For some weird reason I keep thinking today is Monday. Maybe it’s a latent desire to slow time down, who knows?
Best thing I’ve seen today: https://www.instyle.com/celebrity/jason-momoa-dune-interview-2020
My jam lately: Hamilton soundtrack
Watching: The Mandolorian, Agents of Shield, Love
Actually, random Fast and Furious flicks
(can we say ‘escapism’??)
Youtubers: Beau of the Fifth Column, Elewys of Finchingefeld, Mango Mosaics, Trae Crowder, Kathryn Morgan
Irritation this week: right-wingers who threaten violence because their rotten pumpkin didn’t win and seem to forget what they said four years ago. Now what was it? Oh...yeah... ”you lost, get over it.”
Reading:
- The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s GT Character Flaws, Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi, JADD Publishing, 2013;
- Creating Character Arcs: the Masterful Author’s GT Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development, K.M. Weiland, PenForASword Publishing;
- The Undiscovered Self with Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams: Volumes 10, 18 from The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Princeton University Press, 1990.
The following excerpt really hit home in the wake of the election and all the bullshit with trump (FYI, I refuse to call him ‘president’ as he’s been the antithesis of presidential, nor will I grace him with a capital letter. Sorry, not sorry).*
Written in 1958, thirteen years after the atom bombs were dropped on Japan and the Cold War was no laughing matter (I remember bomb drills).
“...if the spiritual and moral darkness of State absolutism
should spread over Europe?
“We have no reason to take this threat lightly. Everywhere in the West there are subversive minorities who, sheltered by our humanitarianism and our sense of justice, hold the incendiary torches ready, with nothing to stop the spread of their ideas except the critical reason of a single, fairly intelligent, mentally stable stratum of the population. One should not overestimate the thickness of this stratum. It varies from country to country in accordance with national temperament. Also, it is regionally dependent on public education and is subject to the influence of acutely disturbing factors of a political and economic nature. Taking plebiscites as a criterion, one could on an optimistic estimate put its upper limit at about forty per cent [sic] of the electorate. A rather more pessimistic view would not be unjustified either, since the gift of reason and critical reflection is not one of man’s outstanding peculiarities, and even where it exists it proves to be wavering and inconstant, the more so, as a rule, the bigger the political groups are. The mass crushes out the insight and reflection that are still possible with the individual, and this necessarily leads to doctrinaire and authoritarian tyranny if ever the constitutional State should succumb to a fit of weakness.”
So, yes, that sounds eerily like what’s going on in this country at the moment. Just to recap, in the wake of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris winning the 2020 election, here are a few of the things that have happened:
· Celebrations the world over for Biden winning: the Freedom Bell in Berlin rings, the bell all over Paris ring, fireworks in London and other English cities, parades and dancing in the streets, and not just in the US! Hope returns, except...
· The Republicans are refusing to accept the results, claiming widespread ‘fraud,’ (I leave it to you to google—or whatever the search default is in your time and place—the background of Covid-19 and mail-in ballots);
· AG Barr (a fucking dick if ever there was one) has stuck his nose in and said the Department of Justice is cleared to investigate;
· Secretary of State Pompeo (speaking of dicks) has caused some alarm;
· An old friend (someone I unfriended on FB long ago because of disgusting things he said about President Obama and his family) has completely lost the plot and threatened to kill anyone who voted for Biden, including another old friend, possibly spurred on by this guy
The world turned upside down... (at 3:12)
I guess the thing that astounds me is the number of people who piss on the Constitution and claim to be patriots. Shooting someone because they voted for someone other than your candidate is not patriotism, it’s terrorism. Disregarding your oath to protect and defend the Constitution is not patriotism, it’s treason.
I’m no Jim Wright; I’m quite sure his work much more insightful and absolutely better researched (the man is unreal), but I think we’re on the same page, although I could be wrong, since I haven’t read his stuff in a while, but generally I’ve agreed with him on everything else.
Some additional meat to chew: Former DHS chiefs are warning of a threat to national security
We lost Abby back in August, long story, but the short of it is, after enduring and amputation and 2-3 months of chemo, she had what can best be described as a neurological event, possibly a stroke, and had to be euthanised. It was like a chunk of my heart was ripped out. I still burst into tears thinking about her.
In other, less dire news, I got two new kittens last week
(bringing the household cat total to 5). Arlo and Piper (originally Silas and
Rita [??]) are six months old. They were found in the engine block of a car at
2 ½-3 weeks. They and their feral mama were rescued and fostered by a really
nice woman out east of here. She is keeping the mama, named her Tabitha. That
makes ten cats she has, in addition to two horses, a burro, two geese, several
chickens, beehives, and a partridge in a pear tree....no, not really, no
partridge, no pear tree. Arlo, the black male, and Piper the grey tabby female
are a bonded pair. Originally I just wanted a black cat, but took her, too.
There are a couple of projects I’ve actually completed (isn’t
that the 7th sign of the apocalypse?) and I’m going to try to post
about them, but don’t hold your breath, you know my track record.
*I got a new computer—first tower in forever, after a series of laptops—and a ‘mechanical’ keyboard, which I’m loving, but I
had to stop and order an under-desk keyboard drawer because the difference is
killing my wrists.
