On the broad gray tidelands of the mind between waking and dreams, the shallow gleam of concepts are bent and washed out of thought, taking shadow shape in flitting bird shapes of reflection and repetition. Through it all, the wind drives big issues like those PVC pipe structures that Dutchman builds to make them move ponderously and mysteriously along the shore on a hundred feet. They are bigger than any of us and though we built them, they can barely be managed or assimilated. Theo Jansen makes them and calls them "Strandbeasts".
Maybe it's not like that for you. Maybe you don't have cats who want to make you participate in their day --- which starts a little before dawn -- the way mine do even though half of them by now have succumbed to poison, virus, inbreeding, or whatever it is that keeps them from quite overwhelming the house, which begins to look as though no one has lived here for years. Yesterday I maxed out, but I hit all my necessary points: dentist, laundromat, going-out-of-business store. I was in Shelby which is a port of entry town, an exchange point between BNSF and trucking, a prison town, and the location of many halfway houses and shelters for the elderly or distorted. Once it was a tourist town with many of the kind of little cabins-instead-of-rooms that are now rented by working stiffs who mostly live on welfare or disability because there are no jobs they can do. There are not many old people because most here don't make it much past middle age.
The people on the Canadian side think if they just made it to the United States, as far south as possible, everything would be fine. The people on the US side think the opposite change would save them, esp. if they could make it to the Pacific coast.
I couldn't solve all these problems but the cats kept me from sinking back into true sleep. I was finally warm enough but the rosy dawn has become a windy day of rain. I will move very slowly making order.
But first to make the kitchen sink drain work. I did all I could. My backup moved away. Now I have a jug of "new" drain unplugger, guaranteed to work. The last of a long line of misogynist cranky plumbers told me the drain couldn't be fixed except by adjusting the long sewer line that runs suspended from joists under the whole house, because the primary thing of plumbing is angles because the water doesn't run with pumps but with gravity. There are meadow-sized areas in this town where no houses have been built because their angle down to the sewage lagoon can't be kept without a pump. They say the angle under my house can't be fixed without jacking up the foundation because the house is sinking. I won't need it much longer. When the water/sewer of this village can't be sustained, the occupants will leave.
It's quite like politics. With no pumps.
I'm convinced that the ultimate international corporation is the Russo Mafia, worldwide, and that they've been controlling us for some time now. The media -- ALL the media -- has been re-norming our understanding of events so that we admire criminals. Someone said, "Imagine being rich enough to lose as much money as Trump has!" They forget that he never HAD the money, except his father's. It was all borrowed, laundered, and bookkeeping fantasy. All money is bookkeeping fantasy. After a certain point it is no good even to its owner. Does Trump dress well? Does he get good medical care? Does he marry anyone but women one jump up from trafficking? Does he produce high quality children?
What everyone is waiting for is the courage to say "treason." Not just stealing money, not just breaking open every wound and sore spot he can find, but outright treason. Because once we confront treason, we have to examine the nature of "nations." Otherwise we go back to the problem of tribal warfare that "nations" were supposed to solve with treaties and boundaries. if no leader will let those international remedies happen -- pulling us out of long-standing practices with no notice -- then we might just as well let the worldwide mafia run things. Maybe they'll make the trains run on time. This is far beyond the accusations of fascism, far earlier than modern world wars based on the industrial revolution and the fascination with destruction.
Now we're in a computer-time and on the verge of disrupting that as well, since it turned out to need many safeguards, not least of which is a consistent source of power. Petro power is about done. Wind power, sun power, tidal power are here. There are rumours of chemical sources of power that can be activated by single households. New batteries. Slavery won't work anymore except for rote production.
The biggest mistake is thinking that everything will stay the same. Trump is not smart enough to be a Mafia Don. Neither is he above corruption. His idea of the high life is throwing a hamburger buffet. If his handlers decide to drop him, he's dead. Literally. But if the mafia can't give up terror, extortion, bribery, suppression, etc. then it won't last. It never has.
All problems are ultimately ourselves. They are strandbeasts we make but can't control. The most vital element of survival is food. We are close to disrupting food production and distribution. But we don't think of that. We go back to our fantasy bookkeeping and try to estimate the monetary value of stars. You can't eat a star -- it's a great big bomb.
The tide begins to turn. The despairing swirling ebb gives time to recoup. Two school boys, not knowing each other, not predicting death, not soldiers or armed guards, were heroes last week, the very kind of person the shooters wished they were. A new norm is being formed, one in which we care about each other.
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