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(To view a far more visually attractive, easily readable version of this report -- with essays dating back to 2009, and portfolios of relevant photographs -- all without the obvious, vexing, impossible-to-solve-in-less-than-two-hours formatting conflicts between Typepad and Blogger -- please go here.)
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Another Format Change: One I Hope Will Enhance Readability
YES
WANTONLY TARDY BUT this time without regret beyond the need to
apologize for any resultant inconvenience because this late posting is
the unavoidable consequence of the unanticipated re-activation of a
near-lifelong obsession as confessed beneath the other reason for this
belatedness: a format-redesign suggested by a few readers who tell me
that while they regard the present form of Dispatches as vital,
they also suspect it may include so many links their sheer number might
be off-putting not only to the chronically busy but even to normally
preoccupied people.
Hence -- with thanks to those who verbalized what I sensed but could not put into words -- the following changes:
(1)-To
shorten these contents without sacrificing their relevance -- and also
to abbreviate my work here enough I can begin focusing on other
essential projects -- I will publish only one daily story-link to news
websites that update only once a day. I'll publish more links -- though
still only one per update -- as required by websites that publish
multiple news anthologies and commentaries throughout the day. That one link (as in the case of CounterPunch) -- or as many as four or five links (as in the case of Reader Supported News)
-- not only get us into their respective websites but position us to
scan their full contents and thereby choose what else we might want to
read, which in turn relieves me of any need to dare guess what someone
else might find relevant.
(2)-When
there is a separate lead story, as there was yesterday and as there is
today, there will be no "General News" category; indeed that category
will henceforth be reserved for news and comment that seemingly has no
connection to the virus pandemic but is at least contextually relevant.
(3)-While
I will (of course) continue to follow the report-selection criteria
outlined in the left-hand column, I will publish no more than a
half-dozen selections in each category, with each story chosen as the
best-available alternative-media exemplification of whatever horror it
exposes.
My hope is these changes will make Dispatches more universally useful. Please feel free to comment either in support or opposition.
*****
Apropos
last Friday's "Unprecedented" report and last Wednesday's "Risk
Drowning in Your Own Snot" analysis of the Wisconsin horror, New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman addresses some of the same frightful probabilities in a report for access to which we should most emphatically thank Reader Supported News (preferably with a donation) and its Founder/Publisher/Editor Marc Ash.
*****
Reliable anthologies of pandemic reports (scroll for whatever you deem relevant):
Virus Outbreak
Updated constantly by the Associated Press.
Updated constantly by the Associated Press.
Black Agenda Report
Updated regularly. In my opinion, the best, most informative, most relevant political website on the U.S. Internet.
Updated regularly. In my opinion, the best, most informative, most relevant political website on the U.S. Internet.
RT - Breaking news, shows, podcasts
Democratic (sic) Party Big Lies and Republican censorship not withstanding, this site provides what is often the most truthful reporting available to us in the United States. Updated often.
Democratic (sic) Party Big Lies and Republican censorship not withstanding, this site provides what is often the most truthful reporting available to us in the United States. Updated often.
TASS Russian News Agency
Just as Propagandamaster Bezos' WaPo gives us the Predatory Plutocrats' perspective, so does this site -- formerly Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (Телегра́фное аге́нтство Сове́тского Сою́за, Telegrafnoye agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza) -- give us, in English, the often-radically different Russian government's perspective. (It's history, dating from 1904, makes interesting reading for mediaphyles.) Updated often.
Just as Propagandamaster Bezos' WaPo gives us the Predatory Plutocrats' perspective, so does this site -- formerly Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (Телегра́фное аге́нтство Сове́тского Сою́за, Telegrafnoye agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza) -- give us, in English, the often-radically different Russian government's perspective. (It's history, dating from 1904, makes interesting reading for mediaphyles.) Updated often.
Xinhua
Ditto for the news agency of the People's Republic of China. Xinhua's reports are regularly updates and its history is here.
Ditto for the news agency of the People's Republic of China. Xinhua's reports are regularly updates and its history is here.
Must Reads from The Washington PostUseful
information listed last because I deplore the arrogant intrusiveness
implicit in the notion of "must reads," and because -- as applies to
anything originating in the diverse bailiwicks over which
Propagandamaster Bezos's kings it so imperiously -- we should never
forget how he protects himself and his fellow predatory plutocrats with
self- censorship1 and warmongering lies.
Indications of the pandemic's true magnitude and consequences:
Oxfam: COVID-19 Could Plunge Half a Billion People Into PovertyMore confirmation of the apocalyptic horrors I addressed Friday in the "Unprecedented" report.
Schwab: Self-dealing, election-fixing bitter pills to swallow
Examples of the pandemic of moral imbecility that is helping the coronavirus pandemic kill us off.
Examples of the pandemic of moral imbecility that is helping the coronavirus pandemic kill us off.
Other pandemic-related indications and/or questions:
Second Amendment FoundationRights groups sue New Mexico Gov., Challenging Emergency Order.
Especially for Washingtonians:
A New World Is Being Born: What Will It Be?
A trustworthy source -- a vehemently anti-Trump conservative who ever-more-frequently seems to lean Leftward -- speculates on our probable futures.
A trustworthy source -- a vehemently anti-Trump conservative who ever-more-frequently seems to lean Leftward -- speculates on our probable futures.
Lives Lost: A mismatched pair's love story ends with virus
Held over because it is fine unusually sensitive reporting, the sort of work that proves AP still hires real journalists -- those of us for whom it is a way of life rather than just another job.
Held over because it is fine unusually sensitive reporting, the sort of work that proves AP still hires real journalists -- those of us for whom it is a way of life rather than just another job.
A Family’s Fetid Week With CoronavirusHeld
over because it is the most outspoken, most emotionally honest, most
implicitly life-supportive and by far the best reporting I have read in many
years. Indeed, Reyhan Harmanci is a writer whose talent I'd have
recognized with a full-time general-assignment staff-job (way, way) back
when "editor" was the key part of my job-title. (For more of her work,
click on her "Family's Fetid Week" byline.)
Important stuff to bear in mind:(All
of which helps us understand more about what the PluPreds are doing to
us now and what they might intend to do to us in the future.)
How a Network of Ukrainian Ultra-Nationalists Penetrated Canada’s Conservative Party to Lobby for Military ConflictNew: Glimpses of the re-emergent international Nazi Axis: is Mitch the Malignant's NeoConfederacy already a secret member?
‘Collateral Murder’ and the My Lai MassacreRLS. Vital to understanding why the U.S. government's response to the deadly Covid-19 pandemic is genocidal rather than protective.
Contrasting the U.S. population's long-ago outage at Vietnam war crimes
with its present-day enthusiasm for atrocities against Muslims (and all
other peoples of color) reveals how decades of Ayn Rand indoctrination
purged the United States of any pretense of humanitarianism and reduced
it to a thoroughly Nazified white-racist realm in which self-obsessed
moral imbecility is the ruling ethos and revolution (or even effective
resistance) is thus rendered psychologically impossible. Additional
details here.
FOCUS: This White House Doesn't Give Two Shits About You
I am no fan of Michael Moore, but in this short piece he speaks bitter truth for us all.
I am no fan of Michael Moore, but in this short piece he speaks bitter truth for us all.
Trump Admits Easy Voting Would Defeat Republicans
How gerrymandering and methodical voter-suppression have reduced our elections to meaningless charades.
How gerrymandering and methodical voter-suppression have reduced our elections to meaningless charades.
Goldman Sachs warns that curing patients may not be 'sustainable'
Outright acknowledgment from the deadliest Neoliberal predators that curing disease with a single treatment is bad for profits. A report from 2018 that explains what's being done to us today, hence given knife-edged relevance by the pandemic.
Outright acknowledgment from the deadliest Neoliberal predators that curing disease with a single treatment is bad for profits. A report from 2018 that explains what's being done to us today, hence given knife-edged relevance by the pandemic.
Average U.S. Citizens Have “Little Or No” Influence On Government Policy
Another "old" report given new relevance by what's being done to us today.
Another "old" report given new relevance by what's being done to us today.
The Truth About the United States' "Continuity of Government" Plans & The Coronavirus Perfect StormScroll
down to the 12th graf to learn how at least eight million U.S. citizens
are on the PPs' enemies lists and will be disappeared.
Military, Trump administration ready plans for domestic crackdown as virus spreads across US
From the report: "'a senior military planner working on coronavirus but not authorized to speak on sensitive planning matters [...] says that deployment of federal troops in support roles is being prepared,' including to conduct traffic stops, home searches and seizures and arrests." Scroll to Footnote2 to learn what atrocities could thus be inflicted on us.
From the report: "'a senior military planner working on coronavirus but not authorized to speak on sensitive planning matters [...] says that deployment of federal troops in support roles is being prepared,' including to conduct traffic stops, home searches and seizures and arrests." Scroll to Footnote2 to learn what atrocities could thus be inflicted on us.
Avenger Planet: Is the Covid-19 Pandemic Mother Nature's Response to Human Transgression?
Excellent question -- though as a (solitary-practice) Gaian Pagan, I would cite the scientific hypothesis that bears the Earth Goddess' name and answer "almost certainly yes." (One of the innumerable reasons the ChristoNazis so despise us is the majority of our beliefs are based on science -- the ultimate terminator of all patriarchal religion.)
Excellent question -- though as a (solitary-practice) Gaian Pagan, I would cite the scientific hypothesis that bears the Earth Goddess' name and answer "almost certainly yes." (One of the innumerable reasons the ChristoNazis so despise us is the majority of our beliefs are based on science -- the ultimate terminator of all patriarchal religion.)
How to Make a DIY Mask From a T-Shirt or BandannaNew; hopefully useful; have not tried it myself.
CARES Act Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for FreelancersUseful, potentially lifesaving economic information.
(Disclosure: I am a longtime National Writers Union member and
co-chaired one of their local writers' workshops c. 2009-2011.)
Handling mail amid coronavirus: Low risk but wash your handsMy
practice is to assume everything from outside is potentially
contaminated, hence I wash my hands thoroughly after handling any
incoming packages and sanitize any surface upon which they might have
rested or been unwrapped.
_________________
1As to what prompts my sudden skepticism of virus coverage by The Washington Post, note how quickly Bezos or one of his zero-tolerance subordinates imposed paywall censorship on this pivotally important 20 March story (scroll down to "U.S. intelligence reports"), which for only a very few short minutes appeared as part of WaPo's
non-paywalled daily virus report. Pretending to be real journalists
rather than the Regime's scribes -- a mental downgrading inflicted as
much by the clerical drudgery necessitated by computers as by the chief
Josef-Goebbels-wannabee Bezos himself -- is a form of moral imbecility I
cannot abide.
2Be aware that "home searches and seizures"
could include not only confiscation of all real or potential weapons
but -- given the ChristoNazi Regime's anti-marijuana fanaticism --
confiscation of, and arrest for possession of, all the (still federally
illegal) medical marijuana upon which such a huge number of
opiate-denied chronic-pain victims are now forced to depend. Too --
given the Regime's even more fanatical hatred of women and female
sexuality -- such raids might also be used to confiscate all
birth-control devices and criminalize all unwed women who possess them,
thereby fulfilling still more of the PPs' ChristoNazis objectives. Thus
-- by such mass arrests -- could the Regime give its plutocratic owners
the ultimate "gift" of permanently enslaving millions of U.S. citizens
for brutally hard, typically deadly labor, thereby granting our Masters'
wish of exterminating "surplus workers" while following the German
Nazis' model of amassing unlimited profits from mass murder.
(As always, headlines are reproduced in their original up-style and down-style formats.)
*****
THE
"NEAR LIFELONG OBSESSION" I cited in today's lead paragraph is my
interest in and fascination with folklore -- especially that which
preserves in expertly disguised form the content -- and often the
residual power -- of the liturgies that evolved from our ancient
relationship with the Great Goddess.
As
most of us know, these liturgies and the ethos they sustained were
suppressed -- sometimes violently, sometimes more gradually -- as the
disciples of patriarchy continued their methodical destruction of human
freedom.
But never until I happened yesterday upon an English translation of the Norse ballad "I Ridden Så"
lyrics have I known such a movingly exquisite lament for the passing
of the Goddess that tells the less-violent aspect of her usurpation more
poignantly. And so I was moved to spend a rather long while polishing
the comment-thread contribution that came to me in such a burst of
(dyslexia-scrambled) inspiration, it took many hours to move it from the
verge of "speaking in (pagan) tongues" into comprehensible prose,
paragraphed as it would have been but for limitations mandated by the
thread in which it first appeared:
This
bardical work and the bard who so exquisitely sings it cannot but evoke
the most heartfelt tears of anguish and yearning, at least amongst
those of us who know something of how to read the druidical/bardical
riddles intended to camouflage the traditional ballads that preserve
bits of the ancient yet fully effective liturgies inspired by our
original relationship with the Goddess. This is obviously a Dark Ages
lament for her passing as a result of the forcible Christianization of
the North, no doubt the disguised
(maybe-won't-get-you-burned-at-the-stake) version of the sort of
musically accompanied poetry that's been traced to its Neolithic origins
and conjectural pre-patriarchal forms by the late Duke University
folklorist Olof Nygard (spelling correct) and several present-day women
of wisdom and skill including Diane DiPrima, the late Barbara Mor and my
very dear late friend Helen Farias.
But as we shall see, this lament also embodies an ancient implicit promise -- and with it, reason for present-day hope.
Its
story begins by acknowledging the extent to which the ecogenocidal
ethos of patriarchy has already been metastasized into the few remaining
pagan realms, the acknowledgment expressed in how the Goddess as maiden
is brought to the birthing grove not by the Goddess as her loving
Mother, as she would have been in the pre-patriarchal past, but now by
her conquering Father, where she squats one final time amidst her sacred
trees to birth her divine twins, the gods, as she has done so many
times before. (One of the twins’ earliest incarnations was as the rival
deities of summer oak and winter holly.)
In
the past she saw her sons into young godlinghood, but this time one son
comes with her to church for their baptism (Freya or Freyia was the
Nordic Gaia), the other is sent to Valhalla, there to remain blameless
for all that ensues below as he whiles away the millennia, perhaps in
mead-drenched oblivion, as he anticipates some “once-and-future” pledge
of return.
Now probably 11 or 12 centuries after this song evolved into its
present form (and amidst what is obviously the beginning of the
Apocalypse), perhaps the Goddess will do as she seems to pledge by the
gift of her "tiny gloves" to her brother to bear "everywhere he goes" --
obviously so she might don them again when we the world's human people
once more learn -- as learn we must lest we render ourselves extinct --
to "ride gently through the grove with Her."
Beyond
which let me repeat again my praise and gratitude for the quality of
this performance and its compellingly expressive tape, so movingly well
done I can scarcely find superlatives adequate to express its
praiseworthiness.
And to which I now add the following:
Performances
such as this are rituals of invocatory magic, which our Ivy-League
educated Overlords have known at least since Woodstock. But they were
loathe to act upon their own fear and loathing (as the late Hunter
Thompson so aptly named it), their oppression delayed not by
humanitarianism (for as certified moral imbeciles they long ago formally
rejected any such restraint), but out of entirely rational suppositions
the necessarily radical and therefore blatant expansion of their
tyrannies would prematurely end the charade of "exceptionalist
democracy" -- which by the way is an outrageous contradiction in terms
-- before they had completed their federal militarization of the local police and built enough concentration camps to contain the
resultant tsunami of dissidents.
Now
however under Trump they are losing all restraint. Indeed they seem on
the brink of some obscene contest to see which team of the Ruling Class
puppets -- Democratic (sic) or Republican -- can out-ecogenocide the
other.
LB/13 April 2020 10:19 PDT
-30-
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