Sorry, I can’t get happy about our rich folks running away to the moon. Have they graduated to this reward or are they running away from an unsolvable mess? Details of the heralded event is in an Opinion Piece in the New York Times by Rebecca Boyle. Hint: Whoever talked about following the money?
Photo Credit: Yossi Zeliger/Reuters
It matters not who or where or when…
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QUOTE: “Human beings aren’t well adapted to reacting to long-term changes,” Gluski said. “Our brains are basically the same as a Paleolithic hunter. It’s like, ‘Throw spear, run from tiger.’ We’re not good at thinking, ‘Three years from now my cave might collapse.’” –NYTimes Climate Forward by David Gelles 1/18/24
Crawling through Macy’s in search
of my sweetness; alas,
wrong store. Has it eluded
me now, forever?
At my wake will they fear
I’ll stir with retribution?
Gently. gentle, croon.
Step aside, let love through.
Let love where? What love?
Love of the lost? That makes me mad.
You see the problem.
There’s an old song, “Looking for love
in all the wrong places”:
Earth, 2024?
I miss seeing you along with your posts, just as I missed being me instead of an owl. After a Christmas break my helper helped me retrieve my face. She wrote these directions for me, and accomplished it. Hope it works for you:…(Not all of you, just those with little black ball designs on my bell listing of you)
My helper writes:
TO CHANGE SITE ICON (Also known as Fav Icon on WordPress:
1. Go to Settings — Bottom icon, looks like a sound-mixing board
2. Change General settings
3. Under “site icon” choose “Change and upload or select your preferred image.”
4. Save your settings
I look forward to seeing your faces again…
Nan
P.S. The joke’s on me–NO image appeared. Have to wait another week for a re-do.
It’s called “Aint It Awful,” but we need someone to write the music. Would a jazzy dirge be appropriate!? Maybe to the likes of “Clementine”: O my darlin’, O my darlin’, O my darlin’ Clementine, are you here or gone forever, aint it awful, Clementine?
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(I wrote we, but it’s just me, despite the start of an unfinished poem begun last night–or early this morning:)
DEEP THINKING
I know I’m me, but
is that a good thing?
What if I was we?
Could we weather
the storm?
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WOODENTLY IT BE NICE….I read that …
fallout from soldiers’ artillery fire can sicken them….If this was true for all troops, everywhere? Written with empathy for man/woman kind.
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2023 was the warmest (as in hot) ever, according to those who measure such things. Could that have anything to do with tempers? –“At least the hottest in 100,000 years.” Can we not cool our tempers down a tad during the current cold spell? The coming summer is, alas, another day. (ALTHOUGH another source says it was the hottest in the last 150 years. Who the heck has trouble counting? Don’t have time to run it down, but somebody ought to. Grump grump.
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QUOTATION…From The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm: “Brotherly love is based on the experience that we all are one. The differences in talents, intelligence, knowledge [and race and religion and nationality] are negligible in comparison with the identity of the human core common to all men. In order to experience this identity it is necessary to penetrate from the periphery to the core….” pg 46
It was still 2024, and a humongous gathering in “Never Never Land” let’s call it, has been in session for three Earth days. Led by Grandfather God, he is addressing the group slowly and distinctly. “So. Now that we’ve finally agreed to repair some earlier miscalculations, what’s the best way to do it? The choices are wipeouts–of the Solar System, the Earth, evolution, humankind, the terminally power hungry, corporations….”
One of the God uncles dared to interrupt. “Surely not a complete wipeout! The innocent children, the honest but mislead….”
“First we need to clean out the mess in Earth’s upper atmosphere,” another Uncle said. There were cheers from the multitude, and in a blink the clogged skies over all the world were swept out of sight, losing contact with Earth, moon and Mars. The New York Times was to opine that the draft of a large passing asteroid appeared to have suctioned them all away. The sun did seem a little brighter down on Earth.
“Money!” cried another. “How can we share the money? From billionaires and others in the one-percent of the United States to the others?”
“All over the world,” volunteered another.
There was silence. Grandfather spoke. “Looks like we need some committee work. Assign yourselves….money, power, truthfulness, racism, housing, sexism, AI…” He paused. “How about religion?” There was silence. Grandfather shrugged. Maybe after we solve the others we’ll be in a better position to deal with religion.”
[Ideally this would be continued].
You may have heard by now: another school shooting, in Iowa….And some honcho in the NRA has been arrested…and China has been following spy planes…And in ATHENS, OHIO Jan. 1, the BYOB day (Bring Your own Bag) dawned, some grocery store shoppers griped, and the state of Ohio says Athens’ plastic BAG Ban is Unconstitutional, which is no surprise since Ohio is republican. But I have an idea! It would be a win for them if Walmart or/and Kroger and maybe Aldi and/or Seaman’s came out and supported Climate Change and stuck with the no-plastic bags decision on their own. That would certainly affect where I continue to shop.
But did you hear and/or see on CBC the great strides Canada is taking with housing/homelessness? Amazing, absolutely amazing. And I really do enjoy a couple of their cute, youngish and affable male anchors, so much more enjoyable than some of the new anchors here and there. I’m not just talking about looks; personality is involved, too. One male anchor even has curls, and does not appear to be trans. Not that there’s anything wrong with being trans, you understand…Sorry if in the new year I have sunk into humanity with all its foibles…Speaking of trans, I just stumbled across an apparently new news source called Trans Nation. I hate to be behind the times, but apparently it’s old news that Ottawa is offering visas to people in Gaza with ties to Canada.
Lovely?: Who said “I am your retribution.” Does that make you feel all warm and cuddly? Go figure.
Last year it was revealed that all countries have shrinking populations. Making space for more immigrants? Well, no, because we have to “save our own civilization.” I wondered with all the discussion about shrinking populations why I hadn’t read anything about impaired sperm production until the current The Week magazine. A study of Swiss military recruits ages 18 to 22 found that those who used their mobile phones more than 20 times a day had a 21 percent higher risk of a low overall sperm count and a 30 percent increased risk for low sperm concentration, compared with those who used them five or fewer times a day.
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THINKING
Well, maybe not thinking
but tussling with ideas and
trying to recall dreams.
And now, pencil in hand
I write and remember the trees
all green, but not the fork trees,
bare and stripped of life among
their green brothers, standing,
forks aloft…or are they the
devil’s trident, poor souls.
I only go to my local library on Poetry Writers Group day, every other Tuesday. That’s when I visit the free book section, and also when serendipity has a chance to show itself This Tuesday it delivered to me Whatever Became of Sin? by Karl Menninger, M.D., a book copyrighted in 1973. I was drawn to his words on page 102 in the chapter on Sin as Collective Responsibility:
“Most people never see the awfulness of war; they only read about it or hear about it from reporters or survivors. War continues to be a deputized human activity; some citizens are sent out to do what the total citizenry couldn’t and wouldn’t do. The rest of us sit (or stand) a long ways off –and watch or listen, occasionally. And we are so accustomed to receiving reports in prosaic words, in statistics of “body count” and bombing “missions” (sic) and metaphorical phrases such as “punished,” “cleaned up,” “resistance met with,” and “right on target” that the horror, the awfulness, the reality of the total event become denatured. The pain, the terror, he sorrow, the blood and filth and mud, and the loss of all that is loved that are squeezed out of the reports, leaving dry husks of unassimilatable “facts” in endless heaps.
“The picture of one screaming, burning child or one half-dismembered or disemboweled woman shocks and revolts us, although we are spared the sounds of the screams and groans. We are not witnesses to the brokenhearted mother’s sorrow. We know nothing of the despair, the hopelessness, the loss of everything. We don’t go with them into the hospitals and observe the hideous wounds, the agonizing burns, the shattered limbs. And all this is one tiny dot on a great map of millions. It cannot be described. It cannot be grasped. It cannot be imagined.”
He adds on the next page, “Why don’t we outlaw war, just as we have long since outlawed cannibalism? How infinitely more horrible it is than cannibalism, which so shocks our sensibilities.”
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Of course, with internet journalism we can and do witness more suffering. I’m sort of glad the good doctor isn’t around to witness our imperviousness to it–by many, not all.
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Cogito Ergo Sum
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