Covid Mortality Rate

 I just read an article about the soaring housing costs in Dubai. Seem 90% of the people who live there are foreign nationals. Lots of reasons, but interestingly, about 700,000 Russians have relocated since the war with Ukraine and many are finding refuge in Dubai.  But also Dubai had fewer Covid restrictions than other countries, and even encouraged tourism.  So I looked up Covid mortality.  Worldwide the mortality rate is .009.  For Dubai, it is .002.  So, 761,401,518 have been infected and 6,886,987 have died, and that makes .009. 

Praying for Anna

Fixed hour prayer time observances are very old in the Judeo-Christian worship traditions--Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Episcopal--but not in mine. I've made one up--6, 9, 12, 3, 6 and 9 and am praying for a fictional Russian grandmother (great-grandmother) who is my age and I've named Anna Ivanovna. She represents all Russian grandmothers whose grandchildren will go back to Russia in body bags because of Putin's foolishness in wanting to reestablish ancient Russia. So in my mind's eye she is 82. Although data for the early 1940s on life expectancy in Russia have been lost due to the war, she's lived beyond the average. In her formative years she would have been nutritionally deprived. She's educated but lost her government job and pension when the USSR collapsed. I don't blame her for not believing her government run news or Putin about what's going on in Ukraine. She doesn't even have a tradition of a free and honest press; I do/did and can't believe mine either! In my fictional grandma story, her father (Ivan) died before she knew him in WWII; her grandfather died in the Stalin purges of the 1930s; her great grandparents were children of emancipated serfs and lived through the turmoil of 1905 and 1917.

Home grown dezinformatsiya/дезинформация

“Russian internet trolls worked overtime in 2016 to inject disinformation into American elections. A year later, as news reports now reveal, Democratic operatives, some funded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, tried out these same tactics to boost Senator Doug Jones in Alabama. Russia’s online dezinformatsiya has gone native, and it will get worse.”  Wall Street Journal, Jan. 12, 2019

Disinformation, fake news, false narratives, conspiracy theories,  obfuscation, propaganda, yellow journalism, and flat out lies have always been a part of the American political process.  Disinformation is more a government embedded plan, but how are we to know our own government doesn’t do the same.  It was the Clinton campaign in 2008 which launched the “Obama birth certificate” story, which then made numerous evolutions through the right wing.  Her campaign also funded the fake dossier about Trump in Russia. None was done without the help of the deep state.

Not sure why WSJ is giving all the credit for our own home grown mischief and tactics to the Russians or even social media and the internet.  After all, we’ve got George Soros and all his many sticky fingers into U.S. non-profits and churches.

 

“The Kremlin’s “dezinformatsiya” campaign—whether carried out against Ukraine, Estonia, Germany or the U.S.—involves “a bewildering array of narratives designed to distort truth and confuse its enemies,” Mr. Patrikarakos writes. And of course it isn’t just the Kremlin that operates in such a way. “Obfuscation has found its perfect platforms” in the realm of social media, he notes, reaching “audiences to a degree unprecedented in modern history.” The conditions are ripe: “In the postmodern Western world, where academics decry the notion of an ‘objective truth,’ where the lack of trust in institutions is lower than at any other time in living memory, this type of information finds a receptive audience.”” (War in 140 Characters)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/26/before-fake-news-there-was-soviet-disinformation/?

 

(WND books, 2013)

Go to the Amazon site and “look inside” for an overview of this book.

This is what you get with socialism

“Eighty years ago (November 17, 1938) Stalin ended the Great Terror, citing “local excesses” that had come to his attention. It wasn’t until two decades later that the KGB tallied the victims of the sixteen-month reign of terror at 1,334,360. Half were shot, and the rest sentenced to the Gulag. The Gulag itself continued to grow during and after the Second World War. It reached its peak of 2.5 million prisoners shortly before Stalin’s death. Of these, one out of five were women.”

https://www.womenofthegulag.com/

“Many hoped the Bolshevik Revolution one hundred years ago would usher in a new era of gender and class equality. Following the revolution, Soviet Russia declared “International Women’s Day” an official holiday, and “Marxist feminists” romanticize communism to this day. Women of the Gulag, both a remarkable book and a documentary film, highlights the disparity between the Soviet Union’s alleged gender equality and the reality of life for women under communism.”

Yes, we hear about gender equity from our college students and leftists in business and government.

“Joseph Stalin was responsible for the deaths of over 20 million people. Yet today in America, teaching on the crimes of communism is so bad that almost one third of Millennials think President George W. Bush killed more people than this Marxist mass-murderer. Those who are familiar with the history of Stalin’s Soviet Union might recall the name of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and his iconic Gulag Archipelago. Fewer still know that the majority of those who experienced—and survived—the Gulag were women, and it is their experiences, their memories, that must be preserved and shared to ensure the next generation understands the consequences of Stalin’s failed collectivist policies and his horrific disregard for human life.”

https://womenofthegulag.com/media-press/

NPR and The Donald

I was listening to NPR while putting away groceries. Did you know there is a woman in St. Petersburg posting discord and disrespect on Twitter who's a threat to our election integrity? I thought about it, and I'll stick with Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi and Rosie O'Donnell as bigger problems sowing hate and misinformation in our midterm elections. When that interview was over, the announcer went on to lament that President Trump called a prostitute "horse face," but had a soft spot of dictators. And all this with my tax money

Posting on Putin

The MSM (Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, etc.) plus all the leftist social media like Vox, HuffPo, Daily Beast are admitting that all the negative publicity they put out on Trump after he won the Republican primaries was no match for the truth about the Clinton campaign leaked by Wikileaks.

Putin must be feeling really powerful. He tips the scale of the civil war in Syria after Obama opts out, and causes chaos among millions of unhappy American Democrat voters creating a panic about the next president. A leak of Podesta's e-mails told Democrats what was going on in that party. A G-mail account . And Putin gets the credit for their dishonesty and duplicity.

Much of the anti-Putin, anti-Russia news slant is recent. Most Americans are not on social media and many don't trust the MSM or this administration to report accurately. So I'm not surprised when we hear/read that a survey (fake news?) showed Putin rated high with Republicans (it's still a minus number but has come up). And why not? For over a decade liberals told how wonderful the Russians were, they were our allies, good source of new businesses etc. , churches were op...en and growing. And before that liberals loved the Soviets. President Bush said he looked in Putin's eyes and saw his soul, or something like that. Hillary Clinton as Sec. State was very chummy offered a reset button for them to play with and Obama promised off mic that after the 2012 election he could be even more friendly (obviously another promise broken). 

The Russians haven't bombed any nightclubs or Christmas parties, they haven't been cozy with Cuba since the 90s, so where would Americans get a negative view if not from this administration--and many of us hit mute when Obama takes the platform for disinformation? As Democrats began blaming Putin for their own failures (Podesta's e-mails), Republicans' view of him went up. Even the recent Aleppo news strongly condemning and blaming Russia is a little strange, since this administration helped create the chaos in Syria. As one Russian reporter pointed out, there hasn't been a single day of peace since Obama took office.

 Watched an analysis (don't know her name) on Fox today of Obama's presser yesterday criticizing the media for their negative coverage of Clinton during the campaign. I guess seconds or a minute about her e-mails was just too much. She said there wasn't enough soap in the world to scrub the brown off their noses. I thought that was pretty good.

 Huma Abedin's e-mails on her husband's laptop weren't hacked--the FBI found them when looking for sex crimes of her husband. I personally think that was very negative publicity--but certainly not from Putin.
FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation is still on-going. Was the FBI being manipulated by Putin?

One of the strangest things I heard in Obama's press conference yesterday was that he'd warned Putin personally in September not to interfere with our election. There would be consequences. If he believes Putin did it, why would he admit to one more failure?

Week 7 Lakeside 2015

The programs this past week were excellent--at least for me.  I’m sure some people didn’t want to hear a Methodist seminary president from Moscow, but I enjoyed it.  I’d been a little puzzled about Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church--he never struck me as a Christian, being former KGB.  But as Dr. Sergei Nikolaev explained it, Russia recognizes 4 religions, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist. The Russian Orthodox cooperate with the government.  It’s a draw, I think, who is infiltrating whom. And it was that way under the Tsars, the USSR and the Russian Federation.  The Tsar that invited the Orthodox to Christianize the Slavs was Vladimir—and that’s also Putin’s name.  Methodists, Pentecostals, Adventists, etc. are considered cults.  Even atheists consider the Russian Orthodox their church.  The afternoon programming was on China, Pakistan, and Thomas Merton and Pope John XXIII and Vatican II. A little syncretic, but since I watch so much Catholic TV, I’m a bit more tolerant of that than I used to be. It’s such a big tent, something we Protestants don’t have.  Next week is on travel and art—two of the countries (Italy and Egypt) I’ve visited, so looking forward to that.

Evening shows were also very good.  Of course, this is symphony time.  Saturday was ballet, and one of the best I can remember here.  Thursday with the Good Lovelies (Canadian) was a fun evening.  Last Friday, although not technically week 7, was the team from Happy Days, Donny Most and Anson Williams who played Richie’s friends on the mid 70s TV show “Happy Days.” It was fun to hear them tell stories of the cast relationships, try outs, mentoring and softball team. Both are very good singers, and Most has a night club act. We occasionally get Happy Days on retro TV stations, and saw one the next day.

On Wednesday I attended the Herb group discussion on the Lakeside daisy at the Train Station.  Very interesting.  It’s not actually a daisy.

That’s me in the second row end.

Glenn Beck’s series on the geo-political threat of Russia

Glenn Beck did part 2 of his Russian series tonight discussing the history of Russia going back a thousand years up to the role of Alexandr Dugin, a Putin adviser, and the alliance with various anti-liberal and liberal groups. For example, disgustingly anti-gay (to suck up to the family values Christians), but also vigorously anti-fracking (because Russia is the source of energy for all of Europe). It's a very confusing hodge podge to reinstate the 5th column the Communists lost in the U.S. But the U.S. is the enemy--it must be destroyed. He sees Putin manipulating the Orthodox church to gain power. During Soviet times, Russians were relocated all over the empire (usually as political punishment) and now is using their residency in those countries as excuses to take back those countries.  For instance, ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, Crimea, Uzbekistan or Belarus.

Does this guy look like Rasputin (crazy faith healer and spiritual adviser to the czarina) on purpose? Putin has found a role for the Orthodox Church, but just keep in mind, monarchs, kings, czars, presidents and Imans know how to use religious people.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/380614/dugins-evil-theology-robert-zubrin

http://www.glennbeck.com/2015/01/13/the-root-of-the-problem-russia-part-1-2/

Putin had this to say regarding Ukraine/Crimea during his recent state of the union address:

“For Russia, Crimea, ancient Korsun, Chersonesos, Sevastopol have a great civilization and sacred significance – as well as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for those who profess Islam and Judaism. That is how we are going to treat this. Now and forever. ”

Peter the Great said it and Putin/Dugin are saying it now. They see Russia as the “Third Rome”. Ukraine and Crimea are their holy sites. The significance of such traced back to the Apostle Andrew. Vladimir I was baptised there making Kievan Rus’ a Christian state. They’re going to defend and struggle for it as if it were the Vatican or the Temple Mount.

Children of the Tundra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQeNOiYL3AQ

This is Russia, but many of the lessons and child rearing thoughts will be familiar to you.  It’s about roots and challenges of the world.

Some children just want to return home to the Tundra (some have died trying), and others have become so worldly and accustomed to town benefits, they don’t want to return.

Amazing to watch toddlers eating frozen meat with a sharp knife at their mouth.  Reindeer Festival—what fun and competition.

Hutterites from Canada looking for roots in Ukraine

Interesting story of a group of Hutterites from Canada who go to Russia to display their hog equipment for sale and then go on the Ukraine (Hutterthal and Johannesruh) to look for their roots.  German Mennonites were moved to Ukraine in the 18th century because they were such good farmers, always keeping their language (Plattdeutsch), which caused them a lot of discrimination during WWI and WWII.  Many fled to U.S., Canada and South America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k3ga8jbmuA

The milking scenes are interesting—the women just go into the field, the cows are not restrained. Then deliver it.

Gorgeous scenes of farms and villages in Ukraine (2007).  Wonder what is happening there now?

Some history of the Hutterites and Jacob Hutter. How Lutherans became Hutterites after being banished for not converting to Catholicism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERBHXGUkcXM

                  

Why the privileged left the "Workers' Paradise"

"In January 2010, my father went to hear a talk by Boris Gulko, a Russian Jewish chess grandmaster who had won the USSR championship in 1977 and later emigrated to the United States, eventually winning the US championship as well. Knowing my interest in chess history, my father asked whether I had any questions I wanted him to pose to Gulko. One of my proposed questions was why Gulko had decided to leave the Soviet Union. My father said that this was a stupid question. The answer was too obvious.

Nonetheless, I persisted in urging him to ask it. After all, Gulko had been a privileged member of the Soviet elite who had every reason not to risk those privileges.

Gulko’s answer to my question was a telling one. He said that he did not want to be a “slave” anymore. Despite his relatively privileged status, he could no longer tolerate life under the control of a totalitarian state that, among other things, could take away all his privileges at any time.

Like most Soviet Jews, Gulko had experienced plenty of anti-Semitism. But it was not so much the special oppression of the Jews that led him to emigrate, but the generalized oppression he endured along with all the other citizens of Lenin’s Workers’ Paradise. My parents’ motives for leaving were in many ways similar to Gulko’s. They too were fleeing communism as much or more so than anti-Semitism. Only their decision was easier than his, since they didn’t have as much to lose."
Ilya Somin Memoirs

Somin's story of his family's coming to the USA when he was 5 knowing no English is very interesting. You can hear him debate the constitutionality of Obamacare here.

Perspective of an immigrant

"When I came to America in 1980 and experienced life in this country, I thought it was fortunate that those living in the USSR did not know how unfortunate they were.

Now in 2009, I realize how unfortunate it is that many Americans do not understand how fortunate they are. They vote to give government more and more power without understanding the consequences." Read Svetlana's article here.