All posts by Dr. Dean Albert Ramser

Unknown's avatar

About Dr. Dean Albert Ramser

Slava Ukraine! Supporting student success in Ukraine. Retired educator (English / Education: GED2EdD; "Ми будемо поруч один з одним як члени людства в найкращому сенсі цього слова". (Горан Перссон) Слава Україна 🇺🇦 "We will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word." (Goran Persson) https://cal.berkeley.edu/DeanRamser

7/21/2023 – Ruzzians are pushing the world to starvation…

Dal Stanton's avatarVoice of Ukraine

From Maia Mikhaluk in Kyiv (512th): Odessa ad Mykolaiv were under fire again last night. On the night of July 20, the Russian occupiers launched another massive missile attack on the south of Ukraine. Various types of missiles and drones were used in the attack. They hit the port, piers, residential buildings and trade networks. In Odesa, four people were injured during a night attack. Nine people were hospitalized in Mykolaiv.
Russia launched 38 munitions: 19 cruise missiles and 19 kamikaze drones, the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reports: 18 targets ( including 5 missiles) were shot down by our air defense.

Ruzzians are pushing the world to starvation. The attacks on the port infrastructure, which Russia inflicted for the third night in a row, and the deliberate destruction of grain stocks for export by the aggressor country are barbaric acts that will lead to a large-scale food…

View original post 73 more words

Fifty Years Later, Looking for Last Exit

Hubert Selby Jr was a great writer !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And a nice person.
I heard him speak a few times at USC’s Writing Program yearly event.

1960s: Days of Rage's avatar1960s: Days of Rage

An aerial view of Bush Terminal in 1958.

BKLYNR October 10, 2014: “Fifty years ago this fall, Grove Press published Last Exit to Brooklyn, a collection of revolting interweaving stories — which Hubert Selby Jr. had begun publishing in literary magazines as early as 1957 — that became a controversial instant classic of postwar urban degeneracy, populated by drunks, drug addicts, violently repressed homosexuals, victimized transvestites, worn-out laborers, and idle thugs. It’s not the only one of Selby’s six novels (and one story collection) still in print — Da Capo Press still publishes his other best-known book, Requiem for a Dream, thanks surely in part to Darren Aronofsky’s 2000 film adaptation — though it’s the only one I’ve ever seen on shelves in Brooklyn’s independent bookstores, when they stock any Selby books at all. Still, neither Grove nor anyone else has announced plans for a 50th anniversary edition…

View original post 220 more words

7/20/2023 – Three Nights of Fear and Destruction in Odesa

Dal Stanton's avatarVoice of Ukraine

From Kyiv Post by by Ugo Poletti: Kyiv Post’s special correspondent in Odesa reports on three nights of terror from massive Russian missile attacks intended to paralyze the port and prevent grain shipments.

Odesa. State Emergency Service.

Odesahas suffered hundreds of Russian attacks since Feb. 24, 2022. But from Feb. 18 to 20 it was the target of an unprecedented, three straight nights of intense missile and drone strikes, all concentrated on the sea port.

The pattern repeated itself with astonishing precision. The naval missiles and kamikaze drones attacked together, three successive nights, starting at 2:00 a.m., with the all-clear sounding after two hours, around 4 a.m.

The inhabitants of Odessa who live near the port, which is next to the historic center, felt the walls of their houses and the windows shaking from the shock waves on all three nights.

Continue Reading

View original post

7/20/2023 – Their terrorism will do little to scare Ukrainians, for we’ve been through too much to be afraid now…

Dal Stanton's avatarVoice of Ukraine

Today’s picture — Ukrainian grain. Photo by Kostiantyn and Vlada Liberov (@libkos)

From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 511):

Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer;
from the end of the earth I call to you
when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I,
for you have been my refuge,
a strong tower against the enemy.
Psalm 61:1‭-‬3

Last night, Ukraine survived a massive attack from the air. Russia attacked Ukraine with cruise missiles “Kalibr,” cruise missiles Kh-22, cruise missiles “Oniks,” a guided air missile Kh-59, and Iranian-made Shahed drones. Most of these weapons were aimed at Odesa. Russia needed leverage, having suspended the grain agreement, so they attacked seaport infrastructure and grain storage. They destroyed 60,000 tons of grain intended for China that had to be shipped as part of the grain agreement.
One of the missiles left a huge…

View original post 178 more words

The Outsider – Colin Wilson (1956)

1960s: Days of Rage's avatar1960s: Days of Rage

Strange life: “Like Aldous Huxley and C S Lewis with John F Kennedy, the English writer Colin Wilson had the misfortune of dying on the same day as a vastly (and justly) more famous man: Nelson Mandela. When Wilson’s first book, The Outsider, came out in 1956 — coinciding with the arrival of a noisy cohort of anti-establishment writers labelled the ‘Angry Young Men’ — he became an overnight sensation: a self-taught, ‘staggeringly erudite’, working-class, provincial 24-year-old hailed by highbrow reviewers as Britain’s answer to Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Almost as quickly, he was dropped, and his subsequent prolific literary career, which moved from philosophy and religion through psychology and parapsychology to the wilder shores of Atlantis and science fiction, is usually taken to vindicate those second thoughts. A handful of obituaries have appeared in the quality press since 5 December. Most have a tincture of condescension…

View original post 193 more words

7/19/2023 – An old man on a curbside

Slava Ukraine!

Dal Stanton's avatarVoice of Ukraine

Today’s picture is an illustration by Irenaeus Yurchuk, “Anticipation.” Our hearts can see something our eyes don’t.

From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 510):

Oh, grant us help against the foe,
for vain is the salvation of man!
With God we shall do valiantly;
it is he who will tread down our foes.
Psalm 60:11‭-‬12

A couple of days ago, we were meeting someone at a train station. We got there early, so we had time to walk up and down the platform. We noticed an older man sitting on a curbside. It looked like he was waiting for someone. Our son was getting restless, so this man invited him to sit on the curbside with him. Being a friendly, talkative boy, our son started telling him who we were waiting for. The man apparently knew the train schedule well because he asked if we were waiting for the specific…

View original post 185 more words

Jennifer Rubin: Florida Is the State Where Kindness and Decency Go to Die

dianeravitch's avatarDiane Ravitch's blog

Jennifer Rubin is a super-smart journalist-lawyer who became a regular columnist for The Washington Post, where she was supposed to express conservative views. However, the election of Trump changed her political outlook. Here, she writes about how Ron DeSantis’ hate policies are hurting the state of Florida.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his obedient Republican legislature have made bullying and attacking the vulnerable the hallmarks of their governance. Whether it is “don’t say gay” legislation (and retribution against Disney for supporting inclusion), denying medical care to transgender youths, muzzling teachers and professors who address systemic racism in the United States, firing a county prosecutor who dared object to DeSantis’s refusal to protect women’s bodily autonomy, or shipping unwary immigrants to other states, Florida has become not where “woke” died but rather where empathy, decency and kindness go to die.


DeSantis’s stunts frequently fail in court and cost taxpayers…

View original post 414 more words

Lowell Fulson

1960s: Days of Rage's avatar1960s: Days of Rage


“Lowell Fulson was one of the most important figures in post-war West Coast blues, a guitarist, singer, and songwriter who was active from the late 1940s to the mid-’90s. While Fulson seemed willing to do a little bit of everything over the course of his career, his best-known work was informed by jump blues and the polished, impassioned, big-city sound typified by his fellow California bluesman T-Bone Walker. However, Fulson also cut spare, rural blues-styled material, strong soul-styled sides in the mid- to late ’60s (1967’s Tramp, including the hit title track), a smattering of funky, rock-infused blues (1970’s In a Heavy Bag), and barroom-style guitar workouts (1995’s late-era Them Update Blues). Lowell Fulson was born on March 31, 1921 in Atoka, Oklahoma on a Native American reservation; his father was of Cherokee heritage. He was just six years old when his father died, and his…

View original post 229 more words

7/18/2023 – A Pastor’s Wife Remains On Mission in Ukraine (Video)

Dal Stanton's avatarVoice of Ukraine

By Tom Mills, Jul 18, 2023 (Mission the the World)

Lena and her husband, Mykhailo, a Ukrainian pastor, began preparing for war even before the initial attacks in February 2022 and considered their options for their family. They considered heading east to stay with Lena’s mother. They also considered Lena and the children fleeing to a safe location. But as they prayed, God made it clear they should both stay in Odesa. It was important to them that Mykhailo continue to serve the church in Odesa and Lena wanted to support him in that. They considered sending their teenage children away, but the kids wanted to stay with the family. In the end, staying was the right decision for the family, and for the church.

As a child, Lena lived in the east and had been taught by her grandmother that she had a great Russian heritage. As…

View original post 60 more words

7/18/2023 – Oksana, the sole operating room nurse in the area…

Dal Stanton's avatarVoice of Ukraine

Photo: 128th Zakarpattia Separate Mountain Assault Brigade

From Euromaiden Press: Good morning World! Good morning Ukraine!

Oksana, an operating room nurse with the 128th Brigade, shares her experiences in the war zone.

Despite heavy casualties, wounded soldiers continue fighting and liberating their land. Oksana, aka “Ksiukha”, has been with the brigade since the war began in 2015. Ksiukha is an army jargon term referring to a shortened version of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, specifically the AKSU. It features a folding stock and a shortened barrel.

Initially, there was no stabilization medical center, so Oksana worked tirelessly evacuating the wounded. She became skilled at administering medical aid while on the move. She recalls two shell-shocked soldiers who were disoriented and experiencing severe trauma. With no sedatives available, she calmed them by singing a lullaby and managed to safely transport them to the hospital.

Oksana emphasizes the contrast between medical work…

View original post 217 more words