Was it better in the Old Country?
We were in a cab last night
I was staring at the meter intently uptight
while the driver was talking with you
of stories of love and wine
Ah……..the girls of his youth
in the Old Country
many grey hairs less
Robert K. Stephen
Chapter 48“so what did we learn from all these plagues? :Diverse Politico Reactions”
After 10 years of virus attacks what can be learnt from our dear politicians? Well that rather depends what jurisdiction you were living in. From a Canadian perspective the pandemic was managed very well. COVID-19 was a totally new political challenge and it was managed as well as any pandemic could be. And strangely enough when Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that they had our backs I believed them and they delivered on that promise until Virus # 26 arrived and by that time Ford and Trudeau were long gone!.
Federal and provincial governments rose to the challenge. ironically it could be said their pre-pandemic management led to a pandemic crisis because of their slashing of health care budgets but if we go beyond that fundamental flaw their management of the situation brought out the best in provincial leaders such as Premier Doug Ford in Ontario and Quebec’s Francois Légault.
The United States was a confusing and deadly disaster with the COVIDs being mismanaged by the feds and the individual states. The Trumpian administration seemed more focused on re-election than containment of the COVID-19 attacks and promoted congregate spreading at its 2020 rally events and shockingly at a 2020 Tulsa Trump rally the rally organizers ordered campaign workers to remove social distancing stickers from the Tulsa auditorium’s seats .That stupid and simplistic action was the event that was the beginning of the end of Donald J. Trump. Of course, the super spreader campaign events after the Tulsa fiasco helped beat Trump in the 2020 elections.
Now there were other “regimes” that took advantage of the pandemics to solidify their political power hence Putin emerged as the new Tsar and countless corrupt third world countries ended up in their traditional military dictatorships and military juntaships.
Generally speaking what was corrupt before the viruses became more corrupt.
And when Virus # 26 hit the rotten became even more rotten. The public hangings in Russia ordered by Tsar Putin against the “spreaders of the virus” (or was it opposition party member?) were really over the top. The African genocides against the “tribes” that introduced the killer Virus # 26 were an exercise in transparent despotism.
All said and done what was bad prior to the pandemics became a stinking rotten mess.
The United States seemed stuck in a perpetual race riot. Africa lost all democracy and happily sent its delegates to the United Nations General Assembly meetings lodging them at high end super luxury hotels while millions died of starvation and disease in their countries.
So there were well meaning and honorable politicians that did the best that they could to inspire and rally their troops but there were many that took advantage to seize power and blame opposition members for introducing the viruses. Blame, cause fear and solidify power.
The Big Game
Intoxicated masses
did not masturbate the night before
so as to experience clean orgasms of militarized madness
where no Kleenex is required
Robert K. Stephen
Personalized Rubrics only after
Initially a friendly glance
late at night you can never tell
but there’s more
as steel rips through your soft belly
mocking thanatos
has conquered eros
who
weeps
in silence
of red flashes
Robert K. Stephen
Observations
I sit watching a parody of fools
spitting out hope
the janitors of our conscience
excreting promises
siphoned off by the masses
I’ll chuckle
as the lasso
of endless circles
traps its unsuspecting ambitions
Robert K. Stephen
So many casualties. Beyond all belief.
Initially when COVID-19 swept right on in in 2020 there was a certainty that a vaccine was on its way. Regular encouraging announcements came from Big Pharma, the politicos and medicos that a vaccine was on its way on a heavily fast tracked and mega funded superhighway of optimism. Despite securities legislation in the developed world prohibiting insider trading Big Pharma executives skimmed off big sums of money prior to their company’s brimming with hope announcements. Many were caught but many escaped with bulging pockets full of cash. This slammed their reputation as an industry. Billions in government money went their way that supposedly funded research but much of it went to performance and incentive payments to Big Pharma’s senior management teams not for developing a vaccine but due to their “entrepreneurial skills” in snagging funding!
Yes they did finally develop a vaccine for the COVIDs but only after it had mutated was the efficacy of the great vaccine made appare and it failed to deliver a vaccine for Virus # 26. Perhaps somewhat undeservedly all Big Pharma was categorized by whomever survived as parasitical scumbags. If you thought Big Pharma took it on the chin for thalidomide and DES it was nothing compared to the near universal shaming they got blasted with for failing to deliver a magic bullet for the OVIDs and Virus # 26. Finally the survivors believed the alternative medicine community and “conspiracy theorists” (those who challenged conventional medicine) who had been telling anyone who cared to listen to them that Big Pharma made its huge profits by making you continually ill so your conventional physician could “manage” your symptoms by prescribing more Big Pharma products. What Big Pharma lost Big Nutraceuticals gained. And the latter was subject to fraud, false advertising, impure products but if you did your research you would find many honest supplement providers backed by double blind studies for their products and completely forthcoming with certificates of analysis for their products.
As for conventional medicine its practitioners also took it on the chin for failing to find a “cure” for Virus # 26. Due to the training they had many had their heads so far up the ass of Big Pharma they had lost their vision of healing and gained the skill of prescribing. Yes I will say these conventional practitioners were victims of their training so heavily financed by Big Pharma. Who brought the attention of the public to the unconventional immunity weapons to be used against Virus # 26? It was the functional medicine specialists that always looked to find the root cause of the symptoms and deal with those instead of the conventional practitioners who were trained to mask and manage the symptoms with pharmaceuticals. Not all the conventional practitioners were the bad guys as some actually hunted down the cause of the symptoms instead of doling out prescriptions like jellybeans. But they were in the minority.
As a cardiologist when I first commenced by career, I was one of those conventional practitioners happy to prescribe a magic bullet. But after several years of listening to my patients I heard a continuous litany of complaints about adverse reactions and intolerance to prescriptive medicines. I took a year sabbatical from my hospital position to go to Stanford University School of Medicine in California to become certified as a functional medicine specialist. I learned how to really listen to patients and spend time with them to try and determine their illness and what may be causing it. I learned about yoga, mindfulness, the crucial importance of diet to create optimal health and about the many supplements available to prevent some illnesses from arising.
Upon returning to my hospital practice I got somewhat of the reputation as a lotus land doctor. The old guard guffawed at my approach to medicine but I was overjoyed to see so many relieved and appreciative patients. The younger residents saw the success I was having with my patients and started to listen to what I had to say about, diet, sleep, mindfulness and yoga and soaked it up.
But despite my newfound medical approach there was nothing I could do to stop and kill the COVIDs and Virus # 26 in their tracks. It seemed like many other doctors we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. While you had a good chance to save someone infected with the COVIDs against Virus #26 you had no chance.
Oh the Good Old Days When the Berlin Wall Was Up
Being a party member is a responsibility
to serve the proletarians with our utmost ability
so to say we obtain the privileges of an aristocratic nobility
is indicative of sheer and scheming lack of capitalist civility
We serve our might land and people
merely a gunshot away from the Kremlin steeple
we labour all day and night in offices located anywhere from Georgia
the wonderful land of Comrade Stalin
to a cold little town like Aldin
Just because we have a five room flat off the square
shows how much for the people do we care
why then your sarcastic stare ?
My Zil with a chauffeur
is provided I’m no loafer
after all transportation is needed to make appointments with Iraqi Foreign Minister Soffer
I am nothing but a hard-working man
so why the snarky comments about my Black Sea summer tan
and that expensive Swiss fan?
My suits from France
well they are needed for on occasional diplomatic prance
not for my own personal prestige to enhance
Being so busy it is imperative we have our own stores
not because of corrupt mores
that you dare suggest make us rotten to the core
We are still members of a proletarian kind
and your unfounded accusations are but a figment of a duped mind
to brazenly suggest to bourgeoisie lifestyles we have fell
I respectfully say you can go to hell
Ask any of our folk
suggest to them we have unwarranted privileges and they’ll take it as an ill joke
and perhaps to you deliver a warning poke
we are no different than them
our happy and content citizens would heartily agree
if not do you think I’d expel them to a cold Siberian degree?
It’s this Solzhenitsyn chap who has caused most of this flap
with his groundless crap
but our censors to his knuckles gave a good rap
so he was exiled from our map
Every citizen is free like me
oh why can’t you see through all this propaganda of the CIA
and for once agree with me
all we do is administer
and if the skilled like me can become a Politburo minister
what the hell is so sinister?
Robert K. Stephen
“Wake up on Mars” is one weird documentary.
A Muslim family flees persecution in Kosovo and seeks refugee status in Sweden but they are deported back to Kosovo yet again they flee to Sweden where finally they obtain their residency permits.
However both teenage daughters are in a vegetative state apparently with “resignation syndrome” which is a new condition that can affect asylum-seeking children often following a threat of deportation. Now if these teenage girls have this horrid resignation syndrome what an awful condition and both of them? The thought may occur to you that this affliction is a scam to stay in the land of milk and honey. I really am unable to come to a decision on this. I am not cruel but desperate people can often do desperate things particularly if a return to their homeland means more traumatic harassment. We are not told if the teenage girls recover when they are legally admitted to Sweden.
As for the name of this film young Furkhan, brother of the afflicted sisters, has built a spaceship from pieces of cars in a junk yard he dreams of taking to Mars. In other words escape the sad state of his sisters.
The film is 75 minutes long and is in Albanian and Swedish with English subtitles.
You can watch this for free but you’ll have to reserve tickets through the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema website. The Festival runs from February 18-22. You can learn more by going to the festival’s website https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/14/18th-annual-toronto-human-rights-watch-film-festival#
I guarantee you will be intrigued by it. Watch the trailer here https://www.dropbox.com/s/5zvv58nnz7e8aju/WakeUpOnMars_TRLR_Texted_ProRes_25_2ch.mov?dl=0
OK so you see the phrase “Epic Greek Tragedy” and you might surmise it is some ancient Greek play I am referring to. Quite the opposite. This is a 2015 Greek film delving into a most unpleasant topic which is the humiliating step by step process where in 1943 some 50,000 Jews in Thessaloniki were transported to German concentration camps being told by the Germans they were going to proper housing and would be treated well after of course handing over all their money which they would be reimbursed for in Polish Zlotys when they arrived in Poland.
In 1492 some 20,000 Sephardic Jews were exiled from Spain and the Ottomans, then controlling Thessaloniki, permitted them to settle in Thessaloniki. At one point the Jewish population in Thessaloniki reached close to 70,000. However the great fire of 1917 left some 50,000 of Jews in Thessaloniki homeless and many, including President Sarkozy’s family, emigrated to Paris. Today there is one synagogue left in Thessaloniki serving an estimated population of 1,000.
Thessaloniki is a lovely city full of Byzantine churches and Roman ruins and is home to The Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki where I learnt the fate of the 50,000 so the Film “Cloudy Sunday” which depicts the barbaric road to extermination for so many was no surprise but it was painful to watch.
Besides being an historical drama, it is also a love story between Yorgos (Haris Fragoulis), a young carpenter who is Christian, and Estrea (Christina Heila-Fameli) a Jewess. And there is prejudice shown by both families to this relationship.
I appreciate that honesty and I also commend the film for documenting the Greek informant’s and stoolies who turned Greek resistance members in and worked side by side with the Germans.
The Greek resistance bravely fought against all odds as they did in most of Greece paying a severe price for their families and community.
The German tactics were a gradual stripping away of dignity and civil rights with hangings, assassinations and torture and finally expulsion.
The portrayal of a Jewish rabbi was not very complimentary in saying let’s co-operate and they’ll leave us alone. Many agreed and some disagreed but the rabbi was obviously very wrong.
I do not want to reveal the plot line here but my thought is that this is an epic film presenting many sides of an unpleasant equation. Neither Jew, Christian or Greek is sanitized.
After all the trauma you witness it looks like the love story will finally bear fruit but it takes a shocking twist that just might take your breath away.
Fragoulis and Heila-Fameli are impeccable and the casting solid all around. The direction by Manoussos Manousakis is solid and the soundtrack magnificent.
You can catch this film streaming at the Hellenic Film Society USA through February 7th. In fact the Society streams a couple of Greek films for a month starting on the first Sunday of the month. It is accessible to viewers throughout the world so check out their website.
Keep reading here and I’ll give you a tip if these Greek films are a good watch.” Cloudy Sunday” is an excellent watch. It is a tiring if not exhausting experience.
The film is 119 minutes long in Greek with English subtitles. You can catch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxUnuOHzySk&feature=emb_logo
From: Transport Canada
January 29, 2021 Ottawa Government of Canada
The Government of Canada continues to take unprecedented action to protect the health and safety of Canadians by introducing measures to prevent further introduction and transmission of COVID-19 and new variants of the virus into Canada.
Today, the Government of Canada announced new rules on international travel, in addition to the multi-layered approach on COVID-19 already in place. The government and Canada’s airlines have agreed to suspend all flights to and from Mexico and Caribbean countries until April 30, 2021. This will be in effect as of January 31, 2021.
Further, effective midnight (11:59 PM EST) February 3, 2021, in addition to proof of a negative pre-departure test, Transport Canada will expand the existing international flight restrictions which funnel scheduled international commercial passenger flights into four Canadian airports: Montréal-Trudeau International Airport, Toronto Pearson International Airport, Calgary International Airport, and Vancouver International Airport. The new restrictions will include scheduled commercial passenger flights arriving from the United States, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America, which were exempted from the previous restriction. Private/Business and charter flights from all countries will also be required to land at the four airports. Flights from Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon and cargo-only flights will remain exempt.
As soon as possible in the coming weeks, all air travellers arriving in Canada, with very limited exceptions, must reserve a room in a Government of Canada-approved hotel for three nights at their own cost, and take a COVID-19 molecular test on arrival at their own cost. More details will be available in the coming days.
The Government of Canada will introduce a 72-hour pre-arrival testing requirement (molecular test) for travellers seeking entry in land mode, with limited exceptions such as commercial truckers. In addition, we continue to collaborate with partners in the United States to strengthen our border measures and keep our countries safe.
To ensure travellers’ awareness and compliance with quarantine requirements, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is working with security companies to help complete compliance checks for travellers arriving in Canada. Employees of these companies were trained by PHAC and authorized as Screening Officers under the Quarantine Act. These Screening Officers will visit travellers’ quarantine locations to establish contact, confirm identity and confirm that travellers are at the place of quarantine they identified upon entry into Canada. These new officers will conduct visits in 35 cities across the country, starting in Montréal and Toronto.
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