the thing about groceries

My first thought when I read this stuff about groceries was a childhood memory. I was five years old and we had recently moved to a new city, or rather a new suburb of the city where my dad had been offered a job. On the corner of our street, a small supermarket cum butcher shop was to be opened, run by a young couple with a toddler, a baby and two cats. We watched through the glass doors of the shop while they were stacking the shelves with the radio on inside at full blast and every so often, they would stop and dance. The Twist! We were floored and full of admiration. Back home, my sister tried to show me how to do the twist but I just hopped up and down.

The day the shop opened, my mother sent me there with a coin in my hand and the carefully practised sentence: one pound of mince meat but not too fat and a small sweet for me instead of change. This sentence has been my memory mantra for new and slightly scary situations ever since.

And then I remembered the endless hours we played shop at home and on the curb in front of the garden gate, selling stuff to neighbours walking past and buying it back with paper money, filling our grocery bags with tiny crumbly apples and flowers and stones and small toys and legos. My child often played shop and shopping for groceries, we, the assembled adults, would carefully select our goods from her wares and buy them and sometimes, she would watch us with alarm and asked for reassurance that we understood that it was only a game. And yes, we sent her to the corner shop, the bakery, the ice cream van with a handfull of coins or maybe a banknote and instructions or a shopping list we drew together. And this afternoon, as I walked down to the river, I passed a table on the sidewalk where two girls, maybe six or seven years old, were selling handmade stuff and I stopped and selected a set of handdrawn playing cards and one chatterbox folding game. When I asked how much I had to pay, they discussed options for a while and then decided I could have it all for free because it was a nice and sunny day.

 

That man who said the stuff about groceries probably, most likely, definitely never experienced the excitement of going to a shop for the first time, bringing home a pound of not too fat mince and feeling amazingly grown up and rewarded and loved. Somehow I don't feel sorry. As it turns out, he thinks that the poor old US has been "looted, pillaged, raped and plundered" by Cambodia, Lesotho and Madagascar, three of the poorest nations on earth, which must therefore pay the highest tarifs. 

 

 

discuss with examples

An old fashioned term that we use -- groceries. . . . It's such an old fashioned term, but a beautiful term. Groceries. It says a bag with different things in it.

 

April is here

The last couple of days in a few short sentences.

If you want to make loud phone calls in a doctor's waiting room, no problem. But a short ‘what happened so far’ at the beginning would help us all, waiting is so tedious.

There's only two genders: fascists and anti-facists.

Why is it said that young men are turning ultra right-wing because of feminism and not that young women are turning to feminism because of right-wing men? Are we again blaming women for the mistakes of men?

We are reaching peak magnolia season.

I got yet another diagnosis, a sort of tag along diagnosis, something that gets explained to me as an almost inevitable consequence of what has been going on in my body for seemingly ever, like 10 or so years (?). The doctor was polite and carefully explained that this is most likely another novel aspect of the autoimmune disease and we smiled at each other when I replied, well it seems we can blame this shit for everything that goes bad in my body. I even chuckled. Back home I kicked at the sofa and had a bit of a meltdown. Later, we watched the first episode or two of the apocalyptic Danish series Families like Ours, and what can I say, I feel fine in comparison. (I also have gastritis, so no coffee, no black tea.)

 

A child’s body is very easy to live in.  An adult body isn’t. The change is hard. And it’s such a tremendous change that it’s no wonder a lot of adolescents don’t know who they are. They look in the mirror—that is me? Who’s me? And then it happens again, when you’re sixty or seventy.

Ursula K. Le Guin

apple crumble and partial solar eclipse

Saturday morning, the house smells of apple crumble, R tells me he is using up the jumbo oats. His cooking and baking skills improve with every new step on the road to using up food that could go off. When many years ago, his parents had a nasty stomach bug, he began to silently clear way-past-due-date items from their fridge and freezer every time he visited in an attempt to keep them healthy. They both died of cancer and much too young but not because there was any rotten/rotting food in the house. His mother initially got furious and called it waste but after all, he is a science teacher and they loved each other. Anyway, just to explain why R makes apple crumble at 7:30 am on a Saturday.

This time of the year, the garden is taken over by pansies (which is what we call primulas because family folklore), those little flowering bunches that just sit there in the shadows of the big and famous plants. The thing about pansies is that they spread, like buttercups, quietly and efficiently, so much so that today, I stopped counting at 100, including the ones that have come up between the paving stones. Here's a selection, inconclusive but they are all different in small ways. We could do our own Gregor Mendel pea flower evolutionary research with our pansy fleet.

 

 

There's much to enjoy and be delighted about in house and garden and family and I am trying hard to stay with it, while watching the polls and the way the neonazi column is growing and listening to various government officials on the real danger of what that mad man in Moscow will do next.

 

And then we watched Adolescence, of course we did and when it was over R, bless him, said, will there be a second season concentrating on the women, the girls? I realised that at times I had held my breath in anger. Don't get me wrong, excellent tv and all, but maybe read Rebecca Solnit's review also.

 

And I'll leave this here from poet Hollie McNish. 

And right now, there is a partial solar eclipse, nothing dramatic, the birds did not stop singing, but I can see my neighbours of all ages on their patios and on the sidewalks looking at this celestial wonder through weird googles and there's much whoa and awe.

In the twenty-first century, evolutionary thought shifted to the group and culture as the units of analysis. Discoveries of the cooperative tendencies of young children; our universal inclination to share; our instinct to attach, belong, and be tribal; and the neurophysiology of empathy, contagion, mirroring, connection, compassion, and exploration were revealing a new lens upon human nature: we are hypersocial species who accomplish almost all survival-related tasks, from raising the vulnerable offspring to provision of food, in collaborative, often altruistic groups. 

Groups that collaborate well and build a sense of shared identity, this reasoning would advance, are more likely to prevail and survive. And culture - the system of beliefs and practices that unite individuals into community - is an ever revolving repository of shared knowledge and experience, a collective mind that enables us to adapt together to the challenges and opportunities in our natural and social environments.

Dacher Keltner

 

D Day group chat

 

This is making the rounds here, no idea who started it.

Some background information:

Group captain Stagg was a British meteorologist attached to the Royal Air Force during WWII who persuaded General Eisenhower to change the date of the Allied invasion of Europe from 5 to 6 June 1944. (source Wikipedia)

Field marshall Montgomery was in command of all Allied ground forces during the Normandy landing on D-Day, 6 June 1944 (source Wikipedia, but you all knew that OK?)

Air force officer Tedder was deputy supreme commander under Eisenhower during the Normandy landing on D-Day, 6 June 1944 (also Wikipedia, you all know who Eisenhower was I take it)

Air chief marshall Leigh-Mallory was the air commander during D-Day operations on 6 June 1944 (Wikipedia again)

Admiral Ramsay was commanding the naval forces on D-Day, June 6 1944 (thanks Wikipedia, his name is spelled incorrectly in the image above)

Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper (aka mouthpiece) of the German nazi party from 1920 until the last months of WWII (take my word) 

Signal is an open-source, encrypted messaging service for instant messaging, voice calls, and video calls, a safe-ish alternative to whatsapp et al., it is non-profit and was launched in 2018. I just did a lot of research on it recently.

 

magnolia week

The greenhouse is filling up.

It's magnolia week in the neighbourhood. 

 

The garden is starting to show off. Most of the seedlings are planted out, the potatoes are in the ground and I did assist in almost all of the work. Now we wait and see and collect kill any snails and slugs.

 

The peach trees are flowering, the apricot is already finished flowering and the plums, pears and apples are about to. This is what's called the vineyard peach, with small deep red furry fruit, excellent for jam.

 

 

Last week, I spent a couple of hours on a guided tour across one of our city's cemeteries visiting the fields where unknown displaced persons and forced labourers from the nazi era are buried. It was long and gruesome, thankfully we could sit down from time to time, and when we reached the section where the children of the young, mostly Ukranian and Polish women, who were forced to work in local industry during the war, were buried, I almost broke down. None of the children born to these women (often as a result of rape) lived for more than a couple of weeks, months and it was nuns who "looked after" them and let them die. I don't know why I continuously do this, go to these lectures and tours but now I have my name down to help with a project digitizing local data of victims and survivors of nazism.

It's been a year now since I retired and surprise, surprise, we have neither gone bankrupt nor tried to poison each other. In fact, it has turned out rather well, I am still not inclined to take on any of the free-lance jobs I continue to be offered and wish it would stop altogether. I also started to enjoy going to bed really late and/or getting up in time to listen to the dawn chorus. There have even been days when I had three cups of coffee. But the dreaded fatigue, together with a couple of other symptoms and lab results has come back, all of which indicating that the current medication has possibly run its course and I have to face the next available magic potion with its side effects. I am seriously fed up with all of this but needs must and always look on the bright side, etc.,

Worse, however, is the decline of my trusted bike, which has me currently searching for a necessary spare part that is no longer commercially available. 

The grandchild has been sharing their reasons for feeling anxious right now.  We counted on our fingers, new house, new school, new friends, loss of old neighbours, growing out of favourite clothes, having to get used to new clothes and several more and we almost ran out of fingers. Then it was time for showing some drawing and cutting-out and reading skills and of course, there's the dog.

. . . when you’re born, you’re born with a big lack. You’ve got this body that needs food, needs clothing, needs shelter, needs medicine, and you’re not born with an entitlement to those things. If you were really entitled to them, they would come on their own. The fact that they seem to come on their own when we’re children is because our parents are looking after us, but that means they have to go out and do extra work just to provide for this big, gaping hole they’ve just given birth to. And so as you grow up as a human being, you not only carry this huge load of needs around with you, but you also carry a big debt to the goodness, the work of other people. It’s important to keep that in mind.

Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu

to clarify

Thank you for all your comments on my post re secure internet etc. I am delighted that I am not the only one and not a nut case.

I should clarify that the main impetus behind my efforts to investigate my social media/internet use and to initiate any changes I think are necessary is not just a safe internet - whatever that may imply and I don't think I am any way close to it - but to move away from tech companies that are in the hands of very few, very wealthy men who blissfully embrace fascism. I am not even going to discuss this last point.

So, in wake of events unfolding in the US, the desire to shift away from these big tech oligarchs is growing every day in my country and from what I can gather, many other European countries. And with it comes a growing interest in understanding how this internet stuff actually works and who runs what and how entangled and used we may actually have become. I've been to a couple of public lectures on culture wars/fake news, big tech monopolies, data protection laws in the EU, political influence from Russia, China and the US/Musk and all this - there are more events scheduled here - has given me so much to think about, you have no idea. 

Now, I love the internet, I love switching on my laptop and I enjoy my morning routine of reading online news, checking newsletters, blogs and emails, obviously the daily contact with my family far away - I cherish it all and would not want to miss it. During lockdown, we ordered a lot of stuff online, it was a life saver in many respects, especially prior to the arrival of the vaccines for someone like me, with a chronic disease and immune suppression medication. We are lucky that we don't live out in the sticks, have markets and shops and pharmacies etc. within walking distance, so we rarely need to fall back on online shopping now. Occasionally, I order used clothing and second hand books from online sellers and we use ebay/etsy and their German equivalents for some purchases - but also to sell some stuff we are clearing out. And of course, there's online banking and the other stuff like pension, health/car/house insurance, tax office, the various public utilities and on the few occasions when we travel, bus/train/plane tickets. 

I have friends and family who are paranoid of anything online, who would not even check the rain forecast because some evil service will steal their identity or - worse - send them advertising. I have a friend who is regularly predicting the end of the world's water and electricity supply due to bitcoin and yes, there is some truth in that but you can go and read about that yourself. I openly admit that I am ignorant about A Lot of what goes on online. 

But as with so much that is happening right now - fascism, climate change, the threat of (hybrid) war, my deteriorating health and the looming diagnostic detective work - the curse of my curious nature will not allow me to just let it be. I have to stick my nose into it, come what may. 

Having worked in science editing for 25 years, I have learnt a thing or two about checking sources, double, triple checking of "facts", identifying images, figuring out who is paid what to publish what and when and so on. With the rise of AI, this has become more difficult and I am often relieved that I am retired and only need to open up that new can of worms when I feel ready.

Basically, I want to feel informed, always wanted to, I am nosy. I don't want to feel trapped or used or bought. I know it's unrealistic to think I can be morally/idealistically free of any unsavoury influence. I am only human and often lazy. But I want to be On The Ball as much as I can and I think it's Very Very Important for as many people as possible to be that too, no matter where on this planet we are. 

There was a time, sometime in the early 1990s, when R explained computer programs and the internet to me - at least he tried to - and what I remember is that he stressed, it's a tool, just a tool. People use it.

I could go on but I won't. Instead, I would love to continue to hear from other people how they feel about it.

These two blog posts by Australian writer Joan Westenberg have expressed it all so much better. So if you are still reading, I recommend you continue here:

1. How I’m Building a Trump-Proof Tech Stack Without Big Tech

A quote:  Apple, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and other tech companies operating on American soil can talk a big game about their sovereignty, independence, and encryption. But talk may be all it is; there can be no guarantee that an authoritarian U.S. government will not compel American cloud, email, productivity, and messaging providers to open their databases and records to partisan law enforcement.

2. On Ideological Purity

A quote:  You don’t have to be all or nothing. You don’t have to make every decision a moral battlefield. You don’t have to sever every tie to every compromised system - and you sure as hell don’t have to do it overnight. You have to engage. You have to stay aware. You have to keep questioning the default. If enough people tried—just tried, even imperfectly—things would shift. If more people opted for alternatives when they could, if more people supported independent platforms even three times out of five, if more people put even a fraction of their energy into challenging the defaults, it would matter. A lot of folks don't, or won't, because they think - they've been scolded into believing - that if they can't do it completely, it's not worth doing at all. It is. Every step you take in the direction of your values matters. Every time you make a choice that reflects what you care about—even if it's small, even if it's incomplete, even if it feels incremental, marginal, unimportant—it reinforces something. Not just in the world, in yourself. And that's what counts.

 

 

 

 

 

secure your communications

 

This is a quick translation (my own) of some of the information I mentioned in my previous post regarding  #unplugtrump and withdrawing as much support and dependency as possible from big tech oligarchs.

My main source is a private blog by Stefan, in German (https://blog.unkreativ.net/secure-your-communications/). 

Even if it seems tedious, take a look at what technology you use and who you give what data to. Also think about security and damage. Here's a brief summary: Threema instead of Whatsapp, Bluesky instead of Twitter, Vero instead of Instagram, your own blog instead of Facebook, don't use a cloud solution from Google or Microsoft. And when was the last time you made a backup?

More detailed: Why should I protect myself?

Many people believe that nothing can happen to them and that they have nothing to hide. Both opinions are fundamentally wrong. You are a popular target for digital blackmail (ransomware) as well as for access to your private data for commercial purposes. But your access data is also highly coveted, e.g. to send spam via your accounts. State actors are also increasingly interested in your data.

Basically, privacy is on the retreat everywhere on the planet. This affects the real world with increasing video and audio surveillance just as much as the digital world. You need to realise that even if you don't notice it, you are being spied on in many ways every day.

And very, very importantly: there is no such thing as a free lunch: services that appear to be ‘free’ at first glance will cost you. Because you are the ‘product’ and the money comes with your data. Beyond open source software, you should therefore live by the principle that software worth using is also worth paying for.

One of the biggest problems is that most of the services you use come from the US. In case of doubt or negligence, they don't care about EU law or even German law. Your data is often analysed in a non-transparent way and, especially with social networks, the operators not only determine what you see, but also what you are allowed to talk about.

Web services
Facebook, Google and Co

I probably don't need to explain to you why it's not smart to be on Facebook. Especially not now that Zuck has kissed Trump's ring. Big platforms like Facebook thrive on analysing every millimetre of your life. This also applies to Google, of course. Such providers lure you in with supposedly free offers and then have an interest in ‘locking you in’:

The idea behind this is that you shouldn't have to surf through different websites, but get all your information in one central location. The problem with this is that a company, or even a CEO, essentially determines what you read and listen to.

There are two major components to using Facebook and the like: Firstly, the providers take away all your privacy. Secondly, they also control what you think and how you feel.

This is no joke, because not only are there scandals like the one involving Cambridge Analytica, but there are also studies that show that the feeds that algorithms show you can affect your mood. In other words. Facebook can influence you positively or negatively.

In the process, your data is sold. Behind this is almost always ‘advertising’ and this goes so far that you are categorised into thousands of super precise groups in order to advertise to you in the most targeted way possible. The advertising industry, I kid you not, assumes that you even think it's cool to read as many adverts as possible, as accurately as possible. 

E-mail

Email is another of these things. Email has to be easy to use, and generally free. So isn't it great that Google has GMail. Or Microsoft gives us Outlook?

But remember: if it costs nothing, you are the product. Google analyses your emails for advertising. Microsoft goes one step further and uses Outlook to obtain your access data for e-mail accounts that are not held by Microsoft itself. I can't understand how people allow themselves to be analysed in this way. But there are ways to do something about it.

You should never send unencrypted emails. I don't mean the transport between your computer and the email server, but the content itself. You must realise that even if the transport route is encrypted, anyone can access the content of your emails. This can be fully automated and doesn't even have to have ‘evil’ intentions, it can just be about advertising.

However, you must also realise that there is no way to consider e-mail itself to be secure. In particular, the fields that show the sender's e-mail address or the sender's name can be falsified at will.

Email signature

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) / OpenPG offers the option of digitally signing e-mails. This allows you to verify that the sender is the person they claim to be. This is increasingly important because attacks on you are becoming more and more sophisticated and it is becoming increasingly difficult to protect yourself against them. Signing an e-mail is an important building block here, which leads to considerably more security. It also means that the email remains unchanged and you can be sure that the email has the content that the sender intended. As anyone with access to email servers can read your emails, anyone can also change them. The digital signature protects against this.

Email client

One way to avoid being completely tracked down is not to use webmailers, whether on a website or, for example, the new Outlook. The latter looks like an application, but is essentially just a webmailer in disguise. (there are apps for browsers like Firefox that filter out and block webmailer searches, e.g. https://duckduckgo.com/email/)

Instant Messengers

Far too many of you are still using WhatsApp, which comes from META (Facebook). And no matter what you say and think, you can trust Zuck only as far as you can throw a piano.

Most people's excuse is that there are so many other people on there. But you and your friends might have to consider whether you should really use technologies that are potentially dangerous purely out of peer pressure.

I cannot judge whether META keeps its promise that WhatsApp messages are effectively encrypted. But you have to assume that META analyses the associated data, the metadata. In other words, who is communicating with whom and when. This alone tells them a lot about people.

Social Media

It's no secret that social media is a problem.

YouTube: Here, all your data belongs to Google, which also bombards you with loads of adverts. The videos you watch reveal who you are. The suggested videos then want to influence your political orientation or your emotions.

Instagram, Facebook, Workplace: Here your data belongs to Facebook, essentially the same applies as for YouTube. A rapid decline in values can currently be seen since Trump took power again. The parent company META decides what you see, how you feel and, above all, what you are allowed to say / write. 

Twitter / X: Here your data belongs to Elon Musk, who can now be safely labelled a right-wing extremist. He decides what you are allowed to say / write.

There have been promising alternatives to Twitter for some time now. Probably the most recommendable is BlueSky, which is currently growing rapidly. There are several things here that are worth mentioning. One of these is that it is open to the connection with other networks (Fediverse). In a nutshell, this also means that if Musk decides to buy it, you can simply move all your data and followers over to another alternative.

Adblocker

Advertising is a huge problem on the internet. Not only because ads try to target you as precisely as possible with the data you leave behind on Facebook and Google. But also because advertising costs you a lot of money in the form of data and electricity consumption.

And what many people don't realise, ads can also contain malicious code to take over your PC, encrypt your data and blackmail you.

Browser

Many browsers today function on the technical basis of a browser core from Google (Chrome / Chromium). And yes, of course Google collects your data. But Google goes one step further and now makes it almost impossible for ad blockers to protect you from adverts. Of course, Google earns money from advertising. A lot of money.

A good alternative is Firefox, which, like Thunderbird, is developed by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. Here, too, not all that glitters is gold. But when it comes to privacy, Firefox is currently way ahead because the browser also uses technologies to slow down Facebook's snooping mania, for example.

However, you also need to follow a few rules. This includes, for example, configuring your browser so that it deletes cookies every time you close it. Browsers collect vast amounts of your data locally to make surfing more convenient and to target you more efficiently.

Passwords and password safe, 2FA

Basically, you should use your own passwords (plural!) for every service, every website and simply everything you use. There are relatively secure solutions such as Keepass or Vaultwarden to help you manage this. These solutions also come with plug-ins for Firefox, so they can automate logging in to websites. And remember, always delete cookies before you log off.

Please, please, please switch on 2FA (two-factor authentication) wherever possible. Whether by app, SMS, email or otherwise. A second factor increases security immensely, because knowing the password alone is simply not enough. 

Cloud

When using cloud services, you must always remember one thing: Cloud only means that your data is stored on someone else's computer. If you use Onedrive, your data is stored with Microsoft. With iCloud it's with Apple, with Google Drive, you guessed it, Google has it. And so on. As a rule, and Apple is a notable exception here in many cases, the data is not encrypted, which means it's free for whoever wants it.

This means that companies can analyse your data however they like. Some even simply scan everything ‘to prevent criminal offences’. If the companies believe that you have broken the law (and mind you, US law), in the worst case scenario your account will be closed - you will lose access to all your data and there is usually no legal recourse unless you want to file a lawsuit in the US. You may even lose access to your computer.

Updates:

It is extremely important that you keep your software up to date. This applies to Windows, Linux and iOS as well as to the programmes you use. As there is still no serious liability for software errors today, software almost always has security vulnerabilities. These are dealt with in updates, so check often enough to see if there are any. At least once a week.

Backup & recovery

For heaven's sake, make backups of your systems and, above all, test the recovery.

This means a backup of your entire system, preferably before you install new software or updates, and very regular backups of your data. The devices on which the backups are stored should not be connected / switched on unless you absolutely need them.

Most importantly, make yourself independent of META, Microsoft and Google. There are alternatives for everything, locally, nationwide, worldwide. Check with local IT geeks, friends, groups, forums and more.

singing and data mining

There are some good things going on, depending on how you look at it of course. 

Some lovely stuff, wonderful conversations and story telling and picture sharing and dog adventures with the grandchild - all via the camera on my smartphone. 

Some inspirational stuff like the free online lectures from various organisations including my city's adult education center, the university, many schools and churches on how to ditch, circumvent, replace US oligarch social media platforms, servers, online shops, streaming services, browsers, data clouds and so on. Every day, the hahstag #unplugtrump is in the news, even the big national outlets provide ever longer lists and instructions of the many alternatives that at least appear to prevent data theft, data collection, commercial (ab)use of shared images, information, family and professional details. Don't let them get rich on your data, don't let them spy on you, don't give them personal information and so on. I am working my way through it. The old idea of an internet for all is slowly coming out from a dark shadow. I am learning a lot about digital monopoly and how big tech is controlling our lives. This is the English version of one of the online lectures from last week, click here if you are interested.

A rich man and a poor man, there they stood,
And judged each other as best they could.
The poor man said, his voice at low pitch,
If I were not poor you’d not be rich.

Bertolt Brecht

Some nice stuff like the singing group I have joined recently. It is not a choir, we don't really know how to sing well. It's not karaoke. It's a group of mostly women, two men so far, of all ages, young students with rasta hair, middle-aged mothers, some with headscarves, several grannies. We meet up once a week in a room at the local school and for about two hours, we just sing as best we can. The initiative came from a retired opera singer and she starts each session with a bit of breathing and do-re-mi and then we're off. Usually, it's a mix of well-known German folk songs, the odd hymn, lullabies, pop music, even an aria or two. We each bring sheets with the lyrics, sometimes talking a bit about what the song means to us and usually someone/most know the melody. We also try our luck with harmonies and rounders, there is a lot of clapping, snapping and even dancing. Also lots of laughter.

This week we sang The Ode to Joy, Yesterday, Muss I denn (Elvis called it Wooden Heart), Moon River, a couple of German and two Turkish folk songs, Que sera sera, Le Champs Elyssees and If I Had a Hammer.  

To finish the session, we belt out rounders of Frère Jacques in German, French, Turkish and English at the top of our voices and then it's Good Bye, see you next week.

 

the magic of J S Bach

After some beautiful sunny and mild days, almost a week of it, the cold and predominantly grey skies are back. But there's no denying that a shy spring is here.

This is today's view on my walk along the river. I can see potential.

As I walked, I noticed a man with two lurchers. He was wearing an impressive outfit of waxed hunting jacket and one of these Aussie slough hats, and he was deep into making a show of his dog training methods, lots of clicking and sharp words and obedience. He also did this smack in the middle of the cycle path necessitating cyclists to stop or moving onto the grass to avoid hitting him or the dogs. It was quite the spectacle. When I got closer, I realised that this was the local representative of the far right nazi party. Some time back last year during one of the election campaigns I had made the mistake of attempting a debate on something or other at his party's road side stall and it culminated in him blocking my way - getting far too close - and shouting in my face, sue me, sue me, if you dare, you stupid cow. Then he was still sporting that silly upper lip moustache, which - for reasons - has now disappeared.

Anyway, in the recent general election, his despicable party got exactly 7.9% of the vote in this city. So I decided it was not worth my while to observe more of his dramatics and just there and then, the beautiful music algorithm of my smartphone started to play a piece of Bach and I turned back to the river as a barge with a name tag Inspiration floated by, and I felt a wave of relief that my country has also been home to this gifted composer and that his work endures and continues to bring such joy on a foggy day.

 

sad days

I've spent some time - years to be honest, many years and I am not finished - trying to understand the war trauma of my parent's generation, the people who were kids during the nazi years, who became adults when WWII was over, started careers, a family, a life with modest luxuries, healthcare, safe pensions, the lot.

One of the many books I have read on all of this and one that I have come back to repeatedly deals with the silent ruins the war left behind. The unspoken guilt, shame, loss, fear and so on that was passed on to the next generation. The way we were made to finish what was on the plate no matter how long it took, whether it made you gag or whether you were sent to eat it on the back door steps, the way we were never allowed to be idle, not allowed to waste time, always showing to the world that we were on the way to achieve something, shape something, make something of ourselves, the way we were told that "a real person does not feel pain" and sent to school with a fever, the way we were to suffer the strange unreasonable punishment procedures, the silent treatment, the never ending fear of your mother falling apart.

The war experiences of our parents as children, as teenagers were never really shared, only sometimes mentioned in passing or when we were given what my mother called "war food", soup made from old bread, potato peel, or the dreaded turnips. All we got was fragmentary knowledge, diffuse impressions that we tried to understand and fit into our own childhood experiences. 

I know now, many years later, that all this, the unspoken, the unspeakable, the things nobody wanted to remember and yet could never forget, has seeped into my own unconscious, has shaped my generation's fears and nightmares. 

In a conversation, a friend who is about my age mentions that the first thing she did after it became apparent in the last week that the US government is handing matters to Putin was to stock up on food and water and check all the locks. She laughs and shakes her head, what on earth did I do that for? And yet, I did the same, and more. 

I watch videos where seasoned army generals explain what to expect in case, when and how the next Russian cyber attack may hit, the electricity networks, water supply, railway systems? I check the distance between the US troop bases in Germany and my city, my mind swirling with movie images of invading soldiers. 

Below is a photograph by Lee Miller, the famous and courageous war time photographer, taken on this day in March 1945. What you see is the ruins of the Münsterplatz, one of the main city center areas of the city that has been our home for over 30 years now. You see a large bronze statue of the city's famous son, Ludwig van Beethoven, erected on his 75th birthday in August 1845. I wonder if the GI in this picture knew any of Beethoven's music. But who cares, what matters, then and today, is that he and all of his fellow troops came to this dreadful country that had caused such unspeakable horror and death, so that it once again could become a democracy, where my parents could live their adult lives without war, where I could live my life in peace without ever wasting a breath questioning it. So far.

When I walk down to the river, as I do on most days, I pass a memorial plaque for the Hodges bridge, a pontoon bridge the US forces built between March and April 1945, enabling US troops to cross the river Rhine, enabling a ceasefire and thus eventually within weeks, the end of WWII. 

If I cycle south for maybe a half hour, depending on the direction of the wind, I'll reach the remains of the bridge at Remagen, which was a critical strategic river crossing captured by US forces in March 1945 . Maybe you have seen the 1969 movie version of the battle and the dramatic collpase of the bridge.

 

I have never been to the American continent, despite the fact that many members of R's Irish family have travelled, worked, lived there, several are still living there (and elsewhere on the planet). But traces of the US are everywhere in my country, so many ties, so much to celebrate, enjoy, share. Travellers, students, colleagues, companies, so many friends. So much we have taken for granted and with gratitude, endless inspirations, thoughts, words, music, fun. Oh the fun!

On now, people have started to check out #UnplugTrump suggestions, beginning to say goodbye to US big tech, looking through the surprising selection of ad-free, independent apps and open source platforms. I watch people scanning items with madeometer.com and in the shops, suddenly we have become careful and discerning customers. A twelve step program for independence. Digital and beyond.

It feels strange but at the same time, so obvious, so easy, so weird. So sad. So very sad.

 

 

spring

After our recent outings in fog and wind and rain, we finally managed to have a walk in sunshine. Reasons to be cheerful.

There was still frost on the ground when we set out, walking steeply uphill, towards the rim of yet another extinct volcano.

The different layers of the soil told an ancient story. 

 On we climbed up for an hour to the top of the rim.

 

And finally looked down into what once was a crater full of hissing lava, cultivated into rich farmland for centuries.

By now, the sun was warm on our faces, the air was still, a single thrush was singing her heart out. We sat down and drank the coffee from our flask, leaning back, looking around us, feeling alive.

 

 

I could have fallen asleep there for hours but on we walked, down through the fields with old apple trees here and there.

 Until we found a lake.

 

And decided it will be a good place for a swim come summer. I timed the drive home and checked the water use permits, it's a deal. We'll be back. 

You never know which small, endearing, perhaps even bizarre gesture will be the one that gives you power. But it is there. It's waiting for you. (. . . ) After all, they only have the power we give them, and we can take it back at some point.

The killer clowns try to sound like comedians or preachers, but they only utter obscenities. At their core, they remain unloved teenagers, desperate for attention. They have nothing to offer, neither joy nor spiritual insight. If we look dispassionately behind their chaos, if we undermine them at every turn, not only will it be fun, but it will one day shake their house of cards. Proving that fear doesn't have to make us cruel and that we don't have to join in blaming others for things they never did to us is amusing and triggers the fascists at the same time.

Right-wing extremism attracts the inadequate, who can only feel superior when others are terrorised and disappear. Fascists reassure themselves with magical thinking, and fascists are, it cannot be emphasised enough, dumb as bricks.

A.L. Kennedy

remember, don't forget

 

But it is illogical, to say the least, for Americans not to thank Ukrainians, or to treat their courageous president as an object of contempt. The coercive ritual of gratitude hides from Americans the basic reality of what has happened these last three years. During this war, Ukraine has delivered to the United States strategic gains that the United States could not have achieved on its own. Ukrainian resistance gave hope to people defending democracies around the world. Ukrainian soldiers were defending the basic principle of international law, which is that states are sovereign and that borders should not be changed by aggression. Ukraine in effect fulfilled the entire NATO mission, absorbing a full-scale Russian attack essentially on its own. It has deterred Chinese aggression over Taiwan, by showing how difficult offensive operations can be. It has slowed the spread of nuclear weapons, by proving that a conventional power can resist a nuclear power in a conventional war. Throughout the war, Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, and the Ukrainians have resisted the nuclear bluff. Should they be allowed to be defeated, nuclear weapons will spread around the world, both to those who wish to bluff with them, and those who will need them to resist the bluff.

By abandoning Ukraine, Trump is risking a terrible escalation and, indeed, a world war. Everything that Ukraine has done these last three years can be reversed. Now that the Trump administration has chosen to throw American power to Russia's side, Russia could indeed win the war. (This was always Russia's only chance, as the Russians themselves well knew, and openly said.) In this scenario of an American-backed Russian victory, opened yesterday by American choices in the American capital, the horrible losses extend far beyond Ukraine. Zelens'kyi quite sensibly made the point that the consequences of the war could extend to Americans. 

 

Timothy Snyder

 

boycott

Many years ago, my daughter had to write an extended essay on civil liberties and how seemingly small or arduous actions can influence politics. She was not amused and left it to the very last moment to start. Luckily, her mother had been active as a trade union member in the Irish boycott of SA goods while she herself was just a tiny toddler. On top of that, there is a weak and distant family link to the 19th century Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell who basically invented, some say re-invented, the idea of an effective non-violent action - the name derives from a cruel landagent, Charles Boycott, but surely everybody knows that. Anyway, she gathered enough inspiration and wrote her essay, it's somewhere in a box in the attic I think.

Today, our local paper published a list of goods to boycott, many of the large retail shops, several local restaurants have signs on their doors telling their customers, which US goods will no longer be available, no coca or pepsi cola, no ketchup, no almonds, no Kraft sweets etc.

Click here to watch a little video from far away Australia. Does it matter if it will have any effect? See for yourself.

However grim things look, whatever the overwhelming odds you face, you will not face them alone. I will not be complicit in the tyranny of the USA. I will not buy into the tyranny of the USA. Because when this is over, one way or another, I want my name to have been recorded, in my memory if nowhere else, in the column of the names of the people who said "I will not be complicit." and not among the names of those who sneered and sniggered; or worse, who cheered the tyrant on.

eat the wild strawberry

 

 a stormy wet day in 2009, Killary Harbour, Ireland

 

 It's all dreadful, the future looks so bleak, a friend tells me. Every day another blow. And so on.

Later, I read this in Rebecca Solnit's excellent newsletter, Meditations in an Emergency

 

I think of all of this while I walk along the river and the wind is so fierce in my face that I move faster and faster. My cheeks sting from the cold and suddenly, there's the thought of my big blue mug, filled with steaming tea, in my hands. And this small thought of a pleasure awaiting me back in my warm kitchen brings on a sudden cascade of happy memories, so much so that I start to hum. These moments in my life of pure joy, the knowledge that something vague and very good is going to happen. I realise, once more, that this expectation of joy is what has directed and surprised and comforted me all my life. Looking at the river glittering grey and blue in the cold winter afternoon, the barges gliding by and the sun about to set behind a small bank of clouds and all along, I feel a sense of being safe. Despite it all. The bombardement of bleak news, the ever changing diagnosis, the daily conundrum of gaining and maintaining a semblance of health and wellbeing, the fearful future outlooks. To not let it overtake me. Not allow myself to lose It. My soul. My self.  My happiness, and how can I even think of happiness with all the horrible things going on. Do I, do we, even deserve feeling happy, feeling joy, feeling good? Whatever type of happiness the future will hold, it can only be a lesser one I think, or maybe I'm wrong and it will be a deeper one? 

The thing is, I have never been in real danger, never experienced poverty, never been unable to seek medical help. I always had access to education, have been encouraged to learn, to study, to read, to visit, to debate and speak without any restrictions. In every place I ever lived, I had access to libraries, big and small, news media, gossip, rumours, jokes, satire, critical opinions, science. And while there have been times, years in fact, when money was short, very short, my fridge has never been empty. There has always been a garden or at least access to land where I could grow food. My existence has never been at risk. Nobody in my immediate family has suffered hardship since I have been alive. All my adult life, I have experienced companionship, friendship, support, I have never been abandoned, betrayed, ridiculed, cheated, deserted. Like most of us, I have experienced loss and grief and found ways and help to cope.

Yes, I have known fear, dread, anxiety, panic.  Some times, like now, to an extent that affects my sleep, my peace of mind. My vivid imagination is a blessing and a curse. In a recent exchange somewhere on social media, I wrote: I've been panicky since Chernobyl, more or less. And yet, I am still blown by how happy I can feel.

Relax

Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she’s a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat—
the one you never really liked—will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours. Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn’t plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you’ll come home to find your son has emptied
the refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up—drug money.
There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.
And two mice—one white, one black—scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth. 

Ellen Bass

 

need to get birdfood

 

Don’t Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty

of lives and whole towns destroyed or about

to be. We are not wise, and not very often

kind. And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this

is its way of fighting back, that sometimes

something happens better than all the riches

or power in the world. It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant

when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.

Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid

of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Mary Oliver

 

 

Another frosty night, another cold day ahead of us. At least it's sunny. And very windy. I may have mentioned at some stage that I dislike winter. I herewith confirm this strong dislike. My lower arms are recovering from the infection but it still looks like an angry red case of scabies. The grandchild was impressed. Was there lots of blood, they asked? Tell me again Granny, did it run down to your hands?.

Various events in the near and far make me anxious. On Saturday, I visited all the party stalls at the farmer's market and pretended to read their hand-outs while I waited until the respective candidate had noticed me. I then asked each of them the same set of questions. After they had produced their helpful/empty/instructive/off-topic reply I told one of them that I think him completely unsuited for representing me in the national parliament and urged another to get her act together for goodness sakes and a third one gave me a bunch of tulips before I could even open my mouth but we agreed that a bunch of forcefully grown flowers from a Dutch greenhouse will not buy my vote. I gave the tulips to the guy from the coffee truck, as he had just passed his German language exam and can now apply for a German passport. He said he intends to vote at the next general election, not this one and I promised him that I do what I can so that he will be able to.

We have exactly one snowdrop flowering in the herb bed of all places. Thankfully, the eranthis has spread all over the place and is flowering to abandon. I am now off to get more birdfood. Also, more coffee. 

 

Resistance is not a moment, but a process.

This morning, first thing, a message from a friend, in panic mode, she tells me, everywhere I look, nothing is right anymore. I lean back and check myself for a while, try to figure out when what has been right. I think I have been in panic mode for a long time, more or less. Funny that. 

These days I often miss my father, want to call him and ask, what was it like for you? How long did it take you to look behind the facades of lies and deception? The empty promises? What was it like to just get on with life? Birthday parties and climbing trees and picking raspberries.

The past week was pretty meh thanks to (what should have been) superficial actinic keratosis treatment resulting in sepsis requiring a double dose of antibiotics. I swam around for three days with chills and fever and disorientation but hey, antibiotics do work miracles. Regretfully, they also create havoc in the digestive system. A work in progress.

Anyway, small fry compared to what's going on here, there and everywhere. And unexpectedly, in the couple of days of sepsis-induced exhaustion, I felt a strong sense of impatience. Do not render me inactive, I hissed at my ill self. We have work to do. Below is a jumble of thoughts and quotes I collected in my fever days. I still hold on to the thought that we can do our bit and that our bit is enough. Because we can do our bit with all of the others doing their bit. It may not be enough to save us individually but it is enough to show that maybe we are all worth saving. And maybe that’s enough.

The Defenders

I love the courage
of the little black ants
who when disturbed
come out of their old
fencepost as big dogs
come after a rat,
take hold of me,
shake me, and growl.

Wendell Berry

The world is held together, I think, by a million ordinary encounters that occur between the millions of people each second allows itself to hold. And the world is broken, I think, by whatever doesn’t understand or appreciate the ordinary.

Devin Kelly 

So let's concentrate on the truth. The promises of fascism are always poisoned, contagious, absurd. They cannot thrive in peace, never want to be scrutinised. For this reason alone, we must create peace - mentally, spiritually, physically - we must create peace wherever we can. We strengthen creativity, fluidity, mutual support. Why does the far right hate nature, art and beauty? Because strength, clarity, unity and imagination are a threat to them to the same extent that they help us. Why are they trying to erase history? Because those who plan to repeat the worst mistakes of history do not want us to foresee how many people will perish in the process. 

A.L.Kennedy 

We are all one. And if we don't realise that, we will learn it the hard way.

 

when you are German

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

Anne Frank

At age 14, I went on a school exchange to the UK because my grades in English were abysmal but also because I wanted to get away from boring Germany. I ended up in an incredibly dull town on the east coast of England and had a miserable time. My English improved but not to the expected standard, also I had picked up the local accent. So it was an allround failure. (I did, however, come back with blue nail varnish and some excellent memories of a week in London.)

From day one of my time in England, I was told in no uncertain terms by the good people living there that I was a Kraut and that Germany had lost the war. Some people had a good laugh, showed me funny tv sketches, others decided to provide history lessons and occasionally, I was asked, how come the Germans allowed hitler to do what he did? What did your family do? Why did the Germans let this happen? 

I am grateful for this experience. I returned home and started to ask questions - which were not answered. Anyway, life interfered and it was not until much later, that I began to take longer and harder looks at my country's recent history.

Where to begin. There's the guilt, the shame. To face it, even when you are second and third generation. The responsibility I have felt at times is overwhelming. 

Some milestones along the road.

There is my obtaining of my maternal grandfather's files from the national archive and while there is so much that I cannot reveal or even locate, the knowledge of his involvement.

There are relatives of my parent's and grandparent's generation who are angry with me, who want me to understand that there wasn't a choice, that one had to remain silent, not attract attention, that it was all too much to cope and understand.

There was Daniel Goldhagen's book about hitler's willing executioners (2012) that sparked months of public debates and heated discussions, and not just regarding the historic German anti-semitism but the  Mitläufer (follower, hanger-on, collaborator), ordinary (?) citizens who basically did nothing, failed to rock the boat.

There was a long cold day spent in Dachau concentration camp, a short distance from where my parents met and where I was born. It was the first camp established by the nazis, used - especially in its early years - to imprison and intimidate political dissidents. The camp, which is massive, was built in the first months after hitler came to power, i.e. years before Auschwitz.

I could go on. There are days, when I am still hoping with all my heart that I will find one, just one distant relative who may have hidden someone in their basement or attic, enabled a family to escape, participated in a secret resistance group, printed leaflets, developed even the smallest form of sabotage. 

Nobody did, they all felt too exhausted, too shocked, too worried about their own family, status, well being, survival. I could call them all cowards but what do I know. The 12 years of nazi regime, the six years of war that ended it. It was never a topic of conversation in my extended family. And if the subject came up, rarely and by accident, there was often silence, people would leave the room, my mother shaking and smoking.

When you are German, to this day people from other countries feel obliged to remind you of what your parent's and grandparent's generation did. They tell you stories of how their father fought against the nazis, of how their politicians helped to end fascism in Europe. And they tell you that they would never  let anything like it happen in their own country. That it's a German curse, and that these Germans, these lazy, idiotic Germans did nothing to stop it. 

On national tv last night, yet another expert explained that in the US there surely will come a point when Trumpism has exhausted itself and people are tired of it. That much is certain, he said. I wonder at what price.

imbolc

This day means a lot to me, I often call it the most hopeful day, the day, when the light comes in. And I still do, even after watching and raging for the past three days at what has been going on in my country and what is going on elsewhere. I could list all the angry and insightful quotes and statements I have collected, the memes and the poster images and the cartoons, thank goodness for nasty cartoons. But instead, I look out over the hoar frosted garden, bright sunlight, the birds picking through the handful of nuts and seeds on the patio table, the squirrels racing across the lawn and into the hazel bush.

Before sunrise, I hear the blackbirds singing out their mating songs. And this is my song for today.

 

 

Today, I want to whisper in people's ears: Don't be afraid of change, because the current situation means a climate crisis, wars, inequality, noise, oppression, species extinction, oligarchy, lack of education, violence ... Nothing that is worth fighting to preserve. So you have nothing to lose by embarking on the adventure of improving the world. Do your best to separate the signal from the noise.

We exist together. We don’t have to do any of this alone.

Perhaps this is all we can give each other right now—the promise of support and camaraderie and love. There are things that will not get better—things that will be irrevocably lost—but then there are things, hopefully, that will: our care for each other. Our care for the land. Our involvement in our communities. Our capacity for love.

Getting better at loving, I think, means sitting with the hard stuff, not being afraid of it, not turning away. Maybe we can learn to undo the language of betterment in favor of something more honest and true: not I hope you feel better but I’m with you as things get worse.

Nandi Rose

Tomorrow is my sister's 70th birthday. She has been mad at me since forever, we are in a constant competition of who can come up with the best, veiled insult, the sharpest sarcastic remark, the nicest grandchild, the worst chronic pain and so on. We are both carrying wounds that will never heal. I know I owe my life to her. I knitted this pair of mittens for her. The pattern is from a book I found in a second hand shop ages ago, it's an old Estonian pattern. The book is full of wonderful mittens and socks in these traditinal techniques and patterns. I've copied every single one of them over the years. A long time ago, I knitted one of these mittens for a therapist I went to for a while. I carefully chose the softest wool and fretted over the pattern a good deal. She refused to accept them, something about professional standards, about not allowing client's work on her skin and so on. I dropped the mittens in a bin on the way home.

Anyway, that was a very long time ago. These here are the ones I sent to my sister.

What is more remarkable: our capacity to forget suffering and darkness, or our capacity to remember it?

 The good news first.

We are approaching Imbolc/St Brigid's Day but more on that on the weekend. Needless to say, it lifts my heart to hear the blackbirds singing before sunrise.

Things are looking rather messy in the vegetable garden. It's the time of the year when we've lost the will to harvest even more Brussel sprouts and turnips. Although the latter did taste great when I roasted a few of them yesterday. But my taste buds have begun to hanker for rhubarb, asparagus, freshly picked radish and so on. All in time. Anyway, apart from the green manure growing in the front right, all the rest is for the birds and the squirrels and will be dug up soon enough.

Meanwhile matters are coming along indoors . And this is only the beginning.

As for the covid patch, we've cleared all the self seeding wildflowers and various grasses/weeds to turn this into a patch for a variety of caterpillar food plants. It's all very well to enjoy butterflies in the summer as they feed on buddliah flowers, we need to think of them as caterpillars. I sat in a workshop some time last autumn and have now managed to find a seed bank sharing local seed for suitable plants, got the soil tested and found to be too rich in nutrients. So we are mixing in sand and stuff to reduce the nutrients, which is supposedly allowing the soil to be more welcoming for these plants. I am actually very excited about this, the seed packet includes over 50 species.

The dead wood hedge around it will grow in time and is currently home to wild bees and at least one hedgehog.

This morning we attended our city's memorial event for International Holocaust Remembrance Day. A large section of the program had been prepared by local high school students (year 10, 15 years old) who had studied the life stories of ten local persons who 80 years ago were liberated from concentration camps and prisons or who were able to leave their hiding places at the end of the war. The students had contacted consulates, schools, museums, archives, universities, churches and relatives worldwide and presented a very moving collection of images, memories and eye witness reports. In between, there was live music, and as expected, I had to cry during a Beethoven cello piece that I would normally probably never even listen to. I am sure I was not the only one in the dark auditorium. Not even hitler and his henchmen could survive on hate and terror.