It looks like Bill Gates has got his wish: population reduction, even elimination. And it didn’t take a toxic vaccine that diminishes a woman’s fertility rate. Turns out we’ve been doing this to ourselves for decades with no end in sight. At least since the 1970’s the ability of men and women to produce children has been in steady decline until today it is at half the rate it once was. Since 1973 male sperm is down 60%. A woman today in her twenties has the same fertility rate as her grandmother did at age 35. In addition the size of a penis has diminished as has the size of testes. It turns out all the things we depend on for our quality of life are filled with toxins that take a relentless toll on us over the years and our bodies don’t shed them. They just keep building up. These toxins are everywhere. They are in plastics, clothes, cleaning products, fragrances, soaps, electronics and carpets, just to name a few.
The tragedy is that there is no easy way to undo this. The industries profiting from poisoning us will resist any change and even those of us suffering will not want to put up with the inconveniences of saving ourselves if it is even possible. It has been postulated that Ancient Rome committed suicide in part by the steady poisoning of its population with the pervasive use of lead. Now we’ve done the same same thing. Read the details. It ain’t pretty. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/18/toxic-chemicals-health-humanity-erin-brokovich
One of the major changes for North Americans [I use this term as about 10% of expats here are Canadian] have in adjusting to Cuenca is the food and eating habits. Ecuadorians eat virtually no breakfast, either nothing or perhaps a role and cup of coffee. Dinner is little more than a snack, often corn bread much like the outer layer of chile releno in the American Southwest and again a cup of coffee. The main meal is in the middle of the day, served between one and three in the afternoon. Expats typically show up at noon and often have to wait but more restaurants have become accustomed to our strange habits and are ready serve so early a meal.
This will be the first of an ongoing series about living as an expat in the Andes in South America. I had thought to start this earlier but political events in America have distracted me but I’m finally moving on. I’d also thought I’d go about this logically, beginning with why become an expat, but in the end it turns out this will be a bit of a ramble. I’ll get to all the big questions but it will take several postings.
Venezuela, once the wealthiest country in South America, has been systematically looted and misgoverned by leftists for decades. The economic results have been inevitable. 
It was 88 years ago next month that the Nazis in Germany began publicly burning books of which they disapproved. It was not enough that they be sequestered or removed from libraries and bookstores; they had to be physically exterminated in a public orgy of flames. As long as I can remember, American libraries have displayed those books and urged readers to add them to their reading list. Those days of literary freedom are well behind us. Today we are witnessing the same burning, only digitally, as books are removed from sale and we are largely silent as were the good Germans of the 1930s. After all, no one was coming after their books or, more importantly, after them. But given time that’s exactly what the Nazis did. As our cultural heritage and history are being destroyed and we remain silent there will in time be no one to blame but ourselves for what follows. 
Johns Hopkins doctor Marty Makary has pointed out that Covid 19 cases are down 77% over the past six weeks. The number “plummeting much faster than experts predicted” because, “natural immunity from prior infection is far more common than can be measured by testing.” He adds, “Covid will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.” This is not vaccine related.
Today we celebrate George Washington’s birthday, though in some places it is known as Presidents Day despite the fact there are a few recent former presidents who don’t deserve celebrating. Washington grew up in a slave owning family and at a time and place where slave owning was the norm. In fact, to that point, slavery was practiced continuously in every place of the world with few exceptions. As a leader of a new nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” owning slaves was clearly in opposition to these high ideals. Washington wasn’t the only one of course. During the last 20 years of his life Washington struggled with the moral conflict. He was a decent slave owner, if such can be said about someone owning another human being. No one asked the slaves how they felt about it. He refused to sell slaves as he would not break up families. He confessed in a letter that he wanted to free his own slaves but most of the slaves at Mt. Vernon belonged to the estate of his wife’s first husband. He could not free them, not could she. To make the situation even more complicated his slaves were intermarried with hers and drawing the line of who he could free and who he could not was all but impossible. He resolved the issue by freeing his slaves in his will.
Our dependence on lithium batteries is coming with a high and unappreciated cost. We use them everywhere and soon electric vehicles will be gobbling up the greatest part of them. This headlong charge into electric vehicles is fool hearty and stupid. First, there isn’t enough electricity to support them. You can’t charge them with windmills and solar panels. The electricity is going to come from fossil fuels unless the Greens want to go with nuclear power. Didn’t think so. Second, batteries are highly toxic and will be major polluters both where the metals for them are mined and where they are disposed of after use. Read more at