Pino Carafa

So I am in the Netherlands and instead of me helping my 87 year old dad around the house I am stuck in bed with him waiting on me hand and foot. It's not right but thankfully he's a very fit 87 year old.

On Thursday morning I had a shower. My dad has a shower curtain and you know the way they tend to billow inward as the hot water comes down. Except I felt like I was falling toward it. Only lasted a couple of seconds and I didn't dwell on it. The rest of the day was fine.

Friday morning, same thing happened but worse. Steadied myself and went back up to the bedroom when all hell broke loose. The entire room was spinning and before I knew it I was puking my guts out. The strangest thing was that there wasn't much to puke. Hardly anything from the dinner, and after that just yellow bile. None of the proverbial "chunks".

By lunch time I was able to lie in bed with my eyes closed and prevent further gagging.

That lasted until approximately 20:00 when I had another attack. This time what little came out looked dark and my youngest uncle who is a retired nurse thought there may be evidence of blood. He reckoned it was probably the earlier puking irritating my hiatus hernia, so not critical as such, but blood is blood and you can't just ignore it.

At this stage I cannot open my eyes as the nystagmus causes severe motion sickness. Keeping my eyes closed kept it at least a little bit under control. So he took me to the nearest hospital where there is a "huisartsenpost" - something similar to a VHI clinic.

The doc there did some tests and was soon able to rule out stroke. Her diagnosis was BPPV. She concurred with my uncle's assessment that the blood was probably not too big a deal but she was worried and told us that should it happen again or get worse, or should I produce tarry stools I should immediately contact them again. I was given medicines to stop me puking and esomeprazole as a stomach protector and sent home.

The good news is that these both seem to have helped. I've been able to keep food down and everything coming out the other end looks normal.

But I was meant to drive my car rental back to Brussels Saturday afternoon and fly home and, nope, that was never going to happen.

In fact the acute phase of BPPV may last up to 4 days and, as she explained to me, it may have a "long tail" of after effects so I think I won't be driving for a while. As of today I can just about get up, very gingerly, but I feel I still need to find my "sea legs".

I contacted SIXT and I am trying to get them to collect the car as I'm not driving it anywhere. This may prove to be a problem as they don't normally provide this service to non corporate customers. But needs must and there are SIXT offices only 5 KM away in Kaldenkirchen just across the German border.

I booked a flight back from Düsseldorf on Friday. My brother-in-law can bring me that day and I arranged for travel assistance in the airport.

Won't be working this week but I am feeling a good bit better. On Saturday I still preferred to keep my eyes closed, today the nystagmus is gone but walking around is still not ideal. Spending my days in bed. Eating fruit and soup. Yum 🫩

Yeah.

Fun.

Ah well.

Your ideology is worth jack shit if you refuse to understand that someone who paid a mortgage for 30 years, or someone who slaved for 30 years to eke out a living from their mom & pop corner shop, or someone who is paying off a hefty loan on their car is NEVER going to be convinced of the "correctness" of your "direct action" if this consists of you rampaging down their street and destroying all the things they worked so hard for.

They're not going to be convinced by your clever arguments about how the system has been exploiting them. All they will know is that they somehow managed to keep their head above water, despite the system being as bad as it is, and then YOU came along and destroyed it all. And even though they should hate the system for making their life so fragile, they will hate YOU for destroying what little they had.

When peaceful, symbolic protests fail to change the behaviour of the ruling classes, direct action is the only avenue left.

But BE SMART. Direct action must impact the people whose behaviour you are trying to change most, and the people whose support you're trying to get least.

A riot may feel like "direct action" but with every street you tear up, with every car you light on fire, with every window you smash and with every small shop you loot, you lose the support you need.

Be better, be smarter. How? That will need minds smarter than mine to figure out.

Es kommt vor, daß ich meine, daß etwas klirrt
Daß sich irgendetwas in mich verirrt
Ein geräusch, nicht einmal laut
Manchmal klirrt es vertraut
Selten so, daß man es direkt durchschaut
Man wird wach, reibt die augen und sieht
In einem bild zwischen brueghel und bosch
Keinen menschen, der um sirenen etwas gibt
Weil entwarnung nur halb soviel kostet
Es riecht nach kristallnacht
In der ruhe vor dem sturm, was ist das?
Ganz klammheimlich verlässt wer die stadt
Honoratioren inkognito hasten vorbei
Offiziell sind die nicht gerne dabei
Wenn die volksseele – allzeit bereit
Richtung siedepunkt wütet und schreit
"Heil – halali" und grenzenlos geil nach vergeltung brüllt
Zitternd vor neid
In der kristallnacht
Doch die alles, was anders ist, stört
Die mit dem strom schwimmen, wie es sich gehört
Für die schwule verbrecher sind
Ausländer aussatz sind
Brauchen wer, der sie verführt
Und dann rettet keine kavallerie
Kein zorro kümmert sich darum
Der pisst höchsten ein "z" in den schnee
Und fällt lallend vor lässigkeit um
"Ha und? – kristallnacht!"
In der kirche mit der franz kafka-uhr, ohne zeiger
Mit strichen darauf nur, liest ein blinder einem tauben struwwelpeter vor
Hinter dreifach verriegelter tür
Und der wächter mit dem schlüsselbund hält sich im ernst für so etwas wie ein genie
Weil er auswege pulverisiert und verkauft gegen klaustrophobie
In der kristallnacht
Währenddessen, am marktplatz vielleicht
Unmaskiert, heute mit einem wahren gesicht
Sammelt steine, schleift das messer
Auf die, die schon verpetzt
Probt der lynch-mob für das jüngste gericht
Und zum laden nur flüchtig vertäut – die galeeren stehen längst unter dampf
Wird im hafen auf sklaven gewartet, auf den schrott aus dem ungleichen kampf
Aus der kristallnacht
Da, wo darwin für alles herhält
Ob man menschen vertreibt oder quält
Da, wo hinter macht geld ist
Wo stark sein die welt ist
Von kuschen und strammstehen entstellt
Wo man hymnen auf dem kamm sogar bläst
In barbarischer gier nach profit, "hosianna" und "kreuzigt ihn!" ruft
Wenn man irgendeinen vorteil darin sieht
Ist täglich kristallnacht

- BAP - Kristallnaach

#Moderation proposal for Mastodon.

At the moment, moderation is strictly local. And in principle that makes perfect sense. Each server has its own "rules" to be enforced locally.

But this can be problematic for small instances. Imagine an instance with just a few hundred users on it. Or even just a few dozen. There is probably just one admin. One person to look after that instance's moderation.

People have to sleep. They have lives outside running and maintaining their Mastodon server. They cannot be present to moderate their instance 24/7.

"Global" moderation is never going to work. What's acceptable on an instance that is designed to be "open" to everyone is VERY different to what can be tolerated on an instance that is designed to be a safe space for people who have endured trauma.

So this is my idea....

Implement the concept of a network of trust between servers. If server1.something and server2.somethingelse find themselves very mutually compatible their Admins could both add the other server to their "trusted" network. And then, when that's in place, there could be an option for the Admin of one server to accept individual moderators from the other server as moderators on theirs.

A few small "trusted" servers around the globe could build a small team of mutual moderators who could between them cover the moderation of the entire "circle of trust" servers 24/7.

It would be great if the technical infrastructure of the Fediverse allowed for such a modification.

Any techies like to comment?

Met panter pootjes
En panter oogjes
Da's Bella Miauw Bella Miauw Bella Miauw Miauw Miauw

#antifa kitteh #caturday

I have sometimes wondered whether the idiocy coming from Trump is just part of a clever game he's playing. I'm convinced now that that isn't the case. The man really is thicker than two short bricks glued together. He genuinely is exactly as stupid as he acts. He's a grifter and a con artist and the only thing he has ever been good at in his life is to part even bigger fools and their money and having that money end up in his own pocket. And now even THAT marble is starting to roll out of his reach.

The US government acting as a whole might be marginally smarter than its president. Some of its behaviour may hint at an underlying tactic leveraging its president's behaviour to achieve short sighted gains for the country. Trump's kotowing to Putin has led to a greater commitment of Europe to spend money on defending Ukraine. While the USA will never own Greenland as per Trump's deranged fantasy, by not publicly opposing their president's deranged outbursts about it on social media, the US government has effected a commitment by other NATO countries to start spending more resources on defending the Arctic.

As a short term tactic this sort of behaviour might even work. At this stage we can only see Mark Rutte's ankles and feet, he's crawled that far up Donald J. Trump's hamberder encrusted back passage.

But the long term damage to the USA's reputation on the world stage is already starting to become apparent, and the economic impact has not even started to really hit. I suspect this is one of the reasons why Trump suddenly backpedaled so completely on his tariff threats over Greenland. Perhaps someone in his administration caught Trump during one of his rare lucid moments and explained to him how the tariffs that are already in place are leading to trading partners waking up from decades long complacency and making new deals elsewhere. Maybe someone found a way to actually rein him in.

But the damage is done. The USA's reputation is shot to hell, and I'm not optimistic it can ever be recovered.

If there is any sort of positive to be had from this, let's be smart here in Europe. We are still dealing with far right populism here. Farage. Wilders. AfD. Orbán. Le Pen. Meloni. These people are divisive and bad for Europe, so let's engage in constructive dialogue with our fellow voters and show them how it's in their own interest to vote for someone else. We need to accept that people have different world views. Some are progressive, some are conservative, some lean left, some lean right. In a democracy we are going to have to accept that a large percentage of the electorate will never vote for "our" party, but that populism, any form of populism, is counter productive and damaging. How do we talk to people to convince them of this without playing into the populists' polarising playbook?

That is our challenge for the next decade.

This is the sort of idiotic narrative we need to lose:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2gjdx241wo

"Think of Canada. It has seen its trade with the US slump. But its prime minister Mark Carney's strategy has seen Canada's trade surge with the rest of the world by 14% - which amazingly is worth more than was needed to cover its trade lost with the US."

Amazingly? What sort of a cackling imbecile would still be "amazed" by that? Yes it has always been easier in the past to take the path of least resistance. One extremely wealthy country that was open to trade with western trading partners like the EU. Why look any further, seems to have been the attitude. To be sure, it's hard work making agreements with several other trading blocs and 100 or so individual countries. But with the #USA going insane under its school yard bully Donald #Trump we're learning the hard way that resting on our laurels is a very foolish way to keep doing business. As our (the EU's) deal with Mercosur has now proven, there are other trading opportunities out there. Many of them. Opportunities that, as #Canada has shown, can benefit us much more than kotowing to that orange fascist clown ever could.

And maybe leaving that bull to his own devices in his own china shop for a while, slapping more and more import taxes ("tariffs") on his own consumers (LOL) will finally be enough to make Americans wake up and smell the covfefe.

But we'd be remiss if we didn't assume that the USA might stay this self destructive course for an extended period and if we didn't look further afield for trading opportunities with partners who are able to behave rationally, and anyone who is still "amazed" by the benefit that could be gained from grabbing such opportunities must be blind, no, worse, wilfully closing their eyes to the state of the world in 2026.

"Amazingly". In 2026 I'm shocked to still see that word used by a reporter on economic affairs when seeing benefits to doing trade with anyone other than the USA.