Further Refinements and Back to Babbling

Post-Impressionism / Jozsef Rippl-Ronai/ Painting for the Schiffer Villa

I am really liking the idea of using the e-mail editor as a blog editor.  Really works for me.  I was worried a bit about sizing the pictures that I want to put up top, but I have even worked out that little problem (though one does have to spend almost 30 seconds doing arithmetic to get the sizes right.  I think that I am up to the task).  Tomorrow I will see how my pictures taken during my tottering around came over from the evil-king google's site. 

The Kombucha snot is coming along just fine.  At two weeks, it is a definite presence on the top of the "fermentation vessel"

Screed

I am coming to the most unwelcome conclusion that 2021 is probably going to suck more than 2020.

Shit.

So today was Hexagram 63.  One of the great myths of the scientific worldview is the devout adherence to the idea of coincidence.  More and more, as I become more of a believer in the interconnections of things, I become increasingly suspicious of the twin beliefs of "randomness" and "coincidence". 

Legge: The image of water above fire forms Completion. The superior man, in accordance with this, thinks of the evil that may come, and guards against it in advance.

I am thinking that I need to reinstate my "prepper" state of mind.  Please don't sweat this.  I never really strayed all that far from that particular path.  I just need to polish things up and prepare for shit getting worse. 

I have already echoed Jim Kunstler's prediction from over at "Clusterfuck Nation" to people silly enough to give me their cell phone numbers.

You heard it here first: Joe Biden will call in "sick" to the presidential candidates' debate on Tuesday, September 29, and within days the Democratic Party will be obliged to replace him. Enough said for now. Wait for it….

The country just isn't in any condition to deal with the kind of nonsense that we will have to endure politically.  Economically we are well and truly fucked.  The environment/weather is showing signs of instability.  None of the signs are promising.  None.  I think that at, if we are extraordinarily lucky, it will  third quarter 2021before the societal "M" is going to be anything other than a  negative number.  As things are already a shitshow, further downward trajectories are decidedly unwelcome but probably what is in the cards.. 

Here is my big problem.  No one in the good ol' USA wants to be a negative Nellie.  Obligatory optimism is the only socially acceptable point of view in the current Weltanschauung here in the land o' the free.  If one thinks like your humble correspondent and sees the hole rather than the doughnut, one is cast into an outer darkness of a social life.  I think that this trend is accentuated as one moves up the "social ladder".  Poor folks who always been poor and knew how to cope with it might be the best way to emulate the issue.  Now.  I am not talking about the city poor-folks, generations of which have been bought off and silenced by the the social programs of the "Great Society" but the hardscrabble folks of rural America. 

I think that the long-time prepper battle cry of Beans, Bullets, and Bandaids needs to be closely examined, added to, and prioritized carefully.  I think that other requirements are "books" and "bagatelles" and "bytes".

So, here is the list in my current thought-frame and in order of priority: 

1. Beans (food to include water)
2. Bandaids (medical supplies to include prescription medication)
3. Bytes (communication)
4. Books
5. Bagatelles (Music)
6. Bullets
   

Now, since it is a Sunday when I am writing this, will spend a little more time a thinking and then go out for a walk and then loaf a little.  Time to save and get on with things.  Rust never sleeps.