It’s Not a Nice Day
So kindly keep that to yourself
The weather is warm here in the former Arctic outpost known as Buffalo, NY. We’ve barely had any snow this season. A few days ago the temperature hit 73° F and birds are returning that shouldn’t be here for six weeks. This is how it is now.
Yeah, sure, it feels good. Having lived in the northeast most of my life and enduring long, frigid winters with other hardy people who live here, everyone is relieved when warmth comes. In the old days, 45° felt like 73° at this time of year. It was always funny how 45° felt frigid in the fall, but feels like shorts and T-shirt weather with just a peek of sun in March.
A week ago, I arrived early for a doctor appointment. It was 10:30 in the morning. The sun was out, and the sky was blue, so I sat outdoors with the sun on my, “Did we even have a winter?” nevertheless pasty face. The answer was, “No, not really.” It’s wrong to enjoy this warmth, my head argued. I couldn’t completely enjoy the moment because I knew it was a symptom of an impending crash. I know Canada will be on fire again soon, and I’ll smell millions of trees burning from hundreds of miles away as I write articles from my home office. I know this year will break the heat records of last year. Climate and weather models are sophisticated enough to see this. A man came across the oily blacktop parking lot, and I prepared myself. He said, “Nice day.” I just mildly agreed, keeping years of reading, writing, and knowing the truth to myself.
This is where my head has lived now for the last four or five years, 24/7, my previous interests diminished, competing with a feeling of futility, from being forced to suppress knowledge to avoid jeopardizing relationships, and anger at the ignorance and passivity I encounter daily. The world is absurd. What’s wrong is right.
Greenpeace is being sued by Big Oil for $300 million. You know, those people who think clean air and water might be important to you and me, and fight oil rigs and illegal whaling ships from the safety of tiny rubber dinghies on the high seas. Big Oil is pissed because they had the temerity to protest with some of the human beings that don’t count in America, the Cheyenne River Sioux and Standing Rock Sioux Tribes, who have been battling an oil pipeline for six years. In this 2016 protest, twenty-six people were sent to the hospital with bone fractures or hypothermia after police used water cannons on them. They also used rubber bullets, and pepper spray, arresting 141 in all. Ultimately, the police are there to support the power structure whether it’s right or wrong, especially if you’re poor and a minority.
Named the Dakota Access Pipeline, this myopic fiasco is over 1100 miles long, threatens the Missouri River, and the communities’ water. Like the Keystone Pipeline, which brings the dirtiest of tar sand oil sourced from Canada where indigenous people are treated equally poorly, it’s a serious leak hazard. Keystone has leaked repeatedly — all pipelines do sooner or later — three major spills in just five years, including this 210,000 gallon disaster.
Sorry, to me, it’s not a nice day when shit like this is going on.
The following doesn’t cheer me up, either.
The Not So Supreme Court ruled that an unhinged, hate spewing, insurrection citing, groping, grifting, convicted rapist, wannabe dictator can appear on the presidential ballot in the state of Colorado. Not helpful assholes. And the current shining city on the hill is supporting genocide.
I have mentioned more than one time, that the US is the largest supplier of weapons to the world, at over 38 percent. In our forever morbid battle, Russia is second at 18 percent. We supply 92 percent of the weapons bought by Israel that are killing and maiming tens of thousands of open air imprisoned, unarmed Palestinians, including women and children, in a wildly disproportionate response by a corrupt psychopath nicknamed Bibi. Need I tell you most of them are not Hamas, just as most of us aren’t Proud Boys? President Joe continues to justify weapons to Israel, no strings attached, strengthening the possibility that an unhinged, hate spewing, insurrection citing, groping, grifting, convicted rapist, wannabe dictator could be elected in just months. This is terrifying. Said psycho is also a climate change denier and will dismantle any guardrails on environmental protections and climate change, just as he did his first time in office. If he’s reelected, trust me, it’s game over for any chance to avoid planetary collapse.
So, shh, no, it’s not a nice day.
My family is generally liberal, a word that has been cleverly undermined by the far right which has gone Full Fascist, Wigged-Out, Christian Nationalist, Science Denying, End Times Are Here, Your Body isn’t Yours, and Neither are Your Thoughts and If You Disagree, I’ll Shoot You Because My God Says That’s Okay.
However, one family member has sworn off all vaccines for the rest of her life on one of those social media sites run by a billionaire moron where dumb people say dumb stuff all the time. She got brainwashed by a man with obvious mental problems. He was brainwashed, too.
Also, people still enjoy slasher movies. But it’s a nice day.
Sometimes I get sad.
However, I do get happy when I buy laundry soap. The miracle of capitalism has given me a billion different kinds to choose from, oh joy, all in brightly colored plastic jugs with hues a toddler on meth amphetamines would pick out. The colors are so happy, I forget I own razor blades, and that all that plastic is destined for the ocean, the bellies of those whales Greenpeace fights for, and our bloodstreams. I don’t even take Prozac on days I shop in the laundry detergent aisle, ’cuz I just feels so good. Sometimes I hang out there for hours and dance a bit, and the laundry detergent manager who’s paid $12 an hour and gets benefits like a half hour lunch in the utility room looks at me weird. For some reason, when I look him back in the eye, he runs away.
Then I find myself wondering, “Are my teeth are white enough?” which means I have to take a Prozac when I get home, anyhow. Remember, Bounty is the Quicker Picker Upper and so is Prozac.
Speaking of medicine, I received an email this week from Jeff Bezos kindly offering me virtual healthcare for only $9.99 a month. If it was $10.00 a month, I probably wouldn’t consider it. But at $9.99 I really have to give it some thought.
Oh, and the organic zucchini I bought came in a plastic coffin.
Now, financial news!
Bitcoin just hit a new high even though it’s completely made up shit, just a bunch of servers helping spew carbon dioxide into the air, but it can make you rich! Finally, air has a value! Even the inventor of the fuck you and fuck everything Chicago School economics Milton Friedman didn’t think of that one.
And that carbon dioxide is providing new investment opportunities in Buffalo, too. With citrus failing big time in Floriduh, I’m investing in citrus groves. Ron DeFascist is going to need to eat a book for breakfast.
Have a nice day, Ron.
The street sweeper just went by. On the side of the truck, it says, “Keep It Clean.” Everything except for the air, I guess.
My brain is on, all the time. I never stopped asking that simple and annoying child question, “Why?” You know, the one your kid asks until there is no answer and your blood pressure is somewhere in aneurysm and stroke territory.
Before I bought my plastic coffined, but organic zucchini, even though it was a warm day, I was blasted by heat at the double doors upon entry into the store. I imagined it must be what the angry breath of hell feels like. So I had that stupidity to look forward to on exit again. Why? Thankfully, by contrast, the cold aisle of the store has open refrigerator cabinets and sled dogs to take you from one end to the other since there are six inches of snow over there. Why? Aren’t these examples of low-hanging fruit where we could easily reduce our energy use? Too low tech, I guess.
In that aisle, why are eggs variously labeled cage free, free-range, vegetarian fed, and hormone free? Why do we have to pay the most for the best, free-range and organic? Why should the most ethical and healthy choice be only for those who can afford it? Why should chickens be fed a vegetarian diet? They naturally eat grubs and worms. Why should 20,000 of them be crammed in a hut, never seeing daylight? A few months ago I spent five minutes explaining the ins and outs of egg package labeling to a lady who was curious about my choice, and understandably confused.
Why in the paper goods aisle where the quicker picker upper lives are toilet paper and paper towels available made from virgin trees grown in monoculture forests, where diversity used to thrive? Can we not wipe our bums on 100 percent recycled paper?
Why in the meat aisle are there not televisions displaying looping videos of slaughterhouses with screaming animals to remind us of reality?
Why in the checkout line do so many have ten gallons of sugared drinks and twelve pounds of creatures reduced to nitrate laden stuffed skin tubes in their carts? If I ask, will they scream about their freedom to get diabetes and cancer? Why do I have to suffer the assault of National Enquirer headlines and images of jet fuel spewing Taylor Swift? To ensure a bigger agenda of endless distraction? Yes, of course. That’s a key part of the matrix. Why do so few see it or not choose to opt out of the Great Machine of Death?
Welcome to five minutes in my mind on weekly errands, which are never a nice day.
The predators are winning.
As we race forward in panic with renewable energy whose creation depends on copious amounts of fossil fuel and trillions of gallons of water use in an increasingly drought stricken world, why aren’t we addressing the fundamentals? You know, overconsumption, overpopulation, and increased life expectancy in wealthy nations (this is likely peaked).
Why don’t we go back to a six-day business week? That was standard when I was a kid. Everything closed. Almost everyone took the day off. We went to church, had picnics, and hung out together. It was good for us and good for the planet. High technology not needed.
Why do we need thousands of server farms AND to drive to the office?
Why isn’t planned obsolescence outlawed? Why aren’t manufacturers required to take back and refurbish their worn out products?
Apparently, we can’t see the forest for those monoculture trees.
We met our basic needs long ago. Food, water, heat, shelter. We may not remember that now, but we will soon. We’re heading for a world with less energy available, not more, and renewables mean further destruction to the environment and species loss akin to what oil has done, just differently. We must acknowledge the planet is finite and change our values and expectations. We can either do that with a realistic plan, or the planet has a plan for us. The more appealing plan is called Degrowth.
If you wish to help Greenpeace in this lawsuit that’s going to tie up crucial time and critical money, you can do so here. Thank you for being my reader.
I hear you. There are many reasons so many are so oblivious. Too bad, because we need as many as possible aware and taking action.
For some reason your rant had me thinking about the Human Resources offices I dealt with in a sporadic career with the Feds. Resources, humans as resources. To be exploited, used as collateral, capitalized, mined by corporations extracting profit from our labor, providing us with the means to perpetuate growth, distilling other resources into power. We have an abundance of human resources, by a factor of at least 10x more than what the planet can sustain at a level we would all like to equitably share, according to some physicists. Degrowth is a noble and necessary cause to pursue, one I do my bit to support in practice, but my optimism wanes when thinking it can happen without nature playing a heavy hand. And now that song on Paul McCartney's Ram album is running through my brain. Too Many People