Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: crusty

Thursday, August 24, 2023. Ashlandia, where the crows are busy and the cats are wistful.

It’s like a different day out there. Sunny, good visibility, 68 F, light mountain breezes. The change chased me to the fire map to check on the fires’ statuses. Were they all miraculously put out overnight? No. Seems, after looking at the air quality map to see what the air is like, that we’re the beneficiary of some southeasterly wind. I’ll take it. With the cleared air and a different front moving in, today’s high will kick the mid nineties.

Didn’t watch the GOP debate last night. Just didn’t feel it in my bones. So I’m playing catch up, reading reports about what I missed. Except for DeSantis to a small degree — he held back more than I expected — they presented the impressions and delivered the expected comments. Nothing in any of the accounts I read this morning made me want to rethink who these candidates were.

Instead, I found myself more drawn in by two murder cases. Both killers were young women. One — 28 y.o. — killed a vocal coach by shoving them to the pavement and walking away; the other — 19, 18 when she killed — took her car up to 100 MPH and steered the vehicle into a building, killing her two passengers. The first will spend eight years in jail; the second was sentenced to fifteen years to life, eligible for parole in 15 years. Why my interest? Well, why did they do these things? What were they thinking? Anger played a role in both killings, although smoking marijuana was part of both stories. Both seemed to surrender control and acted out; these are the results. Very human and tragic. They received a lot of print and coverage. Maybe I just missed coverage of the others, but I searched for other young women who killed, and easily found three of the same age range and time period in other states in the news. Odd how the press clamps onto certain matters. Odd, perhaps, how they attracted my attention.

The Neurons have stuffed “Texarkana” by R.E.M (1991) into the morning mental music stream (Trademark fickle). Apparently, this was out of a dream sequence. My wife was mimicking Mick Jagger in the dream and I told her, “Don’t worry, I’ll catch you if you fall.” ‘Catch me if I fall’ is repeated in “Texarkana”. When I first listened to the album, I would like for “Catch Me If I Fall” as a song title. Texarkana? Whaaattt? Anyway, here we are.

Stay well, be strong and pos. My coffee-fueled day has begun; here we go. Let’s hear the music first. Cheers

August 24, 2023 0

August 23, 2023 0

Worth Talking About

The Nation featured a strong article about climate change and civilization collapse. The article, “We Are Witnessing the First Stage’s of Civilization’s Collapse”, is written by Michael T. Klare. They base their analysis and insights on Jared Diamond’s 2005 bestseller, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Many, many people around the world, including US citizens, have firsthand experienced with a weather disaster or two in 2023. The article’s greater point is how so many leaders are willfully ignoring what’s happening, continuing with traditional methodology of energy and human activities as though all of this will go away. Mr. Klare points out that it’s not going away; it’s getting worse. The Canadian wildfires are a blazing example:

“The fires in Canada: As of August 2, months after they first erupted into flame, there were still 225 major uncontrolled wildfires and another 430 under some degree of control but still burning across the country. At one point, the figure was more than 1,000 fires! To date, they have burned some 32.4 million acres of Canadian woodland, or 50,625 square miles—an area the size of the state of Alabama. Such staggering fires, largely attributed to the effects of climate change, have destroyed hundreds of homes and other structures, while sending particle-laden smoke across Canadian and American cities—at one point turning New York’s skies orange. In the process, record amounts of carbon dioxide were dispatched into the atmosphere, only increasing the pace of global warming and its destructive impacts.”

Mr. Klare goes on to with information about the megadrought coating the United States, citing stats that show 99% of that region suffers drought, and it’s growing. Michael Klare cites flooding in China in 2023 and its resulting damages. The article was probably prepared for publication before Hawaii’s recent fiery mega-disaster and the first tropical storm in over eighty years to strike California.

This is an article worth reading for a problem that needs serious action. Unfortunately, political divisiveness and fervent capitalism will probably undermine any united, focused action to cope with these changes. We as a civilization are choosing to fail. Imagine that; imagine being a business who decides they don’t want to grow or make money, or a sports team who decides that losing is best. For that’s what we are, people and nations who are choosing to accept disaster and fail. The status quo will continue until we fade away, like the people of Bonita Pueblo, the Mayans, and the Viking settlements of Greenland.

August 23, 2023 2

Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

So the coffee shop had food made in error, a type of breakfast sandwich on an English muffin. A barrista walked around the business, inquiring of customers if they would like the free food. Explaining what it was, he said, “It’s not piping hot, but it’s still warm,” in a mildly apologetic tone.

That made me smile.

August 23, 2023 2

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: fizzy

Blue sky above my house, and clear sunshine bathing the area. But east is a smoky white wall curtailing the distance to the horizon; a gray west wall does the same. Smoky tentacles tease my nose. The walls close in, graying the blue sky.

This is Wednesday, August 23, 2023 in Ashlandia, where the pickleball courts are empty and the theater performances are cancelled – smoke for the outside venues, COVID-19 for other places. 60 F out now, a high of 86 F might be reached. Sadly, I noticed that it was dark before 8:30 last night. Yes, sunset has rolled back to 8 PM here. The long days of light are closing down already. School ramps up next week. Coincidence? Or dark conspiracy?

News: fires. Trump. Debate. Bridge collapse in India. BRICS. Rodgers and State Farm. SoCal and Baja recovering from Hilary. Grand Canyon flooding. India lands a craft on the moon. COVID cases rising. Celebrity stuff. Hoobastank.

Screech. Back up. Hoobastank?

Yes, they’re in the news for their video and song, “The Reason”. It was released almost twenty years ago. I knew the song so I watched the video, because I’d never seen it. It was an intriguing laugher. The Neurons have thrust it into the morning mental music stream (Trademark ancient). Who am I to argue with Les Neurons? No, I won’t argue with them, but I will try to placate them with coffee in the morning. They sometimes also like beer in the afternoon. They’re also very fond of watermelon.

Okay, let’s hitch this day up and get underway. Yeeha. Stay pos, be strong, and brush your teeth. Coffee is available in the kitchen. Here’s the ancient Hoobastank video. Have a better one. Cheers

August 23, 2023 0

August 22, 2023 0

Garbage Dream

I’m outside, kinda young. Rolling deep green grass, where a music festival is due to start. I’m excited about it but worried about unspecified stuff. I’m alone, don’t know anyone there. A few others are starting to arrive. They’re all younger, with my teenagers among them, mostly female.

I’m busy, though, boxing up containers of trash. Collecting it, putting it in boxes, sealing it up. Don’t know why I’m specifically doing it; seems to be a compulsion. People keep arriving but I keep boxing up trash. By the time I’m done, hundreds have arrived, and I have about thirty small, square boxes of trash.

I need a place to put them, and that worries me. I have some of them stacked on a small peeling white trailer which is attached to a small green minibike like one I had in my early teens. I plan to use the bike to pull the trailer and unload the garbage boxes somewhere else, but where?

There is a small white frame house. Single story, white siding, two windows on the front, a screen door in its center. I know that this is the office of the young men organizing the music festival. There are three, dark-haired young white men in their early twenties. I know this without seeing them. I can hear them talking and laughing. Part of their conversation is about me and my minibike pulling the scarred white trailer loaded with boxes of trash.

Piles of trash are not far from the house. I’m thinking about unloading my trash into this collection, but I feel guilty, as if I’m breaking a law, and that holds me back. Yet, racing around, watched by a growing number of people, I can’t find anywhere else to put the trash. I feel like this is my only choice.

Aware that I’m being watched, that others are commenting about what I’m doing, I try pulling my trailer of trash. It won’t go. I reattach the green minibike with its fat knobby tires. The little bike easily tugs the trailer across the way.

From inside the trailer, I hear the organizers discuss this development. One suggest, “It’s alright, let him be.” I feel better about that. I start unloading the trailer. People are commenting about how fast and hard I’m working. Some appreciate that I’ve cleaned up trash. Buoyed by what I hear, I quickly unload the trailer, drive back, and fill it again. Now finished, I stand still, sweating and breathing hard by my little minibike and its empty white trailer.

August 22, 2023 0

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: blllleeeack

I’m sitting in the house, staring at that air. Don’t need the air qual folks to know that’s hazardous stuff. Step out and you’re on a beach by a bonfire and a dull breeze is blowing the smoke into your face. We have fires to the south, north, west, and now east. Picked up one a few days ago. Whereas an easterly wind was delivering fresh breaths to us, now the wind from any direction carries smoke.

Fires to the south, in NorCal, are the most problematic, because that’s rough country. Power was cut to Crescent City, CA, out of worry, so they’re without over there on the coast. Up Highway 101 in Oregon, hotels and motels are full and price gouging is in full swing. Supply and demand.

And there go the trash people, picking up our refuse in this stuff. It’s early for them, so I think they’re hustling through it to get out of it.

Haven’t seen the sun yet. It’s light, so we know it’s out there. 59 F, it’s a chilly morning, post-night rain. No petrichor last night; just wet bonfire.

It’s Tuesday in Ashlandia, where the problems are real and the solutions are few. But that can be said for many places, yeah?

August 22, 2023. We as a people are gearing up for many things but that’s life, isn’t it? Gearing up. Getting ready. Preparing for the next big thing.

Smoke songs had Les Neurons by the throat this AM when I looked out and saw the situation. The morning mental music stream (Trademark iffy) boiled with smoke songs. Give it a second; hear any in your head? No “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”? Or “Smoke on the Water”? “Smoke From a Distant Fire”? “Smoke Two Joints”?

I told Der Neurons, “Don’t give me that stuff. I’m turning away from it.” Which started them on turning songs, like Pink Floyd, “On the Turning Away”. “No; that’s not what I meant,” I interjected. “I want clean air. Sunshine.” “Annie’s Song” began. “Closer. Think beach. Ocean. Water.” The Neurons came up with Jack Johnson, “Upside Down” (2006). I owe this to the line, “I wanna turn the whole thing upside down.” Noble sentiment, isn’t it? A world upside down for us would be a world where we’re working together as a species, caring for our planet, one another, and the animals, indivisible by borders, politics, wealth, religion, race, and gender. I always thought that’s what the US was aiming for, “One nation, indivisible.” Yeah, I left out the ‘under God’ aspect. I don’t put God into government.

Be strong and stay pos. Judging from my own balance today, it’s a challenge. Maybe coffee will help. One, two, three, what are fighting for? Oh, wait, wrong moment.

Here’s the music. Cheers