Cead Fáilte
It’s Wednesday and I have been busy doing other things since last week instead of creating podcasts or blog articles.
We went on a weekend RV trip up to the local national park where there is no internet, cell phone service is at a minimum and none of the usual amenities found in normal RV parks. I enjoyed watching my wife and little dog try to get friendly with the local deer roaming around the camp ground Saturday evening. All in all, a relaxing trip.
The only downside was the reason we went in the first the first place. My dear wife thought that by parking somewhere on a mountain with clear skies, she would get to see the Aurora Borealis, the northern lights. I tried to explain that we live too far south for that but she didn’t want to hear it.
Needless to say, there were no northern lights last Saturday night on the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. She did take some pictures of a pretty sunset though, so all was not lost.
We returned home on Sunday afternoon and after cleaning up, I didn’t feel much like pushing out a Sunday Edition and I didn’t think anyone else would mind if I took the rest of the day off.
I was feeling unwell on Monday so I just did the minimum we had to do that morning and took an afternoon nap hoping to feel a little better. That was when I decided to craft a podcast for today.
I was unsure about what to talk about until I received an email from Jessica Wildfire with her latest articles in it. One of them just happened to be about this new strain of Monkey Pox or Mpox as they are now calling it, so that became the main topic of today’s little show.
It’s a little rough around the edges but there is some good information in it that might be of some interest.
In the United States, a large portion of the U.S. voters are all excited about the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week. I have been inundated with email newsletters talking about little else since it started.
I am an independent voter so I could care less for all of the theatrics there. I never really cared for Barack Obama either but his wife is nice and very smart. I had no interest in listening to her speech or any of the others ones but I got the gist of it in one of my emails from a journalist. It sounds like it was pretty good. It got everyone all excited so it must have worked as planned.
There are more important things happening around the world than the antics of the democrats in Chicago this week. A lot of which I comment about in this short podcast. Gaza is still a big deal, along with the war in Ukraine. Airborne viruses that are killing people are way more important than any political convention in my view and some would argue that defeating Donald trump is the most important thing in the world. Nothing else matters.
I beg to differ. Not that I would ever vote for any American republicans, but Donald Trump is becoming a tired sideshow and the mainstream GOP politicians are running scared that they backed such a dead horse. Trump’s rallies are not drawing many crowds anymore and, according to one source I read today, a lot of people are getting up and leaving before the speeches are finished.
But the democrats have more than the orange menace to worry about as the Green Party is starting to get noticed again. There seems to be a lot of chatter amongst the social media feeds that the ‘uncommitted’ voters who want a permanent ceasefire in Palestine, may go over to Jill Stein. They can read between the lines that the democrats are not going to stop Israel from continuing to commit genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. Nor will they stop funding Ukraine.
If enough independent voters were to head over to the Green party, it may disrupt everything. Not that Jill Stein has a chance of winning but it could shave enough votes away from both main parties to disrupt the electoral college delegates, throwing the whole election into disarray. Remember, one of the candidates needs that magic number of 270 electoral votes to become the next president. Without it, things get dicey.
Wouldn’t that set off some political fireworks across the country. There would be cries of election fraud from every corner, and not just the GOP election deniers.
Just food for thought based on the stories I am reading across the independent news media. That is my sole purpose in these podcasts. To throw some things out into the public eye to think about that a lot of independent journalists write about. Things that are important but get little attention by the main stream population until it’s too late.
I am right in there with the independent writers as I garner very little attention to my commentary regarding the articles I find. As Michael Campi noted in his recent W.T.F. Medium article, most affluent Americans prefer to live in a dream like bubble where everything is fine. No financial stresses, no wars to think about, no viruses to worry about. Life is but a dream.
Unfortunately, life doesn’t work like that. Well, it does for a certain wealthy few. At least until your mega yacht sinks in a climate change induced storm and it sinks, taking nearly all hands down with it. Oops, so much for that bubble.
Thank you for reading my musings again this week. I am taking some time off to entertain a couple of grandchildren who are coming to visit for a bit. I will still post Crann na beatha Stories and Poetry as usual but The Village Oak Tree is going on vacation for a week. Sláinte
T. Ó Domhnaill — Gaelic Seanchaí
References used for this week’s episode:
The New Face of Climate Activism Wields a Pickaxe
Léna Lazare and her cohort, radicalized by climate inaction, view strategic sabotage and property destruction as acts of joy.
Morgan Meaker for Mother Jones.com
New US Support for Global Production Limits Has the Plastics Industry in a Tizzy
The Biden administration’s reversal could prove influential in upcoming treaty talks.
Joseph Winters for Mother Jones.com
US undercounts bird flu in cattle as farmers shun testing
By Leah Douglas and Tom Polansek for Reuters
Why You Don't Need to Panic About Mpox
Protect yourself.
Jessica Wildfire in okdoomer.io
Mpox not new Covid and can be stopped, expert says
Michelle Roberts
Digital health editor, BBC News
Siberian region evacuates children's summer camps amid raging wildfires
By Reuters
The Saudi Crown Prince Is Talking About An Assassination. His Own.
Many people want to kill the Saudi leader, but is he using such threats as a means to get the U.S. to pressure Israel on a future Palestinian state?
In Politico.com
Lithuania begins construction of base for German troops near Russian border
By Andrius Sytas in Reuters.com
The Priest
Formerly known as Bob (part 9)
The Village Oak Tree