A Real Life Action Movie

This real story could be made into a movie.

In 2013, Vanessa Rodel, a Filipina woman escaped violence and human trafficking in the Philippines and traveled to Hong Kong with her baby daughter. She had hoped to gain asylum there. With limited funds she lived in Hong Kong’s slums. Her lawyer, Robert Tibbo, asked her if she would take in Eric Snowden for a short time.

Edward Snowden is an American fugitive, a former Central Intelligence Agency employee, and former contractor for the United States government who copied and leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013.

Rodel became part of a group known as Edward Snowden’s “Guardian Angels.” They helped the fugitive while he was in Hong Kong. Snowden was there for two weeks before being granted asylum in Moscow.

Subsequently Rodel’s application for asylum in Hong Kong was denied in 2017. News sites do not explain where she and her daughter lived after being denied her petition.

Lawyer Tibbo, from Montreal contacted lawyer friends in Canada to help a process appeal for asylum in Canada. It was granted and she and her daughter arrived in Toronto on Monday March 26, 2019. Money has been raised privately for her to live in Montreal, learn French, and start a new life.

Vanessa Rodel and her daughter at her seven-year-old daughter Keana at Toronto airport

New Year 2019

We are now in a Bear Market!

Bah! Humbug!

It’s Christmas Eve and here I am writing about something that is sad.

Stocks ended sharply lower today putting key equity benchmarks on track to log their worst month and a year in a decade. The S&P 500 slipped 2.7% to end near 2,352.

It should be obvious what the causes are.

1. Trade war with China.

2. Federal Reserve interest rates have risen four times this year.

3. President Donald Trump has discussed the possibility of firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

4. There is a Federal government shutdown with no solution in sight. Another such shut down could occur on March 1, 2019 when the federal debt limit will be reached.

5. Growing concerns that the economic expansion may be coming to an end.

It’s helpful to know what a “bear market” is because based on history, it looks like we could be here for a while.

The term on Wall Street is synonymous with serious, long-lasting declines in stock markets. In numeric terms, a bear market is a 20 percent or more drop from a recent peak. The S&P 500 hit that milestone on Monday, dropping 20 percent from its 52-week high.

If this bear market is anything like the last time, it could take some time to recover. Since World War II, bear markets on average have fallen 30.4 percent and have lasted 13 months, according to analysis at Goldman Sachs and CNBC. When that milestone has been hit, it took stocks an average of 21.9 months to recover.

The good news is that bear markets do not last forever. So have a happy holiday and think positive about the new year.

A Hot Summer in Yellowstone Park © – Part 1

Preface

My problem is I am obsessed with busty, shapely women. Even today with grown children that obsession has not subsided. It all started at the age of 13 when I experienced that first erection. I mentally drooled over all the girls who were well endowed. I was too shy to even approach a girl but I dreamed of having sex with them every night. This is a story about my first real experience with women.

Chapter 1

In the spring of my first year in college when I was searching for a summer job I learned about jobs in Yellowstone National Park. I thought what a great way to see the park and the animals even if the pay was not that good. It might be an opportunity I may never have again. The catch was you had to apply well in advance. April was too late for the coming summer. I would have to do some serious searching for that summer job that spring. I found a part time driving job. It would provide me with money for enrollment, books, and some spending money.

The following December I sent in my application to the Yellowstone Park Company. After some back and forth letters they notified me that a job was available at Fishing Bridge Village in the laundry. The information on the actual work was lacking. I guessed it would be folding clothes.

West Yellowstone, Montana

I rode to Yellowstone via two Greyhound buses that traveled through the night. There was a change of buses in Salt Lake City. The trip was uneventful and ended in West Yellowstone. That is a village just outside the west entrance to the park. That little town tries it’s very best to look like an 1800s western town. When you are there you can walk into the park. It was there that the park company picked me up along with other summer workers and took us to our destination park villages. Along the way to Fishing Bridge the van had to stop two or three times due to bears and bison blocking the roadway. The bears were begging for food. The bison seemed to see the roads as their personal paths. That ride gave me a quick view of the many spectacular things to be seen in the park.

Voting motivated by fear

There are 12 propositions on California’s November 6 ballot. California’s secretary of state mailed a 71 page Voter Information Guide to every household where there are registered voters. That is a good thing. The bad thing is that only the most diligent readers are likely to read the analyst reports and the arguments that are provided.

The actual laws themselves are not part of the mailed information. The major sponsors of the proposals are also not included. Instead readers are provided with website addresses for more information.

Most of us will not avail ourselves of that on line data. Instead we will be seeing the non-stop television commercials that will be coming with even more ferocity for the last two weeks before election day. Already I have seen commercials for propositions that I support that are obvious lies.

Proposition 6 that would repeal a recently raised gas tax for road improvements is a perfect example. I support the tax. But one commercial contended that repealing the tax would endanger fire fighters and police due to poorly paved roads. Many of the roads in my neighborhood are in need of repair but I have not seen even one situation where road conditions have impacted those services. Clearly that television ad was meant to create fear.

Other ads on topics related to subjects from taxes to dialysis may have similar fear mongering.

Honesty in providing accurate information is only in that 71 page circular. How many will read it?

I am quite certain that this situation is going on in every state and municipality.

Have you no decency Mr. Trump?

Two years ago Donald Trump, then a Republican presidential nominee trailing in most polls, responded to accusations that he had sexually harassed a number of women by mocking one’s appearance: “She would not be my first choice.” All of them, he said, were “liars.”

On October 7, 2016, during the 2016 United States presidential election, The Washington Post published a video and accompanying article about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and television host Billy Bush having “an extremely lewd conversation about women” in 2005. Trump and Bush were in a bus on their way to film an episode of Access Hollywood (now Access), a show owned by NBCUniversal. In the video, Trump described his attempt to seduce a married woman and indicated he might start kissing a woman that he and Bush were about to meet. He added, “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Donald Trump publicly bragged about violating women’s privacy and bodily autonomy at he Miss Universe contest that he owned. Women have shared stories of being harassed by Trump in the very ways he has publicly boasted about. Tasha Dixon was 18 when she competed in the Miss USA pageant, winning the state crown. She reported to CBS, “He just came strolling right in. There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Other girls were naked.”

Despite his past behavior and language Trump seems to think his support for Brett Kavanugh is a winning strategy to retaining control of both house of Congress in the November 6 elections.

And now Trump has voiced his concern for the men who have sexually harassed women.

November 6 should be a time when you send the boorish, obnoxious, sexual harasser a message.

You are not fit to be president of the United States.

John McCain, The Man Who Should Have Been President

The article posted by John Avlon of the Daily Beast does a far better job of telling the story of John McCain’s life than anything I could write. Or if you want another take on John McCain read the article posted by the New York Times titled John McCain, a Last Lion of the Senate.

John McCain will be missed as a voice for America’s greatness.

Vieste on the Adriatic coast of Italy

If Italy’s boot-shaped landmass has a spur, that spur is Vieste. The cliffside village juts out into the pristine waters of the Adriatic, with numerous hidden beaches and grottos along the town’s coastline. Vieste may seem as if it’s frozen in some romantic past. That’s due in part to the fact that this seaside village, with the wind-and-water eroded cliffs, is within the boundaries of Gargano National Park. Efforts to preserve the park’s natural beauty have greatly influenced policies intended to protect the town of Vieste as well.