Our family has had a couple of great weeks. It never did get hot, and we had an exceptional amount of rain. The lawn still looks beautiful and it has been a good time to go out.
A week ago Sunday Eddie Zoriana and I took the circle line train the long way around – north, west and then south – to the large botanical garden that Eddie and I had frequently visited a couple of years ago.
We had a little mishap along the way. Zoriana insists on stopping to pee more often than I think is necessary. It may just be a device to get attention. Anyhow, climbing up the trail from the train station I pointed to a bunch of bushes on the uphill side and told her "Go!"
She stepped in something we are calling dog do, although my guess is that it had more to do with the homeless than the dogs. I got it on my hands scraping it off of her shoes. She wore only one shoe as we followed the trail uphill until we found a stream of water that had been condensed from an air conditioner. That gave us enough to clean her shoe off better and clean my hands as well. At the top of the hill was a convenience store where we got some wet wipes to continue the job.
After that inauspicious start we continued walking through this gorgeous, wealthy hilltop neighborhood where Eddie named and counted each prestigious brand of automobile that we passed.
First stop in the garden itself was the magnificent playground donated by Swedbank a few years back. The Swedes have a genius for outdoor spaces, and this one has the most interesting play equipment to be found in Kyiv. The bank itself is gone – the Swedes are a little bit too trusting to thrive in the banking business in Ukraine. We spent close to an hour playing there. I am constantly impressed at the children's ability to make friends instantaneously with other kids. This time, however, I didn't fall into conversation with any of the parents. Usually there are some foreigners there who appear interested when they hear us speaking English and are easy to engage.
From the playground we continued along the ridge to the artificial hills that were thrown up as barricades a few centuries back. Though we kept talking about getting there, we never made it. There are too many interesting trees along the way. Here is a picture of the kids in a friendly birch tree.
We left the park fully satisfied but with some unfinished business. We have to go back sometime this fall.
Yesterday's Sunday outing was much less adventuresome. Leaving Marianna with the babysitter, Oksana and I took the older kids to a string of playgrounds along the banks of the Desno. It was delightful to have a couple of hours to talk with Oksana. As you married folks know, despite sharing a house there is often not enough time for conversation.
Zoriana's kindergarten has brought us closer to the neighbors. Pavel down the street is a video game developer and Sergei up the street a serial entrepreneur. They and their wives offer Zoriana and me a ride when they see us walking to the bus.
I welcome the conversation and getting to know the neighbors. They find it a little bit peculiar that we don't have a car, but then again a septuagenarian foreigner with little kids is unusual to start with. I haven't shared my prejudice about car seats – that they isolate kids from learning experiences in the real world – the kids learn more on the bus, or sharing rides with them. By the way, Oksana similarly bites her tongue about video entertainment. The two kids in question spend a fair amount of time in front of the tube, which Zoriana is not allowed.
Last night Sergei and Katya invited us over. Another absolutely beautiful house – looks small from the street, but it is a half-acre backing up to a lake, all gorgeously landscaped. It was a delicious dinner and a wonderful opportunity to get to know them. The other guests included Zhenya (nickname for Eugene) and Alyona, a childhood friend of Katya Sergei's wife. He is an international businessman and a thoroughly engaging follow.
The two of them lament that they have not been able to travel much the last couple of years. Besides the kids, and incentive to get to know me better is the chance to speak English. On my part, I relish the opportunity to talk to business people here and in particular to expose Eddie to them. In a proud father's eyes he has the right attributes to become an entrepreneur. He is full of ideas and he engages easily with people, and is not reluctant to tell other people how things ought to be done.
Sergei is part of an extended family that has colonized that end of our street. Among them they have five houses on ours and another couple on nearby streets. There are three Katyas among them, the second a single woman in her 50s. As I held our Marianna early in the dinner they wanted to get to know her, but the baby was a bit shy. However by the end of the evening Alyona and Katya had won her over and were happily bouncing her. To Oksana's delight – she likes to get a reprieve every now and again.
Katya and Sergei's two-year-old son Marco is an American. They arranged for him to be born in Miami to give him the option of a second passport. Marianna is of course an American by virtue of my citizenship. I would not be at all surprised if Alyona was interested in having her own little American citizen as well.
The conversation turned to many topics, among which was the vaccine. Ukrainians are being forced into taking the shot in order to travel west. For many Americans it is an uninformed decision. Most simply don't research the risks or the alternatives. That is all the more so for Ukrainians. It is a language spoken only by some 33 million people. Ownership of the media is more concentrated in such small markets and there is no alternative media to speak of. They only get one side of the story. They feel that they are being pressured into a decision that they are not ready to make, and were more than happy to hear from an American who had read fairly extensively on the subject. It was water under the bridge since they had already succumbed and gotten the shots.
My account of how I come to live in Ukraine is usually quite brief and upbeat. It helps if Oksana is there to describe the improbable way that we met and married. But there is a dark side to my stories.
These are depressing times for America. There truly is hatred abroad in the country. I get copied on emails from some of my liberal acquaintances from years past. The first exchange in the table below is a propos of the Washington Post article on the annual Sturgis South Dakota motorcycle rally. The second is a propos іvermectin. Note that both are in inverse chronological order – newest responses on top.
4. In the word of the Fonz, “Correctamundo !”
On Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 3:16 PM > wrote:
3. Exactamente.
On 08/29/2021 8:49 AM > wrote:
Y’all mean THIS ‘Toon by Clay Bennett ???
On Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 2:33 PM > wrote:
Іvеrmectin, an anti-parasitic drug commonly used for livestock, should not be taken to treat or prevent COVID-19, the Food and Drug Administration said.
The warning came a day after the Mississippi State Department of Health issued a similar statement in response to reports that an increasing number of people in Mississippi were using the drug to prevent a COVID infection.
Some studies last year spurred use of the drug against COVID-19, especially in Latin America, and Fox News has promoted some of those studies’ findings on air.
In Mississippi, where only 37% of the population is fully vaccinated, more than two-thirds of recent calls placed to the state’s poison control center were related to “ingestion of livestock or animal formulations of Іvеrmectin purchased at livestock supply centers,” the state department of health said in a news release.
On Twitter, the FDA was declarative in its warning.
“You are not a horse,” the agency said. “You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
Never before in the history of our species has good information been so readily available to so many people, free of charge. And yet, in America, the brainchild of men steeped in the political philosophy of their epoch, the public is now so devoid of intelligence that the government not only has to remind the populace that humans aren’t livestock, but feels compelled to employ a folksy, unacademic cadence while doing so in the hope that using the contraction “y’all” might resonate with someone otherwise inclined to ignore the advice of public health officials on the way to accidentally killing themselves.
4 At least, they're eliminating people we won't miss.
On 8/27/2021 11:04 PM, xxxxxxxx wrote:
3 Perfect!!!!
On 08/27/2021 6:55 PM wrote:
2 Best digital comment about Sturgis 2.0 -
A dialog showing a permalink to the comment
A popover with more user information
1 Sturgis: Come for the liberation, stay for the intubation.
On Sat, Aug 28, 2021 at 12:46 AM > wrote:
Sturgis motorcycle rally linked to more than 100 coronavirus infections amid delta variant’s spread
Motorcycle enthusiasts flood Sturgis, S.D., in August.
With regard to Ivеrmectіn, I continue to accumulate more material. One of you sent a link to what held itself out to be a neutral, well-considered argument. That, in the end, recommended against it. Chasing the thread, it was produced by the BBC, hardly an unbiased source. On the one side you are being bombarded by messages calling you stupid and irresponsible if you take it. On this side appears to be sweet reason – leading to the same conclusion. You must be bored by now, but if you wish I'll send you the links.
They truly do hate the old-line white Americans – the deplorables - who attend rallies such as Sturgis. They demonize them as the greatest threat the democracy has ever seen when they do stupid things such as the January 6 capital invasion or the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. While I would not have been caught dead at either event, it is easy to see that the entire judicial system has placed a huge bull's-eye on traditional white Americans. There is a blatant double standard. Complaining or demonstrating is counterproductive – the right needs to finally figure out what to do about it. My bet is that they won't be able to salvage the situation. They have been too complacent, put up with too much for too long, and have ceded control of the major institutions of society such as the schools to people hostile to them and their values.
More and more of you correspondents are affected. Two computer entrepreneurs based here in Europe are unable to return the United States even to see clients without a vaccination. Another of you has quit a job rather than take the jab. Yesterday at our Toastmasters club a Ukrainian guy sought me out for advice on іvеrmectin. He had a really vicious bout with Covid last winter lasting five months and they want him to take the shot. He is afraid of side effects. I offered three opinions. First, he doesn't need the shot – all the studies I have seen say that natural immunity from having contracted Covid is a stronger defense than the vaccine. Second, however, aside from the dangers posed by the vaccine itself, re-exposure to Covid shouldn't be a problem. Third, іvеrmectin is a prophylaxis is fairly effective, but it may be redundant on top of his natural resistance having had the disease.
I shouldn't be dispensing medical advice. On the other hand it is a scandal that information about this disease is so thoroughly managed, contorted and suppressed by the powers that be. It should be adequate to simply give a guy like this the spelling of the drug and let him look it up.
Incidentally, with regard to the Sturgis rally, these vultures celebrating the imminent death of white people are probably disappointed. A half million people went through Sturgis. Even with the government's aggressive counting Covid cases they only attribute 100 cases and one death to the rally. A 98-year-old biker with a history of diabetes and prostate cancer who coincidentally caught the flu, which is routinely counted as Covid. I'm making up that last part – but if that were the case I'm sure you wouldn't hear it.
It is not in the nature of Ukraine to force vaccinations. The government is not powerful enough to be that intrusive, and the native suspicion of government here is quite high. The people who are getting vaccinated are doing so to be able to travel to America and Western Europe.
I have my fingers crossed that we will be able to wait it out. More and more information is seeping out past the big media blockade about the failure of the vaccines in Israel, Great Britain and other places. Even in America, with its purposefully obfuscated statistics, more people are becoming alert to the situation.
Coronaviruses are a seasonal phenomenon whose season is approaching. My guess is that the problems will become too evident to be ignored sometime over the next three months. Things will change. One of you wrote to note that Japan, which is less in the thrall of big Pharma than most developed countries, has allowed the use of іvermectin.
I don't hear any rumblings of schoolchildren being required to get vaccines here, and in any case Eddie is going to be homeschooled for the next few months. Although the mask mandate remains in effect on public transit, it is more and more widely ignored. I think we will get through.
And that's the news from Lake We Be Gone, where the women are good looking – Oksana's mirror tells her a story that gets better every day about returning to shape after the baby – the men are strong and not afraid of being masculine, and the kids have above average respect for adults in general and their parents in particular.