it always amuses me when people mistake me for eastern european.

i was born in australia, but my father's family name, although dutch/west german in the near term of history, is also a quite well known russian name. it was a gradual process that i eventually discovered my affinity with slavic culture, but i can point back to so many examples of people who i got along best with... bosnian, slovenian, montenegrin, serbian, macedonian, bulgarian, russian... my best buddy on the street in amsterdam was from moscow, half ukrainian. first person i am talking to at a meetup here in madeira. lithuanian.

i miss the place so much, but it's been going down hill so fast in the last 10 years since i first landed in sofia. almost all the things that made it better are now degraded to european standart.

one of the last bastions of decent food and culture in europe now is Bosnia. no surprise that the place was the centre of the orchestrated color revolution and has one of the biggest comcen complexes of the american military, it must be at least 3 acres there in sarajevo. it also is consistent with my perception that the biggest struggle the Empire has is with subduing the stubborn slavs and arabs, who hold to their ancient traditions harder than anyone else in the world.

i'm australian, but i'm not going to advertise that and i don't consider it to be relevant where on the planet i was born, since my father was from dutch and swiss/indonesian parents born in indonesia, my mother's family traces back to scottish/welsh/english convicts in australia, and the place is such a hellhole, it was a hellhole when i was 4 years old, and has turned into a real life dystopian hellscape these days, i pity my poor mother, sister and her daughters to be stuck in that soul destroying place.

but there's one thing i've learned over this last decade living in europe. there's no place safe on this planet from the grasping, manipulating hands of toxic evil psychopaths, and everyone is just accepting the endless escalation of their enfeeblement and yes, that's probably why i seem like a slav - because i'm congenitally orthodox, i believe in being upright and good and that injustice should be fought in whatever way you can manage. i loved watching the covert resistance of bulgarians, and i see even here in madeira something of the same spirit, but a lot more squashed than it was in yugoslavia and bulgaria.

the darkest chapter of our betrayal is still in process, but we must hold tight and fight back as much as we can, and most importantly, stay sane and healthy, in spite of all the confusion and degradation being pushed on us.