My First Flight

Most Americans have fascinating stories to tell about their first flight ever and the experiences associated with that flight. The stories form a large ball of yarn added to the oral history of humanity, unwritten stories that sometimes are told to friends, strangers, family, and whoever is willing to listen.

One hundred years ago, very few people could have even envisioned that humans would fly on a regular basis inside a metal tube propelled by jet fuel and would be able to reach all corners of the world, not just a small world around their homes, in the city, the village, the dessert, on an island, or a hut in the jungle.

My first airplane flight was in 1978. I was leaving my country of birth which was tightly controlled by the Communist Party with fists, arms, soldiers, agents, policemen, informers, and the military.

I was in a daze, leaving my family behind forever and everything I’ve ever loved and known, moving to the shining city on the hill, across the Atlantic, the mythical America, the land of the free and of the brave. Part of me wanted to go and part of me wanted to stay.

I was happy to escape tyranny, but did I really know what was awaiting me? I was accompanied by my husband and mother-in-law who was just a stranger who smiled a lot and spoke English with a lilting southern accent. Everybody loved her because she was so pretty and sweet.

Would I be able to understand my new home and its people? Would they understand me? Would they accept me, the suspicious foreigner from a communist country? Would they treat me with kindness, would they welcome me in their midst? Would the customs and religion be alien to me? Would I like the food? Would I like where my fresh husband would take me? What would my life be like?

After hiccups at the airport where angry men with Russian guns threatened to take away my tiny gold wedding ring because it was Romanian gold and could not be exported and after my mother-in-law took it off my finger and put it on hers, I sat quietly in my assigned seat, a shaking storm of present and future fear raging in my heart and mind and watched the airplane door. When will it close?  

When no frightening agent came to yank me off the flight, the door finally closed, and the plane started rolling on the tarmac towards alleged freedom, I breathed a deep sigh of relief and started crying quietly.  It was a sad cry of loss, of pain, of inner suffering, of terminal good-byes, and of fear of the unknown. It was not a cry of joy.

After a long flight, we landed in New York on a cold January the 13^th day. I was relieved, bewildered, did not have a dime in my pocket, and the only picture I have from JFK shows a happy, smiling me. But I was not smiling on the inside, I was sad because of fear, apprehension, misery, and loss. On the upside, I thought I was finally free to be me and to speak my mind.

The next leg of the flight carried me south and then, after landing, we took a long drive in the darkness, to the isolated farm where I would spend the next two years of my life.

Knowing what I know today and the experiences I’ve had since my first flight 45 years ago, would I do it again, would I take such a huge life-altering chance and climb the steps onto that Delta airplane bound for America? The answer is a resounding NO.

Florida, the Verdant Paradise

Florida is a verdant, emerald-blue water paradise and a white sand sink hole, an accident waiting to happen. Thought to be part of northwest Africa ages ago, it was based on the theory that North America was part of the enormous super continent that absorbed Africa.

At the end of the last ice age, 12,000 years ago, Paleo-hunters arrived. The Floridian climate was dry and cold, a kind of artic tundra, as revealed by deep soil samples. Archeologists can make inferences based on dug up layers and layers of soil, strata which can reveal chemical compositions, human habitation, animal remains, plants, rocks, certain chemicals, and other materials. A soil midden holds the domestic refuse, i.e. animal bones and artifacts of prior inhabitants of the land. In south-west Florida, shell middens were preserved at the museum of the Spanish Point.

It is speculated that Florida was fifty miles wider than today due to the frozen surface water into huge glaciers which lowered the sea levels. The remains of the ancient Floridian inhabitants were covered by water when the glaciers melted. Evidence of their existence has been found off the west coast at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and beneath certain springs.

Communities were found as early as 500 B.C. Early tribes built mounds along rivers and coasts: the Ais, Timucua, Mayaca, Jeaga, Tequesta, Calusa, and Jororo. The Seminoles, part of the Creek Nation, did not arrive in Florida until the early 1700s, after the first Europeans.

Mel Fisher’s discovery of the galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha (Our Lady of Atocha) which sunk in a hurricane off the Florida Keys in 1622, is evidence of the prior arrival of Europeans before the Seminoles. This sunken galleon was laden with copper, silver, gold, tobacco, gems, and indigo.

The second largest body of water within the borders of the United States, Lake Okeechobee covers 730 square miles of South Florida and parts of five counties. In Seminole, Lake Okeechobee means “big water.” The Calusa Indians called it ‘Mayaimi,” which is probably where the name Miami originated.

Early pioneers of this part of Florida reported finding human skeletons in the shallows of the southern end of the lake and old fishermen stories told that nets caught human skulls from time to time.

Some speculated that they were Indian bones, others that they were victims of an ancient hurricane. The two thousand dead people who perished in the hurricanes of 1926 and 1928 have been recovered and buried in mass graves on mainland. Before 1900, less people lived around Lake Okeechobee, not enough to explain the thousands of skeletons and remains found at the bottom of the lake. Could it have been a place where sacrifices were made, and the bones added up over the millennia?

The Seminoles had only one conflict, the Battle of Okeechobee, in 1837, but only 30 people were killed. The age of the bones predates the first Spanish period by thousands of years. Could it have been an ancient village killed off by some disease? No artifacts or pottery were found though. Is it a mythical lost tribe? To whom did Florida belong?

Russia's Gas and Oil Pipelines

Each country is a "prisoner of its own geography," and that geography dictates what kind of resources it has. Whatever resources countries have, they are the most powerful weapons.

Russia's most powerful weapons right now are gas and oil, with nuclear missiles coming in second.

Why are gas and oil powerful weapons?

Because 25 percent of Europe's gas and oil supplies come from Russia. Latvia, Slovakia, Finland, and Estonia are 100 percent dependent on Russian gas; the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Lithuania are 80 percent dependent; Greece, Austria, and Hungary 60 percent. Half of Germany's gas supply comes from Russia.

Major pipelines run east to west out of Russia, some oil, some gas.

Via the Baltic Sea in the North there is the Nord Stream route (which the Ukrainians blew up this year) which connects with Germany.

Below that, cutting through Belarus, is the Yamal pipeline which connects to Poland and Germany.

In the South is the Blue Stream which takes gas to Turkey via the Black Sea.

There was a planned South Stream to go into Hungary, Austria, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Italy but it was scuttled because EU countries put pressure on these countries and Bulgaria pulled the plug by saying that the pipelines could not come across its territory.

Putin reached out to Turkey with a new proposal, the Turk Stream. The Turk Stream proposal would have circumvented Ukraine.

To prevent Kremlin from turning the gas off, Americans strategized and came up with a plan to liquefy natural gas (the gas that Americans will be banned from using in gas stoves and heating) and ship it to European coastlines where the LNG (liquefied natural gas) will be turned back into gas.

Europe has to build more LNG terminals; Poland and Lithuania are already building terminals and the Czech Republic is building pipelines connecting to those terminals.

The problem is that piped gas is cheaper than LNG gas.

Russia is responding by planning pipelines going southeast to China in hopes of selling gas to them.

In the case of oil, for each one dollar drop in the price of crude per barrel, Russia loses $2 billion in revenue and its economy can take a hit.

Another terrible issue Russia faces is demographics, population decline. Losing men in battle does not help the situation.

The average life expectancy for a Russian male is 65 and, excluding Crimea, there are now 144 million Russians even though its territory is so vast, stretching over 11 time zones. Of the 193 U.N. member states, Russia is in the bottom half in terms of average life span.

Most western states are experiencing a population decline as well.

(data from Prisoner of Geography by Tim Marshall, 2015)

The Nursing Home Lockdowns Debacle

Reporting on incompetent care and abusive treatment of the elderly in nursing homes was always necessary but more so during the Covid-19 lockdowns. 

During the three years of the pandemic (March 14, 2020 -June 9, 2022) while my mother was in the Manor Care Nursing facility in Fairfax, Virginia, I have seen and reported abuses and neglect to the nursing administrator and to the Virginia Ombudsman. 

I had my mom’s best interest at heart and the interest of all the other patients locked up 24/7 away from the world and their loved ones who wished to visit them.

Visitors were not allowed, only staff members, yet the patients kept getting sick with Covid and some had died despite vaccinations.

The first attempt of the nursing home to give families a glimpse of their locked-up loved ones consisted of masked patients lined up on the sidewalk in their respective wheelchairs, while their families drove around in a circle to wave at them and say hello.

Someone had made a large sign praising the working staff for their “heroism.” I personally have quite a different view and definition of “heroism” and it does not involve medical staff that knowingly forced a harmful injection on innocent elderly patients who did not understand what was being done to them and were not allowed to give consent. And most families contacted were just as ignorant when they did give consent.

After weeks of continued lockdown, I negotiated 10 minutes a week of Facetime with my mom. It did not work too well, since she had dementia, she thought I was someone on TV and her attention wondered.

Next the administrator allowed me to speak to my mom through the thick window in the lobby. She made 15-minute appointments per week, my mom was brought in the lobby, she sat in her wheelchair on the other side of the glass and I stood outside in the blazing sun or in the snow, depending on the season. We talked through smart phones because the sound did not carry well through the glass.

Finally, after much negotiating and mild threatening on my part, the administrator allowed my mom to be brought outside on the patio for 30 minutes in the sunshine and fresh air, but I had to keep my six feet distance with a mask on and mom had to be masked as well. When the weather turned cold, I was allowed with her in the conference room in the lobby, both masked up.

When Manor Care eventually opened up patients' rooms to visits, the squalor and filth I found shocked me. All her possessions and clothes were piled up in a corner of the room.

When the owners had descended on the nursing home at the first lockdown, they had hurriedly moved all patients in one day, two by two, sick ones together and healthy ones together.

They hastily and carelessly removed everyone’s personal possessions and threw them in a corner on the floor. The move became a huge and unnecessary infectious wave as the rooms previously occupied by sick patients now infected the healthy ones moved into sickly rooms improperly sanitized and sterilized. 

They did not care, they just wanted the optics, to appear that they were doing something helpful. So, mom was moved into such a room previously occupied by her friend Maria who was terribly sick at that moment with Covid, and I knew it.

When I was finally allowed in mom’s room, I spent endless hours cleaning it, disposing of trash, putting all her clothes in proper order, discarding the shards of broken glass and plastic possessions, and making sure everything was properly laundered. Most of her valuable possessions were gone.

Was she properly fed? Based on the amount of weight she lost during the lockdown, they must’ve just put the plate in front of her but dementia patients forget to eat, they have to be fed. Was she given enough water? Did she remember to drink the large glass per day she received?

Mom survived the Covid only to be killed by uncaring CNAs and nurses who did not give her life saving antibiotics for an ordinary UTI which turned septic. I learned that lives in a nursing home are not valued much by the staff. And the more a family member held them to account, the worse they treated their loved ones left behind after the family visit ended.

Was it a good idea to isolate the elderly to such a degree that in some places families could not even attend their funerals? Was it ethical to mistreat dementia patients because they did not like being held to task by family? Of course not, but it happened to my mom.

Joseph Hickey and Dennis G. Rancourt looked at policies typically addressing “vulnerable individuals concentrated in centralized care facilities and entail limiting social contacts with visitors, staff members, and other care home residents” in a recent study published on October 30, 2023,  titled, Predictions from standard epidemiological models of consequences of segregating and isolating vulnerable people into care facilities.

“Across a large range of possible model parameters including degrees of segregation versus intermingling of vulnerable and robust individuals, we find that concentrating the most vulnerable into centralized care facilities virtually always increases the infectious disease attack rate in the vulnerable group, without significant benefit to the robust group.” Predictions from standard epidemiological models of consequences of segregating and isolating vulnerable people into care facilities | PLOS ONE

Common sense dictates that such isolation is not good for human beings for many reasons, including the lack of fresh air, sunshine, limited human contact, lack of proper care and nutrition in the absence of inspection, and a filthy environment in their isolated rooms where cleaning and sanitation were seldom done, citing a reduced staff.

Hickey and Rancourt’s study concluded that “isolated care homes of vulnerable residents are predicted to be the worse possible mixing circumstances for reducing harm in epidemic or pandemic conditions.”

At the end of the day, I knew that there was no science behind the Covid lockdowns, we were being used in a huge and failed experiment. And President Trump gave Drs. Fauci and Brix an endless platform to terrorize the population into compliance. The only silver lining was that the authoritarian government had not welded shut apartment complex doors like they did in China. Yet we were forced to wear masks outdoors in large state parks with no other humans in sight. As someone aptly wrote, "we were guinea pigs in a failed experiment."

Mary's Fur Baby

The beautiful puppy died before his time due to a heart defect nobody knew he had. Mary’s fur baby was buried in her yard and a bronze plaque marks his resting place. His soul is probably running happy and healthy with all the other dogs and cats past the Rainbow Bridge.

Dante stayed in his bed in the store with Mary and kept her company as he became weaker and weaker and could no longer play. His sad eyes followed her around and occasionally he would bark at a customer he did not like.

Before he got so weak, Dante’s favorite spot was in the middle glass window from where he watched the local pedestrians and the tourists who were so happy to see such a beautiful dog watching them from behind the glass.

When he finally passed, it broke Mary’s heart. She wanted him with her in the store so she framed a large portrait of Dante and placed it in the same window from whence he had watched the world go by daily from his comfortable seat.

A couple of years later, one very late evening, almost at closing time, a very elderly couple came in to ask her if they could buy the portrait in the window. The husband and wife were walking with canes and looked so frail; they could hardly afford to stroll with the purpose to shop. They did not ask for any piece of jewelry on display in Mary’s store, they wanted that framed picture. It was their daughter’s fortieth anniversary and they wanted to give her something special and memorable.

Mary told them that the framed picture was not for sale, it was the photo of her beloved Dante. The couple looked dejected and, after insisting a few times, they turned around to leave. But Mary’s generosity was legendary. She felt sorry for them, so old, frail, barely able to walk, it was late in the evening, she told them yes, she would sell it to them for $50, the price of the frame. She wrapped it nicely, tied the package with a blue velvet bow, and walked them to their car.

Mary ordered later a metallic photo of Dante, easier to resist sun damage, and never regretted selling the original framed photo to this lovely couple. She described the encounter to me and I could feel the pain welling behind her voice. Nevertheless, she was generous in her offer to make the couple happy.

The story reminded me of the song that goes, “How much is that doggy in the window?” Even in death, Dante managed to please some total strangers who happened to walk into Mary’s store late one evening.

 

Myakka River State Park Adventure

After a few beach days with an angry ocean with rip tides and dark colored water, we decided to visit again the beautiful Myakka River State Park, one of Florida’s oldest and most diverse, wonderfully preserved wilderness areas.

Myakka River flows through 58 square miles of prairies, wetlands, hammocks, and pinelands. Hammocks are usually hardwood trees that grow on elevated areas, a few inches higher than the wetlands. Sometimes they grow on slopes between wetlands, mixed with conifer trees.

Myakka River and two shallow lakes attract a rich population of birds, alligators, small deer, and a rich flora. It is a perfect place for bird watching, hiking, gator watching, biking, kayaking, and canoeing. The camping areas are tucked in the safer zones of the park.

The forests appear impenetrable at times but the scenic and meandering 7-mile drive along the Upper Myakka Lake is perfect for those who are afraid of actually venturing through the dense brush with low-lying ground. I was surprised that bicycles were allowed both on paved roads and on dirt roads.

There are over 39 miles of hiking trails and dirt roads leading to the very remote interior. The 1.2-mile loop Boylston Nature Trail and the River Trail north of the main park bridge are potential hiking options. Dry prairies seem to flourish in the park and a couple of small Florida deer met us in such an area.

Hurricane Ian had caused severe damage to the park and to its infrastructure and it has not yet completely recovered. Camping is available but not all areas can be accessed for now.

Rentals, the Outpost, and the Lazy Gator Café were available on this day. While close to the boat launch, I saw a gator floating closely to the asphalt, watching me, then diving quickly. He was definitely stalking me.

By the main bridge, an older gator was resting on the bank at the foot of the bridge, about 12 feet from the sign that read, Beware of Alligators. Of course, my husband had to have his picture taken by the sign, knowing that the enormous gator was resting too close for his comfort. He seems to forget that gators can run much faster than humans. Lucky for him, the gator was not hungry.

To access the Wilderness Preserve one must have a permit. The Canopy Walkway and the Nature Trail were open. Evidence of uprooted large trees was everywhere. One side of the wooden tower built by volunteers is 24 feet tall, while the other tower is 76.1 feet, with a breathtaking view of the entire park as far as the eyes can see. The suspended walkway between the two towers is rocking – it was built so on purpose, to sway with the wind.

I looked forward to the Bird Walk until I realized that the wet terrain was lower than the parking lot but at the same level with the lake water, which was full of gators, eight of which were on a feeding prowl. We walked to the four steps which gave us access to the wooden bridge called the Bird Walk. We did not see many birds from this bridge, but we certainly saw plenty of gators of various sizes, something I have never seen in the wild before. On the way back to the car, I believe I walked the fastest I could across the muddy terrain at the same level with the gator-infested Upper Lake.

To my surprise, three crows landed on the wooden bridge railing, and one decided to be stupidly brave, standing on the sea grass floating on the lake. A gator was gliding fast towards her. A blue heron braved the shallows, further away from the deep water, hopefully safe from the gators. I took her picture quickly and walked fast through the exposed land to the car. At 11 MPH, with some gators sprinting 30 MPH on short distances on land, nobody can possibly think that humans can outrun gators, but the adrenaline rush gave me a renewed desire for speed. A human could zigzag and outrun an alligator for a longer stretch on land. Gators prefer to attack on the edge of the water and drag their prey to the bottom where the death roll ensues.

We left the park and drove back to the beach where the ocean was furiously pounding the shore and the surf created fantastic shapes in white foam which disintegrated on the beach. The riptides were relentless, and the guard towers were still flying double-red flags.

 

 

 

Viral Neo-Communism

The virus of globalist neo-communism has spread around the world with massive help from United Nation’s Agenda 21 now morphed into Agenda 2030, its myriad of paid NGOs, Marxist billionaires, the global warming lie turned into the very profitable climate change industry with its “green energy” agenda, and the Great Reset of the World Economic Forum and its affiliates. This type of neo-communism, rebranded as “woke,” is more dangerous than ever as its social engineering goals threaten to control every facet of our lives, and puts in jeopardy the very existence of humanity itself.

The lessons of the old communism are no longer taught in our public schools or universities. Consequently, the new generations find communism in general quite attractive considering the media propaganda that the “oppressed” will get everything free and a living wage without working.

This newfound love of communism has spread around the world, at the same time, and with the same widespread narrative. The old communist guard misses the economic and financial perks they received from the Communist Party, while the elderly, having to suddenly function in a world alien to them, are nostalgic for the good ole days of communist oppression.

The best explanation of life under the Communist Party is reflected in the quote from Elena Ceausescu, the wife of the communist dictator Nicolae, who allegedly said to a high-ranking government employee who displeased her, “The house you enjoy with your precious wife is not yours. It belongs to the Party. So does your car, and everything else you have. That is Communism, Monsieur, in case you have not learned. In Communism, no one has anything for himself. You are rewarded only as long as you are useful to the Party.” (Red Horizons, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, Regnery History, 2018, pp. 217-218)

Elena Ceausescu and her dictator husband, Nicolae, were proud that they had installed a security agent for every 15 citizens, economic police, regular police, and the army.

We are not sure who coined the phrase “useful idiots” or Bogdan Raditsa’s “useful innocents,” referring to those who do not understand communism but promote it ardently. The young American generations today certainly fit that description quite well.

Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, made it clear that by 2030, “you’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy about it.” What he did not say is that by then, you will also have no human rights left.

The U.S. will no longer be the world’s leading superpower. We will eat much less meat, it will be a treat, not a staple. You will be eating crickets and worms. You will not be using natural gas, fossil fuels, air conditioning, stoves, furnaces, air conditioners, and other modern amenities. A billion people will be displaced by the social engineering of “open borders’ designed and implemented by billionaires, presidents, U.N., and their affiliates. You will pay to emit carbon dioxide and there will be a global price on CO2. Government will be totalitarian, with no checks and balances. All for the good of the planet, your health, and the neo-communist common good.

The Covid lockdowns were a neo-communist test for the globe as to how far abject fear of death could be driven into the population daily and how far they could push the people under the yoke of control in the name of health and the common good.

Marxism is alive and well in the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (U.N.), and the World Economic Forum (WEF). They are supported by private billionaires and our taxpayer dollars. Violent revolutions brought Marxism to Russia, China, Cuba, and South America.

But non-violent revolutions have been achieved step by step, decree by decree, law by law, with international treaties that do not benefit the countries involved at all, endless executive orders, and other means. Suddenly you lose your sovereignty and your rights to an organization that is not accountable to anyone but is funded heavily by U.S. taxpayers. And you cannot do anything about it.

Suddenly American citizenship means so little when the southern border is allowed by our own government to be invaded by thousands of illegals flown in or bussed in by coyotes or by catholic charities, illegals who, most recently, have rushed the border in the middle of the night, chanting, “si, se puede,” (yes, we can) which happens to be the socialist Democrat Party’s rallying cry of its members during elections. So far millions of illegals have been bussed in with the blessing of our own Democrat government and its paid NGOs.

Several years ago in Geneva, on March 6, 2009, then U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, presented the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, with a red industrial button with the word “reset” on it. The translation into Russian was incorrect, instead of “reset,” it was “overload.”  The Russian went along politely with the snafu. The idea was that, by pressing this button at the same time, Russia-U.S.A. would reset their relations and forget everything that has ever happened in history.

Is it coincidental that the World Economic Forum’s Founder and Executive Chairman, Klaus Schwab, used Covid-19 lockdowns as an opportunity to “suggest” how to govern countries and individuals into a global reset to “create a more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable world”? Sustainable is the lynchpin word for global Marxism, as powerful and essential as the word “woke” for communist social engineering.

It is because of these globalist social engineers from WEF, WHO, and UN, with their manufactured crises, that people have suffered terrible government lockdowns, imposed self-isolation, economic hardships, loss of homes, loss of jobs, loss of businesses, eviction from rented homes, loss of significant education, loss of proper medical care, psychologically intense stress, food and other necessities shortages, and physical security threats to their wellbeing.

Social engineers forced the redefinition of “humanness,” they drove people apart by creating an endless pandemic, masking, and fear of death. Governments decided which businesses were “essential” and important to stay open and which had to close.

They forced families to make “moral” and “immoral choices” in how they treated their families in terms of gatherings and visitations. They locked old people in nursing homes. They prevented loved ones from having funerals for their relatives. They forced churches to close when people needed God and faith the most.

Doctors made unethical and questionable choices when they refused proper treatment to their patients who later died at home or in hospitals. Unethical doctors pretended to practice medicine online while harassing their patients and pressuring them to get vaccinated with an ineffective and untested dangerous product. Thousands died and were maimed in the process.

Schwab included in his Great Reset consumption. “Never let a crisis go to waste” is the Democrat motto. As the economy degrades from high inflation caused primarily by too much government spending and money printing, a tax on the poor who live on limited income, variety and availability of products have disappeared as fast as many companies have gone bankrupt.

Globalists have always frowned about people’s “conspicuous consumption” which cause, they say, “environmental degradation and climate change.” Yet the biggest spenders and contributors to any conspicuous consumption are the rich who fly around the world in their private jets, sail in huge yachts, live in meg-mansions, and drive many expensive automobiles. We must drive tin cans or stay at home, while they indulge their every whim in luxury.

Schwab suggested in his book, Covid-19: The Great Reset, on page 244, that we must take the bull by the proverbial horns and use the pandemic as “a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine and reset our world.” Unfortunately, this reimagined world he is talking about is the totalitarian globalist world ruled by a few and the rest of us are not happy with their social engineering.