the votes of minorities. One state has passed a law making it illegal to supply water to persons waiting in lines to vote. This was done 4because the GOP still supports the notion that Joe Biden stole the election from Donald Trump thanks to the allegedly fraudulent votes of vast numbers of black voters. Race attacks against Asians are on the rise because of the ranting of some folks that China is responsible for the pandemic that has claimed over 500 thousand Americans, even while claiming the pandemic is a fraud and the death figures attributed to it are a lie.

Gun rights supporters have convinced their multitudes that the government is after their guns - all because there is a call for real background checks for gun purchasers. The recently deposed president worked enough of his followers into a frenzy that there was an armed insurrection on January 6. We are teetering on the brink of a second civil war. The politics of obstruction rule the day in both houses of congress. The GOP still supports the notion that Joe Biden stole the election from Donald Trump despite the conclusion of Trump's own appointed investigators that the election was fair and not fraudulent.

The browning of America is a terrifying thought to the apparently vast numbers of white supremacists suddenly appearing out of the woodwork. That points to some rocky roads in the future. Although I feel bad we seem to have left so much of the race issue left incomplete, I confess I am glad I will not be here to witness the next 40-50 years. I am, however, cautiously optimistic that things will work out for the best. 

That is my take on this weeks topic. Be sure to check what the other members of this little blogging group have to say. I'll see y'all next week, same bat time and same bat channel.

Ramana, Padmum, Raju, Srinivas, Conrad, Maria, and Sanjana

Bad Luck or Karma

How many times in your life have you been mired in a string of bad events, one after the other, and muttered to yourself Karma is a bitch. The truth of the matter is Karma is a bastard - he was male, according to Wikipedia. So much for today's history/anatomy lesson.

I commented to one of  our blogging group members not long ago that if not for bad luck she'd have no luck at all. She was having a run of serious bad luck including deaths in the family and was having a tough time. In this instance she literally was having a run of bad luck. Or was it really Karma? Karma, you see, is subject to cause and effect and related to things you have done in the past that cause a specific event. The term karma (Sanskrit: कर्म) refers to both the executed 'deed, work, action, act, and the 'object, intent'.

Luck is what Karma gives you when it sees you working hard with all you've got to achieve your goal. However, luck is a result of Karma. There's almost no such thing as pure luck. If you win the lottery, it's not that the ticket came flying to you. You bought it. In this case, Karma is you buying a ticket and luck is you winning the lottery.

Karma Chameleon - according to the lyricist and lead singer (Boy George) is about trying to suck up to everybody. Basically, if you aren't true, if you don't act like you feel, then you get Karma-justice. That's nature's way of paying you back. Bad luck.

With Karma and luck so thoroughly intertwined, it is easy to understand why they are so commonly misused and misunderstood. Those who believe in a higher "authority" - god, the universe or whatever are likely to subscribe any luck to their personal Karma.

People have free will to choose good or evil and suffer the consequences of their actions. John Lennon addressed the notion of people accepting responsibility for their actions in his song Instant Karma.

Karma became very popular in western culture in the late 60s and early 70s when the Beatles had something of a spiritual revolution (some might call it a spiritual evolution). It has been an important part of Indian philosophy for centuries, with roots in Hinduism and Buddhism. Buddha took what he learned of Karma from Hinduism and took it in a different direction - reminding me of Martin Luther a bit.

Where do I land in all of this? Well let's just say I believe in a higher power and in taking responsibility for my actions, good, bad, or otherwise. I have no objection with calling the results of my actions Karma. The jury is still out on how I feel about reincarnation, but if I suddenly find myself a duck-billed platypus at some time in the future I expect I might reconsider.

That's my quick shack take on this week's topic. Be sure to check what the others have to say on their blogs.

Ramana, Padmum, Raju, Srinivas, Conrad, Maria, and Sanjana---

I'll see all y'all next week, same bat time  - same bat channel.

Vaccination Drama

 I am sure most people my age remember their first mass vaccination experience. We all stood in long lines at a designated vaccination site to take the latest, greatest polio vaccine developed by a gentleman named Sabin. We popped a little sugar cube in our mouths and headed back home. Mine was given at Southgate School - the first school in California that I attended after moving from Colorado to California in 1959. That was the second polio vaccine available, the other being developed by Jonas Salk. I had that vaccination (regular needle type) years earlier in Colorado. As a result of those vaccinations,polio has been nearly eradicated. In 2016 only 42 cases of  polio were reported worldwide. Unfortunately the number of cases is on the rise, including cases caused by live strains of the virus included in the oral vaccinations.

Vaccine-derived polio is caused by remnants of earlier versions of the live virus used in the oral polio vaccine. The vaccine can be shed through feces. In places with poor sanitation, the vaccine can be spread through wastewater. Over time, the virus from the oral vaccine can replicate, regain strength and become just as virulent as the original virus against which it's supposed to protect. Most kids born after 2016 have no immunity to the most prominent vaccine-derived polio strain because that strain was thought to be on the verge of elimination and is no longer included in the primary oral vaccine they would have received.

The attempt to eradicate polio was going very well until it wasn't. Hmmmm - a few hundred cases of polio instead of hundreds of thousands. Have you heard of a case of smallpox recently? 

Now we are facing a worldwide pandemic that has killed over 500,000 Americans and 2.6 million worldwide. We are in the midst of a massive vaccination plan using vaccines approved for emergency use. Not surprisingly there is a degree of resistence to the vaccines available from a growing cadre of antivaxxers.  Covid-19 - the disease under assault by the vaccines is already mutating and changing. 

So why the drama over vaccination? Who wouldn't want a free vaccine that could protect them from serious illness and/or death? More people than you might think. Vaccination protects you and wearing a mask protects others because even if vaccinated you can be a carrier. Who wouldn't want to protect their loved ones? There are people that have been used by the government - experimented on and lied to that have a mistrust of the government. Trust me to them means buyer beware. Add to that the notion that the vaccines available for Covid-19 are seemingly  rush jobs thrown together without adequate testing and you can understand the resistance.  Then too, there is the fact that the part of the population that is the most adversely affected by Covid-19 is the least respected age group - seniors - and populations of color in our population. It is as if Covid-19 is simply the tool of natural selection and is just thinning the herd while offering survival of the fittest. Of course very few people will publicly state their support for that concept but we are clearly in the midst of  a white supremacist revolution of sorts. Lastly, a segment of  our population view Covid-19 as a biological warfare assault on the USA by the Chinese.

The decision was easy for me as every comorbidity that could affect my chances of survival is part of  my makeup. I am an obese senior citizen with type 2 diabetes and congestive heart failure. My chances of surviving a bout with Covid-19 are about the same as surviving a fight with Mike Tyson or George Forman in their prime. As we have learned how to treat the original strain of Covid-19, the new  variants are more virulent and  more highly communicable. We are likely to be dealing with this bugger for years. 

The choice is yours. Take the protection offered by vaccination or take your chances against a virus whose sole objective is survival. Don't want the government having any more control over your life? Do you really believe Bill Gates wants to microchip the planet through vaccines? Are you convinced that 5G radio frequency communications have a damaging health impact, and that either these are directly making people sick (i.e. COVID-19 doesn’t exist and people are actually suffering from 5G effects) or the radiation is depressing peoples’ immune systems and therefore making them more likely to suffer from the virus.

Your drama is your drama. Take the vaccine or do not take the vaccine. The choice is yours. Common sense win out or not. That is my take on this week's topic. For the record, I am approaching 24 hours since my second shot of the Pfizer  vaccine. No effects.

Be sure to check the other bloggers in our little blogging group to see what they think of Maria's suggested topic. 

Ramana, Padmum, Raju, Srinivas, Conrad, Maria, and Sanjana

I'll see all y'all next week, same bat time  - same bat channel.

The Exploration of Outer Space

Space, the final frontier...To boldly go where no man or woman has gone before. 

The irony is not lost on me. Thanks to the pandemic,we have been locked down and quarantined. Now, some states are opening up and unleashing the heretofor cooped up masses. 

While we work to once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, we are seriously on Mars - checking out the red planet more seriously than ever before. Manned flight to Mars is on the drawing board, private enterprise is doing more for space exploration than we ever thought possible. Reusable launch vehicles are now a reality and another moon shot in the works. Once again, we have something new and exciting to keep our minds off the failures brought on by the pandemic.

Do you remember this? 

That song - in its original version - is one I 

heard on the car radio (in that infamous Mustang convertible) on the day Armstrong walked

on the moon. I was on Hwy 92 having just crossed the San Mateo bridge and headed to Half Moon Bay to meet the gang. Call it a Twilight Zone moment - the song was not released nor even  completed when I heard it. I looked for it for months as John Stewart was and is a favorite of mine.

Space exploration has been on my mind since I lived in Pueblo Colorado when my folks and I went to the drive in movietheater and watched Forbidden Planet. That was it for me - I was hooked. Then I saw The Day The Earth Stood Still on TV. The politics of the time went right over my head but boy was that robot Gort cool. In fact, the guy who owned the company that  my late wife and I worked for in the early seventies nicknamed me Gort.

Next came Star Trek and then Star Wars and all of the one off movies - including my all time fave space opera, The Last Starfighter. 

We launched Voyager and that one is still out there. Then there is the SETI Institute - America's only organization whose very existance is dedicated to searching for life in the universe.

Space has been on people's minds since the days of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon - even longer. For all of our flaws, 

we humans are a curious race. Not  curious as odd but curious as inquisitive. What is out there? Who is out there?  What is our place in the grand scheme of things? 

So here we are - back in a space race and our timing could not be better. After being locked down for a year, we are raring to go. Private companies are building the vehicles. Our resident crazy South African is building a vehicle to get us to Mars and that Branson guy may as well. The excitement is building and should continue to do as we press on. Every milestone we reach should fuel the fire within us to keep exploring. We may even run into this little guy once again.

If nothing else, I hope this weeks blog captures some of the excitement I feel about space exploration. These are strange times we live in - and the times they are a changin'. See ya next week for the next 8 on 1 blog as we get back into the swing of things. Conrad picked this week's topic and be sure to see what the other bloggers have to say. I'll see ya next week, same bat time - same bat channel.

Ramana, Padmum, Raju, Srinivas, Conrad, Maria, and Sanjana

Will the Balance of Power Be Impacted by the Pandemic?.0

With the entire world stage dominated by the Pandemic, it is interesting to contemplate how the pandemic will impact the balance of power, if at all.

I see the world stage dominated by China/India, China/USA, and China/Australia along with USA/China, USA/India, and USA/Australia relations. Russia can possibly sneak in with their relations with Central and South American countries. Primary among those relations are the world's continued  reliance on fossil fuels.

As solar and other sources are developed pay careful attention to the countries rich in the compounds that make up the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles. Watch how Russia, China and the USA react to those countries as they each seek to gain control over those critical resources.

How is the Pandemic impacting countries and thus possibly the balance of power? Vaccines. Watch how Russia and China share their vaccines with the nations of the world.

We have spent decades living under a Balance of Terror. Russia and the USA have long stockpiled sufficient nuclear arsenals to obliterate the planet several times, and even though the cold war ended decades ago whenever a new country enters the nuclear club it wants to flex its muscles. New alliances may be in our future and the balance of power may enter a state of flux like no other in history.

Yes the balance of power is likely to change and  I think in large part it will realign largely how we exit the pandemic. The primary influence is likely to be if the USA ever regains the respect it once commanded on the world stage that was nearly rendered extinct when our previous administration was in office. The extent of the damage it presided over is only now showing itself, including the spreading danger posed by white supremacist militias. Can we overcome the internal strife caused by POTUS 45 and his band of marauders? We are about to find out.

Please check the blogs of the other members of this unique blogging team

Ramana, Padmum, Raju, Srinivas, Conrad, Maria,  and Sanjana

Breaktime - what do you do when you get the chance for a break from your busy schedule?

 2020 - what a long, strange year it has been. Many of us have experienced unheard of levels of  stress -I know I sure have. So how do all y'all cope? 

Most of you can guess that I spend a fair amount of time lost in music. There is very little music I do not care for. You are not likely to see me listening to an opera. I love Broadway musicals which I discovered as a kid. Camelot is my all time fave, though I prefer the movie to the stage version unless the stage version has Richard Harris as Arthur.

I used to read a lot. My record in books for  a year is over 300 but my preference is mystery fiction, sword and sorcery fiction and the like. Most of that is a quick one night's read for me but I do savor a good Harry Dresen novel by Jim Bitcher or a Kate Shugak novel by Dana Stabenow.  Very few classics make my list as I am more interested in current culture and firmly believe mystery writers are as accurate at chronicling the life and times of their characters as any so called classical author.

Then there is the popcorn movie. The multitub of popocorn, typically action/adventure flick that you kick back and relax. Think Indiana Jones, Harry Potter or my all time fave popcorn movie The Last Starfighter. I confess to a crush on Catherine Mary Stewart since I saw that one and there is a sequel coming.

For the record, my all time favorite movie is a little anti-war ditty called The Americanization of Emily.

Back to music for the home stretch. Movie and TV themes are a great source of relaxation for me. Who doesn't get a warm, fuzzy feeling when they hear the Theme from Cheers? Remember this one? Hill Street Blues.

Some of the best themes come from westerns -here is one of my faves Silverado

That's it for how I relax - save for that occasional lost in thought moment. The astute reader will note that I am a very simple guy. I suspect another sign off this week is more appropriate - Happy Trails

This week's topic was chosen by me. Be sure to check other bloggers in our group's take at their respective blogs: Ramana, Maria, Sanjana, Padmum, Raju, Srinivas, and Conrad.

Modern Democracy - Success or Failure

This week's topic was chosen by Raju. Be sure to check his take and the other 6 bloggers in our group's take at their respective blogs: Ramana, Maria, Sanjana, Padmum, Raju, Srinivas, and Conrad.

As a prelude to the topic  I offer this as a backdrop

11

Democracy dates back to the ancient Greek and Roman city states and has evolved through several different flavors over the years. The largest democracy in the world is India and the most powerful is the United States.

The last few  years have seen a largely amoral POTUS attempt to tear down the institutions of our government and instill a hard-right nationalist fervor which he succeeded in doing - you may recall  the armed militia, on the steps of the Michigan capitol and the arrest of several militia members planning to kidnap and possibly execute the governor of Michigan. Our country's divide is as deep and wide as the Grand canyon.

Democracy speaks to how we select our government or the leaders of any institution. You would be hard pressed to find people who prefer any other way of selecting leaders.  

Once the leaders are chosen, how they choose to govern largely dictates the success or failure as a democracy,  Types of democracy? Too numerous to list  or discuss  here. We, the USA, are a Republic. It seems our founders were not so enamored of direct democracy, as in their day that often meant democracy without the protection of a constitution enshrining basic rights. James Madison suggested a direct democracy got weaker as it got  larger whereas a republic could get stronger as it got larger (see the Federalist 10).

World population review list the top 10 of the most democratic nations in the world are: Norway (9.87) Iceland (9.58) Sweden (9.39) New Zealand (9.26) Finland (9.25) Ireland (9.24) Canada (9.22) Denmark (9.22) Australia (9.09) Switzerland (9.03). The bottom of the entire list is anchored by North Korea, the USA comes in at 25. You can see the entire list here - just scroll down through the ads and other info to the list.

Obviously economic performance is a huge indicator of the success or failure of a democracy. I believe the future success or failure of democracy lies with the success or failure of two countries - the USA and India. The USA has long been that shining ight on the hillside so often talked about.  Clearly though, the last four years show we are not without issues that must be resolved. While we do possess the treasure and strength to be a world cop, the wherewithal to do so may be waning a bit. I see that strength in India and a population willing to do nearly anything to be successful. The entrepreneurial spirit I have seen from India is mind boggling and they have the technical expertise. India is an effective counterweight to China with China ahead at the moment but with India in the race for the long haul. FYI, India's democracy score is 7.23, the USA is 7.96 and China is 3.32. Globalization increases daily as communication and technical growth run wild. Market stresses caused by changing and shrinking resources require technical innovation - such as ceasing global dependence on fossil fuels. Changing weather patterns will affect food supplies and population centers. It is going to be a vastly different world in 50 years. Democracy will make a difference, as in my opinion a largely east vs west slugfest becomes a north vs south slugfest.

Modern Democracy has been very much a success to this point thanks in large part to the success and growth of the USA. How the USA reacts to internal power changes, as the next generation of leaders assume control, and external power as  more nations step up on the world stage for their piece of the pie. India, this means you, will determine the future success or failure of democracy. Of course, we live in a nuclear world and there is always the chance some buffoon pushes the button that brings it all crashing down on us. I personally think the chance of that happening increases in direct proportion to the increasing political power of religions. There is a reason our country was founded with a very distinct separation of church hand state.  

That's it for this week's topic. See ya next week, same bat time, same bat channel.