Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Any Sanders supporters who were planning to vote for Biden because “once we get him elected, we’ll be able to pull him further to the left” just got a big kick in the teeth.
Not only did the party not include a medicare 4 all plank in the party’s platform, despite the fact that it’s overwhelmingly popular, kind of a necessary program in terms of pandemic prevention, and tested and proven to work throughout the rest of the developed world. They might have some reasons they give out at press conferences, but the basic point is that they want health care to continue to be an expensive proposition, so their donors can continue to make lots of money.
Another message they’re sending with this is “We don’t give a fuck about Sanders voters.”
Ditto with marijuana legalization. It’s widely popular, has scientifically proven health benefits, and the states where it is legal are totally happy with the deal. Extra revenue and healthier, happier people.
But the DNC doesn’t want that, because they are old farts and don’t want that because, see above, they want their donors to continue to thrive and they also want an excuse to throw somebody in jail when they need to.
So, there is zero chance of ever moving Biden to the left. Might as well vote Green.

First day back and I’m right back to my old, bad habits. Had intended to work on a long poem which has been niggling at the back of my mind for a few weeks now, I’ve got the first couple of stanzas and some notes, the idea is that each person has a universe inside their heads and so communication is like communication with an alien civilization, sort of, and if we can ever open our minds up to each other, oh, how far we will go, but then I smoked a joint and the whole day went kerflooey. Watched several episodes of Voyager. On the one hand, I hate that they overuse the holodeck, and in fact that’s one of my complaints about sci-fi in general, you’ve got people out there in Starships exploring the universe, and all of a sudden they’re having a shootout in 1930s Chicago or having a pint in a quaint Irish village, so why even bother setting the show in space in the first place, eh? On the other, on 2nd viewing, those were some of my favorite episodes. Then a couple of episodes of a new series (new to me, anyway) called Good Girls about 3 average women who go on a crime spree. The show can’t figure out if it’s a comedy or a drama, and that’s a problem. On the other hand, it has had some funny moments, so I’ll give it a while more. Then, with Helena, we watched a couple episodes of Borgen, a Danish political drama, which we watch with English subtitles. If you’ve ever watched any of those cheesy shows about a fictional American president, this is the same thing, but in Denmark. Then she went to bed so I snuck in another episode of Voyager and now I’m writing this. I’ll work on the poem tomorrow.

Well, I am dead tired after our all day drive back from Slovakia, and for some inexplicable reason waking up at 4:30 a.m., which was kind of awesome at the time, took a nice early morning walk around Jasna, down by the creek, and turned back when I found myself in a cow pasture with a cow lying there very placidly staring at me, no worries, I just kind of felt I was infringing on her space. So, due to fatigue, this will be a short blog.
It was a lovely vacation. We did a couple of interesting things every day and I think the kids and Helena all had a good time, too.
It was short, but it was long enough to break the routine, get the old batteries recharged, and add to the pile of experiences we all accumulate in a lifetime.
Vacations are great. I’d like to take 3 or 4 of them a year, if I could.

The lesson from today’s sightseeing is that I probably, in view of my age and weight, should not plan two events on the same day which involve hiking up bloody mountains.

However, the archaeological skanzen was well worth it. The view of the lake as we hiked up was spectacular, and it was fascinating to see what people in this part of the world lived like 2300 years ago. We hear about the Greeks and Egyptians, but there were people living all around the world then, on little farms like the one we saw. A small log cabin, a pen for goats, a chicken coop I think because it was elevated, and a well. It was a reconstruction, of course, but lovely to see, and ponder on.

Then we did make it to the natural hot spring, which was not all that hot, and the kids refused to get in because, admittedly, it looked a bit gross, but I enjoyed it.

Then we went for lunch, and it was the best restaurant experience I’ve had in a very long time. Via Jasna is the restaurant just a few steps from where we are staying, practically on the property, so we kind of felt we should try it before we left. Not expensive and we all left stuffed. Because Helena and I had both ordered from the daily menu, we both had a cabbage soup coming, but what they brought to the table was a huge pot of cabbage soup. It wasn’t like an all you could eat thing because it was just the first course, it was an obviously way more than you can eat kind of thing. Then our meals arrived, and they were all goodly portions as well, Sam’s rib platter was particularly impressive, my spinach tagliatelle was delicious, and Helena and Isabel both had salads. I was quite surprised that Isabel finished, she almost never does, but all of the food was as good as it was plentiful.

After that, we went to an ice cave. Well, H and I balked at the price and just sent the kids in, but that was also a walk up the mountain to the entrance, where we waited for the kids and enjoyed the spectacular mountain view. When Sam told me there were 200 steps inside the cave, I felt totally justified in our decision.

Tomorrow, we drive home. We’ll see a couple of things on the way home, but tomorrow night’s blog will be written from Prague.

It was a lovely day. We toured a 14th century castle in the morning, and then went to the ‘hot springs’ in the afternoon. I put that in quote marks because, while I had visualized sitting in some vaporous, almost boiling hot water coming naturally out of the ground in a beautiful, natural setting, it turned out to be just another aqua park.
Still, it was a good one, the kids had a good time, the wife and I had a good time and they had one feature I particularly appreciated.
We’d wandered around a bit, experienced the two heated pools (one hotter than the other), swum a couple of laps in the cold pool, sat for a while in the bubbling jacuzzi, and then I found it – in the cooler of the two hot pools. A circular rail, right in the middle of the indoor section, the top of which was just slightly submerged.
My kids were saying “What’s this for?” and there were some smaller kids treating it like an underwater jungle gym, but I saw it’s true value right away. If you hooked your knees over it (ankles worked, too, but not as well) you could, without any effort at all, remain floating on the surface. Ears underwater, all of the sounds of the crowd were tuned out, and staring straight at the ceiling, well above, it was very much what I imagine a sensory deprivation chamber would be like. Extremely relaxing.
Tomorrow, we are going to an archaeological skanzen. Skanzen is a Czech word (and apparently a Slovak one as well) which basically means outdoor museum. Maybe some other stuff, too, if there’s time.