Hopes and Dreams - Stuck on AutoDrive

Cool It
Leaves Fall
October 11, 2021

Right now in Minnesota, the leaves are changing from greens to yellows, oranges, and reds. A cool wind blows.

Trees with less water turn colors sooner and drop their leaves faster.

Thud. (That's all the leaves dropping all at once.) Thud. (There goes another one.)

It was an exceptionally dry summer. Climate change is about extremes, and in Minnesota, the effect is wetter weather, mostly. This year, the pendulum swung to dry. I learned that tumbleweeds are mostly Russian thistle. It was a dry summer.

It didn't rain. It spritzed. Too dry for drips. Too quick for mist.

Maybe climate change is effecting people too.

Music Association: Little River Band - Cool Change

Bang On The Drum All Day
Repercussions Of The Pandemic
September 22, 2021

Percussion instruments can be as simple as a pan, a barrel, or a table. They aren't instruments until they meet up with hands.

I will lend you a hand.

(This is me on the drums.)

If you think you shouldn't have a Covid-19 vaccine, you are thinking too much. If you aren't vaccinated, get vaccinated.

As of the end of August, four and a half million people worldwide have died directly from Covid-19 (4,518,351). Covid-19 has directly killed 634,415 in the United States. The availability of Covid-19 vaccinations has meant that those dying alone of Covid-19 are anti-vaxers (Covidiots). Many other people are dying from serious but treatable illnesses due to either fear of going into hospitals or the health resources not being available during the pandemic. The decline of health and dental maintenance will have consequences.

Every American president alive today has been vaccinated, from President Carter to President Biden.

This is the Afghanistan War (2001-2021) of pandemics. It will not end quickly. Slowly, the Covidiots will suffer long, painful solitary* deaths while those vaccinated will get periodic booster shots and live on.

I drove past a funeral yesterday, with few people seeing the casket into a hearse. They all seemed to be looking at me like I should stop and do something or say something. Maybe they just wanted more people and less traffic.

So many people are not properly mourning -- having stalled or complicated grief responses -- not getting closure.

Anecdotal evidence indicates a rise in domestic and child abuse, a rise in drug and alcohol addiction and relapse, a rise in depression and isolation, and accentuated political and social divisions.

Covid-fog will be a long-term problem for many adults.

Economically, Covid-19 is killing the hospitality industry, the wider service industry, and global manufacturing. Supply chain shortages will kill Just-In-Time delivery, increasing inventory overhead, and increasing prices.

(I'm still drumming my table.)

Music Association: Dire Straits - Industrial Disease
* Death is usually solitary.

Hopes and Dreams

Ida Evacuated
August 30, 2021

Hurricane Ida landed just before noon yesterday, as a Category 4* hurricane with wind speeds of 150 mph.

Over a million (1,036,201) power company customers in Louisiana are without power today, according to the number-crunchers at poweroutage.us.

Pictures and videos show roofs peeled off of some buildings, but no word of breached levies like what happened 16 years ago with Hurricane Katrina.

No pink inflatable unicorn llamas have been spotted in flooded streets (see July 15, 2021).

One death has been reported so far, and Ida has been downgraded to a tropical storm.

Music Association: Scorpions - Rock You Like A Hurricane
* On the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale

Hopes and Dreams

Saigon 2.0
Leaving Afghanistan
August 15, 2021

The American troop evacuation of Afghanistan was a deal between President Trump and the Taliban from September 2020 to occur by May 1, 2021. Trump freed 5,000 Taliban prisoners to make the evacuation agreement. What a deal for ... you know ... the Taliban.

President Biden is going through with the troop evacuation from Afghanistan. It is being compared to the “Fall of Saigon” when U.S. troops left Vietnam in 1975.

Damn right. The war in Vietnam was another long war the United States had no business being in.

President Trump never had the guts to end the longest American war (2001-2021) while he served as president.

Neither did President Obama.

And worse, President Bush should have never started the war in Afghanistan or the war in Iraq. Bush explained U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan as nation building. If that were possible, it would have been built by now, after 20 years, $4 trillion to $6.5 trillion*, and 2,448+ U.S. troops.**

Likewise, President Kennedy should have never sent 'advisers' to South Vietnam. President Johnson never should have escalated the war. And President Nixon never had the guts to end the war.

The war in Afghanistan has been a tug of war in Afghanistan, with the United States stepping into an already crowded list of countries (Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia,...) pushing or pulling Afghans in extreme directions. Russia also lost a war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a land, not a country.

South Vietnamese civilians try to escape Saigon on April 29, 1975 via an Air America Huey Helicopter on the roof of the Pittman Apartments (22 Gia Long Street / 22 Ly Tu Trong Street). The Pittman Apartments were the headquarters of the CIA deputy chief of station and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The picture was taken by Dutch photographer Hubert van Es using a 300mm camera lens. Van Es would later cover the failed Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.
(photo nearly-colorized by Hopes-and-Dreams.net)

Music Association: Temptations - Build Me Up

* The U.S. Afghanistan War was paid in credit, not cash. President Harry Truman temporarily raised top tax rates to 92% to pay for the Korean War. President Lyndon Johnson temporarily raised top tax rates to 77% to pay for the Vietnam War. President George W. Bush cut tax rates for the wealthiest down to 8% rather than raise taxes, at the outset of Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The direct costs of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars was $2 trillion in 2020. The estimated interest costs by 2050 will be $6.5 trillion. (source: Ellen Knickmeyer | AP)

** The U.S. Afghanistan War claimed the lives of 2,448 U.S. troops, 3,846 U.S. contractors, 66,000 Afghan military and police, 1,144 NATO and allied troops, 47,245 Afghan civilians, 51,191 Taliban and other opposition fighters, 444 aid workers, and 72 journalists. (source: Ellen Knickmeyer | AP)

Hopes and Dreams

Climate Change
Wildfires - Out Of Control
July 21, 2021

Wildfires (by definition) are out of control. The United States has 83 large wildfires in 13 states, currently burning 1,293,636 acres. Montana has 20 large wildfires. Idaho has 18. Oregon has 8, including the country's largest, the Bootleg fire, which has burned over 364,000 acres. California has 7 large wildfires and 5,267 wildfires of all sizes. Washington state has 7. Alaska and Arizona have 6. Wyoming has 5. Nevada has 2. New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Minnesota each have one large wildfire. Canada's British Columbia province has 741,316 acres of wildfires. Smoke from these western wildfires have filled the air as far away as New Jersey and New York.

In Russia's Yakutia, wildfires are burning approximately 3,700,000 acres of forests and tundra.

The scale of these fires are unprecedented. Day is night, and night is aglow.

To give some idea of the size of 1.2 million acres and 3.7 million acres, Delaware is 1,593,153 acres, and Connecticut is 3,547,731 acres.

Central China and Germany are experiencing unprecedented flooding.

And Japan has only vaccinated 8% of its population.

Covid-19 olympics

So... the world should ignore Climate Change and the Covid-19 pandemic and begin the Olympics?!?

Music Association: Prince - Let's Go Crazy

Hopes and Dreams

German Rain
Pink Unicorn Llama
July 15, 2021

pink unicorn in Hagen, Germany (July 2021)

In the flooded town-lake of Hagen, a man rode a pink inflatable unicorn llama, which I would argue has more practical value than a billionaire riding into space on the USS Vanity.

Music Association: Coldplay - Trouble