Monday, August 17, 2020

This has been a relatively slow news week for posting simply because of other personal deadlines. This site has been relatively silent for a few days I know but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything going on around the world. In order to push out info quickly I’ve sometimes had to use a guerilla style of publishing to push out content while withholding updating images and graphics. The graphics quickly illustrate my point often or add eye catching focus to a particular article but the meat and potatoes is often the text. And as they say, a site is only as good as its content. But never mind you the graphics, they will return in due time. Besides it saves a little bit of load time and speed.

Some “newsworthy” thoughts for the week.

1) Watchmen
You probably have seen this movie or heard of the movie. It is an American comic book led by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins and the rest of the team. The comic book is published by DC comics and has an alternate superhero world that both satirizes and analyzes the concept of being a superhero. The original dealt with Vietnam War, Watergate, and the idea of a World War III scenario as well as vigilantism and law and government. It also focuses on the concept of morality which often can change over time. A common symbol includes a blood stained-smiley face. Some of the comic book has made its way into the DC universe. Since DC’s most beloved characters had to be able to stick around and stay intact, the writers and artists used most of their alternative plotline or new characters in such a way to be similar to existing ones but different enough to explore a different reality that was somewhat dystopian so they could create various themes without literally killing off their franchise.

The comicbook made its way into a a movie with crimefighters like The Comedian, Rorshach, Nite Owl, Ozymandias and Silk Spectre. The movie explored adult concepts and the not so fine line between being a hero, vigilante, and a criminal with occasional blurring into murder all set in a modern realistic world.

The new HBO series which came out at the end of October of 2019 was called a remix of the comic and had a few new characters.
The series is after the comic events but also set in 2019 and seems to be around the time of the Tulsa riots. Look this up on Wikipedia, key words: Tulsa Oklahoma riot. It was such a significant event that “in 2020” it “became a part of the Oklahoma school curriculum” (Wikipedia).
This was a turbulent time just as it is now so the show got critical acclaim and attention since it has eerie preminiscient parallels to events of 2020. It analyzes events of racial violence and also law enforcement and wearing of masks. Although in 2020 in real life outside of TV masks are currently used to prevent Covid-19 it is used to protect the identities of law enforcement under attack. And that also has odd parallels to protest movements of 2020 dealing with racial injustice. Art imitates life and vice versa. In real life you might just as well see terms like “boogaloo” and “proud boys”. Currently there seems to be multiple pronged groups of people protesting around the world. From HK to Gilet Jaunes. In the U.S. it is BLM. And there may be other groups like the antif.. groups that mixed in there. It’s a veritable confusion of what is actually happening in the world and many weeks ago when first looking at the regular news broadcast it looked like utter chaos.

2) Time travelling
No, we don’t have any confirmed instances of time travelling but many things that are happening seem to have repetition of history. Coming across the terms “Looking glass” I found a lot of miscellaneous references to conspiracy type material from theories of 5G and military tech, unidentified aircraft to state sponsored quantum tech to predict the future. When I looked it up on Wikipedia all it gave me was just some references to inactive open source 3D desktop environments. Even the digital currency community sometimes have people toying with the idea that digital currency is the future of the monetary system and trying to promote or tell people of its benefits. However, we think that it’s just some gamers and online people just trying to present their own spin on the world agenda, or spin their religion or other theories. But for the sake of people not aware this the aforementioned “looking glass” terminology you might come across that reference online. This is for your awareness and to keep a skeptical eye. And speaking of digital currency it’s done well in the last few months as well as stocks. Digital currency was in the radar by some law enforcement groups as they were able to trace various transactions of people using the money for malicious purposes. However digital currency isn’t inherently bad just like normal cash isn’t inherently bad. It’s about intent.

3) Dating during Covid
Lastly a quick post about dating in a time of Covid-19. Right now people are hesitant to go out still.

• There are people still scared of Covid-19 and rightly so especially with all the information out there about it.
• Some are skeptical about things from secret vaccination agenda to mask control to worries of a new normal and virus hoax.
• People have gotten injured or hurt from confronting or just bringing up mask wearing but it’s important to have consistency right? If someone is doing it and someone not is it fair? Who becomes the “mask police” and how do we get people on the same page?
• You see different countries have different health results. Compare the United States in terms of cases, deaths, and mask and lock down / normalcy policies with Sweden for instance.
• We don’t know all the details of every place in the world at this time but there is a lot of conflicting uncertain info.
• You can still go out and meet people in this time. If you do we’ve been able to do so. Some of us have tried meeting and wearing masks. It is odd at first. Here are some tips for dating in Covid:

a) Talk a lot online before showing up and do show up if you say you are. We had no problem with people following through but most people are choosing instead to skip dating all together at this time. Dry spell folks.

b) Bring along a face mask just in case to be respectful to your date.

c) Consider meeting and talking at a distance greater than 6 feet for a few minutes and maybe with the distance you can have your mask off and see how you like each other. Then if you decide you want to hang out you could choose a big area like a park to walk around.

d) Do consider meeting at a big outdoor place. It will give you more room to move around and you might not need to be as particular with your mask if you have a bit of distance.

e) I haven’t seen too many people kissing or doing significant PDA right now.

f) Near the end of the date if you start to connect you might be able to hold hands for a brief amount or give hugs or lean or even back hugs which lets you touch and not be afraid of coughing or sneezing too much. But if you are pretty confident with each other you might be able to be less restrictive knowing the full facts between you.

Or you could just do your own particular scenario. Life has no perfect rules and we’d be fibbing if we told you our scenario fit everyone. Rules were made to be adjusted. And it’s been a year where know one really knows what’s up and is playing it by ear.

As always, know when to hold em and when to fold em.

4) Time to seed is coming up soon.
It’s almost Labor Day. For those that are enjoying the summer, it’s almost time for that end of summer ritual. Grilling and enjoying the last hot days of summer and soon to be cool refreshing weather. It is also time to check in on repairs.

• Get your aerator and dethatcher ready
• Find fertilizer for greening up your lawn
• Look for good quality grass seed to overseed your lawn and check sprinklers so you can water your newly seeded grass. As the temperature starts to drop to around 70 you will be able to have good conditions for maintaining and growing new grass around your yard that has less competition from weeds.
• Do final lawn jobs and repairs.