Hoy folks and folksines!
I dunno if you’ve read it but Karmi’s at it again. This time he auto-self-enrages over my naming of this diary column as ‘Prison’. Too bad my choosing of name had and has nothing to do with any point he’s making. All I gotta say about my title choice is that I didn’t think for a split second about any comparison of lockdown with a real prison but meant it more in a tongue-in-cheek way.
Everybody knows, or should know, that we’re all in lockdown under basically the same conditions, as we can go out to do essential work and shopping. I dunno about you, but we don’t even have a time-frame, as I can leave the house anytime I fukn please.
I’m not propagating any forceful incarceration of people but I appeal to everybody to cooperate and be a reasonable, socially minded human being during the crisis. Ok?
And since hindsight is 20/20 now I would have chosen 10 different titles, all of them better and more fitting than ‘Prison’.
But I digress, so back to the prison diary now: Today I have some Linux newness for y’all. Isn’t that great? But it’s not real newness though, it’s just a comparison of two stalwart Debian distros, namely MX and my fluffy Sparky Linux.
This so-called distro war was conducted by our friend with the light-yellow voice, Tom:
Tom’s conclusion: Both are excellent. MX is the easier, fully stocked allrounder for n00bs, Sparky a bit more minimal but with more desktops right out of the box for the more enagaged user. I guess that’s why I recommend Sparky over MX for when you wanna walk the Debian route.
What’s the talk on the Covid-19 front? Ugh, guys … it’s no good. More infected, more death. 😦 Do I really have to show you the numbers?
Didn’t I say it since weeks aready? Don’t rush it! SAfrican pupils are so badly educated, a couple more weeks of missing school won’t ruin anyone’s curriculum in any impactful way. And you surely don’t wanna be like the Americans, sending your kidz to school in order to die. Or do you?
You can call me a soviet gulag enforcer all you want, I don’t care. I can only strongly urge you to stay home, relax, sleep, enjoy all the free time, take a long bubble bath, install Linux on some old computer of deceased family members. Enjoy not having to be busy, enjoy your loved ones and be happy to have them around and not out there where they could catch the fukn virus in a heartbeat.
So, as usual, stay hygienic and wash your hands clean of any sin, eat lotsa cake and drink lotsa tea (coffee is crap anyway). Will check up on you again a bit later in the day.
xoxo
Thar She Blows! 
Got to love a bit of python.
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I have a look at Karmi’s blog post, and the mention of ‘Chinese Coronavirus’ immediately got my antennae twitching. I was facepalming with every paragraph after that. Reminds me why I’m glad I quit Facebook and Twitter.
Things here in the UK are a barrelload of WTF right now. Boris wants schools to reopen next month, at least for some primary-school children, but has given precious little guidance or support to the schools on how to do this safely. Many teachers, and their unions, don’t want to reopen because they don’t think it’s safe to do so, and many parents seem to agree. (My sister is a teacher, so she’s in the thick of all this.) Cynical me thinks the government just want to get the economy moving again, and if some poor / sick / disables / ethnic minority people get killed by Covid-19 that’s just their tough luck.
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Hi SuperSpit,
if you read my Corona diary you know that we have the same here in SA. Minister = Open the fukn schools! Teachers Union = Yes, my queen, we do at once … cough cough, die die, croak …
Yes, we all know that Karmi is a spiteful old man + American so we now why he calls it Chinese Coronavirus. Obviously not in awe of China. I give him the benefit of the doubt and say he maybe means it in the same way we call the Spanish Flu … the Spanish Flu. Country of first symptoms and patients usually is responsible for the nomenclature.
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Some food for thought to enlighten your prison day: not all Americans are as simpleton as that Karmi,
And we can read some decent pieces in papers like the Atlantic:
https://apple.news/Al3aL7r5dRCGcO9caF5b4gQ
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Whoa! Viv!!! That article is, like, superduper pro-west propaganda. No wonder the paper is called the Atlantic. Is it the NATO’s very own club magazine?
LøL
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Yep, just like anything coming out of China or Russia….
important is to keep one’s “libre arbitre” to quote XVIII century French philosophers and take it all with a (large) pinch of salt
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Oh believe me, I’m always forming my own opinion and believe noone. Unfortunately right now America and her puppydogs are on the wrong side of my good conscience. I don’t see Russia starting the fight against ISIS, I only see them being disturbed by today this – tomorrow that willynilly American politics. I don’t see China, Russia, Iran, Vietnam or North Korea, Kuba or Venezuela invading other countries or having any wars going on. Well, okay, Russia. But they were called and invited by President alAssad,to help in the war against terror. All the others are doing nothing and be just more or less good neigbours.
And not even now, amidst the Corona crisis, can America refrain from havocing around the world.
These are the facts I know.
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I am not saying the US are the best, certainly not under our current leadership…. who is an aspirant dictator, looking up to Putin or Kim as role models…
Yet, you may share a thought for Ukraine maybe, or Tibet or the Muslim minorities in western China?
Just to enlighten you a bit more, and so you are not misled by the title of the magazine, you should read this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/history/
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Viv, I’m academia, studied Eastern European history and dabbled with world history since kinda 40 years now. And I know the Atlantic, by reputation, not reading it since it doesn’t qualify as scientific historian literature or analytical paper in my eyes. It’s in fact rather biased I must say.
And whom Trump does look up to, or not, is of no consequence. Anyway, you can only look up to one, the democrat Putin or the fascist small time leader Kim. Even the Chinese are ashamed of him. Didn’t you see all the half-finished bridges across the border river between N-Korea and PRC? China pulled out. Even mentioning both in the same sentence shows a serious misleaded image of the world. While Putin is the best president anyone could wish for, Kim is nothing but a childish clown … kinda like Trump.
And please, don’t say US isn’t the best under current leadership, when it factually stopped being the best in 1918 already. And before that … nobody cares because they didn’t dabble in global affairs. And in 18 they kinda ended the British empire and gave it its mercy shot in 45. From then on … ugh, you know. 😦
Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Middle East, Central and South America … the US created chaos and havoc all over the pace. And was and is always on the wrong side in every conflict. And became richer and powerfullerer by the day. Only the American population didn’t get to enjoy the spoils, only in form of dirtcheap oil maybe. But no human rights, no workers protection, worst employment laws in the western world, no public health system, no consumers rights, just some hooray patriotism and how sweet it is to serve and die for your country. Newsflash: It isn’t!
Very elegant way to create enemies was also founding of NATO. When Stalin, as the WWII winner and main allied power, said “kool idea!” and applied for membership, he was told in no uncertain terms that’s not possible since he and his soviets are the chosen enemy! 😦
Bravo! Best method to alienate your brothers in arms and create an opposition and lay the foundations for the military industrial complex we all suffer from today. 😮
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“While Putin is the best president anyone could wish for” : not sure I share that idea, but I can relate to other points you make… to some extent. I m not sure the Russian people share any “spoils” either.
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That’s because there are no spoils to share, Viv!
Russia could, but doesn’t, invade other countries just because they have oil. But what the Russians get is a now stable system, a real democracy, pension, healthcare, education, all the social insurances. They don’t have to become soldiers, they can have normal lives like everybody.
Putin just declared Russia’s food independence! So no matter if the EU boycotts them, they can make their own, often better stuff. I’ve heard Russian manufacturers received prizes at a French cheese festival for their super duper camembert and other cheeses. As long as you have good cheese you can be happy and don’t need to topple other gov’mts. 😉
And anyway, with over 80% pro-Putin votes in Russia and over 60% of Putin lovers in West Europe, he can’t be as bad as our carreer politicians make him out to be.
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