In Brazil , the voting public, as in the USA, returned to the presidency an old-time liberal politician, kicking out the ultra-conservative miscreant, another Donald Trump.  Not to say that the new president is the equivalent of Joe Biden, for Luiz Inácio LULA da Silva was a former president who was convicted of graft and served 580 days in jail.  He is 77, and Biden was elected to the White House at the same age.   Lula just this May got married  for the third time, to a 55-year old sociologist.  About incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, he is the model of Trump, with integrity and conspiracy problems, also blaming the loss on crooked counting.  The results were close, with Lula getting less than 51% and Jair more than 49%.  Certainly, Bolsonaro will maintain a Trump-like effort to legally or illegally maintain power.   I don't think, for example, that he has yet conceded .  Also, he has been blamed for mishandling the pandemic.  Brazil is #2 to the USA in total COVID-19 deaths. Halloween d

This was a good week at 15 Craigside.  Not terrific, but above average.  As most readers know, I am in a Honolulu retirement community.  I lived next door in the Craigside condo for 32 years and saw my present building coming up, and merely out of curiosity almost 9 years ago dropped by for a visit, was convinced to move in, and now have been here for more than 8 years. A few months after becoming a resident, I posted on  COULD 15 CRAIGSIDE BE PURGATORY?   We are surrounded by graveyards and churches, as that article showed.  Then a few years later, in June of 2017, I posted on  FOUR SEASONS HUALALAI VERSUS 15 CRAIGSIDE .  This hotel is among my favorites, and you can read for yourself about this comparison.  Earlier that year ( in May ) I had a related posting titled,  OKAY, IS THIS HEAVEN OR WHAT?    This blog site has been vacillating about whether 15 Craigside is Purgatory or not.  Well, after my 44-day Global Adventure and anticipating a week on the Big Island next month to intera

Maybe you missed this, but Italy swore in its first female prime minister last week.  She is 45-year old Giogia Meloni, a white supremacist and first Far-Right leader since Mussolini.  Her party will partner with 85-year old former PM, Silvio Berlusconi's.  She caught the public's attention three years ago when a video of her   I am Giorgia  speech went viral because two DJs from Milan turned the performance into an electronic dance music track .  Worth a watch.  Meloni has been accused of being fascistic, ala Mussolini, who ran the country from 1922 to 1943, and defended Viktory Orban, Hungary's authoritarian leader, who quashed democracy in this country.  She is, however, pro-NATO, for democracy and supportive of Ukraine. Europe is more and more leaning to the right ( they would be called Republicans in the U.S .), with the recent election of Swedish conservative Ulf Kristersson to Prime Minister.  Maybe they're beginning to lean away from socialism.  One of their sci