Entries Tagged 'Reviews' ↓

WORD OF THE DAY — HITCHHIKING

Today I want to talk about something that isn’t political, but it is something that many people won’t have heard about. Back in January 1970 my mother and I were sitting in Willi Unsoeld’s house. Willi was a member of the first American mountain expedition to summit Mount Everest. He and my brother Bill Humphreys had overseen the founding of Evergreen State College in Washingon.

My brothers’ two boys had just drowned in Puget Sound. I’d flown to Washington from the UW-Madison in campus in Wisconsin. My mother and I were the first to arrive. Our two families were there in mourning. We walked over to Willi’s house near by my brothers’ home.

Willi sat at his piano bench telling us a Tibetan story about an antlered buck that had become tangled in a tree on the mountain. Sherpa guides tried for days to free it. And then they had to let go of it. At the time my mother and I were both bewildered.

Willi’s daughter, Devi Unsoeld, my nephews babysitter age 16 walked in and joined the conversation along with her older brother. Devi had golden yellow hair and an amazing vitality. Devi announced to her father she wanted to hitchhhike across the state of Washington.

Her brother reacted and argued that would be a dangerous thing to do. Being older, I sided with him. I don’t know if Devi hitchhiked across Washington State.

But I was sent the story that when Devi died on the on the mountain in her fathers’ arms, she had been named after that highest mountain, Nanda Devi, in the Himalayas.

[For more about Willi and Devi Unsoeld’s stories LINK http://footlesscrow.blogspot.com/2013/04/darkness-at-noonthe-life-and-death-of.html]

LONG HAUL: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers.

Today I realize Willi’s story meant that if you can’t save or change someone you just must move on and don’t dwell on it.

But today I cannot not dwell on it, and I  have to tell you all about Frank  Figliuzzi’s book, LONG HAUL: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers.

Former FBI agent Frank Figliuzzi has just just revealed in his book that there a have been over 850 serial murders of women by Long Haul Truckers in this country over the last two decades. Two hundred of those murders have still not been solved.

Frank worked 25 years in the FBI. He was witness to many of those stories of the murderers. Frank even rode with long haul truckers to see how their world was working.

Frank’s book talks about how the (HSKI) (Highway Serial Killings Initiative)  came to became to be a database for law-enforcement officers to understand the actions of serial killers.

In 2004, the FBI was tipped off to a  pattern of unsolved murders along American roadways. The bodies of 40 women were found in Texas.

There was an interstate murderous long haul highway corridor between Oklahoma and Texas. [See link below]

Frank found that women and girls who fell victim to the murderers often lived nearby their trucker route, or were sex workers or children. Many of the serial killers were also lone wolves.

The Mirror Texas Interstate 45

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/killing-field-road-bodies-40-15055235 The Mirror Texas Interstate 45

You may think that the 850 ‘victims’ are women or girls who lived at the bottom of society, but you would be  wrong.  I’ve seen teenagers sitting on the sidewalk in Vancouver Canada, who like myself at age 17, were forced to move out of their parents’ toxic homes. They are  a vulnerable meal for serial killers.

SERIAL KILLERS

Later in my life in Philadelpia I encountered a serial killer near the University of Pennsylvania students, who chopped up his ‘victims’ and threw their bodies into the Schuylkill River.

At this point I was a student and he was still killing his victims. He owned a tobacco shop. I went into his store late at night after I finished my work as waitress at the the Penn faculty club to buy cigarettes.

The killer came out of from a beaded curtain, a short white man pleasantly balding a bit with a white shirt and the arms rolled up, and asked me nicely what I wanted. Just a regular chap.

But soon I could see he was trying to ingratiate himself with me. Panic growing, and asking myself why I was lying, I saved myself by lying to every question he asked me, and then ran out the door.

Days later I passed the gigantic type on the Philly newspaper headline as well as photo of him in a kiosk as I shivered down to the subway stairs. It was a horrible story for the students.

Devi Unsoeld was a privaleged young woman who died tragically, doing something she had chosen to do. I feel both my nephews Willy and Tom, and Devi could have had great opportunities if they all had lived.

But serial killers don’t give their victims, whether or not at the top or bottom, a choice.

Ari Melber’s “Inside Trump’s Election Plot”

This show on MSNBC TV this month shows clearly how Donald Trump could have won the 2020 election on January Sixth.

1) COURT CASES Trying to get up to Supreme Court, Rudy Giuliani & Sidney Powell spearheaded fifty-seven frivolous cases for court – seven not heard, fifty others (2021)  – FAILED

2) FAKE ELECTORS  Scott Perry, PA Congressman, convinced Mark Meadows, Trump’s Chief of Staff,  to recruit slates of Fake Electors in Swing States (11/28) – FAILED

3) EASTMAN PLAN Student Law clerk to Justice Thomas & Professor, John Eastman urged GOP State legislators ignore the vote, & take over  results (“Legislative Override”) (12/7) – FAILED

4) MILITARY COUP  Peter Navarro, Michael Flynn, and Sidney Powell urged Trump to have military seize State voting machines (12/18) – FAILED

5) GREEN BAY SWEEP GOP gathered & locked out outsiders. Eastmans’s plan. 130 Congressmen & 8 Senators were ready to challenge votes on Jan. 6th – (12/31) – FAILED

6) LEGISLATURE OVERRIDE – Trump & Senator Graham phoned officials in Georgia to find Trump more votes and called on GOP State legislators to take power over votes – (1/2) FAILED

7) DOJ CONSPIRACY – Trump sought to fire Justice Dept. head & hired Jeffrey Clark attorney with no criminal expertise. Clark’s assistant sent letters to Swing States’ GOP to begin Legislative Overrides(1/3) FAILED

8) THE PENCE PLAN – Eastman designated VP Pence Green Bay Sweep Quarterback. Pence was badgered day and night to slow down the vote and substitute fake electors for the certification of votes (1/6) – FAILED

THE EVENING OF JANUARY SIXTH

When the Secret Service took President Trump back to the White house and he realized his rioters were not going to be able to win their battle with the police, Trump spent his last hours on January Sixth calling Rudy Giuliani and his loyal GOP Congressmen begging them to slow down the vote certification. But that was too late. Why? Donald had a Plan B deadline.

DONALD TRUMP’S PLAN B

By law if any of Donald Trump’s eight coup plans had managed to work to halt the vote certification it could have caused a Constitutional Crisis. In that case Congress would be called upon to vote to finish the certification a different way. Congress would have to vote State by State: each State having only 1 vote. Red states would win that vote over fewer Blue states in U.S. Donald Trump would have become President on January Seventh – SUCCESS

WORD OF THE DAY — INFLATION — THE FED PART-TWO

STAVING OFF INFLATION

Inflation has been defined by economists as “too much money chasing too few goods”. If we use John Maynard Keynes variable Wages to offset Inflation we can see that broken supply chains are a really bad problem.

And another variable causing inflation (that was not created in Keynes’ lifetime) could be the the ‘helicopter money’ of the 2020 – 2021’s that is still trickling down in 2022 to some people via government fiat.

But even with Government payments to every American, too many working people have Wages too low to live on.

On the other hand, raising the Minimum Wage is hard on Main Street small business owners.

So I want to suggest another way to fight inflation. Clearly the broken supply chain problem is on the side of too much money and not enough goods. And the Executive Branch needs to tackle these things as much as possible.

But what I’d suggest for workers who have run out of Wages and government checks is that the Executive branch could expand the U.S. government’s Student Loan Forgiveness Program and offer it to blue collar workers as well.

The U.S. Government’s Student Loan Forgiveness Program

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