Russian People in Democratic Countries, Please Speak Out!

Let's Hear some Russian Free Speech!

Years ago I worked with many Russian people who had immigrated to Canada. I don't recall which international crisis was happening but it involved Russia. A female colleague's strong nationalism showed when she declared that the West only likes Russia when they think she is weak. True. She wanted her motherland to regain its former glory and standing as a world force to equal America. She got quite heated about it.

I didn't ask her why she remained here and did not return to Russia but her feelings were understandable. We on this side of the ocean forget that Russia and many other countries overseas have histories of rising and falling, conquering and expanding, rebelling against and recreating their leadership hundreds of years before anyone even knew about our far off lands. We are mere babes in arms or perhaps babes with arms in the military sense.

However since many people have immigrated to more democratic countries and presumably enjoy their ability to speak and write freely, let's hear from some of them.

Surely those who live here now and have seen the horror of Ukraine through the lens of western media and not the fake news of the motherland, they must have seen some kind of light. For sure you can refer to many American transgressions in other lands but I don't think it was ever to wipe out an entire people.

When has Ukraine ever attacked Russia or the Soviet Union? This is somewhat like American forces attacking native North American tribes again as they once did when settling the new west. It was wrong then and would be unspeakable now.

In addition surely they would be the best means of getting the truth to relatives at home. Unfortunately we have heard of some family ties being broken when those back in Russia refuse to believe their own families who now live in the USA

Western media would love to give you a platform or soap box from which to repeat what Putin and his forces are doing. Why are you so silent?

Do you also believe that Ukraine is not and never was a nation? If nothing else you should now understand why so many believe that Ukraine should indeed be part of NATO.
Ditto for Finland and Sweden.

Please make use of the freedom to speak which you now enjoy.

#thebewsterblock

Abort these Abortion Proposals - BEFORE it's too Late

While You Still Have the Right to Choose - Choose to Keep that Right!

In the last few years we have heard more examples of hypocrisy from politicians than probably ever before. The winners hands down are Republicans. Top of the heap are the Trump appointed Supreme Court Justices. 

We all heard them say that they would consider Roe vs Wade to be a precedent. It has indeed been for almost 50 years. In hindsight, if you listen to the cleverness of their answers during their appointment hearings it just adds to the hypocrisy. These people are expected to play it straight and say it straight. They failed.

The enormity of this hypocrisy goes way beyond the Supreme Court. Some 26 plus states are prepared to ban the right to choice for women.

Why is this hypocrisy?

1. Many of these high minded politicians who claim to stand for American ideals are the same ones who yelled and screamed bloody murder at the mere prospect of being told to wear a mask to fight COVID. They yelled even louder over mandatory vaccinations. Why? It was an attack on their rights and personal freedoms. Nobody could tell them what to do with their bodies. How can such protestors - and many of them are men - then turn around and suggest that they and their governments have a right to tell women what they can or can 't do with their own body?

2. Each and every one of them knows damn well that if their own daughter or even their wife has an unwanted pregnancy, they would find somewhere to perform the same procedure they profess to find offensive.

3. They know that rich people (like themselves) will be able to afford these procedures, but poor people will not be able to. Hence the law will not be applied evenly to all people.

4. If doing the right thing is their claim, then they will have to double down on finding and prosecuting all of the deadbeat dads who impregnate spouses and girlfriends and then skip town. If the woman must give birth to her child then the man must help pay for his child! Once again there is a double standard - hold the woman accountable, but not the man.

5. If women are prepared to join the armed forces and in many cases give their own lives for their country, then they should also be able to control its destiny back home.

6. Many of those who want to take away this right will for sure be gun owners. After all, they have a right which they claim "bear arms" gives them. What about all of those people young and old who die because of the misuse of those guns? If human life is so sacred then this is even more hypocrisy,

One final point. There are enough couples who abuse their children horribly when they do have them. Surely this number will go up if they are forced to have a child against their own will. The same thing often happens to adapted children.

I predict that there will be some politician who claims to be for this denial and then finds out that his mistress is pregnant. See what happens to the ideals then. If the mistress wants the child he is toast. If she does not and they secure an abortion, he is toast if she ever talks. Without a settlement, she will.

There will be more attempts to set back the clock. Just wait.

#thebrewsterblock

Press Corps Dinner

Again Biden turns Trump into a Chump    

Anyone who watched President Joe Biden and Trevor Noah last night had to be impressed. Trump could never have pulled it off.

Once again however it was Noah - who stems from another part of the world - who made everyone watching and everyone present appreciate how important it is to enjoy free speech with no consequences. Trevor opened by making the point and closed by reiterating it. Then we all enjoyed and had a laugh because of it in between.

Imagine indeed what would happen to any Russian who pulled the same punches on Russian media. He or she would instantly transform from stage stand-up comedian to prison
sit-down comedian somewhere in Siberia, never to be heard from again.

In all of the major wars including this one in Ukraine, how did the rest of the world really know what was going on? Where would we be now if those early warning systems had not triggered potential and real victims to band together against the aggressor? Thankfully we appear to be doing it again.

Except in one place in particular - the aggressor nation itself, where there is no freedom of speech. There are probably a few others as well, all authoritarian regimes.

The scary part for me was that Trump and his cronies at Fox were attempting to move America into a similar system. I have no doubt if Trump should ever get back in, that he and his puppets will try to change the law to allow a President to stay as long as he/she wants. The other branches of government would be ignored, just as Putin is ignoring established norms.

Every day we are finding out more about how the Republicans and the right tried to fix the last election in their own favour. It was never the Democrats, and the world knows it.

How do they know this? If I have to explain I have failed dismally to make my point in this post.

#thebrewsterblock

SEO for Blogs. What's Trending?

Where are YOUR priorities?

One of the things that have always been on the minds of bloggers is how to get higher viewership. The fact is that blogs had their heyday many years ago and have been replaced by the likes of Facebook and Twitter. They face the same challenge as newspapers. Few people want to read or even think. They just want entertainment. I knew this when I began but here I am. I would rather write for my own entertainment than watch the crap that is on TV or play electronic games.

There are thousands of websites whose hosts claim to be able to share the secrets of making money by Blogging. It didn't take long to find that most of the more popular sites indeed made money by telling readers one thing: how to make money by Blogging. A lot of it is the technical side but generally these "bloggers" never write anything creative at all. Today this is adorned with lots of video as well.

To put this in perspective, this is like placing an ad claiming you know how to turn anybody into a professional baseball player will can make millions per year. The subscribers receive some snail mail or email telling them to place an ad just like the author. Tell people you can make them into a professional ball player and watch the cash roll in!

Seriously though, the most sound advice I found is simply to use the many tools available from Google to find out what is trending. Identify what people are searching for and write good quality material about THAT. This makes perfect sense, but the key is quality - consistent quality. My problem is that I just don't relate to what people are seeking. I just don't give a flying "F" about the Kardashians or who just cheated on whom in the Etalk world.

So just from curiosity I started typing random arguments (words) into the www.google.com page and looking at the numbers under the reply. It was entertaining to say the least.
Most of these numbers are in the billions or hundreds of millions. They really only represent places on the entire internet that might have a reference to the argument submitted. I also see that they are only estimates and that in some locations Google has dropped them.

Try it for yourselves. If these numbers tell you anything it is that in my opinion our priorities are all screwed up. This has always been the case - sitcoms over news; game shows over documentaries; smutty over intellectual. Here is what I entered, sequenced by declining number of hits:

Environment change 10,240,000,000 (10.24 billion)
God                             4,580,000,000
Sex                              4,400,000,000
Cancer                         4,320,000,000
Stroke                         4,270,000,000
The war in Ukraine     4,150,000,000
Heart disease             4,130,000,000
Global warming          3,600,000,000
Kim Kardashian          3,070,000,000
Kardashians               2,780,000,000
Botox                          1,490,000,000
New York Yankees     1,140,000,000
The Garden of Eden      586,000,000
Abraham Lincoln           443,000,000
Adolf Hitler                    137,000,000
Elvis Presley                 122,000,000
The price of gas              68,700,000
Nuclear war                    59,500,000
Toronto Blue Jays           48,900,000
Gobboldygook                   1,420,000 (misspelled)
Gobbledygook                       19,000

I'm sure that God is pleased to see people are concerned about the space that he/she created but maybe a bit ticked that we messed it up so badly. Being almost tied with "Sex" might put us in disfavor as well.

It appears that many people are more concerned with their own demise than that of the Ukraine. I am not sure why Heart disease lags behind. It is good to see that that global warming beat out the Kardashians, but not by much.

Botox and the Yankees made the billion mark but things fall off dramatically after that. Not sure why but the misspelled Gobboldygook got more hits than Gobbledygook by a factor of 75!

When I entered "Thebrewsterblock" it scored 4,300,000 which was an old nickname. There used to be a small hotel chain and bus line in western Canada by that name but the number amazed me. The big let down was that my actual blog name (based on this) which is www.thebrewsterblock.com mustered a mere 480.

And that is why I write for my own enjoyment!

Brewster
#thebrewsterblock.com

UFOs True or False

 Do ETs look like this little guy?

Most of us are familiar with the above image from Steven Spielberg's movie, ET. the Extra Terrestrial (creator of ET movie - Search (bing.com)). Was it based upon a Roswell secret crash or just a vivid imagination? Only Steven can say for sure. For my purpose it doesn't matter.

To me if you are one who has accepted the biblical theory of the creation of the universe (sorry, but it is a theory) then accepting that there are other forms of life in it is a no brainer. I have no doubt that there have to be other "humans" out there and other non-human species just as there are here on Earth.

As far as E.T. wanting to "go home" is concerned, who can blame him? I'd want to get off this planet as well, beautiful as it should be, if there were a safer place - where the grey matter of little grey beings is put to a better use than pure selfishness.

If you let yourself think outside of the box (the collection box for the ultra faithful) then interesting propositions evolve. If past visitors do look something like our little gender neutral character, does this support the theory of evolution?

On one hand it does if the visitors basically have two legs, feet, arms, hands with eight fingers and two thumbs, two eyes and one head. It would then seem that they evolved in a similar fashion to us. However one might ask wouldn't Natural Selection have created multiples of all of the previous items? Surely four or six eyes and perhaps four arms would be an advantage as would dark skin and lots of body hair. Apparently this was not the case with either of us so far. Will we have some of these millions of years into the future? That begs the question "What is future?" but that's another topic. For that we have to understand the concept of time. Good luck.

As I have said before, if there is a supreme deity, male or female, or another gender, and earth is like one grain of sand in the Sahara dessert, why would they have created only one set of living organisms on Earth alone?

Consider this: extra terrestrials and their craft must have been 'created' or evolved to be our superiors just to be able to make it here. We are decades if not centuries behind in our ability to travel into distant space - at least in our present form.

Google UFO and look at some of the results or watch a documentary on the topic. Netflix has one. UFOs have been seen all over the world. Governments including America's try to suppress this immediately. Have we learned new technology from them? The documentary suggests America might have allowed visitors to take specific human individuals away from Earth for research purposes. Was it a trade?

What are they reporting about Earth and Earthlings back home? Click on "Aliens UFOs etc." in the topics above. Try this one: The Brewster Block : Search results for are we being punished.

There are enough resources on this planet and there is enough wealth already created by them to feed and nourish everyone alive. A reasonable lifestyle could also be created by them. It is no infant's choice to whom they were born or under what conditions. They just need help - a lot of it. Very greedy people around the world including its political leaders seem to think this is not feasible.

Instead of helping and sharing, such individuals - and they are right here in the west as well - are willing to let the horrors of wars and famines take their toll. #Putin is only the latest.

"Why should I help others when nobody helped me?" Just trace your life from the time you were born. If you are capable of reading this and you have the means (that phone you are holding) there was plenty of help.

Our visitors are probably taking this message back home: "Earth is the most selfish planet we have ever visited." What will our punishment be whether divine or not?

#thebrewsterblock

Will Smith has to Pay the Price

The Slapshot that "Rocked" the World!

Will Smith needs to learn a hard lesson from his stupid act. So far none has been administered.

People are now echoing the fact that the whole world saw it live. Replay the video but watch it from the beginning. The first thing we all heard was Chris Rock aiming jokes at individuals in the audience during a presentation. In the past there have been several cases of Oscar hosts being criticized for their poor taste. Because it is supposed to be funny, they often receive a "get out of jail" pass.

Sometimes the target of the misplaced humor grins and bears it - sometimes not. This was one of the "nots." We all saw the look on Jaga's face - she was not amused. There was an awkward moment as people made the connection with "G.I. Jane" and I for one, felt sorry for her just from the look on her face. I had no idea about her illness. In that same moment, Will Smith was laughing openly along with many other people. Then he saw the stunned look on his wife.

Not much has been said about this. Had he started expressing his disgust with Rock immediately without the laughter, he might have garnered more sympathy. His violent reaction would still be wrong but slightly more sincere. He could have dealt with Chris later, off camera. Instead once his wife gave him the stare, he did a 180 degree about face.

His next action was just grandstanding. Imagine someone during a televised session of the U.N. walking to the stage and mooning the world or slapping someone just like Smith. If you walk up to a very busy police station and throw a rock through the window, what do you think is going to happen? What if this happened in any public sporting event? 

Smith knew that world camera was on his back as he paced off the short distance to the stage and Chris Rock. He knew it would be a slap that "Rocked" the world, pun intended.

You might think "What do you expect? It's The Oscars." Lots of crazy things and political statements have been dramatized on this, the most infamous drama stage of all. It is still wrong. What next - a gun? Hopefully everyone is scanned for this including handbags upon entry - but I doubt it.

What message did this send to everyone, especially with Putin's slapping down Ukraine? If there is not severe punishment it means that violence is acceptable - if you are mad enough. You shoot someone and your excuse is "Yes but I was just mad - I lost my temper." Please. If you are thinking this, give yourselves a slap.

As for his tears during his own acceptance speech, if they were phony, he deserved the award. They were real but only because the gravity of his situation was starting to sink in. As for his ramblings about the Williams family, that was over the top - an attempt to deflect and somehow justify his actions.

His public persona is a jovial, likeable guy. It is now shattered in what should have been a rational moment that went horribly irrational.

Other celebrities have done and said things in their private lives that spoiled their Hollywood image and paid the price for a long time. Eventually they are forgiven. This was not during Smith's private life but during ours.

A slap on the wrist is not enough.

#thebrewsterblock

Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Mindset of a Dictator

You have to wonder what goes on inside the head of a person like Putin. I did not use "man" deliberately. Unfortunately, he is a person so I can't eliminate that particular noun which I share with him. That's about it on the sharing.

There have been many like him throughout history - some of them female. Before I share some other writings, one would have to be able to:

- be prepared to destroy decades or centuries of human achievement in the form of architecture, homes, land, necessities of life, culture, and above all human spirit.
- cause unimaginable pain and suffering to anyone or thing that lives, including babies, children, pregnant women, and helpless blameless animals.
- make such decisions instantly and totally independently.
- eliminate any dissenters among your ranks - permanently.
- feel zero regret for any of the above.
- prepare for your own cowardly escape should it all go wrong.

Here are some independent references:

- The first focuses on Power, Fear, and Anxiety The Psychology Of Dictators: Power, Fear, And Anxiety

- This one focuses on sadistic, antisocial, paranoid, narcissistic, schizoid, and schizotypal: The Psychology of Dictatorship: Kim Jong-Il - Scientific American Blog Network

- Here the focus is on Kim Il-sung (N. Korea); Hitler (Germany); Manuel Noriega (Panama): What Makes a Dictator? - How Dictators Work | HowStuffWorks

- For a spine chilling read try this: 10 most ruthless leaders of all time - 10 most ruthless leaders of all time | The Economic Times (indiatimes.com)

Here is another from this blog: The Brewster Block : Is Putin Copying Hitler?

My words above are not those of a Psychologist but they are not far off. Google some traits of your own. Also try "worst dictators".

The world has had to deal with such monsters forever. The heroes are those that didn't start anything but finally had to say "Enough is enough" and rally millions to fight possibly losing it all in the process. Churchill and Kennedy are two political leaders who come to mind.

One problem with these types, Putin included, is that they have already created their own hero worship of themselves through force, propaganda, control of the media, and severe punishment. The propaganda starts in elementary school if they are in power long enough.

If Japan had possessed the Bomb itself, you can bet that one or more major American cities would have disappeared. This time the other side(s) can respond in kind. Do we still have any Churchills or Kennedys?

#thebrewsterblock

Putin bombs Ukraine Hospitals

Will Putin resort to Chemical Weapons?

We have seen a lot in the news about Russia bombing civilian targets including hospitals. The latest were full of pregnant women and infants. 

If you Google this there are lots of media releases to back it up - none I suspect coming from Russia.

Here are a few. There are plenty more:

Ukraine war: Boris Johnson tells Sky News he fears Vladimir Putin may use chemical weapons as it is 'straight out of Russia's playbook' | World News | Sky News

Ukraine war: Three killed including girl, six, after Russians bomb maternity hospital | Daily Mail OnlineUkraine war: Three killed including girl, six, after Russians bomb maternity hospital | Daily Mail Online

Live updates: Russia invades Ukraine (cnn.com)

Now the speculation is Putin will use chemical weapons. OMG!

As the most recent horror unfolds, we ask ourselves who could be so brutal and cruel? Current affairs headlines from any decade will also answer that question. Here are a few notorious ones using the greatest fact checker of all - history:

1) The guy who murdered over six million Jews as a scapegoat for HIS similar atrocities. He also threw the remains - hopefully deceased - into mass graves like the ones we are seeing in Ukraine recently.

2) Rwandan genocide in 1994. Militia groups tortures and raped victims by the thousands. Check out Wikipedia Rwandan genocide - Wikipedia. The U.N refused to get involved - just like NATO is now.

3) The horrors of the Crusades where once again, inflicting brutal pain on victims was the objective.

4) Look at the guys who dropped napalm on Viet Nam knowing full well that people would be incinerated along with foliage. It went on for years. The same guys mass bombed the country and those living there indiscriminately - just like Putin's Russia is doing now. There were no smart bombs back then.

5) In the Americas, natives were tortured and massacred by the British, French, and anyone else who wanted their land.

The point is that it has been going on throughout recorded history and probably before.

Now it is happening again. The world is expressing all of the support and sympathy they can mouth to the battered victims but are not yet willing to go to war over it. School yard bullies don't have the option of pressing nuclear buttons or spraying you with deadly chemicals when you stand up to them. This bully does.

It makes you wonder if there is life beyond our own Sun, did they resort to the same tactics? If there were other ETs, did they go home to tell what they saw? If so no wonder we have not seen them again.

#thebrewsterblock

Will Putin start World War III?

Putin wants Russia to be Number 1

Most born and raised in Canada or United States other than indigenous people are mere infants when it comes to history. It is difficult to understand the pride and passion felt by other parts of the world whose histories go back thousands of years.

Such histories include the lesser known countries and islands of North America; Europe; Asia; South America; and Africa. Russia alone has known supreme rulers and forms of rule on both ends of the political spectrum. One thing seems to be common throughout all of history. The strongest rule the weakest and ultimately overpower them. This can be through brutality, cleverness, or an accepted divine right. In the end the riches of all of the kingdoms and dynasties go to the few at the top - Greece; Russia; Britain; India; even America; and let's not forget the Church - most of them. The spoils go to the most powerful.

So what is happening in Ukraine right now is something we can't really understand because we have not experienced it. Perhaps a better word might be "feel" - we have never felt it.

For many years after the Russian people finally overthrew the elite, Socialism has supposedly been a form of government that is best for the people. Wealth is supposed to belong to the state and everyone benefits. Have you seen pictures of that 280 foot Russian yacht seized by France? Have you seen the vacation resorts belonging to Russian leaders for years? What about the many years of empty shelves and starving people?

It was the same in Hitler's Germany at the other end of the scale. He and his dictator colleagues looted the wealth and relics of other countries for themselves while ordinary Germans fought the battles.

So why is Putin doing this? He says it is for the motherland and to restore Russian greatness. That is propaganda for the people. The yacht says it all. He wants the riches and resources of Ukraine. He wants to defeat democracy anywhere because it is much more difficult to gain and hold power in such a system. He is a man who has too much testosterone and is a bully by nature. He wants to save face in the East vs. West match.

Hitler was like this. So were Mussolini; Stalin; Saddam Hussein; Pol Pot; Mao; Marcos and more. In the end the common hard working citizen is the loser.

Here is the big irony: In my opinion Russia needs another revolution - probably China too. Some form of government by the people that works is overdue. America on the other hand, especially under Trump is showing signs of extremists leaning more towards a single person, single party type of system.

Behind it all for thousands of years, is greed, selfishness, racism, and usually - men. So here is a novel idea. If a man is to become a leader of a country, he has to take estrogen pills. If it is a woman - testosterone.

It can't be worse than the mess we have now.

#thebrewsterblock!

The Threat of Nuclear Holocaust

Wake up and Smell the Radioactivity

The problem with the above sub-title is that if H-bombs start dropping, tens of millions of people won’t BE waking up. The rest won’t smell coffee or what is killing them but they will suffer horrific burns and God knows what else inside their own bodies.

Less and less of us were alive when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated in Japan. Most of us have seen the astonishing film footage of the victims and the total destruction. It can never be allowed to happen again – or can it?

Large Atomic (fission) bombs can be the equivalent of 500 kilotons (thousand tons) of TNT. This is difficult to imagine in itself. A large Hydrogen bomb (fission AND fusion) can go as high as 50 MEGAtons of TNT (that’s million tons!). In numbers that is 500,000 compared to 50,000,000. A single ton of TNT exploding is scary enough for me. Just think 100 times worse than those World War II films.

The problems created by all of this for Putin AND the rest of the world have increased over time. The previous paragraph depicts scale of power. Back then only America had developed and dropped The Bomb. A program spurred by Stalin gave Russia theirs a few years later. Now several countries have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

This is why the prospect of mutual destruction – make that annihilation – worked for so many years to deter their use. The much of world would become uninhabitable. Pictures of bombing campaigns in Germany and England would pale by comparison.

After the world’s first glimpse of this only a madman would contemplate their use again. THAT has become the question of the hour.

Is Putin super angry or mad? Does it matter?

#thebrewsterblock