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Saturday, February 29, 2020

"Have You Ever Noticed That People Who Won't Take The Time To Look Up Important Information..."

Image may contain: 1 person, meme, possible text that says 'HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED THAT PEOPLE WON'T TAKE THE TIME TO LOOK UP IMPORTANT INFORMATION, BUT THEY'LL SPEND 15 MINUTES TAKING A QUIZ TO FIND OUT WHAT KIND OF POTATO THEY ARE?'
The Demonstrable Stupidity Of Trump-Cultists

Bono

At a recent U2 concert, 
Bono asked the audience for total silence.

Then, he started to clap his hands, 
once every few seconds. 
Next, he  | made w/ Imgflip meme maker



"Blind Faith In Religion Is Purchased At The Price Of Forsaking One's Ability To Think Clearly"

Blind Faith In Religion Is Purchased At The Expense 
Of Forsaking One's Ability To Think Clearly | made w/ Imgflip meme maker

For An Eye-Popping Glimpse Of Trumpistas' Bewilderment, Watch These 2 "Daily Show" Videos

For An Eye-Popping Glimpse Of Trumpistas' Bewilderment, Watch These 2 "Daily Show" Videos

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"The Daily Show" Asks Trump Supporters: Who Won the Impeachment Fight?
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"The Daily Show" Fingers the Pulse of Trump Supporters on Impeachment
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Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On Trump And His Cultists' Passion For Lying And Falsehood

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Compendium Of Best Pax Posts About Conspiracies And Conspiracism

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/06/compendium-of-best-pax-posts-about.html
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Compendium Of Best Pax Posts: What I Think About Christianity

The American Experiment And The Trump Administration | made w/ Imgflip meme maker

Online Discussion About Ron Blagojevich Pardon And Imminent Proof Of Obama's Crimes

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Ron Blagojevich
Wikipedia

Jeffrey Ryan:

In order to divert attention from Obama’s criminal dealings with Rezko and Auchi, FBI Director Mueller opened an investigation into Rezko’s dealings with Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and simultaneously swept Obama’s crimes under the rug. The five year “investigation” of Blago came to an abrupt end when the Justice Department leaked information to the Chicago Tribune in order to avoid having to arrest Obama’s presidential election campaign co-chairman, Jesse Jackson Jr., for trying to buy Obama’s senate seat.

Blago was arrested, Jackson was not. Blago faced criminal prosecution while Obama moved on to become President. Which brings us to Trump’s commutation of Blago’s sentence, and why this is so important.

Now that Blago is out of prison, he is free to talk about the crimes Obama committed in Illinois, how Muller covered them up, and how it all relates to Comey’s
seditious acts that followed.

So when you hear Blago say, “The same characters that did it to me are involved in doing it to Trump,” what he is really saying is the people who interfered in the 2016 election are the same people who interfered in the 2008 election. And they’re not Russian!

No wonder the DC swamp and their media are freaking out over Blago’s release from prison.


Alan Archibald:

As soon as Trump-cultists started to defend "any damn thing" -- like QAnonsense and Trump's verbatim statement that "the concept of global warming was invented by and for the Chinese in order to make American manufacturing non-competitive" -- they obliged themselves to tell lies forevermore because.

Otherwise they would realize that they -- like Malignant Messiah himself -- are spewing mendacious nonsense since falsehood is all they've got left. 

Your argument that convicted felon Rezko "proved" Obama had criminal dealings with Rezko recalls "the inconvenient truth" that many felons who used to be in Trump's inner circle are now in the slammer. 

The following 3 links do not rely on "guilt by association" or innuendo. Rather, they are proven facts.

"Roger Stone: Members Of Trump's Inner Circle Are Unusually Likely To Be Convicted Felons"
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/11/roger-stone-reminds-us-that-members-of.html

"Donald Trump, Felon: Re-Visiting Trump University"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/05/donald-trump-felon-re-visiting-trump.html

"Trump Ordered By Judge To Pay $2 Million To Eight Charities For Illegal Use Of Foundation"
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/11/trump-ordered-by-judge-to-pay-2-million.html

Similarly, Trump and Barr don't bring indictment against Hillary even though GOP orthodoxy insists Hillary should be locked up.

Why is it that Hillary is "guilty as sin" but Trump won't indict her? (For that matter why don't Trump and Barr indict Obama for his "criminal dealings with Rezko and Auchi?")

If Hillary is as malfeasant as Trump and his cult-worshipers say, they have a constitutional obligation to bring indictment against her. 

But they don't. 

And they never will. 

Innuendo and "guilt by association" have no legal standing as soon as the "rules of evidence" are applied. 

To get a good glimpse of who you are -- and what Trump worship is -- check out these two "Daily Show" videos.

"The Daily Show" Asks Trump Supporters: Who Won the Impeachment Fight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cas2wXZz1PE

"The Daily Show" Fingers the Pulse of Trump Supporters on Impeachment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ZFoco_1gQ

Trump followers are lost in the weeds. 

And The Swamp has only gotten bigger since Trump promised to drain it.

Kimmel Illustrates All 3 Years of President Trump’s 16,241 Lies: "More Lies Than Visible Stars"
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/01/jimmy-kimmel-illustrates-three-years-of.html

"The Daily Show" Lets Trump Cultists Reveal Their Own Stupidity And Obsequious Boot-Licking

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The Daily Show Asks Trump Supporters: Who Won the Impeachment Fight?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cas2wXZz1PE


Image result for "pax on both houses" what we're up against

The Daily Show Fingers the Pulse of Trump Supporters on Impeachment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ZFoco_1gQ


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"The Hardest Truth: People Want To Be Lied To"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-hardest-lesson-people-want-to-be.html

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Donald Trump Knows More Than The Medical Community Does... And Here's How

Thanks to good friend Jim Sanfilipo for alerting me to this New Yorker cover.

"Why Did Trump Appoint Scientifically-Challenged Mike Pence As Coronavirus Czar?"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/02/why-did-trump-appoint-scientifically.html




Friday, February 28, 2020

FBI Official Says Russia Wants To See U.S. "Tear Ourselves Apart"

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FBI Official Says Russia Wants To See U.S. "Tear Ourselves Apart"

Hidden In Plain Sight: Trump Is Betting A Russian Cyber Attack Will Win The Next Election

Admiral William McRaven, Commander Of The Bin Laden Raid: "As Americans We Should Be Frightened" Of Trump's Ego-Driven National Security Threat

Best Pax Posts On The Relationship Between Asset Trump And Fan-Boy, Vladimir Putin

How It Works: The Nuts And Bolts Of Russian Election Meddling

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/02/how-it-works-nuts-and-bolts-of-russian.html

Trump Just Ousted The Director Of National Intelligence For Warning Congress About Dire Threat

Hidden In Plain Sight: Trump Is Betting A Russian Cyber Attack Will Win The Next Election

Trump Is A National Security Threat: What Should We Do About It
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/11/trump-is-national-security-threat-what.html
"The FBI Can't Neutralize A Security Threat If The President Is The Threat," Washington Post
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-fbi-cant-neutralize-security-threat.html
Urgently Needed Article Of Impeachment: Trump Is A National Security Threat
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/11/urgently-needed-article-of-impeachment.html
"When Conservatives Realized They Could No Longer Win National Elections Honestly..."
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/10/when-american-conservatives-realized.html
Republicans Can No Longer Win Without Cheating, And So They Cheat
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/02/republicans-can-no-longer-win-without.html
Republicans Generally - And Trump Specifically - Are Eager To Lie And Cheat If It Expands Their Power
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/10/republicans-generally-and-trump.html




Trump-Cult: How Deep - And How Thick - Is The Bullshit?

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More often than not, Faith without Reason is a fast track to perdition.
Aquinas probed this relationship in the 13th century.
"Arguing against those who said that natural philosophy was contrary to the Christian faith, (Aquinas) writes in his treatise "Faith, Reason and Theology that "even though the natural light of the human mind is inadequate to make known what is revealed by faith, nevertheless what is divinely taught to us by faith cannot be contrary to what we are endowed with by nature. One or the other would have to be false, and since we have both of them from God, he would be the cause of our error, which is impossible."
"Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World" by John Freely http://www.amazon.com/Aladdins-Lamp-Science-Through-Islamic/dp/0307277836/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327882581&sr=8-1
Aquinas, Trump, Truth... And "Alternative Truth"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/02/aquinas-trump-truth-and-alternative.html
Watch the video below and ask yourself — as if your children’s lives depended on an honest answer — "Are these people not nuts?"
The precise phrase is "taking leave of one's senses.
The Divinity of Donald Trump: Trevor Noah's The Daily Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YFLBjR-swo

The Bonus Round

The Daily Show Asks Trump Supporters: Who Won the Impeachment Fight?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cas2wXZz1PE

The Daily Show Fingers the Pulse of Trump Supporters on Impeachment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ZFoco_1gQ
"The Hardest Truth: People Want To Be Lied To"



Trump's Latest War On Truth: Coronavirus And The Prospect Of Global Recession



Coronavirus And The Prospect Of Global Recession

This morning on my cellphone I saw your question about whether markets are heading for a bear market.

Although my unfailingly prophetic money-manager-brother has taught me that predicting fundamental market shifts is a fool's errand, he has continually asserted for the last five years that a doozy of a recession (or worse) is on its way, and when it strikes, there will be no safe refuge in any financial vehicle except precious metals. (Since 2015, he has held that gold will reach $2000 an ounce.)

But back to the stock market as an indicator of bear markets.

Technically, the definition of a bear market is when the Dow falls 20% from its most recent high.

Notably, Trump administration economists have just lowered their prediction for 2020 GNP growth from 1.9% to 0.9%.

1.9% is anemic.

0.9% sucks.

Neither of these numbers manages to keep up with inflation which, to my mind, makes it very difficult for the stock market to recover its "irrational exuberance," a term you may remember from former Federal Reserve chief "Alan Greenspan" who coined the phrase when the dot.com bubble was bursting in the mid-'90s.

Couple 0.9% GNP growth with interest rates so low that interest rate reduction has limited use to pull the economy out of recession, plus sorely limited tax revenues in the wake of Trump's "Tax Law giveaway to the rich" (and ensuing debt levels like we've never seen before), then take into account the overarching fact that Obama's economic expansion (inherited by Trump) is very "long in the tooth," and it becomes impossible (for me at least) to see how "Trump-drunk" investors can re-load enough irrational exuberance to fight their way out of the hole they've dug.

But despite this wealth of damning evidence, it remains impossible to predict (with any measure of certainty) how irrational exuberance might play out in the minds of Trump cultists so self-pithed that, in 2016, they actually elected Malignant Messiah. (Well... the Electoral College elected Trump. Hillary whooped his ass, getting 4.56% more popular votes than "His Toxicity.")


How Deep -- And How Thick -- Is The Bullshit?



What A Sanders-Trump Electoral Map Looks Like

Heaven Fitch Makes History, Wins North Carolina State Wrestling Championship

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Heaven Fitch Wins North Carolina State Wrestling Championship

Full Screen Video Of Heather's Winning Match



Places Where I Eat Out In Oaxaca

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My Overview Of Oaxaca And Its Hinterland

El Retiro "Pajaro De Nieve," A Turnkey Retreat And Unsurpassed Culture Center At "La Villada" In Oaxaca, Mexico


"Pan con Madre" bakes "the only real bread in Oaxaca": 

Don't miss Boulenc's Bakery right alongside equally superb Boulenc Restaurant

Gourmand with its in-house charcuterie, home-brewed beers (and other Mexican artisan beers) is a great, very comfortable little restaurant where you can watch your food being prepared in the back-room charcuterie: 

El Restaurante "Catedral": 

Berlina German restaurant. A beer of glass of wine comes with each of the 10 fixed plates. I think this restaurant is very under-rated. The co-owner - a Oaxacan man married to a German woman is a sweetheart. 

"Carnitas La Luz," Barrio Reforma. If you like carnitas like I do, this is The Place. You can have a kilo delivered for 280 pesos, complete with all the fixings. 6-8 people can feast for $15.00 U.S. dollars. Also some awesome soups. And if you eat at the restaurant, the two carnitas preparers put on a worthwhile "show." The owner is a cheerful "up by his bootstraps" entrepreneur named Marcos. Live music on weekens. https://www.yelp.com/biz/carnitas-la-luz-oaxaca

Taqueria "Tacos Alvaro" in Oaxaca's Historic District at the corner of Quetzalcoatl. Good tacos. Great pozole! Economical and open late: 1:30 a.m. every day but Friday and Saturday when they're open 'til 3:30 a.m. "Tacos Alvaro" deserves much better ratings than it gets online. (Bathrooms are tiny and unattractive.) https://www.yelp.com/biz/tacos-%C3%A1lvaro-oaxaca-2?hrid=6Ifz0ORSEJ9h5CUZ9a4u-A

El Restaurante La Azucena Zapoteca is a lovely, economical restaurant right on the Andador Turistico which surrounds diners with walls and little galleries of high-quality art and handcraft. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g1800637-d1799374-Reviews-Azucena_Zapoteca-San_Martin_Tilcajete_Southern_Mexico.html

Casa Taviche: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g150801-d10384342-Reviews-Casa_Taviche-Oaxaca_Southern_Mexico.html

Mezzaluna serves good pizza "hand-slung" by the L.A. trained chef/owner. A great place if you plan to eat out on a warm night. You can see Santo Domingo Church from the rooftop eating area. 

Le Crepe: Good, reasonably priced food with three balconies for two-three overlooking the Andador Turistico with partial view of Iglesia Santo Domingo two blocks away. 
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g150801-d1032456-Reviews-La_Crepe-Oaxaca_Southern_Mexico.html

For seafood, there are three restaurants called "La Red" Marisquería with a big, mouthwatering reasonably-priced menu. One branch is just south of the Zocalo on Calle Las Casas, 101 . However the second floor ambiance of the branch "behind" El Mercado Publico De La Merced is more attractive. The third branch, which gets the best reviews of all three is in Barrio Reforma just north of El Distrito Historico.

La Jicara - has a wide-ranging menu but is a vegan Mecca.

La Nonna - La Abuela is a loving little restaurant specializing in very good, inexpensive comida tipica right alongside Jardin Conzatti named after La Nonna's great grandfather, Cassio Conzatti, who went on to become one of Oaxaca's most notable botanists and an educator of national renown: 

Buffet Breakfast (for a little under six dollars) on the second floor of Restaurante Terranova on the east side of the zocalo - from 9 A.M. til 12:45 p.m.:

Don't miss eating in Mercado 20 de Noviembre's meat-and-vegetable corridor where you pick out your cut of meat and the vegetables you want roasted along with it.
https://www.heyoaxaca.com/2019/02/18/mercado-20-de-noviembre-mercado-de-las-carnes-asadas/
Highly engaging video of El Pasillo De Las Carnes Asadas inside Mercado 20 de Noviembre

Comedor "La Rosita" inside Mercado La Merced on the southeastern edge of Oaxaca's Distrito Historico. https://www.yelp.com/biz/comedor-rosita-oaxaca

Las Tlayudas Oaxaca, a spacious, inexpensive restaurant in Barrio Jalatlaco where I live. Tlayudas, tacos and frequent live music.

The open-air street-corner tlayuderia across the street from the north end of La Casa de Cultura at Calle Colon and Calle Gonzalez Ortega. In addition to the delicious tlayudas, don't miss the chocolate-atole, a pre-Columbian, corn-based drink which -- along with hand-made corn tortillas -- are Mexico's original comfort foods.

La Candela. If you like latin dancing, this is a fine venue. However, it is not my purpose to review dance clubs. The ground floor of this same building -- but in a different section altogether from the dance club -- is home to an afternoon-only comida corrida restaurant where the food is quite good and very reasonably priced. But most notably, magic is afoot here. Somehow, the ambiance of this centuries-old, unrestored comedor popular transports you to the 1800s. And the time-traveler effect is not just because the space "looks like" the 1800s but because you "feel" you've gone back in time. N.B. Although you can get to the restaurant through La Candela's entrance on Calle Murguia, the direct entrance to the restaurant is on Calle Pino Suarez, around the corner from Murguia and 30 yards to the north.

La Casa de La Chef on Calzada de la Republica, the curving road that separates the Historic District's right-angled grid-platted streets from Oaxaca's only outlying colonial neighborhood, Jalatlaco:

La Choza, an old eatery in the heart of town, two blocks east of the zocalo. Good comida corrida and more. Live music.

La Gran Torta - a little dog-eared but good food and excellent posole:


The next three economical restaurants come highly recommended although I have not yet eaten at any of them.

Comedor Tipico "La Abuelita": 
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g150801-d2426000-Reviews-La_Hormiga-Oaxaca_Southern_Mexico.html

Other links to provide additional orientation:

"Oaxacan Market Food and Street Eats"
Be sure to sample corn on the cob/elote with all the fixins and the streetside corn soup called "esquite."
https://www.afar.com/travel-tips/market-food-and-street-eats-in-oaxaca

The following Atlantic article, "The Pop-Up Food Shops Of Oaxaca" is 8 years old. What it lacks in currency, it compensates in its overall feel or Oaxacan food. 
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/04/the-pop-up-food-shops-of-oaxaca/255347/

Of the outlying market towns, Zaachila, Etla and Tlacolula, are probably the best.
Here's a good article about Tlacolula out Oaxaca's eastern valley where there are wealth of other things to do and see.

"Tlacolula Shopping List: Oaxaca’s Sunday Market"


And although the following title is debatable, the content is worthwhile:
"The Two Best Market Restaurants in Oaxaca, Mexico"

"8 Essential Things To Do In Oaxaca City Mexico For Foodies"

Meat Alley + Grasshopper Tacos in Oaxaca
Highly engaging video of El Pasillo De Las Carnes Asadas inside Mercado 20 de Noviembre


"The Rough Guide To Mexico"
Online
The section on Oaxaca begins on page 594, including the best map of Oaxaca City's Historic District




Thursday, February 27, 2020

The Trump Presidential Library

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Frog Hospital's Fred Owens Writes A Fine Reflection: Capetown On The Heels Of Homelessness

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FROG HOSPITAL -- Feb. 27, 2020

I Had a Farm in Africa

By Fred Owens

"I had a farm in Africa" is the famous opening line of Out of Africa, Karen Blixen's lyrical meditation of her life on a coffee plantation in Kenya in the old colonial days. "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills." I don't need to read the book again or see the movie again. I can just say that opening line, close my eyes and dream it. I didn't have a farm in Africa, but I did have a garden with tomatoes and strawberries and African herbs. The garden was at our rented home at 21 Shottery Crescent in Bulawayo. We lived there for most of a year and spent many  hot afternoons sitting in the shade of the pepper tree. So how did I get there.

I will start at the beginning. My mother died in 1996 at her home in Wilmette, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. That was where I grew up. I came home for the last time for her funeral and for the months-long project of clearing out the house and settling the estate. I was 50 years old, a single parent. I had just sent my younger child off to college, and I was free. I had moved out of my apartment after Eva left for school. I sold and gave away most of my furniture and put the rest in storage in the attic of Pam Fleetman's garage. And my mother died  --- I know I already said that once, but it was an enormous change, not so much that I was sad, because I was not sad, but I was totally dumbfounded and dazed. 

By the new year of 1997, I had emptied the old house and it was ready for sale. Mom left us some money, it was more than I expected, money I didn't earn and didn't especially deserve, but I guess it was a gift, a bonus that I could use to go someplace, almost any place, and not to travel there but to live there. I chose Africa, for the reason that was obvious to me because it was January in Chicago and it was freezing out there. I would go to Africa to be warm and to live there for a while, have a life with a house and friends and some work. Get to know the people and the climate, find a coffee shop or tavern or bookstore where I might pass the time. Study the plant life, especially the baobob tree. And learn the language and hear the music. So far away to Africa, over 8,000 miles from Chicago, and in the southern hemisphere to see stars I had never seen before.

I chose to live in Zimbabwe because Doris Lessing grew up there. I read her autobiography Under My Skin describing her life as a free-spirited young girl on a farm in the bush in old Rhodesia. As an adult writer with radical views she came into severe disfavor with the white Rhodesian government and was sent into exile, back to England.

Lessing returned in triumph after the 1980 victory of the revolution which brought home rule to the people of a country now called Zimbabwe. The new government gave her a farm. She was grateful for that but could not keep her words to herself. She  wrote about the violence and corruption of the liberation government, finding it to be scarcely superior to the old white government. So she was sent into exile a second time, possibly the only writer to accomplish that feat.

I bought a ticket and got a visa. I booked a cab to O'Hare Airport. When the cab came early the next morning, I soldiered out of the home where we had lived for fifty years, resolutely determined not to turn my head and take one last look. For me, my mother and that house were one and the same thing, but it was good bye. I should have realized that I had just become homeless.

Capetown is like a southern California beach town. Africa Lite. Lots of white people living in nice homes with ocean views. I took the third floor garret room at the lodge in Kalk Bay managed by Mia and Fatima Lahrer, a charming Indian couple. We had many vigorous conversations over dinner. I could see the warm waters of the Indian Ocean from my garret window. I might go body surfing at the nearby beach and then stop at the Cafe Matisse for a glass of wine and a flirtation with Rose the beautiful Coloured waitress. I might have drinks in the evening with Michael Pam, the old poet of Kalk Bay. I might go hike on Table Mountain with the local botany club and see the flowers that grow there and nowhere else -- what they call endemic. I had friends and I had a life in Kalk Bay. It felt more like Europe than Africa.

Then I called Eva my daughter and reached her at her dorm room in Oberlin College in Ohio. I told her that I had found my place. and she said, without a pause, Dad, that's not Africa, you said you were going to Africa. You can't just lie on the beach. C'mon, Dad. .... She could be so commanding. I must follow my mandate and launch a serious expedition into the heart of it. Take the plunge. Go there. Be there. This was not a vacation, but a quest.

That evening at dinner with Mia and Fatima I told them I must continue my journey to Zimbabwe. And Fatima said, You must go to Nyanga. I said why Nyanga, what is there, what does it mean. And she said, You must go to there, you must go to Nyanga.

The End, but stay tuned for the next chapter.... Nyanga means Moon in the Shona language. Let us go there together.

And don't worry about the virus too much. Wash your hands more often, cough into your sleeve, stay home if you feel flu-ish ... but the mask hardly seems necessary unless you work in health care.

Hope it rains here in Santa Barbara and soon,

Hope you all get the best weather you can dream,

Closing in gratitude,

Fred