Bush vs Gore vs Beans

Autumn is Coming

My Stellar Jay is outside bitching because I ran out of peanuts and he came by to get some grub.  Sorry dude.

Screed

Only this time the split may well be 4-4 and then we are really fucked.  I think that a lot of folks are realizing that the party is over

The weirdness just seems to accelerate lately.  It even seems to be gathering momentum.  Maybe it is my frame of mind right now, but it doesn't feel like depression, it just feels like that uncomfortable feeling that you have been right and really didn't want to be. 

It is inconceivable that I not pay attention to the politics at the national level.  My response to that kind of thing is Pavlovian, I can't help myself.  But after years of being a political junkie, I have developed a "drug resistance" to the screaming meemies who cast doom (though I kinda think that they might be right) and instead just look at the day-to-day and street-level realities that I will have to deal with once the crazy starts getting serious traction.

This election is going to be true and total shit.  We have the choice of a madman vs a cabal of opportunists whose ambition and self-love cross into madness.  In other words, we are looking at a choice where we choose between augering it in at 10º or at 12º.  The only thing that we are discussing is the size of the crater. 

So, let's just take it as a given that things are not going to be looking up at the national level.  I think that any Pollyanna-ish app approach will not serve you.   It doesn't mean the end of the world, it doesn't mean mass-extinction, it doesn't mean civil war, it doesn't mean Mad Max.  It just means that the things that have been getting worse during this benighted century will continue to do so.  All we are talking about is the slope of decline.  Whether Fuckwad wins or SenileJoe or Ms SleepYourWayToTheTop resides at 1600 Pennsylvania is not important to the overall problem.

With the advent of a news media controlled by large corporations at a national level, we have forgotten about the old axiom that "all politics are local".  We wallow in the vagaries of national news like it actually means something other than being the modern implementation of George Orwell's "Two Minute Hate".  Walking away from that is important, even though everyone around you is screaming at you regarding how this will cause an armageddon.  Don't listen to them.  Keep your mouth shut and make provisions.

An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.
                                                                                                              Jung -- Psychology and Alchemy