Reflections of an Old Man

"Hi, My name is Harry and you are my host. I feel the same way you do: Live a long life and reproduce to the best of my ability. Let's get along and treat each other with respect. I don't want to kill you and my offspring inside your dying body, so I have decided to stay away from your lungs and hang out in your airways instead. That way I can quickly jump from one of you to the next one without putting you into isolation in a hospital, because you can still breathe without much difficulty. I'm OK, you're OK. We get along." Reply: " That works for me too Harry; gives me time to figure out how to get along with you so that you can fit in with all the gazillion other critters that live inside me. Welcome to the family"

Right now, at Christmas 2021, the COVID Omicron variant is having a field day in the Earth's human population with health authorities across the world pushing the panic button. I think this might be the beginning of the end of the pandemic with so many being infected that the bug will run out of fuel within a fairly short time frame. Not unlike what happened during the 1918-20 flu pandemic. The pattern of the 2019 - 21? pandemic is very similar, giving me a sense of optimism for life to return to normal next year. History has a tendency to repeat itself and Omicron might be a blessing in disguise.

  Op Ed by Helge Nome    December 20, 2021 In the past, as today, the majority of humanity tends to end up corralled into functional units like nation-states and all manner of organizations within nation-states. Power structures form within which individuals take their places and seek to enhance their power to control and influence other people. The outcome of this process invariably give a very small number of people a high degree of control over the vast majority to their ultimate detriment. Historically, "The Company" exercised a sense of ownership of its employees and treated them accordingly, not unlike slave owners did in their day.  Today, employees have more flexibility than in the past, but alas, there is a new shepherd on the block, looking to assemble his own flock: Megacorp.  This dude wants to create the "Metaverse" where he can control the behaviour of those that immerse themselves in his creation while under the illusion of creating their own worl...

Tensions between Russia and the US have been steadily building lately, over the question of Ukraine and its application for membership in NATO. Russia sees such a development as unacceptable right on its border and within its sphere of influence. Ukraine, on the other hand, sees it as a necessity and deterrent against being bullied by Russia. As it turns out, Ukraine has powerful allies in the US that are prepared to use their political influence on the US government to get their way, even if it involves military action against Russia in the region. The Russians see themselves as having the military advantage if a decision is made to invade Ukraine and could quickly occupy that state if they choose to do so. Who blinks first? If nobody does we will all be paying for it.

The world wide COVID pandemic and the increasingly obvious effects of violent weather events are bringing home the power of governments to control people The emergence of new, ever more virulent variants on the COVID front bring forth ever stronger government counter measures, like effective social isolation for those that refuse to be immunized. States of emergency are routinely declared by governments in the face of violent weather events, as in the recent flooding event in southern British Columbia. In tandem with these developments, mega corporations are using their social media platforms to rope people into their folds with the object of exploiting them to the fullest. They try to create virtual worlds, where people spend most of their waking time being manipulated. I believe this is a repeat of what has happened, possibly many times in the past; the silent reminders of which are the gigantic stone structures left behind by previous iterations of civilizations.

Most pre- and post-millenials who have grown up in the western world have not experienced real hardship, compared to previous generations who have faced war, pestilence and famine to various degrees over time. I remember living in the Australian outback back in the seventies and eighties and going through a drought where local cattle died from thirst and starvation in the middle of waterholes left in the river bed after the river stopped flowing. They had just had enough energy left to drag themselves into the water to drink, and, having filled up their bellies with water, died there because they did not have the strength left to get out of the water. I depended on that water for my household, so I used a "comealong" to drag the corpses onto the riverbank, so that they could decompose there, rather than contaminating the water in the riverbed. There are those who try to minimize the impacts of what is happening on our world today. To those I say: "You are like the virgi...

Archeology and digging in the soil go together in our culture. It is the obvious way of 'unearthing' the past and relates to the practice of returning our remains to the soil after we pass, based on the notion of returning to Mother Earth. So, in our culture, physical digging into layers of soil will reveal aspects of the past that can be used to partly reconstruct that past and provide us with clues about life long ago. However, this method has its limitations as to how far back we can reach because of soil disturbances caused by natural phenomena over time. For example, the great glaciers would have largely obliterated any evidence of pre glacial life that may have existed in areas they occupied. There is another place where we can look for cultural evidence that has been preserved: In the deeper layers of our own minds. I have discovered, as many others have, that in the distant past worship of Sol (the sun) was almost universal, most recently here on Turtle Island, and beyo...