Poems for unsettled times

Poetry can help calm the soul in troubled times, here are some poems I like

The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world and am free.

Mighty Oak by Kathy J Parenteau

Stand tall, oh mighty oak, for all the world to see.
Your strength and undying beauty forever amaze me.
Though storm clouds hover above you,
Your branches span the sky
In search of the radiant sunlight you
Count on to survive.
When the winds are high and restless and
You lose a limb or two,
It only makes you stronger.
We could learn so much from you.
Though generations have come and gone
And brought about such change,
Quietly you've watched them all,
Yet still remained the same.
I only pray God gives to me
The strength he's given you
To face each day with hope,
Whether skies are black or blue.
Life on earth is truly a gift.
Every moment we must treasure.
It's the simple things we take for granted
That becomes our ultimate pleasures.

If By Rudyard Kipling 

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Have You Earned Your Tomorrow By Edgar Guest

Is anybody happier because you passed his way?
     Does anyone remember that you spoke to him today?
This day is almost over, and its toiling time is through;
     Is there anyone to utter now a kindly word of you?

Did you give a cheerful greeting to the friend who came along?
Or a churlish sort of "Howdy" and then vanish in the throng?
Were you selfish pure and simple as you rushed along the way,
Or is someone mighty grateful for a deed you did today?

Can you say tonight, in parting with the day that's slipping fast,
     That you helped a single brother of the many that you passed?
Is a single heart rejoicing over what you did or said;
     Does a man whose hopes were fading now with courage look ahead?

Did you waste the day, or lose it, was it well or sorely spent?
     Did you leave a trail of kindness or a scar of discontent?
As you close your eyes in slumber do you think that God would say,
     You have earned one more tomorrow by the work you did today?

Dear Students

Due to the Corona Virus, school is under new management- please observe the

following changes from your new teacher.

1. Monday is pyjama day. Forget it, every day is pyjama day

2. There is no lunch lady. 12:00 is culinary Arts. Make yourself something. Peanuts are now allowed. Cover everything in peanut butter if you want to. At least it's protein.

3. Starting today you can wear open-toed shoes in every class. I'm honestly just impressed if you're actually wearing shoes. Pants are also optional, underwear is not.

4. If you misbehave, you'll be sent to Dad's office for detention.

S. If you don't understand the assignment, ask your older sibling. I probably don't get it either.

6. Don't drink out of the teacher's Yeti.

7. School begins promptly at the conclusion of my second cup of coffee and ends just as abruptly at cocktail hour, which will be adjusted depending on how big of a disaster the days' lessons are.

8. No, you cannot have a PE excuse.

9. You do not need to announce how long you'll be in the bathroom for or how things turned out. Just go.

10. If you hit your sister, I'll swat you. There's no code of ethics, I was tenured before you ever made your arrival on this planet and I sleep with the principal. Try me.

This is going to be a really exciting trimester and I'm so glad you're in my class. Love, your new teacher

Ms. Mommy 

Gender-based progress has slowed down in recent times.

The new century was full of promise but we are already in 2020 and are still grappling with issues related to gender equality, equal pay and sexual harassment at the workplace. While the situation is better than what it used to be five or six decades back but according to a McKinsey Report, gender-based progress has slowed down in recent times. Sadly, gender-based discrimination at the workplace, pay gap and sexual harassment still continues despite the rising awareness about these issues. Here are some other highlights from the report that have brought to light the condition of working women around the world.

In an encouraging trait, the number of educated and employed women is on the rise but that does not mean their involvement in the family and household responsibilities is reducing. My generation was slowly starting to be more involved around the home then our fathers were. We were encouraged by the fact that our sons were becoming more involved in and around the home. However, although working women are spending more and more time in their office, they are also devoting more time to childcare or getting household chores done than their husbands or the other men in the family. It looks like our sons and our grandsons are not moving to be equal partners as we hoped they would.

While working women shoulder more household responsibilities than men, they have no access to any special workplace policies and are entitled to the same number of medical leave, sick leave and flexible working hours as their male colleagues except maternity leaves. At work, it seems the paternalistic attitude that was with us in the 19^th and 20^th century are coming back with a vengeance, which is sad. There was a recent development in India where women employees were demanding menstrual leaves. However, the world was divided into two camps, one was against the idea of granting women special menstrual leaves and others were supporting the cause. Their demands didn't see the light of the day.

More then half of working women (almost 54 percent) take leave from work after becoming a parent for the first time because women take more responsibilities of childcare than men. They are also most likely to look for more flexible jobs after childbirth and compromise on their salary. The number of working women who take leaves or leave their jobs to take care of an ailing or elderly member of a family is also more as compared to men. All these factors lead to long-term financial consequences for women and they have a lesser amount of savings as compared to men after retirement.

Also, let's not forget that the MeToo movement, which brought to light many incidents of workplace harassment against women, shook the whole world. From influential politicians to filmmakers, journalists to businessmen, reports of how they harassed women colleagues started pouring in from all corners. Such movements like #MeToo made us face a harsh reality that no matter how educated and highly-placed a woman might be in the organizational chart, she is not safe from the sexual predators.

COVID-19 Fraud roundup

The following is from the State of Security and written by David Bisson and published on March 23, 2020

Malicious actors are increasingly leveraging COVID-19 as a theme for new digital fraud attacks. In February 2020, for instance, Action Fraud received 21 reports of fraud relating to the coronavirus. This number of reports more than doubled to 46 between March 1 and March 13, 2020. Between March 14 and March 18, 2020, the United Kingdom’s national fraud reporting center collected 38 reports alone.

Those 105 reports represented a collective total of £970,000 in losses.

Acknowledging this growing surge in fraud attempts, we at the State of Security feel it’s important to keep our readers informed about what some of these latest coronavirus-themed attacks look like. Towards that end, let’s take a look at a few COVID-19 scams that made headlines this past week.

Red Cross Impersonators Selling COVID-19 Home Tests
Snopes.com learned of a scam in which fraudsters impersonated Red Cross volunteers in an attempt to victimize concerned individuals. These attackers said that they were working for Red Cross and that they were offering COVID-19 home tests door-to-door.

In the case someone fell for the ruse, these malicious actors could have fraudulently charged their victims for a test that they never administered. They could have also simply robbed their victims upon gaining entry to their homes.

The Red Cross confirmed to Snopes.com that it is not instructing victims to visit people door-to-door:
The Red Cross is not going to people’s homes to offer coronavirus tests. If someone comes to your house claiming that they work for the Red Cross and that they’re authorized to do coronavirus testing, do not allow them in your home. 

Our most important guidance is for people to please be safe. Should such an incident occur, we ask that you call the police as soon as possible.

Fake WHO Advice Delivers HawkEye Infostealer
On March 19, 2020, IBM X-Force detected a campaign that emitted several waves of phishing emails purporting to originate from the World Health Organization (WHO) as a whole or from Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO.

Info-Stealer disguised in a mail from the General Director of the World Health Organization (Source: IBM X-Force)
The emails instructed recipients to open an attachment for the purpose of receiving updated instructions on how to fight the coronavirus. This attachment was an archive that, when opened, revealed “Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19) CURE.exe.” When run, this executable loaded HawkEye, a keylogger which is capable of intercepting keystrokes, stealing credentials, taking screenshots, and exfiltrating its stolen data.

Extortion Emails that Threaten to Infect You with Coronavirus
The Sophos Security team learned about a phishing email scam in which digital attackers claimed to know “every dirty little secret” about their recipients. They tried to prove it by sharing one of the recipient’s passwords that no doubt appeared in a data dump pasted from a recent breach on an underground web forum. They then demanded that the recipients pay $4000 in bitcoin to have the attackers delete their data.

A screenshot of the attack email. (Source: Sophos Security)
For those who refused, the malicious actors threatened to infect their entire family with coronavirus. They didn’t specify how they’d accomplish this. But they did give a curiously worded assurance: “No matter how smart you are, believe me if I want to affect, I can.”

Those behind the campaign also threatened to disclose the recipient’s secrets and thereby “completely ruin [their] life.”
Hoax CDC Calls Asking People to Reserve COVID-19 Vaccines

The Daly City Police Department in California recently learned of a call-based scam abusing COVID-19 as a lure. In a tweet posted on Twitter, they warned that people impersonating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had begun calling people and urging them to “reserve a vaccine for the COVID-19” with a credit card. 

Some of these individuals even went so far as to ask their targets to provide them with their Social Security Number.
New scam: People are claiming to be from the CDC offering to let people "reserve a vaccine for the COVID-19" with a credit card and/or social security number. There is no vaccine reserve program, and the CDC is not offering anything of the sort. Do not fall prey!

As Daly City Police warned, the CDC is making no such offer. There is also currently no vaccine for COVID-19.
Scams Promising $1K Checks for Economic Relief to Pandemic

Last but not least for this week, WCNC learned of a scam that used the economic fallout of the coronavirus to prey upon unsuspecting individuals. The scam specifically sent out attack emails that capitalized on legislation in which every American adult would receive $1,000 checks as part of a $1 trillion stimulus package responding to COVID-1, as reported by the New York Times.

This legislation had not received approval from Congress at the time of writing. But in this particular scam, the malicious actors claimed that their targets’ checks were already waiting for them. All they needed to do was to over their personal information, bank account data and Social Security Numbers—nearly everything they needed to perpetrate identity theft.

Staying Safe Against Coronavirus-Themed Scams
In response to the slew of new reports it’s seen since the beginning of February, Action Fraud urged people to research a company or person online before agreeing to a purchase of a good or service pertaining to COVID-19. They also recommended that they update their devices, never respond to unsolicited requests for personal and/or financial information (even if conducted via phone or in-person) and exercise caution around suspicious links and email attachments