Sunday, May 17, 2020

From When We Thought It Was Bad, Before

Setting Fire To The Boat

The Best Blog
September 28, 2011

"Now is there any new business," says Giblets.
"Well the boat's sinking," says me.
"Giblets seems to recall that coming up at the last meeting," says Giblets, "which would make that old business." 
"Well it's more sinking-er than it was last time," says me. "That's kind of new." 
...
"But I don't know whether to try to put out the fire or try to bail out the boat or scream and panic and scream," says me. "Come to think of it this is really the kind of discussion that calls for a Boat Burning Committee."
"Well it looks like there's no other choice," says Giblets. "The motion is for the rye. All in favor?"
"I think the Boat Burning Committee's first course of action should probably be to figure out if we're on fire now," says me. "And if so, do we Stop Drop and Roll, do we See Something Say Something, or do we Click It or Ticket?"
"In that an abstention?" says Giblets. "Cause that makes it one in favor and one abstention."
"I think we should call for a floor vote," says me. "Any seconds? Anyone?"
"Now for the new business," says Giblets. "Why's it so hot in here?"

posted by fafnir at 9:09 AM

I  wish Giblets would pipe down. Doesn't Giblets know that there is a new television season? The newest one yet? Instead we get all this noise about sinking and burning and imminent demise. We're trying to tune you out Giblets! Do you mind?!

Say, before you drown and stuff, could you sign over the drilling rights to your property? Thanks, cheers, etc.

That may not be Giblets. I'd say you may have overlooked a small zombie problem there. Try shooting him in the head and see how he reacts.

Giblets is half right. You should use the fire to put out the water.  Also figuratively, if you insist.

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Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Reprint Heaven: Twilight At Noon

Misery Does Not Require Acts, Only Conditions
(From November, 2019. As true today as it was in the Olden Days)

Vanished World: Ours Will Also Seem As Remote
While from a Proud Tower in the town / Death looked gigantically down
-- Edgar Allan Poe, "City In The Sea" (1845)
The ... great age of European civilization was an edifice of grandeur and passion, of riches and beauty and dark reliance... The Old World had much that has since been lost, whatever may have been gained. Looking back on it from 1915, Emile Verhaeren, the Belgian Socialist poet, dedicated his pages, “With emotion, to the man I used to be.” 
-- Barbara Tuchman (1966)
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In The Proud Tower, popular historian Barbara Tuchman focused on describing Western culture in the decades leading up to the Great War -- a huge, red line of demarcation that finally separated the generations of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries.

Her story is a chronicle of human folly (one of Tuchman's favorite themes), and because we know how the story will end, a leitmotif of nostalgia we sense in the background is really the collective despair of survivors who had lost everything familiar, an entire frame of reference for living.

Edward VII's Sendoff: Royal Procession Of Mourners, 1910

She opened her book with a spectacle: the funeral of King Edward VII of England, who had been on the throne for less than a decade after the death of his mother, Victoria. Tuchman described the brilliant funeral cortege, royal houses and empires in uniform. As Edward's coffin rolled along London streets, "The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock ... but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again." One of the last displays of presence and power of the Elite of the Gilded Age.

Tuchman closed the book with another funeral: this one for Jean Jaures, Socialist member of the French Chamber of Deputies, and a  principal, seminal Left political agitator of the age. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary had been assassinated in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, and with the interwoven alliances in that era, major European powers began slow-walking into war.

Jaures Speaking At A Socialist Rally, Paris; 1914

A general war had been building for the better part of a decade, and the Socialists in Europe knew working people in all countries would be the disposable cannon-fodder for nationalist politicians and industrial plutocrats. Jaures believed only a pan-European worker's strike, united under the banner of each country's Socialist party, could prevent the continent from being dragged into a catastrophe.

Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia, whose assassin had killed the Archduke, then mobilized to invade. On July 30, Russia declared a general mobilization; Jaures was pushing to organize the strike action with other Socialist leaders. While eating at a Paris cafe on the night of July 31, he was assassinated by a right-wing nationalist who had been stalking him. Jaures died at roughly the same time Germany's ambassadors were delivering messages in European capitals, advising it had declared war on Russia.

The Great War had just begun as Jaures' funeral took place in Paris on August 4, 1914. As the funeral cortege moved through Paris streets, Tuchman described a muffled bell of Notre Dame tolling, thinking of a poem by Schiller: "I summon the living / I mourn the dead."

Four years, three months, and the deaths of ~10,000,000 soldiers and civilians later, the war ended.
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We know we're living in a time of extremity. Everyone is figuratively holding their breath, waiting for ... something.  Tuchman's story led to a streetcorner in Sarajevo, and a few weeks in the high summer of 1914 -- and we read it with dread because we know where it ends. No one knows where our American story is leading.

Tuchman's story closed in 1914, 105 years ago. In 2019, there's no one reason to assume bad things are coming, in America -- because there seem to be an overwhelming preponderance of reasons. No one can be blamed for feeling the present moment is portentous, that we're approaching something, a Sarajevo moment, that will trigger a cataclysm. It's a continuous, negative feedback loop, difficult to shake off.
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America has ignored critical, obvious things for generations: contributing to climate disintegration; the inequality in wealth. We've ignored our real history of class, race and gender. We became an Empire, and behaved like one. We became a center to develop technology out of desire for novelty and profit, while reducing personal privacy and allowing our opinions, desires, habits to be harvested and exploited.

We ignored the rise of weapons availability and gun violence. We ignored evangelical christian religious extremism. We ignored right-wing domestic terrorists and white supremacists. We ignored a malignant right-wing media -- whose lies and distortion have created a separate, alternate reality, tailored for a specific segment of America's population.

Our great national weaknesses have been chronicled and discussed for decades. Then, we had 9/11, and the Forever War; the 2008 financial crisis; an internal struggle in the GOP (won by the Alt-Right); and a loss of focus or purpose by our political Left (ostensibly, the Democratic Party).

In the new Millennium, America became progressively more tribal, split along every fault line you can imagine -- Left vs. Right; Rich vs. Poor; Young vs. Old; Urban vs. Rural; christian vs. non-christian; White vs. Anybody Else; LGTBQ vs. homophobe; Men vs. Women. Into the mix, throw gun ownership, militias, private armies and private intelligence groups, and the daily drumbeat of lies, conspiracies, taunts and threats pouring out of the great echo chamber of the Right.

Never before have the 'deplorables', the Base, felt so empowered, so justified, so ready to take back what they have been told is theirs from a rag-tag crowd of liberals, hippies, immigrants, minorities, and devil-worshiping pagans.

And, I can't shake the feeling that there are too many 'responsible' conservatives who want some final, showdown battle with everything they hate in life, personified by liberals, women, and anyone different from them.
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Sad Vlad's Pal.

Against that background, Trump was almost inevitable -- "I can drain the swamp"; the allegedly rich mogul with the blow-up doll trophy wife; America's Silvio Berlusconi. He is the personification of everything we've collectively ignored, the would-be Clown Emperor. Everything about his presidency is a symptom of the rot at the heart of America, and on constant display -- selfishness, arrogance; narcissism and misogyny; nationalism; religious extremism; racism and sexism.

If you were trying to find a political leader who, if elected, would blow America apart along those developed fault-lines -- someone who would subordinate the needs of a democratic nation-state to feed a bottomless, life-sucking pathological need -- Trump is precisely who you would pick.
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I don't have any great expectations for the impeachment process. The hearings are important, historic. There will be moments everyone will recall with relish or anger. Generations will remember them, as  Watergate is remembered. From a legal perspective,  and for the historical record, they're essential.

Whether a majority of Americans understand this impeachment is about limits of Executive authority is an open question. The GOP will continue to push a conspiracy-fueled, barely coherent defense of Trump, designed to confuse and obfuscate, because that's what liars do.

Another part of that defense is the yet-to-be-released Barr report, which will attack America's intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement, claiming to document a titanic conspiracy by The Deep State to thwart a victorious, glorious Trump presidency. It's a lie, of course; a projection of Trump's distorted interior landscape, tailored by Barr and others to please and curry favor with The Leader -- and on that basis alone, it'll be astounding.

Barr intends people will go to jail because of The Leader's whims; that one cannot act against The Leader, lest they suffer. And Republicans in Congress, the huge megaphone of right-wing media, are eager to dominate any impeachment coverage with a constant smoke screen of lies.

The GOP will not walk away from Trump. He is their chance to roll back generations of Liberal political change, social programs, and legal precedents. That great work, blessed by evangelical pastors, is more important than anything. But they've gone all-in.

Last night on Amanpour & Co., journalists Jeff Greenfield of Politico and Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame were asked about the current impeachment hearings, compared with those 46 years ago. Greenfield noted Americans seemed to be more involved and informed about the issues at stake, during Watergate -- and that they seemed to understand readily how Nixon had abused his office. More of an effort will be needed to 'sell' impeachment to Americans in 2019, Greenfield thought.
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I'm certain the hearings will lead to Articles of Impeachment in the Democratically-controlled House, but (my opinion) they will die in the Senate -- probably after an abbreviated trial; McConnell has already indicated what the result will be. After, there will be protests and civil disobedience (watch carefully how Trump and the government he owns will respond, as a preview of what may happen after the 2020 election).

Then, we'll head to the election. If the Republican attempts to confuse and obfuscate are successful; if the Democrats can't coalesce, and field a strong candidate; if our voting isn't secure against tampering; if voter suppression in key districts is successful... short of an act of god, America could end up with another 1,640 Days Of Trump.

There won't be a second attempt at Impeachment; the majority of Americans will be stunned, dispirited, and "sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science." (Winston Churchill; June, 1940)

I'm also reminded of a quote by lawyer and philosopher, Joseph De Maistre, in 1811: "In a democracy, people get the leaders they deserve."
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Let's put on our tinfoil hats.

Trump wins re-election. That would be enough to trigger mass social unrest. His response could end in a national state of emergency.

Or, before the election -- if his poll numbers indicate he's in serious jeopardy, an "event" might occur serious enough to trigger a state of emergency. The election is disrupted or delayed.

Or, Trump loses, and refuses to concede, saying the results are "fake news". He asks "very good people" to bring their guns and come to Washington DC to "protect your president". The result would look very much like the confusion in a banana, or central African, republic as the government disintegrates.

Another possibility: if Trump loses the 2020 election and is replaced by a Democrat, the current "Cold Civil War" in America could turn hot:  asymmetrical warfare by rightist, white supremacist militias demanding -- something -- would likewise end in a state of emergency, a quasi-guerrilla war, endless paranoia and heightened surveillance.

If these circumstances become dire enough, other actors may step in. The military is one possibility, but more likely is a cabal of 'christians', backed by elements of a private corporate militia, might decide that god has called them to take control of America, end the sin, and bring the nation to His judgement and the path of righteousness. These actors are the best organized, best resourced group to commit treason on the scale necessary to succeed -- and, they believe they answer only to god.

There are scenarios, of course, where the Good Guys win, and America appears to have been 'saved'. Unfortunately, Fox and the rest of the Rightist echo chamber will continue pumping sewage; a Trump loss will make 'The Base' apoplectic, and right-wing violence will increase.

Any Left political leader elected to the Presidency will find it hard to govern in as fractured a nation as America is in the second decade of the 21st century.
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Before you completely laugh off the possibility of a Republic of Gilead option for America's future, please consider these two news items:

1.)  The Ohio State Legislature has passed House Bill 164, the “Student Religious Liberties Act.” Under this law, students can’t be penalized if their work is scientifically inaccurate, as long as their reasoning is based on their religious beliefs.

If a public school student turns in a class assignment stating the earth is only 10,000 years old, if it's based on their religious belief, the student cannot be given a failing grade for the question.

The Bill also requires:
  • Public schools to give students the same access to facilities as provided to secular groups, if they wish to meet for religious expression;
  • Removing a provision that allows school districts to limit religious expression to lunch periods or other non-instructional times;
  • Allowing students to engage in religious expression before, during and after school hours to the same extent as any student in secular activities or expression;
  • Prohibiting schools from restricting a student from engaging in religious expression in homework, artwork or other assignments.
2.)  Former Time and Los Angeles Times journalist Joel Stein appeared on the PBS News Hour on Thursday, November 14, to discuss his new book, "In Defense Of Elitism".

Stein spoke about visiting the town of Miami, Texas, and his observations that Americans there were not uninformed or ignorant, but very determined that their point of view was true and correct:
...They [residents of Miami, Texas] were very white, and they were very christian.... And their anger about what is going on was different from what I thought it would be. And I found out that what they're upset about is, they feel really discriminated against. These are the people that, if you asked, 'are christians discriminated against more than black people', they will say yes. 
...So what they have noticed is that white christians have less power than they did 10, 20, 30 years ago. And they're panicked about that kind of change. ...These people are voting for what they want for the country. I think it's a dangerous vision they have, in my opinion, but it's not ignorant.
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Sunday, May 10, 2020

Climb To Humanity's Summit By Remaining Human

Free-Falling Elevator Edition Sunday

Let Me Tell You How It Will Be

Test-Trace-Quarantine. Countries that follow TTQ have lower death counts from Covid-19 – and their societies and economies have stayed open. For a number of reasons – none of them good, and some of them malevolent – neither the United States nor Great Britain have followed this proven method of tackling the pandemic. 
As a result, thousands upon thousands of their people are needlessly dying while their economies have cratered, leaving millions of people in dire straits even as their respective governments, especially the US, disgorge vast mountains of public money to protect the private fortunes of elites and corporations.  Lockdown without mass testing will not quell the virus; “re-opening” without mass testing will lead swiftly to further disaster, to second and third waves that, absent a vaccine, could be equal to or worse than this initial tsunami...
Every American should realize: the heavily armed groups – funded and organized by rightwing oligarchs – whom the president is now praising for protesting the lockdowns – WILL be out on the streets, threatening and very possibly killing people if Trump, despite all the GOP vote rigging, loses in November... that is absolutely where we are now. That's WHY these groups have been funded by the rich, that's why they're being mobilized ...

Trump is now giving up all pretense of fighting the virus or even trying to slow it; he actually seems to take a perverse delight in presiding over a world-historical disaster in which his own herd-culling policies have led to tens of thousands of needless deaths across the shattered land. 

The entire GOP faction of the power structure has lined up with goose-stepping servitude behind this murderous assault on the American people, while the Democratic faction dithers, cowers and chills on vacation, bestirring itself only to vote for “relief” bills that give literally trillions of dollars to the super-rich and corporations while leaving ordinary people with almost nothing — not even protection for their voting rights in a pandemic, not even that one small, pathetic say in determining their fate.

The pandemic has stripped away all facades. We can see the system and its leaders clearly now. After killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in foreign lands during the last two decades of aggressive war and ceaseless “interventions” (most of which are not even noticed or reported on anymore), they have now turned on their own people. They sit and watch thousands of them die unnecessary deaths, happy to “cull the herd” of the “useless eaters”: the sick, the old, the vulnerable, the poor and the non-white minorities who are dying in vastly disproportionate numbers. 

And Then Something Else Will Happen

I’m starting to look at the current situation as ... not entirely unlike that of Western Europe and the Soviet Union during the Nazi occupation.  After the initial shock of conquest and the imposition of New Rulers and Rules, things settled into a routine struggle, primarily to get by as best one could under the circumstances. 

Oh sure, there were the daily round ups, deportations and executions, restrictions on movement, the lack of essential foods and supplies, lack of money to buy supplies with if they existed, the constant sense of dread of what was to come. The not-knowing what was next was perhaps the worst part for many, but for many others, life went on, not much changed — until it did. And when it did, things got worse, and they just kept getting worse until the bitter end.

So far, we’ve seen no vision of a better future when we come out of this. No vision of a future at all for most of us. We will struggle through as best we can — until we can’t.

The existential threats are piling one atop the other — for most people, it means that nothing is likely to return to “normal” in their lifetimes. They may or may not survive the pandemic and subsequent economic collapse and whatever consequences come from them, they may even live to see the transition into a much warmer climate, but the pre-2020 reality is never coming back for them or anyone. We’re in uncharted waters without a captain and without a vision of where we are or should be headed.

We should be past the point of blaming anyone; we never got to the point of actually doing anything about the existential crises we knew we would face. And so we drift along.

And Too, Also

the pandemic has compounded the legitimacy crisis in which the U.S. (but not only the U.S. — the Eurozone is not looking too good) is enveloped already with its clueless political class.

the politically-aware populi are still preoccupied with their “tribal” narcissistic narratives...  (will any historian be able to fathom “the war on Christmas” or “Russia,Russia,Russia” let alone Stormy Daniels or Tara Reade?)

the eruption of this volcano is building below the noise of the twitterverse and CNN and the foppish readers and writers of the New York Times or the Jeff Bezos blog.

We are descending Seneca’s cliff now. There will be plateaus where the remnants of disintegrating civilization may pause for as much as a decade’s respite, but descent is the future, every shock preparing the way for the next step down. It might take a hundred years or two to play out fully.

In the short-term, it is hard to see how the U.S. does not experience political upheaval. I do not know if we are likely to begin blaming anyone at actual fault. With the Dems pretending that 27 year old claims of sexual something matter, but dementia and corruption do not, it would require travelling a great distance in a short time to blame anyone in or near power for the consequences of policy choice.

the epidemic hit densely populated urban areas hard first — so blue states. But it is spreading out and there is nothing to stop it and no effective treatment to limit fatality rates or long-term damage to survivors of severe cases. everyone who is susceptible is likely to become infected at some point in the next two to three years. the economic damage so far has been more acute in red states. the effect on meat processing might mean early signals of collapse in supermarkets. A lot of the newly hungry and homeless are going to be young in a country near the peak of one of its historic cycles of increasing violence.

Everyone Sees The Spreading Stain On His Pants But Say Nothing

I have a daughter in her late twenties, I work with hundreds of college students between 18 and 25, I have friends with children between 15 and 40, and a significant percentage of that generation with fucks still to spend on damns they still have, ripe for faith and action, are SIDEWAYS NOW: they laugh at but fear crackers, despise GOP cracker-whispererism, and thoroughly loathe, loathe, loathe motherfucking Democrats, know that Democrats will not save them, know that Democrats see no profit in saving them, know Democrats (that is, our shitlords who own Democrats) offer only weaponized crackers as incentive to vote Democrat

Who Cares About That Art Crap Anyway

There is nothing inevitable to the way societies choose to respond to a crisis such as this pandemic. What we do however learn in our response is precisely what is valued in a society and what is less so. While there has been a managed politics at work between the dominant forces of power and the fading liberal left, behind the scenes there is a notable decimation of the arts and culture taking place outside of the corporate cultural institutions. 

If radical and independent presses are fighting for their lives, so it is also the case that critical cultural producers, who already occupied the margins, are being pushed into the abyss...

Speaking truth to power through their own grammatical interventions, they encourage more compassion, empathy and dignity in human affairs. We know the history of modern societies has resulted in the triumph of technical forms of thinking over the more poetic understanding of life. But do we really want to live in a world where art and culture are reduced to a virtual gallery visit...  our aesthetic preferences ...  stripped of any political claim and given over to the power of technocratic reason?

The Pyre Next Time

The implied terms of the racial contract are visible everywhere for those willing to see them. A 12-year-old with a toy gun is a dangerous threat who must be met with lethal force; armed militias drawing beads on federal agents are heroes of liberty. Struggling white farmers in Iowa taking billions in federal assistance are hardworking Americans down on their luck; struggling single parents in cities using food stamps are welfare queens. 

Black Americans struggling in the cocaine epidemic are a “bio-underclass” created by a pathological culture; white Americans struggling with opioid addiction are a national tragedy. Poor European immigrants who flocked to an America with virtually no immigration restrictions came “the right way”; poor Central American immigrants evading a baroque and unforgiving system are gang members and terrorists.

Look Over There As You Struggle For Air

Conservative media figures who spent months insisting on Michael Flynn’s innocence, after he twice pleaded guilty to lying to investigators, are taking a gleeful victory lap in response to the Justice Department moving to drop its criminal case against the retired lieutenant general and former Trump national security adviser. 

But the reversal is not enough to placate the right-wing media rabble, as they are now calling for Attorney General William Barr to prosecute members of the Barack Obama administration and its judicial allies for their roles in the case.

...right-wing radio host Mark Levin appeared on Fox News to boast, and to accuse Obama of conducting a vast shadow operation against the Trump administration. “You know what this is? This is Barack Obama’s blue dress. That’s what that is without the DNA on it,” he told Sean Hannity, referencing Monica Lewinsky’s infamous garment. “[The Flynn case documents] tells us that Obama knew…. Obama was working with the FBI and the intelligence agencies.” 

Levin also tweeted that “the perps responsible for trying to destroy” Flynn should be prosecuted, a talking point Hannity is now pushing too. “All this does is exonerate General Flynn,” the Fox News host declared on his Thursday radio program. “Now, it’s time to investigate Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s Department of Justice…and what they did here is they targeted an innocent man, and they—this is prosecutorial abuse.”

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Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Random Barking: What We Must

How We Carry It

They carried gravity.
--  Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
This is an old story:  Two Buddhist monks, one older, and the other a young apprentice, went on a pilgrimage to walk around the mountain known as Kailash. This would take many weeks, and would require them to cross gravel and rocky terrain, fields of mountain grass, and an occasional stream pulsing with runoff from the mountain and the Himalayan range of which it is one part.

The journey was (and still is today) an opportunity to perform a moving meditation. The young apprentice didn't have the years of experience in meditative practice as the older monk, and found the going hard. His mind was constantly pulled this way, and that, by the needs of the moment -- heat; thirst; cold in a rain squall; memories of growing up in a harsh life in his village as a boy. While walking, he would become lost in images of this which he desired, and consumed by that which he hated -- and focusing on 'not focusing' was difficult.

He watched the older monk, who seemed to walk without much difficulty (though he was slower than the apprentice, certainly) and without any outward show of exertion; what did this old man have that he didn't? This holier-than-thou, dried-up old turnip?

And as the days went by, the apprentice's resentment grew: This old fuck was probably laughing at him, thinking he was just a stupid young nothing. Well, could he run half a mile without stopping? Could he make love (though that was behind them both in the religious life) for an hour without pause? Could he eat whatever he liked without breaking wind or a sour stomach? No! So, why was this old fuck exalted; just because he was an elder?

One day, they came to a stream -- not deep, but the water moved in its course, swiftly, and could be treacherous if you slipped on unseen rocks in the streambed as you crossed. Standing by the stream was a beautiful young woman (and the apprentice believed he knew beauty when he saw it) -- and, upset. It was obvious that she wanted to cross the stream, but was afraid.

She saw the two men and bowed. The young apprentice was about to step forward, make a courtly bow, and ask if he might help her to cross -- when suddenly, the older monk simply asked if she needed help; with a smile, she said yes, and allowed the old monk to carry her across the rushing stream on his back -- which he did, slowly, but without fanfare.  He set the woman down on the opposite bank, bowed, and accepted her thanks.

The apprentice started crossing the stream, thinking the woman was watching him from the other side; he would show her how it was done! Of course, she would wait to speak with a handsome and talented lad; and so much better than the old fool who had carried her!

He tried to stride easily through the torrent, and was embarrassed when once or twice he slipped. By the time he got to the bank and climbed out of the stream, the woman was already walking away, turning to wave to them both, and continuing on her own journey.

The two monks set off on their own path towards the mountain. The old monk walked on, quiet, one step at a time. At first, the apprentice tried to focus on his meditation, but the image of the old monk carrying the beautiful girl kept intruding. One mile passed after another; the apprentice became more and more agitated, resentful, even hateful.

Finally, the apprentice exploded. "Why did you have to be the one to carry that girl? I could have done it! You're old; you could have fallen and drowned the both of you! Why you??"

The old monk glanced at the apprentice without breaking his stride. "I set her down some time ago," he said. "Why are you still carrying her?"
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Monday, April 27, 2020

Reprint Heaven: This Way, America

No, Over Here.  What The Hell Is Wrong with You?
(From October, 2016)

 Joseph Beuys / 1974 Performance Art, I Like America; America Likes Me (aka, "Coyote")

The Why Of Dog
It was a typisch day here in Downtown America.  Over at the Soul Of America, I was directed to a story about David Bowie, which contained a photo of what appeared to be a Dog dragging a leper / vagrant / symbolically-wrapped human around. We worked it through Skynet the Googlegerät. One thing led to another. And here we are in the Future, as always happens in America.
Beuys flew to New York, picked up by an ambulance, and swathed in felt, was transported to a room in the Rene Block Gallery. The room was also occupied by a wild coyote, and for a period of 8 hours a day for the next three days, Beuys spent his time with the coyote in the small room, with little more than a felt blanket and a pile of straw. While in the room, the artist engaged in symbolist gestures, such as striking a triangle and tossing his gloves to the coyote. At the end of the three days, the coyote, who had become quite tolerant of Beuys, allowed a hug from the artist, who was transported back to the airport via ambulance. He never set foot on outside American soil nor saw anything of America other than the coyote and the inside of the gallery.
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Coherence
Gentlemen, the people at home cannot understand either of you...
-- Elaine Quijano, CBS News, to Kaine and Pence

2016 Election Forecast:  Clinton 75.3%,  Trump 24.7%
-- fivethirtyeightdotcom

My friend; clear your mind of Cant.
-- Samuel Johnson

 I AM PART OF YOUUU !!!! (rabbitandmouse, 2006)
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The First Whorehouse In Space Will Be Built By The Bold
During his hour-long announcement of the SpaceX Mars colonization plan, CEO Elon Musk didn’t say where exactly Martian colonists will live once they arrive on the planet — and how exactly they’ll survive given the harsh environment. Musk seemed particularly unconcerned about solar radiation. “The radiation thing is often brought up, but it’s not too big of a deal,” he says...

SpaceX’s goal is to build [its] transport system [to Mars], like building the Union Pacific Railroad. “Once that transport system is built,” Musk says, “there’s a tremendous opportunity for anyone who wants to go to Mars and create something new or build the foundations of a new planet.” People will be able to go to the planet and build “anything from iron refineries to the first pizza joint.”
--  Alessandra Potenza and Loren Grush, The Verge, September 27, 2016

Ironically, this is also International Space Week.
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Not With A Bang But A Food Fight
As most everyone knows, the ending to Stanley Kubrick's 1964 anti-war black comedy, Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb has Strangelove (Peter Sellers) emerging from his wheelchair and taking a few steps, then a montage of atomic bombs going off.

However, that wasn't the original ending. Kubrick initially envisioned 'Strangelove' as a drama, based on a British novel, "Two Hours To Doom", about an accidental nuclear war.  He was introduced (oddly enough, by by Peter Sellers) to Terry Southern, an American expat writer living in London; Southern saw Kubrick's project as a vehicle for dark comedy about the end of the world, and the two co-authored the script ("I intended to make a dark comedy", Kubrick later said of his film). Sellers, a friend of both Southern and Kubrick, was cast to play three separate, believable characters (originally, four -- spraining an ankle kept Sellers from playing Major "King" Kong, and Slim Pickens was offered the role). 

In the original ending of the film, Dr. Strangelove stood up from his wheelchair, only to fall flat on his face. Meanwhile, General 'Buck' Turgidson (George C. Scott) noticed Russian Ambassador de Sadesky (Peter Bull) taking pictures of "the big board", and tackled him -- only to have the Ambassador throw a cream pie at him from a nearby buffet table.

Turgidson ducked; the pie hits President Muffley (also played by Peter Sellers) instead -- and the entire War Room erupted in a gigantic food fight. Finally, as nuclear war engulfs the world, Muffley and the Russian Ambassador, having lost their reason, end up sitting on the floor and playing with the litter of thrown food like children.

Ironically, Strangelove was being edited around November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated. In the scene as filmed, President Muffley is struck with a pie and Turgidson announced, "Our President has been struck down in his prime!" Because Kubrick considered the action too close to actual events (and the actors appeared to be enjoying themselves a bit too obviously), that ending had to change, and Kubrick was in a bit of a fix. As the legend goes, Spike Milligan (He of the UK's famous Goon Show) was talking at the same time with former fellow Goonie Peter Sellers and learned about Stanley's dilemma. 

Milligan is supposed to have suggested the ending we're all familiar with: Strangelove standing up from his wheelchair ("Mein Führer -- I can walk !!"), followed by footage of one nuclear weapons test after another, accompanied by a soundtrack of British singer Vera Lynn singing the WW2 ballad well-known in the UK, "We'll Meet Again." Kubrick's film editor, Anthony Harvey, put the footage of the original food-fight ending with other cut scenes, which were afterwards misplaced and lost to history.

George C. Scott In The Lost Ending To Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964)

( One of my favorite things about Strangelove is Peter Sellers' ability (as Strangelove) to crack up Peter Bull, who played the Russian ambassador. The next time you see this classic, during scenes with a medium or long shot of Strangelove declaiming from his wheelchair, keep your eye on Bull.

The Two Peters: Peter Bull (Left) As Ambassador de Sadesky,
and Peter Sellers As Herr Dr. Unwirklichlieber, In The War Room

Do Hold It Together, Old Man.

(Sellers was a genius at creating characters, and Bull can't help but be affected. He tries, but at some point just can't hold it in any longer -- again, the film's editor, Anthony Harvey, managed to save the take and splice in the next shot just as Bull is about to lose it.  According to film lore, Sellers was even able to get the redoubtable Sterling Hayden to crack up.)
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Ain't We Got Fun
Global debt has hit a record high of $152 trillion, weighing down economic growth and adding to risks that recovery could turn into stagnation or even recession, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

In a worst-case scenario the IMF also fears that a wave of populist politics across the US and Europe could send globalisation into reverse with protectionist policies hitting international trade, investment and migration, sending the world plunging into a prolonged period of stagnation...

“At 225% of world GDP, the global debt …is currently at an all-time high. Two-thirds, amounting to about $100 trillion, consists of liabilities of the private sector which can carry great risks when they reach excessive levels,” the IMF said in its fiscal monitor.
--  Tim Wallace, Business Writer; UK Telegraph Online October 5, 2016

"Among 'developed' nations, the United States has one of the highest rates of child poverty on the planet...  Only Romania has a higher rate than the U.S. ...  More children live in poverty -- grinding, soul-destroying poverty -- in America than in Latvia or Bulgaria, two nations few Americans can even find on a map."
--  Motivational Screensaver

Wealthiest ZIP Codes In America (Clicky For Ubernormous Graphic! Spass! Nett!)
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Thursday, April 23, 2020

Forty-Five Days In The Hole

A Long Rant

Everyone's Favorite Moment In The Action-Packed Rallies Briefings

Healthcare resource allocation is the easiest way to describe what I do, when I'm not speaking through the persona of a smart-assed white dog online. It involves Physical Space and infrastructure capabilities; Resources (human beings), Durable and Disposable Medical Equipment (beds; ventilators; swabs; masks; PPE gowns and gloves), medications -- requirements versus availability. It's logistics and negotiation. The past few months have been busy, preparing additional overflow sites for the kind of New York City-level surge of CoVID-19 cases in the Bay Area.

That hasn't developed. It's a relief. But, with the demands of the bloated Child-Leader, we could see another spike in cases as America is forced back to work, the Leader determined to have his moment of fantasy validation though many may die. Well... we could get lucky. I hope so, but it's a hope that only extends through the Summer. Then comes Fall and Winter.

I sit in multiple videoconferences; we talk about the Winter of this year. We use words like 'anticipated'  'likely probability', and when we look at potential effects to healthcare system capacity, the numbers are frightening. If the CoVID-19 virus is seasonal (and no one knows if it is), the end of 2020 could be bad. Wuhan-bad; Northern Italy-bad; New York City bad.

I don't say this to raise anyone's already elevated fears. My way of dealing with things is Whole Sight: straight on, for the most realistic appreciation of whatever comes. We need to do everything in our power, now, to prepare the System for a New York-level of shock, for months on end. As individuals, we need to plan how best to cooperate, for our collective sakes, and for the future.

There is some (relative) good news. In a presentation I saw yesterday, the data seems clear that all the effort to ramp up for a surge which never came helped develop slack capacity that will be essential going forward. Time has been made, but we need to increase capacity to continue preparing for Winter, and after. Eventually, there will be a vaccine; we just need to get through the next eleven months and be waiting in line when it's distributed.

We could be better prepared -- but the lack of coordination from the federal government is astounding (It's been detailed in the press; I don't have to repeat it here). And the politicization of whatever efforts that government does make is staggering: a CDC alert I saw just this morning started with the phrase, "The Trump administration is taking aggressive actions..." As if He were guiding, watching everything, the master of all phraseology and human destiny; the Good Daddy.

But when he is the Angry Daddy, the Bad Daddy -- He must be appeased in the smallest ways by the sycophants he gathers around him. There is an obvious requirement that medical professionals at the national level kiss Trump's ass just to stay in the room, and be allowed to offer informed opinions they hope can counter the ignorance, the bias against 'know-everything types'.

The disconnection from reality that we all brush aside with Trump, just to keep from having our heads explode; the hours-long 'briefings' replacing Trump's 'rallies'; the lying and vicious small-minded pursuit of More by himself, his family, his satraps and toadies, while people are dying -- all of it is magnified, now.

Hopefully, it will be a stain he can't wash. The portrait of Dorian Grey, failing to contain the rotten core of this person and so revealing him, failure and bully, as he does his drunkard's weaving while standing behind the podium.

Every day we waste on this sociopath's spewings, on the ranting and insane bullshit of conservative politicians and social leaders, when we could be preparing for the coming Fall, is time we will not get back. Time literally means lives, now.
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Every three days, I go into different medical centers operated by the Behemoth corporation which employs me and do things there I cannot do via Skype. I've always considered that, as jobs go, at least I could say I did things with a social benefit; now, they are one set of actions in a chain of events that matter, tangibly, to specific people.

Every time I go into a facility, the risk of contracting a disease (referred to by the younger set on Twitter as "Boomer Remover") that could kill me -- an Old with an underlying health condition -- increases by approximately 40%.

I'm in no way a hero -- my job is administrative, logistics; the real heroes are floors below, wearing full PPE garb, trying to adhere to protocols in biologically hot environments, for hours. Rarely, I see them in common spaces, outdoors, and we're well-separated. They're the kind of exhausted you get when you push your adrenaline levels to meet calls to action over and over for long periods.

I've been in situations in bad places in my long-ago; real life-and-death situations. You do things in those situations, and only in the silences afterwards does it become clear exactly how dangerous it was; that's what PTSD is about. I will tell you: it takes a special level of consciousness to go into situations with high risk -- and then do it again, and again, daily, having had moments in the times between to understand exactly what you're getting into.

This is what thousands of physicians, nurses, and support personnel are doing around the world, right now, over and over, and have been. For months.

They do the most critical caregiving tasks, and the most humble. They are there for others when they are dying, alone and isolated from everything familiar and loved, drifting away. They watch this and they perform that last connection with light and earth and all that we know, over and over and over. My respect for them is clear and unambiguous. There are few times in life when I could say I felt that, unreservedly, towards other human beings.
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Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Thing

When I come home to my small apartment on a hill in The City, I leave my Outside Shoes by the door, remove and bag clothing for separate laundering; I shower, and I scrub. The other five days in the week, I only leave my building a few times to walk at dusk, to stand on the steps of Grace Cathedral with the sun going down, surrounded by the condominiums and co-ops of the Wealthy, the huge landmark hotels, the brownstone Beaux Arts Pacific-Union Club.

In the handful of times I walk every week, I'm in the street, facing oncoming traffic, but there is very little. SFMTA buses whine past with only a few riders, as they have for weeks now: no one wants to risk public transit. Other people are out, runners and walkers, none of them masked; couples in their twenties amble slowly on the sidewalks, laughing. Knowing what I know about CoVID, I stay well clear. I walk in the street.
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On my every-two-week walk to a neighborhood market, there are people lined up, waiting to enter. It isn't a tiny business: in mid-March it was packed with panic-buying, unmasked people in thick lines waiting for checkout. Since March 19, the owners instituted a policy of allowing fifteen people inside at a time -- one person leaves, one allowed in -- but until they painted lines six feet apart on the sidewalk, few people seemed in a hurry to keep social distance. For weeks, I was nearly the only person in line wearing a mask.

Today, inside, there are plenty of people without masks, even the cloth variety, or those wearing them only over an upper lip, nose fully exposed. They ignore social distancing to lean in front of you and peer at a half-empty shelf -- as if it were just another day before CoVID.

I wear an N95 mask because I've been issued them. When I ask people to watch themselves or please step back, they turn their heads to look up at me and frown. "Sorry," their voices say, but they don't move. They want you to move; they want that last can of kidney beans.

The market owners also set up plexiglass screens at the registers early on, and found enough N95 masks and nitrile gloves for their staff. Early on, they began refusing to accept cash -- paper money being a transmission vector; credit/debit only. They found a local manufacturer willing to make and provide hand sanitizer. I pass the small shopping cart I use to an employee, who immediately disinfects it.

I check out and walk home. The market's paper bags will stand by themselves for the next two or three days, untouched. When I noted the first reports in early January of a novel virus appearing in China, which appeared to be respiratory with a good probability of human-to-human transmission, I began slowly buying whatever I thought might be needed. I'm not a Prepper, and not a tinfoil hat person. But when panic buying began in early - mid March, it was one more aspect of the situation I didn't need to feel anxiety over.

Everything purchased is sanitized with wipes bought three months ago; hard to find them, now. I don't buy produce or fruits -- I take vitamins, which also seem in short supply. I have gallons of frozen milk, frozen gluten-free bread (likewise, hard to find) and GF-pizza (I refuse to give up my comfort foods). Rice and beans are a staple (with Pesto, or Tomato paste), and so is Norwegian Kippered Herring.

And the obligatory wine and Single Malt: yes, I find myself self-medicating more frequently in, as Bill Burr would say, "the current environment" (I can even 'drink at work'; bwa ha ha ha ha ha).

This is how we -- or, at least how I, live now. And have done, for forty-five days. Part of me is proud of being resourceful. The rest of me wants to weep and beat all conservatives with a shovel and launch their corpses into the sun. But, that's just me.

Current Coronavirus Cases, FLA: 25,576   Deaths: 976
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All that personal nonsense wasn't what I wanted to talk about.

Indeed, if [Nassim Nicholas] Taleb is chronically irritated, it is by those economists, officials, journalists, and executives—the “naïve empiricists”—who think that our tomorrows are likely to be pretty much like our yesterdays.  
(-- Bernard Avashai, "The Pandemic Isn't A Black Swan, But A Portent Of A More Fragile Global System," The New Yorker, April 21, 2020)

There is an assumption: once we just get a handle on this virus, by brute force, everything will revert to some pre-CoVID default. That electing Biden will erase four years of something unprintable and degrading. That by magic, all will be as it was.

What that assumption ignores is the massive (and that isn't enough adjective to describe what's happened) disruption to the global economy which CoVID has produced, the societal and political changes already set in motion.

Recently, the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Senator Robert Barr (R-Stock 'n Property), unanimously announced it supported the combined U.S. Intelligence Community's earlier report that the Russian government, at the direction of Vladimir Putin, had intervened in the 2016 presidential election to ensure the election of Donald J. Trump.

On Twitter, some commenters assumed this was significant -- that the Old-Boy Network had delivered a message to Trump: they had finally had enough, and the 25th Amendment was waiting to be invoked. I didn't believe this was even remotely possible, but had five minutes of fantasy enjoyment thinking about it (One, really, because we would immediately have President Pence).

At almost the same time, Fat Billy Barr announced that he might prosecute governors who went against the wishes of The Leader (whose mottled ass Barr tenderly kisses), and defy his order to Put America Back To Work! There were other assumptions, there -- about Barr's authority as Attorney General, and that threatening state Governors could make them toe the line and kiss Trump's ass, too.

But I also thought: let's play this out -- the Players in each situation acted as they did because they assumed the structure of things -- America's government, its finances, its society (as  F. Scott Fitzgerald said, a framework of "religion and years of plenty and tremendous sureties and exact relations ... between the classes") was operating exactly as it always has.

But -- what if, as Nassim Taleb noted, the structure is no longer that way? For me, the image that comes up is the old, fat Russian officer, marching new recruits to the front in Doctor Zhivago; they encounter a mob of deserters, who entreat the recruits to defect; the old officer orders them from the saddle, "Form ranks! Get back in ranks!" He assumed his authority and everything that supported it was the 'local reality'; the soldiers pulled him off his horse and beat him to death.

Roughly 30,000,000 Americans are out of work. In my neighborhood, I overheard several managers of apartment buildings (not the wealthy co-ops, of course) saying half their residents or more couldn't pay April rent, and likely can't pay in May.

The $1,200, one-time "Donny Trump Fun Bucks" check with The Leader's heavy, spiky signature will probably be spent on food. Mortgages are going unpaid. Business rent. Insurance coverage. Car payments. Student loans. Credit Card debt. Wireless bills. Medical bills. Cable bills. 

Trump and his Republican toadies are making their own assumptions -- even about something as stupid, at a time like this, as insisting The Leader's signature be on each check. The right-wing thug strategists assume people will make positive associations between 'Getting Fun Bucks', and The Leader: Free political advertising. 

It's an assumption that we're still living in the world where politics as usual is the shared reality. In truth, people getting the checks will deposit them and not give Leader's EKG arrhythmia-shaped handwriting more than a moment's notice. By the time Winter comes, businesses -- who also assume we're living in a world ruled by the same ideas of obligation, debt, creditworthiness -- will expect what they're owed. So will landlords, property owners, finance companies and banks.

As someone on Twitter noted, TeeVee commercials are appearing now, showing America's big corporations as empathetic, "understanding and compassionate; they will be happy to 'discuss arrangements' for payments. There's nice piano music playing behind these images. Just don't expect soft music and compassion when they send your account for collection".

This isn't a Civ102 class, where you spend one session skimming over 1929 and its aftermath, just as a way to segue into the Second World War.  The media notes this CoVID-fueled effect to the economies of the planet will be "Worse than the Great Depression of the 1930's" -- not having the least notion what that means. No one does.

If you read the article on Taleb, his main point is, the CoVID disaster exposes all the stress points, the assumptions we've made about interconnected global finance and supply chains, our dependence on fossil fuels (not to mention the politics of oil), and just how vulnerable we are as a species.

CoVID-19 is bad enough -- but if it had been more like Ebola, we might be looking at global deaths in the millions, now, and a global heath system which could not cope with it. And, nature isn't through with us. This was just our first pandemic in 102 years. It isn't over.
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Yes, there was an immense relief bill passed, to show that the Congress "Did So Care!" about the Little People, and of course the Bundist Billionaires and Oligarchs. And, it was done to show that no one need panic: money was on the way.  Only, it was trickle-down, again; same at it ever was. As  Ian Welsh notes,
Virtually all the relief money has flowed to the top, not the bottom. Landlords and tenants are in crisis. Unemployment is going over 30% and in many places higher. A vast swathe of American small business will be destroyed, and is unlikely to recover in a generation.  
Firms which borrowed money to do stock buy-backs, or to give money to their private equity purchasers are slopping at the trough, but many of the actual businesses on the ground (like Nieman Marcus) will go under. 
PPE can’t be found for hospital workers or logistics workers. Important pieces of the logistics hubs like meat packing plants are shutting down. Warehouse workers are protesting, truckers are scared... 
America is unable to make or procure an adequate number of masks or prioritize who gets them (though, really, everyone should). The ventilators made by GM are inadequate, because Trump wanted to keep the price down. Hospitals not only don’t have enough PPE, they’re going bankrupt because they haven’t been given enough money.
All the assumptions Republican Senators, Billy Barr, Trump -- even you, and me -- are making about how things are supposed to work in America and the world doesn't address the reality of what's just happened. Its effects are so big, we can't put our arms around it and can't know how it will affect us.

We can say all our assumptions about the future will change. Not that it will be so radically different -- but just as Fitzgerald saw the old assumptions about his world before WW1 dissolve, the same will happen to us. And the domino effects of CoVID, and continuing Climate Deterioration, will drive it.

Some observers believe America is headed towards regional dissolution, food riots once transport and supply chains break down, and who knows what political structure will emerge -- maybe a semi-United States; maybe the Republic of Gilead, run by evangelical 'christians'.

But, maybe not. Maybe when the chickens finally finish coming home to roost (as they have been since Trump was granted power), our future doesn't have to be exploitation by Neoliberal politicians and rat-faced corporate leaders, or domination by christian fascists. I like to think human beings -- even Americans -- have better imaginations than that.

When we leave our assumptions behind, perhaps they'll be about fossil-fuel dependency. Or healthcare. Or ideas that lies and propaganda are just 'alternate facts'. That income inequality, and throwing children into cages at immigration stations, are just part of the fabric of our country; just one of those things. That we can't fight City Hall. Or climate change. Or even a housing crisis. Perhaps we can abandon the assumption that the fix is in, and no solutions are possible.

There's a long road with CoVID ahead -- it won't end until treatment therapies that mitigate the worst effects of this organism are proven, or an effective vaccine is created. These are months, even years, away. When we come out the other side: what kind of culture and political realities do we want for each other? Our tomorrows do not have to look like our yesterdays.
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MEHR, MIT EIN ANDERN MEINUNG: (Repeating myself, but...)

...We're living through history. When we read about events in Europe during the Interwar Years (1918 - 1939), there's a feeling of inevitability, of being slowly sucked down a drain -- the revolving-door failures of parliamentary governments in France; Britain's declining empire; the manic Totentanz of global capital leading to 1929 and the Great Depression; the rise and fall of Weimar; the apotheosis of Italian and Japanese, and finally German, fascism. Regional war and civil war. 

... and we know where the story is going. ... But we always read about the years leading up to [WW2] with a mounting sense of horror precisely because we all know how it ends. 

And we have the same feeling, looking at major global currents in our own time. ...  America, ruled by Babbitry, greed and illusion, retreats from the world stage. Its leader is Bloated, Raving, delegating the running of a government to corrupt, car-wash dilettantes. Other nation-state players are happy to rush into the vacuum we leave behind. The balances in the old alliances we created after WWII have been squandered, all but unraveled. 

A regional conflict -- between India and Pakistan; Kim Jong Fat Boy's Fun Republic Of Chuckles and South Korea; Iran and Saudi Arabia, almost seems like a sure thing -- 'of course that's where all this is going'; no one would be truly surprised if one started tomorrow. What we wouldn't be prepared for is what would happen the day after, and the day after that.

Kleiner Mann; Was Nun?
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Friday, April 17, 2020

Reprint Heaven: Edge Of The Volcano Edition

Unraveling

(Originally From 2016. Ordinarily, this is posted on June 28th, but for some reason seems appropriate now...)

Cousin Ignatz, Asleep At Princip's Post: Sarajevo, 2014 (Matthew Fisher / Postmedia News)

Roughly twelve hours and 105 years ago, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the Grand Duchess Sophie, were shot by Gavrillo Princip, a member of an assassination team sent to the Bosnian city by the government of Serbia.

Collectively, the team was the gang which couldn't shoot straight: armed with crude grenades, a few pistols, and carrying some form of suicide pill, they waited along the route Franz Ferdinand's car would take as it drove beside the Miljacka river, which cuts through Sarajevo (local Austro-Hungarian authorities had helpfully published the Archduke's route beforehand).

Most of the team either was poorly positioned, or chickened out at the last moment.  One conspirator did throw a bomb at the Archduke's car, which bounced off its folded-back fabric top and exploded near a second car traveling just behind. Several people in the car had minor injuries and it continued on to a local hospital.

The Archduke's driver, Leopold Lojka, continued to Sarajevo city hall. When Franz Ferdinand arrived, he effectively unloaded on the hapless administrators about the state of their local security ("I come to your city and am greeted with bombs!"). Meanwhile, back at the river, the would-be bomber had jumped into the Miljacka and swallowed his suicide pill -- which he promptly threw up. The police arrested him, barely managing to keep him from being lynched a mob of pro-Austro-Hungarian citizens, and so save him for later trial and execution.

At approximately 12:30 PM, having finally accepted the thanks of the Sarajevo city fathers, Franz Ferdinand and his wife got back into their car, planning to go to the local hospital to see those wounded in the bomb attack that morning. They used the same route, in reverse, that they had taken into the city, driving along the river. But when the Chauffeur, Lojka, came to a particular intersection -- to his left, a street; to the right, a bridge over the Miljacka river -- he was confused.

 The Royal Couple (Seated, At Rear) Leaving City Hall: Fifteen Minutes Left

Believing it to be the route he needed to take to drive to the hospital, Lojka slowed and turned left into the street.  Almost immediately, he realized he'd made a mistake and stepped on the brakes. The car came to a stop a few yards into the street, and Lojka moved to put it in reverse gear.

 The Intersection, 2014: The Archduke's Car Turned Left, Into This Street;
The Restaurant Where Princip Bought Lunch, Now A Museum (Photo: CNN)

At that same intersection was a small restaurant. Gavrillo Princip, last member of the Serbian assassination squad, had gone inside to buy a sandwich, angry and dejected after the team's failure that morning. Standing on the sidewalk outside the cafe, he saw a large, dark-green automobile turn out of the boulevard and come to a stop directly in front of him. In the very rear seat were the Archduke and his wife.

The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne had been delivered, less than ten feet away, from an armed assassin who had come to the city specifically to kill him. If you were writing a novel or screenplay, anything that coincidental would be branded as implausible. No one's gonna believe that.

Princip didn't hesitate. He dropped his sandwich, pulled a pistol out of his jacket and stepped towards the car, firing several shots, managing to mortally wound both the Archduke and his wife. Lojka, the driver, was ordered to rush the royal couple to the local military governor's residence. Sophie died on the way. A military officer in the car, checking on the Archduke's condition, asked the wounded man how he was; Ferdinand said, "Nichts (It's nothing)", and died.

Just over a month later, Europe was at war. Over the next four-plus years, the entire social fabric of the continent and much of the world changed, irrevocably. Monarchies ended; millions died; the map of the world changed as the victors annexed territory from Germany and Austria Hungary, and new countries were created. New technology was developed -- and in the Versailles Treaty, the groundwork was laid for a second, even more horrible war to begin by 1939.

(And, in 1918-19, the Spanish Influenza infected 500 million people, killing 40 million, worldwide. It was the largest number of fatalities due to pandemic disease since the 'Black Death': the coming of  Bubonic Plague to Europe in the 14th century [which killed an estimated 200 million].  In the U.S., millions were made sick, and 675,000 died [~0.6 per cent of America's 103 million population at the time]. It's often referred to as the "forgotten epidemic" -- just one more terrible event in an ocean of violence and atrocity.)

 Cousin Ignatz, Worn Out By All The History
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Why the history lesson? We're living through history. When we read about events in Europe during the Interwar Years (1918 - 1939), there's a feeling of inevitability, of being slowly sucked down a drain -- the revolving-door failures of parliamentary governments in France; Britain's declining empire; the manic Totentanz of global capital leading to 1929 and the Great Depression; the rise and fall of Weimar; the apotheosis of Italian and Japanese, and finally German, fascism. Regional war and civil war. 

... and we know where the story is going. It ends in Nanking, the Anschluss; Kristalnacht, Dunkirk; Auschwitz; Stalingrad; the Warsaw Ghetto; D-Day; the Führerbunker; Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But we always read about the years leading up to all that with a mounting sense of horror precisely because we all know how it ends. 

And we have the same feeling, looking at major global currents in our own time. While Brexit may be not have been a "shot heard 'round the world", the Tories are still (unbelievably), in power in the UK. The Scots still wonder about independence. The Greek, French and Italian economies are still at risk. Putinland, the Great Bear, still pushes the envelope here and there -- in Ukraine, and Syria. As IS loses on battlefields in the continuing slow-motion atrocity that is the Middle East, suddenly they appear in a Philippine city, on a London street. Disproportionate numbers of Black people are shot in major American cities on a routine basis. Climate change is not fake news.

America, ruled by Babbitry, greed and illusion, retreats from the world stage. Its leader is Bloated, Raving, delegating the running of a government to corrupt, car-wash dilettantes. Other nation-state players are happy to rush into the vacuum we leave behind. The balances in the old alliances we created after WWII have been squandered, all but unraveled. 

A regional conflict -- between India and Pakistan; Kim Jong Fat Boy's Fun Republic Of Chuckles and South Korea; Iran and Saudi Arabia, almost seems like a sure thing -- 'of course that's where all this is going'; no one would be truly surprised if one started tomorrow. What we wouldn't be prepared for is what would happen the day after, and the day after that.

Kleiner Mann; Was Nun?
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