LIFE IN LIMBO?  Ghost towns, beaches Random. Photos of Silence

    "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time..."
T. S. Eliot                     

                                                                                                                                                             

Photos of 'lives in limbo': Beaufort, Clawsons. The restaurants.., Mexicalito, tried the "Call, order and pick up...Blackbeard's at the far east end of the boardwalk has been open every day for pick-up. Cru Cafe and The Royal Saint James open early, stay til 5. Cru even offers 'wine on the sidewalk' They took the chairs, tables away..Coffee, breakfast...take your order, go sit on the waterfront at Taylors Creek. Flo and I we take packed lunches, Flo's iced tea with lemon. (She's a good ol' girl", I've known her for a while)......START your own blog! Your own newspaper!

An air of unreality. Everyday, 'can be'.. the same. I hope these are photos are 'for all time'- --never again like this, once--- 'THIS' is gone.

Below, End of Lennoxville Road. Beaufort.

SILENCE now...has a sound. It is so loud....calling out for a different tomorrow,... for life and normalcy to return

Below: Two photos taken at Harker's Island this week. Eerie, strange SILENCE...a car here and there....Willis Boat Works...I hope Mr. Willis has decided to auction off his property himself. Such a nice man (times I talked to him) He was he last of a breed..custom-made boat-builders. I had him in my Fish Barons book..I liked to call him Elvis, a character! One cannot help but sense so many things...'slip-slidin' away.

 

Life's cycles...like the Elizabethan masks of old, a carriage would roll into town, a stage on wheels...The jester would hang the 'masks of life' on the curtain..'announcing that 'a great and wonderful - 'a spectacular' play...was about to begin......The two masks appear throughout Olde English literature.....Life's cycles, the Ying and Yang.

Photos below: At Bogue Inlet on a Saturday..Not a person in sight. The sandy road entrance had a new steel gate pad locked. SILENCE..except of the ocean breeze blowing fine sand across the surface.

Walking, smartphone in hand. Like walking on the moon, except there was wind here, moving the surface sand, moving and stopping, moving again, like a ghost crab...in a high gust - 'the slightest wh

The flags were snapping smartly in the breeze.

                                                                           OPTIMIST HERE: With all that is happening ...with tomorrow far from certain - all of what it may bring...new news...Hopefully, increasingly good news, I think we all believe that 'We will weather this storm and.(in time) will return to the life's recognizable rhythms that we all have known for so long....that which is our old America

   

                                         The Failing, Failing Far Left -                                                Ultra-Progressive Ideologues    
         A 2020 Democratic Train-Wreck -Descending into a Dream World (politically)

December 7, 1942, 'a day that will live in infamy'....... It was so long ago.                                                                                                       
Hmmmm? Which candidates are the Democrats coalescing around now, unifying around?

Alas - Ol' Ken....such a pragmatist - He actually wants the Democrats to WIN everything in 2020...but there 'appears' to be some Albatrosses around our necks. With all my concerns - at a time of our greatest opportunity, we (Democrats) have a muddled field of candidates - where is that charisma of a Barack Obama or Bill Clinton or Jack Kennedy? - I am still a 'guarded optimist'....albeit a nervous one. The question: Who can bell  the cat?

 Liz. I love her. I love her passion, her sincerity....But she is so done -tripped up by her own ideological-polltical, devine lunacy - "Let's get rid of all commercial insurance companies! - MEDICARE FOR ALL! - In 2020!                             (SsssNzzzzzzzzzz.)



And then there was Bernie - and AOC.. The Bern and Liz and AOC.... all have both been sniffing out of the same glue-bag, drinking the same 'socialist-flavored' Kool-Aid. These are all very bright, committed, patriotic and honest people. Liz and the Bern's stars are sinking. AOC's 'may be' rising - She is right about so  much, but in politics - trying to be too correct and too visionary and too idealistic - can not only politically kill the idealist - it can dash, even kill a party's chances of success. Politics is about reality and history. Not about what is fair.

I love ideological intent - and the grand hopes for all of us...especially for the least among us.. It sound 'peachy-keen'! "We are now all Democratic Socialists...so says AOC and The Bern, Liz snapping at their heels with a different type of camouflage -even modified Socialism -  I don't think so. Bernie completely misrepresents 'the Socialism' of the Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The presidents of those countries have take the Bern to task over his simplifications and misrepresentations of their government, their economic  and social structures.

                                                                 ******    Today: the real argument is not between capitalism and socialism. We ran that social experiment for 100 years and capitalism won. It’s between a version of democratic capitalism, found in the U.S., Canada and Denmark, and forms of authoritarian capitalism, found in China and Russia. Our job is to make it the widest and fairest version of capitalism it can possibly be and that means (somehow) one day reigning in the banks and Wall St. In our life-times, we have seen the two great 'Socialist Experiments' go down in flames.
                              

                                                 Gary Vervel.com
Democratic Socialism: All we are doing is Giving the Trump-GOP Knuckle-Draggers of the White Nationalists  Party, the sledgehammer to beat the hell out of us in 2020.

The national election winner strategy and ideology lies in these two words: Center Left. It is The Center stupid,

The Keystone group of this coming election: The Independents - 'They' will play the same deciding role as last time. In 2016 about 65%, or slightly more of these voters, voted for Trump. However, much earlier in 2019, Jan-March, their leaninngs had almost flip-flopped - enraged at Trump. Now. Guess what? With the onslaught of 'Democratic Socialism'..the needle has moved more to the center. The majority of Libs will vote first for a woman, former prosecutor (Klochobar) before they will vote for a woman former teacher (Liz)....(IMO).

Democratic Socialism - the Democratic fairy tale. The answer lies (IMO) in the group that includes Ol' Joe Biden, Amy Klochobar, and Pete Buttigeig. Only Biden has gotten powerful endorsements. Buttigieg will not muster even 15% of the black or Hispanic community vote. Without a majority here - no Democrat can win. Without the majority of the Independent vote - No Democrat can win.It is the CENTER, or slightlly Center-Left... especially this time. Only FDR was able to go 'Full-Monty-LEFT...but it was a different time - people were hungry and out of a job..desperate. FDR made them believers. Liz, nor Bernie have 'that FDR thing' -besides, it is not that same time or situation either.

Optimist here: Trump and soooo many in his New White Nationalist-Republican Party  and racist knuckle-draggers will go down in flames. We have to have 'the Candidate' in place when that happens...and it will happen.

Now, ah'm jes' sayin'................................

 

                                                                   

"We hold our hearts so they don't break"

The slaughter of the Kurdish fighters has greatly escalated.                                             ........................... "Our brave Kurdish soldiers, men and women, are now dying every day in greater and greater numbers..... "The bombs from Turkish and Syrian fighter planes rain down on us every day now. The American president abandoned us to die,, all without warning.            We learned of our abandonment by the president's tweet." 
Military commanders, both US and Kurdish..were given no pre-warning...not even the Pentagon. The Joint Chiefs of Staff learned of the 'ordered withdrawal' on the morning news - a 4 AM 'tweet' by the president.

  Left: Late October, 2019.Kurdish soldiers hold funeral, pay last respects for a beloved Kurdish army colonel.   

                      ***

"My father was buried without a funeral, without people saying goodbye.” People were too frightened,” Elyas says. “It was too dangerous. When people gather, that’s when the bombs come, sometimes in just minutes." Abdulrahman Khalil Elyas’s father died in Rojava last week. Because of the bombardment of the Kurdish-controlled north-east region of Syria, he was hastily buried without a funeral. 

This past August: ??? Did 'this' influence Trump to 'suddenly' decide to pull our troops out of Syria (he was facing a business loss and loss of prestige):...
      REVENGE: Turkey's Erdoğan told..... 'SEIZE Trump Towers Istanbul'... in retaliation to sanctions

President Trump. October 16, 2019:"My strategy was brilliant." Trump hailed his decision to withdraw US troops in Syria, paving the way for a devastating Turkish army offensive, as 'strategically brilliant', declaring that the Kurds he abandoned were 'much safer now' - "not angels." 11,000 Kurdish soldiers have died fighting the Turkish military in the last decade. The Kurds have been the US 'surrogate army' in that violent region for over ten years, holding the Turks and the Russians at bay.

Kurdish woman fighter: "We have no choice but to fight to the last. We have no other place to go. I am resigned to whatever comes now.                                                                                    The Kurds have been the US's surrogate army for over a decade - holding the Russian-friendly Turkish government at bay. Trump has now joined Russian and Turkey as 'an ally'...Trump - abandoning even our own US soldiers - from the previous commitment to protect and fight alongside the Kurds.
                                                                                                                    

700 ISIS prisoners escaped during two days of bombings. Many are making their way to Europe, others into northern Iraq. Trump's 'brilliant strategy' has resulted in turning over vast territory back to Turkey and Russian control....Fifteen years of US troop involvement, providing stability in the mid-east - gone with a Trump tweet - leaving the Kurds to die by  Russian, Turkish hands.                                                 

                                                                *****

My Question to president Trump: "What kind of country have you turned us into, president Trump,?  A country where American honor and American guarantees to US Allies - mean nothing?

Trump's Erratic Foreign Policy elevates Russia, elates Putin. Trump now clearly sees himself as a strongman like Putin, indifferent to our laws, totally indifferent to our US Constitution.....The frightening aspect of it: 36% of Americans approve...the 'Trump Base'.. 

"Here's to you Donald Trump...my very good friend.....Friend of Russia."

NC "End of Life Option" bill fails.....Arctic sea ice coverage shrinks to record low:

Ice and Glaciers going away! NOAA Report this week:

Ice coverage recorded in October was 32.2 percent below the 1981-2010 average, according to the NOAA, and the 10 smallest extents of sea ice coverage for the month of October have all occurred since 2007.                                                         

  

     The data also found Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, the Hawaiian islands and Oceania all recorded temperatures among the highest ever recorded for October in 2019, and the world’s average sea surface temperature ranked second-warmest ever recorded for the year to date, and a fraction of a degree colder than 2016’s record warmth.
                                                                                                                               

NC "End of Life Option" bill, HR-879 fails again: Not even allowed to be read on the floor.

A bi-partisan bill to give certified terminally ill patients 'the right' to determine how, when, and where they will die, was blocked once again by the Republican House Speaker and pressures from conservatives to not even allow the bill to read on the House floor. It died in committee. Eight US states enacted the law: Oregon, Washington, Montana, California, Hawaii, Colorado, New Jersey, District of Columbia

Huge pressure from the Christian Coalition and the Catholic Church - in concert with powerful NC conservatives convinced the Republican leadership not to even read the bill, much less put it to a vote. Over 70% of Americans polled, said they were 'in favor' of a dying patient to at least have 'the right' make the decision of how they will die, to allow them to 'pull the plug' - with loved ones present, plus a physician and a nurse in attendance.

     The end of life would come through a legal prescription of drugs (an overdose) approved by two different physicians. Canada already has the law in effect. Australia just passed the law two months ago. In Europe, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland have long had the law in effect.
So far, in the US, only 'Blue' states (Democratic) have succeeded in passing it.  The Republican Party 'fears' that even if ONE southern state succeeds in passing the law - a landslide rush by other southern states will follow. The Christian Coalition and the Catholic Church along with wealthy southern conservatives have, so far', 'keep the south in line."

.

I will be publishing my book, "My Right to Choose, Dying with Dignity', 215 pages,  in the coming 4-6 weeks. It covers the entire 'Right to Die' movement starting in Switzerland in 1940 right up to the failed NC bill HR-879, just a few weeks ago. For more info on North Carolina's efforts here, go to the website: 'Dying Right', headquartered in Hillsborough, NC but in weekly conference with several other states among the 27 that are now also trying to pass this type bill.

Trust in US Government is fading:

    MSN report today shows that 68% of Americans have no trust  or 'little trust' in their politicians. This is up 9% from a year ago. While the president vowed to Make America Great Again the disparity in wealth between the top 1% and the median US household income grew wider than ever. The top 10% of US wage earners are doing well....Middle-Class, even those families with 2 or 3 children, those with incomes of over $100,000, are seeing budgeting pressures those they did not feel eighteen months ago. Wage increases are flat, not keeping up with the high-rollers that garner most of the headlines.

                                                                   

                                                    

Trump's Health?????????  Whutzzsup? Traditionally, a president's annual physical is announced days in advance to the press. Not his time. Late Saturday afternoon Trump clandestinely visited Walter Reed Army Hospital for 'partial physical'??? Could it be hemorrhoids and he did not want the world's press discussing them? We don't know what the reason was., 

Duke rises to No. 1 and UNC rises to No, 5 here in the early days of the new basketball season. Kentucky got flummoxed yesterday, losing badly to a totally unranked Evansville team.

HIGH DRAMA this Wednesday: Gordon Sondlond, EU ambassador is now like 'a deer in the headlights. He was caught lying under oath, twice changing his story about 'what he new about Ukraine and the extortion of the  Ukrainian president,

Opinion: I think – that after this week – about 60% of America will have decided Trump Must GO!

Microphone turned off! Schiff gave masterful summary..WATCH.

Fox News anchor: "Chris Wallace, on Fox: ..."If you are not moved by the testimony of Marie Yavonovich, you don't have a pulse."

....Wallace took earlier issue with Trump's threats against her: "Things are going to start happening to her."

GOOGLE...Ambassador Yovonovitch - 'The Intel hearing Audience applauded.  The GOP microphone turned off at end of Yonovitch hearing'. (See following):
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/audience. Adam Schiff gave a powerful, succinct  closing summary of the day's hearing. He was the Master Prosecutor at the end...No one can dispute what he said...GOP microphone turned off at end of the hearing -one Republican yelling and yelling as the audience's applauding turned to a crescendo of appreciation for Maria Yonovitch..."
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/dwx0w5/.
                                                                 

 Obama tells Dems to EASE OFF on TALK of REVOLUTION: The Washington Post article said that his message was aimed directly at Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders with their sweeping motions and declarations that a 'wholesale change' must come. Go to the Post article. My opinion: The Dems will lose this 2020 election IF 'Revolution' is the message. Independents will reject it wholesale - and if we don't have the majority, the large majority of the Independents? We lose.
                                                                                                                 
 ROGER STONE - GUILTY! Trump's close adviser for over 25 years - Found GUILTY on all 7 counts against him. The latest Roger Stone, a former aide and longtime friend of President Trump, was found guilty on Friday of obstructing an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. –

Key Republican - Now marginal of Trump! - Angry! Frustrated! "Trump blew up our entire defense strategy we developed for him! NOW with just one damned crazy ill-timed TWEET!. We knew if we attacked Ambassador Yovonovitch, it would only evoke more sympathy for her. What does the president do -REAL TIME? He proceeded to blow us all up- including him!".....He walked away, shaking his head.

NYT: The trial included previously unrevealed testimony from a former top campaign aide that Trump expected, he anticipated the  leaks - he 'knew' they were coming' during the 2016 campaign that could hurt Hillary Clinton -- and his campaign openly welcomed them. – CNN

  Stone’s fate now rests in part with Trump, who has the power to issue a pardon. While the president has danced around the question for months, he tweeted criticizing the verdict within minutes of it being read in open court. - (Politico).....Stone stood and braced himself with his fingers on the counsel table as the seven guilty verdicts were read. He showed no visible reaction, but he put on his glasses to look at the jurors as the nine women and three men were then polled individually at the defense's request to confirm their agreement with the verdicts.

TRUMP - His dark, malevolent administration, his world - BECOMING UNRAVELED.                                                                           

                                          'That WOMAN!......Yovonovitch - 'She is Bad News'!
                                                                             

                                                                   
                                            Sever Question?  Is Trump an immoral, unethical, lying sociopath?
                                                       He cannot control his worst instincts.
                                              Is he undermining 243 years of American pride and honor?

KAMALA HARRIS'S CAMPAIGN MELTDOWN.... Politico. - Today.By Christopher Cadelago : "Offices are being closed down. There is widespread bickering among staff members - 'We have no clear message. There is no direction - her fast-shrinking headquarters are deep into the finger-pointing stages. And much of the blame is being placed on campaign manager Juan Rodriguez." Several staff members walked out his week.

Venice is flooding. Trump is drowning in a sea of lies. Mrs. Vovonovitch defends her 30 years of service

VENICE..."Venice is on its knees." Italy is set to declare a state of emergency in Venice after the Italian city was engulfed by 1.87m (6ft) high water levels, flooding its historic basilica and cutting power to homes. More than 80% of the city, a Unesco world heritage site, was under water when tides were at their highest. Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte described the flooding as "a blow to the heart of our country".

A massive infrastructure project called MOSE has been underway since 2003 to protect the city, but it has been plagued by cost overruns, corruption scandals and delays. Scientists and some government officials say this catastrophic historic flooding can be blamed on human failure and climate change."It hurts to see the city so damaged, its artistic heritage so terribly compromised, its commercial activities on its knees," Mr Conte, who visited the region late on Wednesday, wrote in a Facebook post (in Italian). The mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, blamed climate change for the highest water levels in more than 50 years this week, saying the impact was "huge" and would leave "a permanent mark".

WOW!Archaeologist moved these giants! The Abu Simbel temples are two massive rock temples at Abu Simbel (Arabic: أبو سمبل‎), a village in Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt, near the border with Sudan. They are situated on the western bank of Lake Nasser, about 230 km (140 mi) southwest of Aswan (about 300 km (190 mi) by road). The complex is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the "Nubian Monuments",which run from Abu Simbel downriver to Philae (near Aswan). The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside in the 13th century BC, during the 19th dynasty reign of the Pharaoh Ramesses II. They serve as a lasting monument to the king and his queen Nefertari, and commemorate his victory at the Battle of Kadesh. Their huge external rock relief figures have become iconic. The complex was relocated in its entirety in 1968 under the supervision of a Polish archaeologist, Kazimierz Michałowski, on an artificial hill made from a domed structure, high above the Aswan High Dam reservoir. The relocation of the temples was necessary or they would have been submerged during the creation of Lake Nasser, the massive artificial water reservoir formed after the building of the Aswan High Dam on the River Nile.

A most noble and courageous woman: Ambassador Marie Vonovich. President Trump is terrified of her 'live testimony' today. His aides 'tried' (without success), advising him 'DO NOT TWEET AN ATTACK ON HER DURING HER 'LIVE' testimony. He was advised that it will 'feed into his rising 'OBSTRUCTION of Justice' charges.He attacked her anyway. Intel Committee Chairman, upon hearing of the presient's contemptible Tweet and attack on her...Stopped her testimony to say: I am now going to read to YOU Mrs. Vovonitch, what the president just said - to the nation - about you, ten minutes ago: The Chairman read Trump's comments out loud...you could hear the gasps of 'disbelief'. Trump previously tweeted: "That woman is bad news, brings bad news with her, everywhere she goes...and famously threaten: "She is going to start having some problems." American Tragedy? 36% of Americans, (Trump's 'Base')….are totally OK with his character assassinations. Totally 'OK" when he says he can 'Grab a woman by her P**** - and she won't do anything about it. I am a great celebrity. They say nothing."...or..."I can go out in the streets of Manhattan and shoot somebody in the face, and the next morning? All my supporters (36% of the nation)..'will still be there for me!" The Tragedy? What Trump says about his 'Base', the 'Women for Trump' lobbyist group.....All he does or says - totally acceptable. Trying to destroy a highly respected US woman diplomat's reputation -LIVE ON TV- same time as she is testifying against him...TOTALLY OK with the Trump Base. My question, as a writer, and as a historian: "How in the hell did America come to this? Who the are 'these people'? <

The TRUMP DAM is cracking, starting to leak badly:Trump's TV appearances remind me of the McCarthy-Army hearings of he 1950s: Republican Joseph McCarthy and his little troll, nasty side-kick and attorney, Roy Cohn, made national headlines for weeks. They accused various US Army officers, some US Democratic Congressman and many Hollywood actors as being 'COMMUNISTS'.Between the two of them, they destroyed many reputations, careers. Many movie stars never made a another movie, the movie execs were fearful of 'employing maybe 'shadow communists'. McCarthy and Roy Cohn were vicious. Cohn lived on to become an early 'advisor' to Donald Trump...Remember Trump's whining lament during the Mueller probe: "Where's my Roy Cohn?" (Cohn died years earlier).

Here is Trump years later in the late 1980s with Roy Cohn who he admired greatly: Cohn's advice to ALL of his clients: 1. DENY EVERYTHING. 2. Accuse your accuser, loudly, of the very same charge they are making against you! claim - 'It is a witch hunt! Always be on the aggressive side, attack, attack, deny, deny!"

"HAVE YOU NO SENSE OF DECENCY, sir?" His name was Joseph Welch (October 22, 1890 – October 6, 1960) was an American lawyer who served as the chief counsel for the United States Army while it was under investigation for Communist activities by Senator Joseph McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, an investigation known as the Army–McCarthy hearings. His confrontation with McCarthy during the hearings, in which he famously asked McCarthy "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" is seen as a turning point in the history of McCarthyism.McCarthy's Senate tenure ended not long after. He virtually disappeared.

“NEVER!” Longtime, 35-year diplomat Bill Taylor testifies that he had never seen a US president make foreign aid conditional on their personal or political interests, actually exhorting the president of foreign country. “NEVER in my entire life did I ever send a telegram to a Secretary of State. This, however, was an emergency.”

WHO is Bill Taylor? A graduate of West Point, finished 4th in his class of 800 cadets. Upon graduation, he could have gone straight into a Pentagon staff position. He chose to enlist in the US Army and went straight to Viet Nam. On this day, November 13, 2019, this professional career diplomat who was first appointed by Ronald Reagon, then served under GW Bush, Sr., Bill Clinton, George Bush, Jr., then retired, but came out of retirement, being RE-APPOINTED by Donald Trump -TODAY testified: The president who referenced the $400 in military aid to Ukraine - already approved in a bi-partisan vote, endorsed by the US Military Joint Chief of Staf....but then, on the phone said: "I would like a favor....'though'...Trump then bribed, and exhorted the president of Ukraine to start an investigation 'into the Bidens'. TODAY: Bill Taylor then dropped THE BOMBSHELL...there was yet another phone call - Taylor was listening to Trump ask US EU chief diplomat, Gordon Sondland: "How is the investigation going?" Sondland (who will testify under oath Tuesday said this: "They are all set. Ready to move forward." Trump had Sondland tell Pres. Zelesky to 'go to the mic' and say he was now launching an investigation into the Bidens and Hillary Clinton"

DONALD TRUMP 'was trying to steal another US election - blackmailing a foreign country's president, to 'dig up some dirt' on his presidential rival, Joe Biden. Trump was convinced Biden could very well get elected.

Gordon Sondland's wife to her husband: "Tell the truth about what you heard! You could go to jail for perjury!" Sondland 'suddenly' changed his testimony: NEXT WEEK, Tueday, Sondland will be 'The STAR WITNESS'... "I now do seem to remember the president of the phone with me, asking about 'how is the investigation going? I 'now' remember telling him: "They' are all set, ready to go forward." Instead - President Volodny Zelesky - heard that 'suddenly' Washington released the $400. He never 'went to the mic'. Trump 'saw that the lid was coming off, that the 'light of day' was coming down on him - he panicked, released the money.

900 bottles of booze - back from the bottom of the sea: Divers salvage 100-year-old liquor from WWI shipwreck In May 1917, the SS Kyros was transporting the 600 bottles of cognac and 300 bottles of liquor from France to Russia. DeHartmann & Company of France bottled the cognac and Benedictine liquor. It was being transported when WWI German sub sunk the ship in Baltic Sea. All crewman were saved. Now, this year, Ocean X Team and iX Explorer used robots and worked 24/7 for one week and recovered a large amount of the total shipment. The popular spirts company, Bacardi now owns the retrieved bottles.Bacardi is anxious to determine whether the product is now drinkable. We shall soon know.