Category: War

existential crises have I one

I will have none whenever I’m done
pleasantly cynical isn’t the style
so I’ll
resurrect a ‘childhood horror’

Nobody knows but me
It isn’t your burden to bear
Nobody knows but me
And, fuck it all, I’m gonna share

in the first years of my teenhood
abysmally utterly greenhood
I lie each night and the bedbugs that bite
are mushroom clouds and Auschwitz crowds
that aren’t just a sigh in a closet
history runs we can’t pause it
but I do not want to be in it
not even for one single minute

If it’s like that

_______________________________________________________

and it’s like that again

If Putin is blowing up dreams in Europe
I now have three questions to ask
when did I notice and when did I act
Is history now Putin’s tale to redact
I for one think that the world’s on the brink
while reliving my childhood terror

unattached to the foregoing::
during the writing of this poem my daughter called me laughing and joking with Alex, they’re doing spelling homework and using it as an opportunity to work the spelling words into song parodies (‘scale’ into “Sail” for example, and to register the Allegra contextual impact you have to know that this song was part of our morning warmup tape when we had the shop). . .and I couldn’t respond properly. In addition to this on going mood I’m in, I have a 24 hour blood pressure cuff on and it KEEPS TURNING ITSELF OFF which is not assisting my apocawyptic bwoodings. I’m migraining as well, horrific multicoloured jagged swirls mostly in the left side of my visual field.

 

Some greek to go with the site branding

“As a student of philosophy, he was coarse and heedless in appearance, and his clothing was squalid”

-Philostratus, from the @sentantiq twitter account

and here’s something you don’t see every day on menus (found it yesterday while thinking about dinner):

If you don’t know what Cordyceps Militaris is, GOOD. That means you can ignore the next three sentences if you want to. It’s a fungus that grows on living, and then dead, insects. SHUDDER AND HURL. I am a very white person and I think there are a lot of perfectly edible things I can’t eat because I have culturally enabled squeamishness.

I found a new font called Truefesse yesterday (fesse meaning bum in french) and so I made this (Amelia script, also know as the Live, Love, Laugh font, is the handwriting font):

and here’s a list of Russian media outlets that died this past week per Alexey @ Meduza:

Gary Kasparov in 2014:

 

 

Who am I fooling

Didn’t leave the house yesterday but I ran the dishes and a load of laundry. Jeff and I keystone kops’d the unloading, I wish someone had been taking video. I also mopped all the salt out of the boot tray.

Jeff left the house and returned with Swiss Chalet. Swiss Chalet has had a terrible hold on my palate ever since I visited my first resto on Yonge Street in 1980 or 81. I was working at the Delta Chelsea Inn – I was a baby, and somehow I ended up running the switchboard – an experience which made me believe it would be twenty years before I ever had the strength to be a manager again – and I’d shoot over there on breaks or go after my shift.

A couple of months back I learned to my horror that the only Swiss Chalet IN ALL OF BC was closing – it’s on Lougheed Highway, and since then we’ve made an effort to grab food from there any time we can. Jeff picked up meals for us yesterday and IT WAS SO GOOD. Then he told me that they are probably staying open and that was really good news. I want to live in a Burnaby that has Swiss Chalet. I’m not saying the food is fantastic, I’m just saying it’s a comfort to me.

While Jeff was out had a practice session so long my fingers are quite sore. ah well, if you don’t practice that’s what happens.

Talked to Paul on the phone; I read him a long twitter thread about how the Russian army didn’t rotate the tires on their armored vehicles and that’s why they can’t get through the mud (obvs more complicated than that). The big takeaway is that the Russian army is so corrupt they aren’t paying for spares or basic readiness maintenance and it’s showing in their performance. (Not so much in the south where they were more massed and the weather is better and the ground more solid.) There is also the problem of what the hell is going on with the Russian airforce. The Ukrainians are still just barely holding their own and given that the Russians have overwhelming superiority in numbers and equipment why don’t they have command of the air? Once again I’m thinking they just don’t have enough spares for operational readiness.

Go go dancers from the trendiest gay bar in Ukraine are now volunteering; the waggish comment on twitter was that we now have ‘battle twinks’. OKAY HE WAS CUTE but he’s got nuthin fer me.

A reminder that Ukraine is the second largest country on that landmass. It literally stretches from New York to the Great Lakes if you lay it on top of a map of NA.

Cried, just cried like a fool, when I saw the video of thousands of Berliners greeting Ukrainian refugees off the train so they could have a place to stay.

Too early for the kudos to come in (that’s around 3 am) but the story is at 2200 words. I’m going back to sleep, three and a half hours isn’t enough.

Sleep’s messed up

Off to the library to pick up a book I reserved in July, lol. I was, like, 85th in line.

Galileo's first sketches of the moon in 1609

Galileo drew these after his first glimpse of a moon through a telescope.

The Ukrainian tax office, taking a leaf from its comedian president, has issued a statement about the tax implications of acquiring a Russian tank. Don’t worry, they assure the populace; by the time you get it, it’s not worth much (implication being that it’s been blown to pieces) and it’s not considered a taxable good. Full marks for straight faced ludic nonsense.

More reports of Russians refusing to fight, but the big news is the lengthy file of tanks, half tracks and trucks going into Kyiv, and not moving. Apparently supply is an issue, but what I keep hearing is that Russian boys are holing their gas tanks for the privilege of staying put.

The Russian military is using vacuum bombs (thermobaric bombs) on civilian areas. Mostly people have evacuated but not everyone can. These are bombs that basically turn everything to mush and fix it so even if you’re protected by a wall or building your lungs get mushed.

Reports are overwhelming that Black people who were going to school in Ukraine (a popular destination for med and engineering students from Africa) are being refused entry, food and medical attention at the Polish and Romanian  borders. Some of the stories are nauseating and heart-wrenching.

One of the self-funded reporters in Kyiv is a Black man from Chicago, Terrell Jermaine Starr. The amount of racist abuse he’s getting in Kyiv (there are civilians with guns everywhere in town and Ukraine is just as racist as anywhere else) is still less than the fucking bullshit that racist armchair pundit warriors are giving him on twitter. Anyway, we’re into our seventh day of the invasion, and he says he has PTSD already and people MOCKED HIM. Like wtf you got brain maggots er what? If someone shoved a gun in my face I’d be unhappy, and if ten seconds later that gun went off (not pointed at me) because the civilian left the safety off, that would definitely fix me for not sleeping soundly for the next little while.

1594 words so far on the new story, one little kudo last night on the second last story.

Must finish leftovers! No more cooking til leftovers done!!

A link to Zelenskyy dancing with his comedy troupe in black pleather (as a parody, apparently) has caromed around the internet. Here’s the translation, scanged from u/viciuniversum on reddit, unitalicized words in brackets are the translator’s, italicized words in brackets are my explanatory notes:

“Let’s pour a shot of martini
Bud’mo hey! (Cheers!) (Bud’mo, pron bood mor LITERALLY MEANS LET US BE can you imagine being from a country whose nominal drink clinking words are literally ‘let us be’????)
For freedom, for destiny, for truth!
Bud’mo hey!
One shot, two shots, three shots!
Bud’mo hey! You are gay!
For Yura, for Yulya, dulya [hand gesture] for Lyashko! (saints and heros and politicians of yore)

Here’s my bulava (Ukrainian weapon and traditional symbol of power, a short handled round mace) my brothers!
Tomorrow we go dancing against Moskovites (Russians)
We will dance Gopak (Ukrainian national dance, began in 16th century, men returning from battle would re-enact and perform feats like the balletic leaps the dance is known for. Dance is also popular in other slavic countries), we have the strength
Ukraine is not dead yet, as long as we keep drinking well:
Borsht, salo (smoked pig fat), onion, bread, moonshine,
Drink, and eat,
I drink, I drink, I drink!

Lovers,
Those who were sent here (spies),
They are covered in glitter,
We spit on them.
Artists, stylists, move aside [can’t tell]
Lip-stick, gay-parades, and in Rada (Ukrainian parliament) everyone is like that.
I don’t want to, I can’t, but for salo, let’s do it.

Here’s my bulava my brothers!
Tomorrow we go dancing against Moskovites
We will dance Gopak, we have the strength
Ukraine is not dead yet, as long as we have salo!
Borsht, salo, onion, horseradish, moonshine,
Drink, and eat,
I drink, I drink, I drink!

In like a very wet lion

March is coming in with (checks with weathercat Buster) YUP IT’S RAINING. Definitely more like a lion.

I think I owed you a Grecian urn, right mOm?

Image

3300 yo Bronze Age pottery jar with an octopus motif. From Ialysos, Rhodes

I have learned from Tish’s latest letter that Terry will be here in July and he intends to bike back to Cornwall from here. Shoulda heard me squeal, oh how we shall feast him!!! Don’t you love it when guys pushing 70 with a broom just say FUCK TIME! I AM NOT IN YOU! This is a guy whose back was broken in a bike accident …. so he’s, you know, hard fucking core. I learn also that they are grandparents again; Peter and his s/o have had a little boy.

I learn from Leo and Linda that they have REALLY CUTE GRANDCHILDREN. I mean, I already knew, but damn. They are most sincerely cute.

DAY 6 of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine 2022 edition.

Belarusian hackers have messed up troop transports from Belarus. Précis of story:

The ‘Cyber Partisans’ group said that trains had been stopped in Minsk, Orsha, and Osipovichi due to them compromising the routing system and switching devices by encrypting the data on them.

Minsk is the capital and largest city. The Belarusians are going to feel like they’re being whipped at a cart-arse in hell for supporting Putin in this mess. No surprise to me that local hackers are making their sentiments known. Interestingly Anonymous is refusing to do infrastructure hits (such as this) because they figure there’s too much that can go wrong for civilians.

Now, for a little of the old BUT HOW IS THE WAR AFFECTING THE FOLKS AT HOME?

LOLOLOL you will remember the convoy of honkies which so exercised Ottawa and Centretown for three whole weeks until the Emergencies Act was levelled against them? Or perhaps the Ukrainian ‘conflict’ has shoved that recent outbreak of boils upon the body politic from your ever more easily distracted mind?

WELLLLLL, it turns out that when you turn off the rubles AT THE GLOBAL LEVEL, the flow of money AT THE GRANULAR LEVEL which allows the honkies to continue being complete fascist assholes STOPS and they collapse like the water critter in ‘The Abyss’, when the door closes. So the convoy which was supposed to go across the US had 6 trucks and is apparently disbanding. THIS MEANS THAT THE HONKIES IN DOWNTOWN OTTAWA WERE PARTYING ON PUTIN’S DIME.

NEVER

NEVER

NEVER

forget this. They weren’t traitors by my standards (even if I said so, at the time, mostly because I’m kinda over the whole nation state thing and how can you be a traitor, etc, if the entity you’re being a ‘traitor’ to shouldn’t exist in the first fucking place….) but they sure’s fuck were dupes and bad neighbours, DUPES I tell ya, and every word of their maskhole, anti disabled, racist misogynist homophobic transphobic ahistorical anti Indigenous horse puckey was supported by Dirty Russian Money. Don’t forget. Never forget.

The punditfaced and wibblebrained Yanks on twitter are encouraging the US to go to war with Russia LIKE SURE BUDDY do you think your Cheetos are going to stay on the supermarket shelves in a post nuclear war world or do you REALLY HAVE PUDDING FOR BRAINS. Bad pudding. Jeff says, “I like pudding.”

TRANSCRIPT OF A CATHERINE BELTON INTERVIEW. She is the person who keeps getting sued by Russian oligarchs because she tells the truth about their relationships with Putin.

There are reports of gang rape (I saw on reddit, it was heartbreaking, a personal account of an 18 year old woman in eastern Ukraine being gang raped ON THE HALFTRACK by five Russian soldiers, who threw money at her and called her hohol (Ukie) whore at the end of it but it was not news and not verified) but less unclear are the multiple reports of Russian tank crews ABANDONING FUELED AND FUNCTIONING TANKS. Just leaving them in the damned road. I don’t know if they’re walking back to the border or handing themselves over to be interned until the end of the war or hiding, or just heading back to Donbas. Who the hell knows. But the untouched tanks are just sitting there. I’ve seen video of one but there are credible reports of more.

_______________

New story is up to 1516 words. I’m going back and forth with first person chapters of about a thousand words apiece.

Two kudos in my inbox this morning; one for the musicians story (in which I promote another musician/filker, go me, AND integrate a song one of the actors is well known for singing … as part of the soppily romantic ending oh come now haven’t you ever wanted to wake up after a night of love with someone singing something beautiful and romantic in the next room … speaking as someone this has happened to, it’s verra noice) and one for the “I’m going to pretend to be your perfect boyfriend” story that starts with a pickup in a bar. One of the things I like doing best in writing fanfic is taking super well known lines from Supernatural (2005) and integrating them in conversations that have nothing to do with the show to give a little frisson to the reader.

JEEEEEZ

 

There is so much misinformation, disinformation, cheerful lies, tankie mischief and plum bullshit out there about Ukraine and the Russian invasion that walking away from twitter feels like pulling your lips away from the firehose.

The war is costing Russia something on the order of 8 billion dollars a day, and they just had about half their access to the global banking system cut off. More sanctions are coming. People are protesting daily in every major Russian city (there were at least 5K in St. Pete’s alone !!) and through the entirety of the former Soviet Union, where the resistance of the Ukrainians has put steel in spines. Putin has announced that he wants the territories of the former Soviet Union back and guess what, most of the former slave states are not impressed. And from what I’ve seen there have been protests in every large city in soidisant Canada. If the rest of the sanctions come, Russia has funds for about a month more of this before they have to go to the international equivalent of Vinnie the Fish for the rest of the warchest. Germany spat in Putin’s face and sent anti tank/helicopter weapons to Ukraine. So much for Germany staying neutral! They spat twice hard when they blocked the pipeline from Russia, too, and announced plans as to how they’re going to get along fine without their gas and oil. The German public is not united in this but the poll numbers are high enough that the Ukrainians can continue to lean on them.

And Russian boys are dying in hundreds in Kharkiv right now. They ‘took’ the city and the Ukrainians took it right back.

Putin is now so desperate that he’s calling up the nuclear troops and setting them to do ‘exercises’ which is basically him grabbing his dick and saying LOOKEE HERE. Do I believe that he will use nuclear weapons? Maybe. But he’s already the kind of person who can’t wander out incognito because about a quarter of the population of Russia would be blithe on vodka for a week if they could have a chance to shiv him. To be the aggressor in a nuclear war would not cement his popularity. NATO is on alert which means that US branded troops are now free to move in Europa.

Jeff tells me that the space authority in Russia is threatening to drop shit on people they don’t like from orbit and once again, if it’s the Russians wanting to start a war from space they aren’t going to like the results any more than the poor bastards underneath whatever they drop. Biden’s as much of a Killocrat as the next one, but if ever there was a casus belli that would be it.

Of particular interest to me is the Ukrainians and Americans releasing intel that the Russians are planning an explosion somewhere in Russian controlled territory that they can blame on the Ukrainians so they can send more troops and really crush the resistance. Russians commanded by Putin did the same fucking thing for the Chechen war, blowing up apartment buildings across Russia in the runup to the Chechen War in 1999. The wikipedia article says that nobody really knows who did it but I’ve seen enough evidence to convince me, and if you need convincing please check how the timing of it is what catapulted Putin from the prime ministership into the Presidency just a few months later. NOT AN ACCIDENT.

Apart from Switzerland, which is landlocked, there isn’t a single European country currently allowing Russian flyovers.

On to a more pleasant subject. Jeff is a very good brother and roommate. After I lost my cell phone (coming up on 18 months) he loaned me his spare (non activated) cell phone, so I have an alarm and a clock and gaming platform and something to take into the bath when I want to play solitaire and soak. I dropped it numerous times and it quit. Apologetic and abashed I immediately took it to him and within minutes he had restored it to life. I do not deserve. But I am very happy.

50 cm of rain over the next day. BLOOP

 

 

on feb 16 60 people came to my site

why? What was so different about that day?

Russian government sites are down; twitter has been throttled back in Russia; casualties are mounting and the Russians are having troubles taking Kyiv, since the Ukrainians won’t give a metre without a fight; the Russians are fighting people who didn’t chop down the trees in the public forests in Kyiv while they were dying of exposure during the Great Patriotic War because they knew the war would be over soon enough and their children would want the trees to play under.

The Russians are on the wrong side of a stupid conflict, but the Ukrainians, the good ones and the bad ones, are pretty much united.

The Russians are doing so poorly that they’re threatening nukes. I don’t know how to respond to such atrocities.

 

Zelenskyy says The Fight is here, I need ammo not a ride.
Russia OUT OF UKRAINE.

As an anarchist I’m not supposed to stand with or under any flag but the red and black, but I’m just going to give you the hairy eyeball if you want to decry the flag that is the blue of the sky and the gold of the grain.

Here’s some real anarchism: they’ve changed the street signs for the oncoming invaders so they all say a variant of GO FUCK YOURSELF\

They changed the street signs for the invaders so they all say GO FUCK YOURSELVES

Peas rice and chicken

2.5 hours of taxi-ing and sitting in waiting rooms yesterday. When I saw my appointment time of 4 pm I was disgusted, since I knew I’d be on my ass waiting for a long time, but almost two hours was not what I guessed.

Anyway, I’m increasing the dose of one of my morning BP meds and I should have a scrip faxed in (I’ll check later today) and renewals for everything else. We’re hoping this will drop my blood pressure enough that the risk factors for cardiovascular damage drop somewhat.

When I came home, I realized I had some chicken thawed and I’d already made a pot of rice, so I dumped what seemed like a lot of safflower oil in a pan and fried up some chicken and rice and peas and added exactly one tablespoon of soy sauce and nothing else (it was the Most Caucastic stir fry ever, I assure you) and it was actually totally delicious and hit the spot and Jeff even had seconds, which meant it was completely consumed and there were no leftovers huzzah.

Still delightfully clear but cold yesterday, it’s supposed to be much warmer today. It was chilly in the basement these last two days.

One little kudo this morning. I wrote a story about two people who meet while already quite drunk from two different parties and one of them can’t stop barfing but they get frisky anyway. That’s the one that caught praise this morning. It has the funniest title out of all of my stories.

Much better night of sleep last night. As suspected I was twisted about the doctor appointment Tuesday night and that impacted my sleep. I could go on at length about how goddamned rude the people waiting with me were and how variable people seem to be in terms of both quality and usage of masks but there’s no point.

Probably getting a cleaning specialist today, and whether or not we do I’ll be talking to Jeff about whether we’re doing a shop this morning.

I got the strings OFF Otto but have not got them ON. Such a hassle to have ball end strings for the mandolin.

People are dead in the opening shelling of Putin’s war.

I don’t think Putin understands that he’s paved the way for a lot of unrest at home. The rouble’s tanked, foreign exchange is locked up, the army itself is poorly equipped and fed and trained and morale is low, and the suffering of the people on Russian territory as fuel and food and anything from the West skyrockets in price will be most terrible. One half of Russians support Putin’s war. One quarter does not. One quarter is not sure. Those numbers WILL change, and Putin’s going to be pissed when they don’t go his way.

Here’s a good overview of possibilities on Youtube. Make sure you turn subtitles on, that guy talks REAL fast.

More items off the list

I am continuing to feel much more chipper.  It wasn’t a super productive day, but I walked (really walked, not ambled) and got some social contact and the sun was a benison.

There’s a new game, Semantle. IT’S INSANE MAKING. Wordle is fun and brief and lively, but Semantle makes you understand you don’t understand English at all, and given that it is, “My bag, my thing, my evil specialty” it’s … Okay, here’s the link. Just don’t ever play the game, you will die of frustration. (suitably vexed voice, with shaken fists: CURSE YOU VIXY) —LATER LATER MUCH LATER I’m up to 3hundred and freakn 80 guesses on Semantle, I feel like me brains are leaking out my ears.

It’s supposed to be ass freezing cold tonight until Wednesday. I am not worried; I’ll have the warmth of VISITORS tonight yes that’s right Mike was supposed to come over for ‘za last night but he drank too much with sifu (sifu is master in Chinese martial arts)  and couldn’t manage it, so he’s coming over tonight.

Buster heals and complains about the door being locked.

Yesterday I ordered the bamboo charcoal smell-killers that have worked so well for us. (really helps with the damp smell in the downstairs john).  Why? As mentioned Mike got a right hand drive Delica (which I rode in for the first time when we went saunaing and dining with Jarmo and Susanna) and it’s unfortunately a Japanese vehicle which means it’s been smoked in. So I’ll give him three of those bamboo charcoal smell killers and that will keep the noxious effluvium down to a dull roar, hopefully. I ordered it from Rona and with the exchange and free shipping it’s about the same as if I ordered it from the US, so that worked.

Absolutely delightful walk in the park at Fraser Foreshore yesterday with Paul. I fed the chickadees from my hands for about ten minutes with Paul watching, most entertained; with what delicacy and firmness did they grasp my index finger as they rested a flashing moment to grab a sunflower seed. The sun was just blasting down and there was no wind, so we sat in the sun and basked for many long minutes in companionable silence. Everyone on the trail (except for those two fuckwits on mountain bikes who came through with a gopro and attitude and 90 dB of shitty club music at about 25 kph without a bell or shout) was practically giddy with joy at the warmth and sun, and even though it was the Sunday of a long holiday weekend (it’s ‘Family Day’ in BC) the trails weren’t too crowded. I masked, Paul didn’t.

Then we went back to KC Junction and I ate Keith’s leftovers, a superlative yellow lentil stew with heaps of veg and subtle, lightly heated spicing, and then we ate my choc rice pudding for dessert. (Keith enjoyed it with thanks.) Paul was much more interested in the borscht I brought (he really likes my borscht) and I realized why when I saw the sour cream container. But I can’t eat borscht two days running because anything with oxalic acid makes my kidney output scratchy so I ate lentils instead.

Keith’s loving his job… just loving it. He says it’s only a week and you can’t know for sure, and the pay is not great, but it’s work he can stand and he’s visibly in much better shape than even two weeks ago.

Katie was out with Ryker & Alex and some friends so I didn’t get to see her.

The Russians are claiming that the Ukrainians are ‘reacquiring nuclear weapons’ and I’m like wow, we can’t trust a fucking word you say now, can we.

Worst showing ever in terms of ratings for the Olympics. Why NBC keeps this boat anchor tied to its ass I have no idea. What if they held an Olympics and nobody wanted to broadcast it? That would be choice.

Twitter antifa (canuck division) is rooting around in rural Ontario to find the names of the people who are hiding the convoyancers. So far some son of a sea cook in Embrun who’s the best friend of the mayor there is one of them. LOL they can hide but six months from now the knock will come. Remember they’re still knocking on doors from the Jan 6 rebellion in the US, it’s not like the cops work faster in Canuckistan.

I’m an abolitionist; if they could all be referred to restorative justice and be filling planters and picking up garbage in Centretown for the next two years instead of paying fines and going to jail I WOULD BE HAPPY. Especially if they had to wear a PLEASE DON’T FEED THE HONKIES sign around their necks while they were doing it, but that’s not nice, I know it.

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but if they reboot Futurama without the voice acting talents of John DiMaggio I won’t watch it, even out of whatever is left of my curiosity.

Side note to mOm. The Metformin did it again this morning, fortunately I know how this goes and I had plans in place and managed to deal with it all promptly. What a life.

 

 

 

 

Conrad Black in the NP

The Nazi Post is once again hosting Conrad Black, a man who stopped being a racist in public while he was in jail in the US because he would have been shivved in the shower, and who promptly went back to his racist ways the instant he was released.

This is the first paragraph of his latest pixellated excretion.

Seven months into the Biden regime, the truism that dare not speak its name is now almost too obvious to bear stating. It was a catastrophic error to evict Donald Trump. No one, and certainly not I, would try to whitewash the stylistic infelicities of Donald Trump. He said many things that were toe-curlingly embarrassing coming from the holder of so great an office. But he proved in government as he had in the private sector that he was capable and forceful, and although he had the terrible handicap of personalizing everything and escalating all disagreements, he had a clear conception of domestic and foreign national interests and pursued them very successfully.

I was thinking that Donald Trump did everything possible to show that he was forceful AND incapable, but …. my opinion aside …. can you imagine shilling for Trump like this?

Shrub got the US into Afghanistan, when any sane military person would have said AW HELL NAW! The Afghans, who have hosted the best and worst of Islam (by which I mean Rumi and blowing up other people’s cultural treasures) over their history, have been happy to put empires on the ground, with a combination of local militias, intertribal arrangements, brutal geography, opium, and a really strong opposition to having foreign overlords using Afghanistan as a testing ground for military technology.

The fact that Conrad Black NOWHERE MENTIONS that Donald Trump’s lackeys handed the Taliban an enormous (and candidly treasonous) package of information, including the names and addresses of everyone who ever worked for the US, shows very clearly that this entire article is a narcissistic, aged capitalist wanting another even MORE narcissistic, aged capitalist to run the most dangerous country in the world. Nowhere does Mr. Butter Pat mention that they did this on Trump’s orders once he lost the election, so that the situation in Afghanistan would be IMPOSSIBLE for Joe Biden’s team to manage when the end came… an end Trump’s team precipitated. 

Such is the truly fellatial tone of this mangy screed, it’s hard not to wonder what the hell Trump has on Black. But it’s enough that he was powerful, I guess, and Black admires tyrants.

I close this rant with my assessment of this deranged fondness for Trump, as expressed by Dorothy Lamour’s quote, regarding Bing Crosby and Bob Hope: “There’s always a click when two heels meet.”

a through line from the Brother’s War

Image

[T]he greatest efforts made by the defeated insurgents since the close of the war have been to promulgate the idea that the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, equality, and all the calendar of the virtues of freedom, suffered violence and wrong when the effort for southern independence failed. This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, whereby the crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism, so that the precipitators of the rebellion might go down in history hand in hand with the defenders of the government, thus wiping out with their own hands their own stains; a species of self-forgiveness amazing in its effrontery, when it is considered that life and property–justly forfeited by the laws of the country, of war, and of nations, through the magnanimity of the government and people–was not exacted from them.

screenshot of parlor post made by Proud Boys USA lamenting themselves proving to be much weaker than soy beta cuck communists who for months on end "managed to take on and beat whole armies of cops (and proud boys)".

Proud Boys on Parler (above typed out)

Extremely embarrassing to spend months mocking antifa and licking cop boot only to go out there and get absolutely rinsed by cops who were barely even trying. Weak stuff. Those teenage commies managed to take on and beat whole armies of cops (and proud boys) and they’re all skinny wimp soyboy betas, but we got scrubbed like it was nothing. And all for the sake of some rich oranage pedophile who doesn’t give a shit about any of us? Sad.

Two Daves

Two letters written but not posted today; it’s a Two Dave day.

Jeff’s just asked me to go downstairs and watch a Time Team. Hope it’s something Saxon or Roman. L8r Nope, medieval and Tudor. But really interesting if you’re crazy about remodelling castles for successive waves of improvements in warfare, boom goes the gunpowder.

Alex was here recently and I’m just remembering him being happy about getting a tube shot on the Xenon game and it made me happy in consequence.

Buster was past damp into dripping wet, and filthy when he came back in this morning…. must be horrible to have to clean that crap off with your teeth and mouth blech.

Indian food delivered last night. I was very happy with the quality and quantity for the price. It’s a new place (8 months?)  that does pizza and Desi food Pasifika style, which is like, so Vancouver, it hurts.

Chuck Yeager, RIP. His autobiography is most entertaining.

Letter from Onty Mary, and I’m so glad she enjoyed the paper art I put in with a recent letter, that was cheering.

Today has been set aside for One Grim Task. I do not want this task. I do not want the cascade of tasks that will flow from this One Grim Task. I AM DISGUST, SON.

It’s 10:20 in the morning and I am still not nerved up for this gd task. I am actually hitting the old moral GPS for a recalc from my new position and fuck me if it’s not taking a bit longer than any reasonable person might expect. What is it that a reasonable person following Stoic principles might expect? I said I’d write first PHEW AN OUT, I HAVE AN OUT.

With that I must now turn my attention to the real writing I need to do today, otherwise known as Quarantine Porn. And that works whether I’m talking about the UPSUN universe or my rapidly-winding-down interest in writing porny Supernatural fanfic. (Not all of it’s porn, some of it’s just fluff.)

And if I’m not going to write that, I have to go back out into the kitchen and either work some more on The Dark Book – current section is “the Calendar” and it’s fucking MOLOCH this and MOLOCH that, as he drives his diesel dick through history and messes us all up, it’s just standard issue eschatology schlock, that’s part of the point of the poem though, disjointing the specifically English language over and past and through its various levels of inanity, legalism and perverse vagueness through to a new horrific understanding about what ‘end times’ actually means for the people living through it, and you are among those people, and what the hell is this poem anyway (this last aside for my parents, who have long since given up on trying to understand what it is I’m babbling about and reached this question much earlier) — or work on my master grocery list, and I finally figured how I can get what my grocery list looks like in my head to my actual grocery list that I use every week and reinforces how I visualize and operate in the world, but I haven’t done it yet. So I have work to do to advance this project, which will assist me cognitively as my brain declines and I’m still shopping, and which may have applications for other seniors and TBI sufferers. (I certainly wasn’t able to find anything like it on line.) So yeah, projects, in order, depending on what I’m up for mood and skill wize.

Yup, I’m going to wander off and reconfigure my reality right now, be back in a day for an update or sooner if something interesting happens.

One last thing, the ‘writing light’ in the kitchen died and I asked for help from Jeff  (my shoulder’s frozen…. that was weird, realizing it) and he touched the apparently dead compact fluorescent and it illuminated and it made me think of pOp. Also Jeff is quietly amazing, the best kind.