Stone of the Dawn, 55th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Deneb): “What they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe places,” the Stable Genius told a roomful of the military's top commanders. “And we’re going to straighten them out one by one, and this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room.”

“That’s a war too,” he said. “It’s a war from within.”

Not feeling the fascism yet? The President of the United States of America just told thee military that they'll be waging war against American cities. He told the assembled generals and admirals that he instructed his black-out drunk Secretary of Defense to use our cities as “training grounds” for the military.

The Stable Genius clearly hates America. He's ready to use its citizens as target practice for the Army, and when asked why he plans to fire federal workers in the event of a government shutdown, he said, “No country can afford to pay for illegal immigration, health care for everybody that comes into the country. And that’s what [the Democrats] are insisting. They want open borders. They want men playing in women’s sports. They want transgender for everybody. They never stop. They don’t learn. We won an election in the landslide. They just don’t learn. So we have no choice. I have to do that for the country.”

Quick fact check: there was no "landslide." The Stable Genius won 77,302,580 votes (49.8% of the popular vote), less than half the electorate, and his opponent won 75,017,613 votes (48.3% of the popular vote). He won, I'm not denying that, but by 1½ percent, hardly a "landslide." If it were a basketball game, the final score would have been 101-99, a nail-biter. And it most certainly wasn't a mandate to impose tariffs, sic the military on major U.S. urban centers, dismantle federal agencies and environmental protections, and defund cancer research.

The Stable Genius hates America and the pathetic impotent fuck is going to spend the next 3½ years taking his anger and rage out on us. 

The Clear Streams, 54th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Castor): On September 25 (Last Day of Quest, 50th of Autumn), the Stable Genius signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), "Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence," an intentionally vague document that could be used to suppress free speech and to interfere with free and fair elections. 

NSPM-7 directs the FBI, the Justice Department, and other security and counterterrorism agencies to investigate, disrupt, and combat left-wing organizations and individuals "before they result in violent political acts.” In essence, he's directing the national security apparatus against the opposition party to engage in some sort of pre-cog intervention before actual violence occurs. But the specifics of the directive make it even worse. 

For the record and first of all, I'm against violence, all violence, political or otherwise, and not just that perpetuated by left-wing organizations. I equally abhor violence perpetuated by right-wing organizations, as well as violence by the government to suppress dissent and in harsh enforcement of rigid societal control.

The memo claims that the common thread of left-wing violence includes "anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity." It also identifies "support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality" as attitudes that lead to political violence. 

As you might have guessed, I have some thoughts on these matters. 

Anti-Americanism 

I'm an American by birth, by upbringing, and by disposition. However, as I learned during the Vietnam War protests and the "my country right or wrong" and "love it or leave it" rhetoric from the right in the 1960s, ruling powers can and do weaponize patriotism to mean blind allegiance to their party. Opposition to the president, contempt or even disgust for the Stable Genius, and rejection of the far-right Project 2025 agenda is not "anti-Americanism." Anti-fascism is not anti-American - if anything, it's an embrace of the constitutional system of checks and balances on power, separation of church and state, and freedom and justice for all, regardless of faith, color, gender, sexual preference, or whatever other divisive categorization they can dream up, that the Founding Fathers envisioned.

Anti-Capitalism

Capitalism is unavoidable, from a simple transaction at the supermarket to our current banking and financial systems in all of their complexity. I'm not anti-capitalist, but I am anti late-stage, winner-takes-all capitalism with its wealth disparity and an ultra-wealthy class capable of buying the favor of politicians and judges. Wanting to tax billionaires and the 1% is not anti-capitalism, it is embrace of an economic system of checks and balances that allows equal opportunity for all, like America had in the 1940s through 1970s and that saw the growth of a vibrant middle class and the emergence of America as a global superpower. 

Anti-Christianity

I believe I have very, very different ideas of what "Christian values" are than the Stable Genius, the MAGA movement, and white Christian nationalists. I find it deeply disturbing that NSPM-7 includes "anti-Christianity" (whatever they mean by that) as a precursor to violence and anarchy. I Find it deeply disturbing that NSPM-7 directs the FBI to use its interpretation of Christian values ro determine who to investigate, disrupt, and combat. Also, even a cursory review of current events and of history, ancient to modern, shows plenty of violence committed due to some people's ideas of "Christian" values.  

Summary

I want to see a small-d democratic end to one-party Republican control of the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. I'm unhappy with the divisiveness of their policies, the economic consequences of their actions and inactions, the curtailing of constitutional rights, and their solidification of power. Those are my political views, and I'm willing to use my one vote and my free speech to support them. But wanting to see the replacement of the current ruling party with another political party is not "support to overthrow the United States Government." The Republican Party is neither the United States nor the government; it is the political party currently in control of the United States Government. 

Political power is not derived from the barrel of a gun but from the will of the people and the consent of the governed, and when the popular will and consent change, so too should power and control.   

I oppose "extremism on migration, race, and gender," but believe the views on those matters espoused by the Stable Genius, his MAGA movement, and the Republican Party are the extremist, un-American, and anti-Christian ones. The reference to "traditional American views on family, religion, and morality" in the document is so vague and open to interpretation it should have no place in a directive on terrorism. Those and similar terms have been historically been weaponized to suppress healthy dissent and maintain a status quo, even when that status is demonstrably unfair and unjust. 

I'm well aware that many things said in this blog, including this post, can be construed by some as "anti-American," "anti-capitalist," and "anti-Christian."  I'm also well aware of my First Amendment rights, just as I am of The Clash's caveat, "as long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it." 

But I won't shut up. I won't deprive myself of my own First Amendment rights. These are desperate times, friends, and this latest proclamation from the Stable Genius is particularly disturbing. Change has got to come, albeit democratically and non-violently.

The Oblong Web, 53rd Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Both the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Service now show Tropical Storm Imelda turning east, away from North America, and heading out into the Atlantic Ocean. This despite a week of fake news posts in my Facebook feed showing the storm beelining straight toward Atlanta. I'm making a blood sacrifice tonight to the Gulf Stream, that protector of the Eastern U.S. coastline, for sparing us Imelda's fury.

It's not as if tyranny and fascism weren't enough of a problem in their own right. They're bad enough, but it's hard to imagine a worse dictator over this country than the petty, vindictive, narcissistic Stable Genius, a man so self-absorbed, so greedy, and of such a fragile ego. I hate to hand anyone a loaded gun, much less the nuclear launch codes, but when that person is a toddler in full tantrum mode, well, that's not going to end well for anyone, is it?

We can have a debate on the merits of the unitary executive theory. However, even if we agree to disagree on the constitutionality of the argument, can we not also agree that the unitary executive shouldn't be that feces-flinging orangutan with a long checklist of everyone who's ever offended his delicate ego? Who thinks any idea that pops into his head is the word of god, and that his gut instinct, born as it was in the 1970s and with no new information since the 1980s, trumps the advise of experts? 

You might convince me that a driverless Waymo is statistically safer than a human driver, but if the car pulls up with banged-up fenders, a missing headlamp, and a test-crash dummy at the wheel with sparks flying from its head, well, I'm not getting in your "safe" vehicle. Find a better candidate for your unitary executive.    

      

 

 

The Breathing Hills, 52nd Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Aldebaran): This is it. We're there. This country is no longer moving toward fascism, we're no longer in danger of becoming fascist. We're crossed the tipping point. Fascism is here. This is a fascist nation.

Evidence? The Stable Genius has declared antifa to be an "enemy of the state." An executive order signed September 22 declares, "Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law." To be sure, antifa is not an "enterprise" or an "organization," but the general concept of opposition to fascism. But when the state declares opposition to fascism to be antithetical to the interests of its government, then that government is by definition fascist. 

But this isn't just word games or twisting the meaning and intention of an executive order to score political points. The Stable Genius has deployed federal forces to L.A. and D.C. ostensibly to combat crime and to stifle protests, and troops are scheduled to mobilize to Memphis, Tennessee on Monday. Today, he announced that troops will be deployed to Portland, Oregon, ominously authorizing them to use "Full Force, if necessary,” whatever that means. Local officials and the state’s congressional delegation argue that the S.G. is either misinformed or lying about the nature and scale of a single, small protest outside one federal immigration enforcement office, and that federal troops are neither wanted or necessary.

Mobilizing federal troops against a nation's own citizens not enough to persuade you? This week, the Stable Genius ordered the indictment of the former FBI director, a political adversary who had investigated Russia's role in the 2020 election. Yesterday, the Stable Genius announced that more people whom he considers his political enemies will also face criminal charges, claiming, "they’re corrupt. They were corrupt radical left Democrats.”

If weaponizing the Justice Department to persecute the president's political enemies, charactering the opposing party as "corrupt" and "radical," mobilizing armed federal troops to American cities, and declaring anti-fascism to be a criminal philosophy doesn't convince you, perhaps you refuse to be convinced. To be honest, part of me doesn't want to accept it, either, because I grew up believing we were the "good guys" and "it can't happen here." And yet, here we are. It has happened.

I also believe that there are others who don't accept that we've become fascist because they are so upset by immigration, they so hate people who look and act differently and speak different languages, who aren't white and straight and, if not men themselves, at least support patriarchy, that they're willing to overlook, ignore, or deny the evidence right in front of them. I also believe that some of them are, in fact, fascists themselves, although they may use different terms (MAGA, amerika first, law-and-order) to describe their positions.

The United States has a fascist government. It's happened. Now, what are we going to do about it?

Last Day of the Western Isles, 51st of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Helios): Intricacies of the Universal Solar Calendar - the first Day of the Western Isles was 27 days ago, before the First Day of Quest, and this Last Day of the Western Isles occurs after the Last Day of Quest. Was our quest supposed to have occurred in the Western Isles? Was our quest supposed to be for the Western Isles?

Right now, I'm more concerned about eastern islands, specifically Hispaniola, Cuba, and the Bahamas. A tropical wave is currently located near eastern Cuba and causing showers and thunderstorms, and an area of low pressure is expected to form along the wave tonight as it moves near the southeastern Bahamas. The low is forecast to become a tropical depression by the time it reaches the central Bahamas this weekend. 

There is a significant risk of wind, rainfall, and storm-surge damage from the storm for a portion of the southeastern coast early next week, although considerable uncertainty remains about the long-term track of the storm. I've seen all sorts of models and predictions, many of which show it making landfall along the Georgia or South Carolina coast and traveling inland toward Atlanta. 

I don't like those forecasts, not one little bit.

 

Last Day of Quest, 50th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Electra): How did your quest fare? Every time I go to Publix, the cashier askes me, "Did you find everything you were looking for?" Did you find what you were looking for on your quest? 

According to the Universal Solar Calendar, the First Day of Quest was the 25th of August and we've apparently been on some sort of quest ever since. It's been quite the journey. So much has happened in the past 25 days that it's hard to remember it all. 

I walked a total of 89.27 miles during my 25 days and spent a total of 18 hours in sitting meditation. I had a full physical exam and bought my pass for the 2026 Big Ears festival. But that's just my personal quest. 

Our collective quest, our national odyssey over the past 25 days, was overshadowed by the tragic killing of Charlie Kirk in Utah. I condemn all violence, political or otherwise, and I condemn this particular act of violence. Killing isn't the answer. But strangely, since the shooting, Kirk was been rebranded from a white Christian nationalist firebrand to some sort of born-again evangelical spokesperson who supposedly only wanted to encourage open dialog on college campuses with all views represented. That new, sanitized version of Kirk is a complete fiction - his "debates" on campuses were actually carefully contrived, asymmetrical events designed to generate video clips and memes to promote his extreme right-wing views, and weren't at all intended to give a forum for divergent views, except as an opportunity for Kirk to pretend to debunk them. He'd talk over his debate opponents, ask them non-sequitur questions to throw them off balance, and spew dubious statistics that he had readily available while they were left standing at a microphone looking dumbfounded and surrounded by unsupportive Kirk fans. 

But regardless of the reality of who he was, his martyrdom has transformed him into some sort of latter-day American saint. Flags were flown at half mast, the Stable Genius addressed the nation in a televised speech, and a national holiday has even been suggested. Oklahoma announced plans to put chapters of Kirk's Turning Point USA in every high school in the state to counter “radical leftist teachers unions” and their “woke indoctrination.” Talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel made a most anodyne comment about the shooting on his late-night talk show, but Brendan Carr, the head of the FCC, took offense and threatened to take action. ABC preemptively pulled Kimmel's show off the air but, in the face of overwhelming protest and condemnation, the show was reinstated less than a week later.

Meanwhile, conditions in Gaza worsened for the Palestinians trapped amid spiraling hunger as Israel continued to block aid deliveries. More than 300 Palestinians, including many children, have died of malnutrition, and more than 76,000 people have recently been displaced. Nevertheless, Israel has escalated its attacks, initiating a new offensive in northern Gaza and ordering all civilians to evacuate, and bombing a residential building in Qatar, a U.S. ally, where senior Hamas politicians reportedly lived.

War also continues in Ukraine, where Russia initiated a series of massive drone attacks, targeting mainly civilians. Russian drones were also observed over Poland, and Russian jets violated Estonian air space in a direct challenge of NATO solidarity. The Stable Genius shrugged it off, saying it "might have been a mistake," while surprising the General Assembly during an embarrassingly incoherent and rambling speech by saying he now thinks that Ukraine can win the war and reclaim all of its original boundaries, a complete reversal of some of his previous proclamations. Oh, and he also once again called climate change a "hoax" during the speech.

China bolstered its alliances with Russia and North Korea, staging its most elaborate military parade in years in the company of its new allies to mark the end of World War II. 

Nearly 500 workers, mostly South Korean citizens, were arrested at a Hyundai plant in Georgia by ICE agents. Government officials in South Korea reached an agreement with the U.S. for the workers to be freed and flown back to their home country, but the raid was a huge setback for a major and much-lauded foreign investment in U.S. industry. 

The Stable Genius began using the military to attack Venezuelan ships in the southern Caribbean, claiming without evidence that they were being used by drug cartels. He also announced that the military was going to move into Chicago but backed off, claiming that federal troops would instead occupy Memphis.

Congress released a book that had been prepared by friends of the disgraced financier and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday that included a drawing of a female figure around a script of an imagined conversation between Epstein and the Stable Genius, above what appeared to be the S.G.’s signature.

And such has been our collective odyssey during this quest period. We're witnessing a collapse of ecosystems and strategic alliances, the dismantling of democratic systems and guardrails against corruption, and the rise of a new amerikan neo-fascism. 

That, apparently, has been our quest - to let the world fall apart for the benefit of a handful of ultra-wealthy oligarchs. Impermanence is swift but I never would have guessed I would live to have a ringside seat to the end of our noble experiment in democratic rule by and for the people, that last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

 

Drastic Chapters of Crypt, 49th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Deneb): Deneb is a walking day and I got an 8.1-mile van Buren in today, my ninth consecutive alternating-day walk. I haven't walked nine consecutive alternating days since March 22 due to weather, other chores and commitments, and my fat, lazy ass. While my sitting schedule - 90 minutes every other day between the walking days - has been near perfect (only one missed day since April 20), my walking has been more hit or miss. I keep telling myself I should cut down on the number of miles - there's nothing wrong with an occasional Monroe or even a Madison, so that the walking doesn't take up such an inordinate amount of my day. But once I'm out walking I think "well, just a few more miles," and off I go on a Jackson or beyond.

There was another tragic shooting today, this time at an ICE facility in Dallas. No police or Icicles were hit, but one detainee was killed. These shooting - Charlie Kirk in Utah, the ICE shooting in Texas - keep happening in trigger-happy red states, but the Stable Genius insists crime is out of control in blue states and sends the National Guard into Democratic cities like L.A., D.C., and Memphis. 

Also, the Stable Genius, with the hideous RFK Jr. at his side, declared that Tylenol causes autism, despite the lack of any evidence. Worse, he claimed there's a pharmaceutical "cure" for autism, and wouldn't you know it?, it's sold by a company owned by Dr. Oz, his director of  Medicare and Medicaid. The blatant corruption is just so nakedly apparent - they're not even trying to hide it anymore. Welcome to the oligarchy. 

At a U.N. Climate Summit today, the vast majority of the world's nations made pledges to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases over the next decade. Even China, the world's largest carbon producer, announced its intention to reduce emissions by 7 to 10 percent, its first-ever promise for significant reductions. The U.S. didn't even attend the summit, but on Monday the Stable Genius addressed the General Assembly in a rambling and largely incoherent speech filled with his own grievances from, of course, immigration to an escalator malfunction to that time years ago when the U.N. decided not to take him up on his bid to renovate the buildings. But somewhere in that embarrassing mess of a speech, he declared that climate change was a "hoax," and that the U.S. would have nothing to do with it. 

The Stable Genius is not "stable" and I'm starting to wonder if he's even really a "genius."  

                 

 

She Moved Under, 48th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Castor): My subconscious keeps all these little complaints and grievances in a box. Most of the grudges are real or imagined slights against my ego - some insult, some condescending words, someone overlooking something that I've said or done. They're all in there, in that little box. 

Sometimes, late at night, when I'm otherwise trying to sleep, my subconscious will open the box and find some minor offence to get upset over. It's really laughable how minor or long ago the offence was - it still has the power to upset me as I turn it over and roll it around in my mind. Someone turning their hear and pretending they didn't see me in the supermarket in the late 1990s, someone saying "excuse me" in a condescending tone, a work supervisor not recognizing the value of my contributions. 

Mind you, I'm better than that. I'm not the kind of person to hold a meaningless grudge or to get upset over some offhand remark. At least that's what I tell myself. At least that's my image of myself. But my subconscious knows better, and reaches into the box and holds up some relic, waving it around before me like a rattle in front of a baby, and I'm hooked. "I should have said . . .", "I bet they really meant . . .", etc.  

These thoughts even come up while sitting in zazen. Sitting quietly, following the breath, calming the mind, and then randomly remembering a woman at work who said she wouldn't go to lunch with me because she didn't want people to think she wasn't the kind of person who'd date someone like me (It wasn't a date, it was a lunch break during work! And what do you mean "people like me?").

Sitting in zazen, though, it's easier to remember that this is just the defense mechanism of my ego flaring up to distract me from my meditation. It's a reminder of why clinging to the ego-self is a problem. Sitting, I can laugh at myself more easily than I can when tossing and turning in bed, and drop the thought by counting my breath, or silently reciting some sutra. 

But they keep returning, although I've noticed that after a year of regular, structured sitting (90 minutes every other day), they've not completely stopped coming, but are now getting close to extinction. The subconscious mind is learning that it can't distract me as easily with the contents of that box as it once could and is running out of patience with that particular tactic. The part of my mind that doesn't want to be the person holding grudges is winning the long wrestling match with the part of my mind that uses those grudges to distract myself. Ultimately, my resolve to keep sitting is greater  than the mind's power to upset me.

There was once a monk who kept relics of the saints in a box. The abbot told him that adoration of relics was a useless practice and that he should get rid of the box. The monk protested, but when he opened the box he found a poisonous snake inside.

Day of the Crooked Spirit, 47th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse):  And on the third day, Jimmy Kimmel was returned from the banned. Charlie Kirk is still dead. Some other random thoughts on this autumnal day:

A tropical wave about 300 miles east of the Leeward Islands is producing showers and thunderstorms, and a tropical depression could form when the system is near the Bahamas later this week. Gusty winds and heavy rainfall are expected to affect portions of the Leeward Islands late tonight and Tuesday and near Puerto Rico late Tuesday and Wednesday and the system's trajectory has it moving toward the Southeastern U.S. 

Betelgeuse is a walking day, and I completed an 8.5 mile van Buren today.

Epstein was murdered. A despondent, depressed, and suicidal man was left unsupervised in a jail cell, and possibly was even encouraged to "finish it." Murder by deliberate negligence.

Tylenol doesn't cause autism.

I generally don't subscribe to conspiracy theories, but two widely reported stories still don't smell right: the attempted assassination of the Stable Genius last year in Pennsylvania, and the transcript of the text conversation between Kirk's alleged shooter and his lover. 

Realizing What He Was Doing, 46th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Aldebaran):  In a letter this week from by the Union of Concerned Scientists, more than 1,000 scientists and climate experts denounced the Stable Genius' attempts to overturn the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which acknowledges that heat-trapping emissions are endangering public health and welfare. The finding has long served as the legal basis for numerous federal regulations and has been upheld by the Supreme Court, but has long been a target of industry lobbyists and far-right groups like the Heritage Foundation. 

EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, although not a scientist himself, has said the finding is based on flawed reasoning and causes economic harm. That opinion was refuted by the climate scientists, public health experts, and economists who affirmed "the indisputable scientific evidence of human-caused climate change, its harmful impacts on people's health and well-being, and the devastating costs it is imposing." They added, "This explicit attempt to undermine or weaken these findings, as well as the critical regulations linked to them, is contrary to science and the public interest." 

The letter also disputed a recent report by the U.S. DoE, criticizing it as inaccurate, contradictory, and a mischaracterization of data. “The scientific evidence on human-caused climate change and its consequences was unequivocal in 2009 and, since that time, has become even more dire and compelling."

"The world stands on the cusp of breaching the 1.5˚C mark on a long-term basis, the global average temperature increase above pre-industrial levels that scientists have long warned about," it warned. "Humanity’s window to act to stave off some of the worst impacts of climate change is fast closing; any further delay is harmful and costly." 

"Climate change poses severe harms to human health and well-being. These harms include higher rates of heat-related morbidity and mortality; increased transmission and geographic spread of certain infectious diseases; increases in poor air-quality days; increased risks to pregnant people and their babies; higher rates of heart and lung diseases; and worsening mental health. Climate-fueled extreme weather events can also affect food and water safety and security, and contribute to forced displacement of people." 

"We urge you to stop dismantling critical climate regulations and evading the EPA's responsibility by pushing disinformation about climate science and impacts," the letter continued. "Instead, we call on you to act with urgency to help address this pressing challenge by limiting heat-trapping emissions.

"People across the nation are relying on the EPA to fulfill its mission to protect public health and the environment."

But it won't matter. The Stable Genius doesn't read letters from scientists, and the EPA will do his bidding no matter the cost or damage. 

Day of the Radiant Spiel, 45th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Helios): Some people claim, often very correctly, that the term "fascism" is overused in the modern political discourse. Some say that a political argument is essentially over when one party calls the other a "Nazi." These are valid points, but don't mean that a creeping fascism isn't present today, even if we're not supposed to talk about it.       

By definition, fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology that prioritizes the nation or race above individual interests. Led by a dictatorial figure, it features centralized control, militarism, and the forceful suppression of any opposition. 

The most notorious historical examples of fascism arose in Europe in the early 20th century in response to the economic and social turmoil following World War I. Often considered the originator of the term, Benito Mussolini established the National Fascist Party in Italy, deriving the name from the Italian word fascio, meaning "bundle," referring to the fasces, a symbol of authority in ancient Rome. 

Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party was a form of fascism that centered on a racist ideology of Aryan supremacy. While not identical to Italian or German fascism, similar movements appeared elsewhere, including the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. in the 1920s. Hitler's Nazi party apparently studied the Klan and amerikan Jim Crow laws as a template for their persecution of Jews. Today, no one (well, almost no one) wants to be called a "Nazi" or a "Klansman," and react to being called a "fascist" by claiming they aren't a Nazi or a Klansman. 

But just like all men aren't kings, all fascists aren't Nazis or Klansmen. Umberto Eco defined a fascist as someone who:

1. Glorifies a mythical past
2. Rejects modern ideas and progress
3. Fears or rejects difference and diversity
4. Values action over critical thinking
5. Uses frustration and anger to attract others
6. Treats disagreement as betrayal
7. Relies on nationalism to unite people
8. Sees life as constant war or struggle
9. Describes enemies as both weak and dangerously strong at the same time
10. Reduces complex problems to simple slogans and emotions

Sound like anyone we know?

Fascism promotes an extreme form of nationalism, emphasizing the supremacy of the nation or ethnic group. The Stable Genius' mottos are "America First" and "Make America Great Again." The MAGA movement's imagery includes copious use of the amerikan flag, eagles, and other national symbols, and the Stable Genius has even performatively hugged amerikan flags on stage.  

It establishes a single-party state with a dictatorial leader who exercises total control over society, the economy, and the populace. Texas Republicans have produced a  gerrymandered house map, trying to please the Stable Genius, who demanded five more Republican seats in order to assure one-party control of Congress. Also, "the powers of the president will not be questioned," according to White House advisor Stephen Miller. 

Fascist ideology glorifies war, conquest, and the use of violence to achieve national goals. It disregards ethical and legal restraints, often using violence for both internal "cleansing" and external expansion. Last week, the Stable Genius told reporters that “we just have to beat the hell” out of “radical left lunatics,” following the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.

Fascist movements foster a division between a pure national community ("us") and perceived enemies ("them"), who are to be dominated, expelled, or eliminated. This is often tied to racial ideologies and a focus on "purity." Last year, the Stable Genius called Democrats, "the enemy from within, and they’re very dangerous,” adding, “They’re Marxists and communists and fascists, and they’re sick.” This year, he addressed the amerikan people with "Happy Memorial Day to all, including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country through warped radical left minds." And let's not even get started on how he's demonized and castigated immigrants ("they're eating the dogs!"). 

Fascism does not tolerate dissent. It uses state power and often paramilitary forces to forcibly suppress all forms of political opposition. (Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel just entered the conversation.)

Despite populist appeals, fascist regimes frequently collaborate with and benefit existing business interests and traditional elites. Although deregulation is often disguised as "freedom," the biggest beneficiaries of gutting the EPA's air-quality regulations include Citgo, Shell, Dow Chemical, Union Carbide, and BASF, at the expense of the health of the working-class MAGA crowd. 

A charismatic leader is revered as a national savior, with propaganda portraying them as the only figure capable of rescuing the nation from turmoil. "I alone can fix it," the Stable Genius declared at the 2016 Republican convention, and ever since the MAGA movement has practically deified the man. It will be interesting to see how long his ego can tolerate the ongoing adoration of the late Charlie Kirk. 

Fascism stands in direct opposition to ideologies like communism, socialism, and liberal democracy, rejecting their emphasis on class struggle or individual rights. In addition to calling Democrats "scum" and "vermin," the Stable Genius has all but outlawed DEI policies and hobbled the Voting Rights Act.

Fascist movements employ sophisticated propaganda, symbolic imagery, and staged mass rallies to create a sense of unity and national pride and to mobilize the population. Even after winning elections and for no other apparent reason, the Stable Genius continues to hold large political rallies, and even his mundane presidential appearances have an increasingly circus-like aspect. 

That he is planning to hold a UFC fighting event next July 4 to celebrate America's 250th anniversary is probably the most on-brand thing he's proposed yet.

If it looks like a fascist, walks likes a fascist, and quacks like a fascist, it may not be a Nazi, but it ain't no duck either.

Day of the Stop Gap, 44th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Electra): In the mid-1970s, America's five-year cancer survival rate was 49 percent. Today, thanks to research and modern science, it's at 68 percent. 

But now, in one of the more shocking moves under this shock-and-awe administration, the research system that caused the decline in cancer and increase in life expectancy is being dismantled right before our eyes. That extraordinarily successful program, the one that took decades to build and has saved millions of lives and has generated billions of dollars in profits for American companies and investors, is being defunded and shut down.

In a mere matter of months, the Stable Genius has canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in cancer-related research grants and contracts and suspended or delayed payments for hundreds of millions more. His proposed budget for next year calls for a more than 37% cut to the National Cancer Institute. According to the Government Accountability Office, the NIH terminated more than 1800 grants between February and June of this year, and obligated $8 billion less toward new and existing grants than in the same time period in 2024.

The Stable Genius has also terminated hundreds of government employees who helped lead the country's cancer research system and who ensured that new discoveries reached clinicians and cancer patients and the American public. On March 27 alone, the contemptible RFK, Jr announced 10,000 employee terminations, including 1,000 at the NIH (20% of which were later identified as errors). Additional layoffs in May affected 250 NIH employees, including approximately 50 staff at the National Cancer Institute.

Some of this funding cuts were in accordance with executive orders attempting to end DEI programs and by orders attempting to enforce the idea that there are only two sexes because we all know that partisan ideological culture-war issues are more important than ending cancer. Other grants have been terminated as the administration has withheld funding from specific universities due to spurious claims of alleged antisemitism.

In addition to cancer research, the terminated programs also span a broad array of other health concerns, including dementia, HIV, mental health, and infectious diseases. Some of the studies had been in progress for years, monitoring people over time, and one can never get that kind of data again once that research is interrupted.

Remember when the Stable Genius was running for president last year and he said, "Vote for me - I'll get rid of cancer research," and "Vote for me - I'm for more cancer." Me neither. Nobody in their right mind would run on that. But nevertheless, there it is and here we are.

 

Their Shadows of Hearsay, 43rd Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Deneb): I don't even like Jimmy Kimmel. I mean, I don't like late-night talk shows in general. I guess, to me, Kimmel's somewhere in the middle of the bunch - not as good as Colbert, but better than Fallon. It's not my thing, and I suspect I'm not the networks target audience, anyway.

But as you know, the quisling underlords at ABC and Disney, fearful that Kimmel's jokes might offend the Stable Genius, have pulled his show off the air. This follows CBS and Viacom's announcement that they weren't renewing Colbert's show next year. 

We all know that television's a dying medium anyway and that late-night talk shows are aimed at an aging demographic with shrinking economic clout. We would pretend it's just a passing of the times, the talk shows going the way of the prime-time westerns and sit-coms that once dominated television before game shows and so-called reality tv. But that's not what's happening and we know it.

The party line is that Kimmel, at least, "went too far" in his remarks about the late Charlie Kirk. But I've watched and rewatched his final monologue, and his comments on Kirk's killing were the most anodyne of remarks and most of his criticism was actually of the Stable Genius trying to frame the events to his political advantage. And there's the rub: in the time of late-stage capitalism and mergers and acquisitions requiring regulatory approval, the Stable Genius now has a way to stifle free speech without overtly censoring content. 

The boys and girls at ABC/Disney pulled Kimmel not because they were explicitly told to, but simply because they were informed the Stable Genius didn't like the criticism, and they couldn't afford to upset a highly weaponized government regulatory system. The same thing happened at CBS/Viacom.

Every day this once-great nation slips a little deeper into fascism. Free speech is quickly ending, at least in mass media, our universities are under attack, and white christian nationalism is rapidly and explicitly becoming the governing ethos.      

I wasn't made for these times.  

Rapt Fear Belief, 42nd Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Castor): Fired CDC Director Susan Monarez and former public health official Debra Houry testified before the Senate today. I watched the testimony live on television. Both said fears over how the country might respond to a future pandemic kept them up at night.

“I don’t believe that we’ll be prepared,” Monarez said of the next outbreak. Houry added, “We are not prepared, not just for pandemics, but for preventing chronic health disease, and we’re going to see kids dying of vaccine-preventable diseases.”

Last week, while I was in the supermarket, I asked the pharmacist if they still carried the covid vaccine. They did not - they were told to return all of their remaining doses - but I was advised that if I wanted the vaccine, I should ask my doctor to proscribe a dose and they could order it for me under prescription. 

I'm not sure whether it's time for another booster or not - I received my last shot back in March - so while I was at the doctor yesterday for my annual checkup I asked his opinion about when and if I should get a booster. He said that he could prescribe a dose for me if I really wanted it, but that my insurance probably wouldn't cover it and I'd have to pay for it myself. So I clarified my questions by asking if, in his medical opinion, I should request it and he deferred to the CDC vaccine advisory panel, which is meeting tomorrow to make its recommendations. 

During today's hearing, both Monarez and Houry expressed their concerns about the advisory committee. Monarez said she and the medical community have concerns about whether "they have the commensurate backgrounds to be able to understand the data and the evidence and to evaluate it appropriately.” 

My doctor was obviously uncomfortable opining whether or not the current panel could really make the best recommendations for public health considering they've been staffed with vaccine deniers and conspiracy theorists. He seemed conflicted between endorsing or condemning the advisories before they was issued, so I let the discussion drop. He did give me a flu shot, though.

Monarez said she “refused to commit to approving vaccine recommendations without evidence," and was fired from the CDC "for holding the line on scientific integrity.”

When asked by Bernie Sanders why she refused to rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations without seeing the evidence, she explained it was because that "would reduce access of life-saving vaccines to children and others who need them.”

Rand Paul asked Monarez several questions about vaccine efficacy and then proclaimed her answers were "wrong," and went on to falsely claimed that covid vaccines don’t decrease transmission and don’t reduce hospitalizations or deaths. When she disagreed, he pushed back by filibustering the rest of his allotted five minutes with a litany of lies and disinformation. 

Both Monarez and Houry agreed that Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.'s should resign. He should step down, Houry said, due to the "number of misstatements, seeing what he has asked our scientists to do and to compromise our integrity, and the children that have died under his watch.”

Impermanence is swift, and RFK Jr. is greasing the rails to get us there quicker.

 

Gesture to the Declining Sun, 41st Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): I'm afraid I have some bad news to share for those of you who dislike this blog and want to see it end soon. I just got the test results back from yesterday's physical exam and it looks like I'm healthy as a horse and am going to live at least a few years longer. Impermanence is swift, but I don't see this blog ending any time soon,  at least because of my own mortality.

My WBC, RBC, MCV, MCH, MCHC, RDW, and MPV, whatever they are, are all within the normal range. So is my hemoglobin and my hemoglobin A1C. My glucose levels remain within the normal range for the third consecutive reading after adventures in the elevated zone in 2023 and early 2024. Cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL, and LDL, the bane on many an elderly amerikan, are all normal. No hep C. Finally, my PSA levels are also normal, so my benign prostate hyperplasia seems to be remaining benign.

Of course, I could get hit by a truck tomorrow morning. Some rabid Charlie Kirk fanatic might shoot me in the face for not sufficiently loving his lord and savior, that is, Charlie (not Christ, although I'm not a big fan of him either). The inevitable global thermonuclear annihilation could occur any time (Russian drones are invading Polish airspace). But barring any of those or similar events, it looks like I've still got a few years left in me, and this blog will continue.

Why do I now feel like I just put some sort of huge jinx on myself?        

 

Day of the Brainstorm, 40th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Aldebaran): While everyone else is speculating over the motives and identity politics of Charlie Kirk's shooter or fantasizing about the Epstein files, the EPA quietly announced last weekend that it will stop requiring facilities to report the amount of greenhouse gases they release into the atmosphere. 

Lee Zeldin, the unqualified EPA administrator, said “The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape,” added that ending the program could save businesses up to $2.4 billion over the next decade. The change will obviously stymie efforts to fight climate change, since EPA can't reduce emissions if they can't track where they're coming from.

About 8,000 of the country’s largest industrial facilities had been reporting data on greenhouse gas emissions since 2010. That information has helped guide federal policy and has been shared with the United Nations, which has required industrialized countries to report their emissions as part of the global effort to curb climate change under the 2015 Paris Accord. The U.S. already missed an April deadline to submit this data, and the Stable Genius began the yearlong process of withdrawing from the Paris Accord on his first day back in office.

The oil-and-gas industry has long reported releases to investors in order to demonstrate that their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are working, but without a federal database to verify the claims, the claims are less reliable. The proposal would also disrupt the system of the tax credits for companies that capture and sequester their carbon emissions. To qualify for those generous tax credits, companies must submit their emissions data to the EPA.

The Stable Genius has also asked NASA to decommission and possibly destroy two satellites that measure greenhouse gases from space.

Meanwhile, a broad area of low pressure is currently located about midway between the Windward Islands and the coast of west Africa. It is expected to further develop as it moves northwest over the central Atlantic and has a 60-90% chance of forming a tropical depression or tropical storm by the middle to latter part of this week. 

 

Have Gone Out, 39th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Helios): Addressing the nation in response to the awful assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Stable Genius said: 

"On this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in . . . You can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization . . . filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort . . . to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love . . .  

We have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times . . . What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country . . . 

So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of [the deceased], that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love--a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke."

No, he didn't say that! Of course he didn't. That was Robert F. Kennedy on April 4, 1968, speaking in Indianapolis about the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. That's why I had to put all those ellipses in, to remove the specific references to MLK. The give-away would have been the omitted line, "My favorite poet was Aeschylus," as if the Stable Genius had ever read a poem that wasn't a limerick. For the record, the line RFK quoted was "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What the Stable Genius actually said was, "For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we are seeing in the country today, and it must stop right now.” Here's what he said in an appearance on cable's Fox & Friends:

“I’ll tell you something that’s going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less. The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.”

Soothing words to heal a fractured country. Hah! Soothing words my ass! They're the words of a demagogue trying to exploit a tragic and volatile situation and bend it towards his own political ends. 

I'm actually surprised he didn't say that Charlie's dying words were, "We can't have fair elections with mail-in voting," or "That wasn't your signature on the Epstein birthday card."        

 

Fifth Day of the World Course, 38th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Electra): A sitting day today. I got my 90 minutes in before the Georgia-Tennessee game started (Georgia won!), my 60th straight alternating-day sit over the past four months. In fact, not to brag (it isn't a competition), but I started this current alternating-day, 90-minute practice back in August 2024 and while I have missed some days here and there, since last April 20 I've only missed one day when I was waiting on an AC-service call to the house and didn't want to miss the technician. 

The theme of last Thursday's New York Times Strands puzzle was "Me Time," and the hidden words were unplug, exercise, read, journal, walk, meditate, and paint. Basically, the puzzle summarizes my daily life as much as anything does, although I'm reluctant to call my days "me time." But as often discussed here, walking and meditating are basically my daily routine. My walking (seven to ten miles) is exercise, I read nearly every night, and what am I doing right here, right now, if not journaling? All told, I'm in a near constant state of "unplugged," even when I'm online. The only thing I don't do on that list is paint, and god damn it, am I going to have to take up painting now (or does creating the daily AI images for this blog qualify for "painting")?             

 

Fourth Day of the World Course, 37th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Deneb): A little warmer today (high of 85°) but still very pleasant. I walked an 8.5-mile Van Buren along the Beltline path - due to a late start, I decided to stay local. 

The late start was largely because I spent the morning watching the news about the capture (finally) of the (alleged) assassin of Charlie Kirk, and just as we all feared, the shooter was a black, transgendered woman angry furious about DEI, Palestine, and climate change. JUST KIDDING! It was a white Mormon kid raised in a traditional Republican family who had become disenchanted with Charlie for some reason. 

The MAGA mob will say he became "indoctrinated," but isn't that exactly what Charlie was doing, albeit in the opposite direction? I say the shooter was raised in the American gun culture and turned to the rifle as the only way he know to express his frustration.

The violence was so unfortunate on so many levels. First and most obviously, murder is a crime and no one should be killed, however reprehensible. Innocent children are now orphans. One confused mind has lost his only chance at awakening and redemption. But also, the media are already starting a "white washing" of Charlie. No one wants to speak bad of the recently departed, and some media types have already been fired for merely noting that Charlie was "divisive."  But  the pendulum is swinging so far in the opposite direction that now the media is ignoring all the racist, misogynistic, and antisemitic remarks good ol' Charlie has made over the years (look them up - I'm not doing your homework for you) and are saying that he was merely engaged in "open debates" on college campuses, and that he allowed "all viewpoints" to be expressed at his events (cough, bullshit!, cough). Some have compared him to Martin Luther King, Jr. and are even suggesting a national holiday in his honor. He wouldn't be on this pedestal if he hadn't taken a bullet to the neck.

The Stable Genius has been trying to foment civil unrest since the year began so he can exercise a full-blown authoritarian crackdown. He's used immigration and crime to justify military actions and has encouraged deliberate cruelty by ICE and other agencies to provoke a response, which he would be more than happy to quell. Now, he's fanning the anger over Charlie's death to prod his followers into violent action, so he can further his authoritarian takeover and divert attention away from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. He's using Charlie's death as just another agitprop device in his toolkit while a timid media is making a saint out of a demagogue. 

During the press conference, FBI Director Kash Patel (I still can't believe the appointment) concluded his remarks with, “To my friend Charlie Kirk. Rest now, brother. We have the watch. And I’ll see you in Valhalla.” Are you fucking kidding me?  A Hindu-raised agent of  Gujarati Indian descent is addressing a deceased self-proclaimed Christian using terms from Nordic paganism? No, "Valhalla" is a white Christian nationalist trope and Patel's dog-whistle to the far-right extremists watching the press conference. And who does me mean by "we" in "we have the watch?" Is he saying the FBI will pick up Charlie's campaign of white Christian nationalism and will advance racial discrimination, bias against women, and denial of rights to gay and trans citizens? If so, he should be immediately fired, impeached, or however the fuck you get rid of an FBI Director. If not, he should immediately apologize and clarify his statements.

God, I hate these times. How long is this tired act going to continue, and when does this miserable play finally end?    

 

Third Day of the World Course, 36th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Castor): The scabrous and incredibly loud post-rock band Swans have a song entitled, You Fucking People Make Me Sick. In this toxic time of the end of the amerikan republic, it's as fitting an anthem as any.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski cast the deciding vote to block the release of the Epstein files. Who's she's protecting? The victims? Their names would be redacted and they're begging for the release of the files anyway. Pedophiles? Trump? Is there any difference? In the end, despite her talk about independence and justice, she does what all good little Republican women do and voted the way the men-folk told her to vote and she makes me sick.

The FBI released images of a person suspected of killing Charlie Kirk. The picture show a man wearing a baseball cap, dark sunglasses, and a black long-sleeve shirt with an image that includes an American flag. A shooter who can fire an older-model Mauser .30-06 bolt-action rifle and hit a target's neck on the first shot from 400 feet way and wears a ball cap and an American flag long-sleeve tee? I'm not saying that's a right-winger, but it sure doesn't fit the stereotype of your liberal leftist. Anyway, both Kirk and his shooter, whoever he is and whatever his motives, make me sick.

A classical music festival in Belgium has withdrawn its invitation for the Munich Philharmonic to play there because the orchestra is led by the musical director of the Israeli Philharmonic. I recently read that I'm supposed to be boycotting the band Radiohead because they "still haven't apologized" for playing a show in Jerusalem way back in 2017, and because guitarist Jonny Greenwood made a collaborative album with an Israeli musician. I have no problem with Radiohead or the Munich Philharmonic, but the thought police and moral purity guardians who decide who I should and shouldn't listen to make me sick. 

Since the 1990s, iconoclastic performer and composer John Zorn has been exploring his Jewish roots through the "radical Jewish music" of his ever-changing Masada bands, named for the fortress where the Zealots met their fate (and from where we get the term "zealot"). The music in instrumental with no vocals and tends toward a mix of free jazz and klezmer, and has been criticized by some for including satanic and occult titles and cover imagery. Masada will be headlining Big Ears next year, and if I hear anyone say their presence there is "problematic," they will get added to the list of people who make me fucking sick.          

 

Second Day of the World Course, 35th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Another paradisiacal day here in Atlanta. High of 83°, dry and sunny. I drove over to the Chattahoochee River for my walk today, my first time there since July 16. Due to persistent threats of rain and my sleeping in late, I've been starting (and ending) my walks at my own front door, walking along the Beltline trail and associated side streets. But today the weather was so unimpeachably fine that I was motivated to get an early start, drove to the river, and walked 10.3 miles, my first Tyler since May 21 (defensively, I want to point out that I did get lots of 9.5+ Harrisons in between then and now). 

So about the news today . . . as a contemplative Stoic and former Buddhist, I abhor all killing but this one hit particularly hard. When I hear about a woman getting shot point blank in the head today by an assailant in Zilker Park, Austin, even as the police were trying to intervene and stop him, well, that really hurts.

Not the shooting you thought I was going to mention? Sorry, and apologies for using a real-life tragedy as a setup for some sort of joke to make my point. No, today's sad news came from a little further west where, as you've probably heard by now, there was yet another school shooting, this time in Evergreen, Colorado. Three students sustained gunshot wounds and are in the hospital with critical injuries, as is the suspected shooter. This endless epidemic of senseless school shootings shows no signs of abating in the remorseless gun culture of amerika, and we're all so numb to it all that today's shooting with gruesome injuries but no actual deaths barely even registers.

Not the shooting you were thinking of either? How long should I continue this schtick? Shall I mention the Qatari security officer who was killed along with five members of Hamas during Israel's airstrikes on Qatar, which also wounded an unspecified number of civilians? How many died today in Ukraine, including both the Russian and Ukrainian combatants? And so on and so on, et cetera, ad mortem.

Impermanence is swift.

Right-wing activist, podcaster, and provocateur Charlie Kirk was killed today in what certainly appears to be a political assassination (even though Charlie isn't an elected official). But here's the thing - we still don't know who did it. Either a "suspect" or a "person of interest" may or may not have been detained (everything's still a little chaotic and unclear at this point). Of course, the internet and social media are already in a full-on feeding frenzy, assuming that a "hate-filled far-left lunatic" fired the fatal bullet, but we don't know - the assassin may have been a leftist, but he (I'm going to assume it was a male) might also have been, say, a deranged MAGA gun nut in a jealous range, thinking his girlfriend liked Charlie more than him. Maybe it was a relatively nonpartisan sicko just out to show the world the chaos he could he could cause with a single bullet. 

I could take a cue from the Republicans' crass and disgusting comments after the attack on Paul Pelosi in his home, and speculate that maybe it was just a lover's quarrel gone terribly wrong, Charlie's clandestine boyfriend upset over not getting enough attention. BTW, this is as good a time as any to remind people that following the attempt on Pelosi, Charlie said that "some amazing patriot" should bail the attacker out of jail. 

Perhaps I should heed others of Charlie's own words, that "empathy is a made-up New Age term that does a lot of damage" and conclude that "gun deaths are a necessary price for the Second Amendment." 

Actually, I should probably follow the example of the Stable Genius and the rest of the GOP following the assassination of Minnesota representative Melissa Hortman in her home last June, or when the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania's home was set on fire, or the attempted kidnapping of the Democratic Governor of Michigan, and just say fucking nothing.  

tl/dr: STFU until we know what happened. (Silence is encouraged afterwards, too.)

 

Day of the World Course, 34th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Aldebaran): Another beautiful, pitch-perfect day here in paradise, this earthly Eden we call "Atlanta." Temperatures in the mid-70s, humidity - 44%, the dew point a mere 54°. It wasn't a walking day today but I still got outside as much as possible, at least when I wasn't polishing mirrors and warming cushions.

It didn't hurt my appreciation of the day at all that today is my equivalent of a child's Christmas morning. Today, the lineup for the 2026 Big Ears festival in Knoxville, Tennessee was released, and good lord, is it loaded! 

John Zorn, who dominated the festival in 2022 and 2023, makes a welcome return to the lineup with twelve performances, including two by the original lineup of the first iteration of his Masada quartet of the early 1990s (Zorn, Dave Douglas, Greg Cohen, and Joey Baron). There's also going to be a duet set with Laurie Anderson (who's also doing two other sets of her own), a trio of Zorn, John Medeski (of Medeski, Martin & Wood), and Dave Lombardo (of Slayer). and a large-ensemble performance of his game piece, Cobra, featuring  Medeski, Lombardo, Wendy Eisenberg, Celine Kang, Brian Marsella, Jay Campbell, Jorge Roeder, Simon Hanes, Ikue Mori, Sae Hashimoto, Ches Smith, William Winant, and Kenny Wollesen, with others probably joining to get in on the fun.

That would be enough to excite me right there. Okay. I'm hooked - you had me at "Zorn." But the festival will also include sets by David Byrne, Robert Plant, Flying Lotus, and Pat Metheny (who I don't think I've seen since 1988). All of my other favorite jazz guitarists are playing too - Marc Ribot, Julien Lage, Nels Cline, Mary Halvorson, even John Scofield.  

OG downtown legend Charlemagne Palestine is even playing. Palestine is one of those almost mythical figures who started his career at age 12 playing bongos for Allen Ginsberg and pre-Laugh In Tiny Tim, went on to compose and perform alongside minimalism founder La Monte Young, studied under renowned Indian classical singer Pandit Pran Nath, and taught alongside Morton Subotnick. More recently, he's collaborated with musicians from Orin Ambarchi to Michael Gira. His Strumming Music from 1974 was a nearly hour-long solo piano composition that was so intense that his fingers would be bleeding by the end. I never imagined I'd actually get to see him perform.

There are several performers in the lineup I've seen several times before (e.g., Mary Lattimore, Julianna Barwick, Walt McClements, Kishi Bashi), but am always glad to see again.

And all that is literally just the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens - scores - more performers and sets, including several more must-sees, other intriguing musicians, and dozens I've never even heard of but am looking forward to discovering and learning about.  

Now, comes the hard work - even though I'm trying to ween myself off Spotify, I've made myself a Spotify playlist of the most recent or the most representative album by each and every performer. There's over 1,500 tracks on the playlist and the running length is over 120 hours, but I'll be winnowing it down as I listen through over the next several weeks and deleting the albums by artists I can tell I'll have no interest in seeing. But if you want to hear a diverse and fearless playlist of the state of cutting-edge music today, or to plan your own Big Ears adventure, you can hear the playlist here. 

 

Metropolis Death and Being, 33rd Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Helios):  To better understand all that was being implied by the talk of "polishing bricks" and "polishing mirrors" in the conversation between Nanyue and Mazu, it helps to know the tale of the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. There is no doubt Nanyue and Mazu were intimately familiar with this story, and the mere mention of "polishing mirrors" was shorthand for the whole story. 

In the middle of one night, Ācārya Jinshū, the most intelligent and accomplished member of his monastery, took a lantern and posted the following poem on a corridor wall to express his understanding: 

The body is the bodhi tree,

The mind is like the stand of a clear mirror.

At every moment we work to wipe and polish it

To keep it free of dust and dirt. 

Master Enō, who had never been taught to read or write and had found work at the monastery as a kitchen attendant, had a boy from the temple read the poem to him.  Enō thought that comparing practice to keeping a mirror clean was too intellectual and artificial, so he recited his own poem to the  boy and had him secretly write it on the same wall for him. His poem read, 

In the state of bodhi there is no tree,

Nor does the clear mirror need a stand.

Originally we do not have a single thing,

Where could dust and dirt exist?

 All the monks were astonished at the excellence of Enō’s poem. 

"In general," Dogen wrote, centuries later, "we polish a mirror to make it into a mirror; we polish a brick to make it into a mirror; we polish a brick to make it into a brick; and we polish a mirror to make it into a brick." 

Dogen often spoke this way - in groups of four, seemingly contradictory statements. It often sounds confusing and deliberately obtuse at first, but on closer examination we can see that he's just looking at the same situation from four different philosophical viewpoints. Sometimes our idealism is like polishing a mirror in order to try and make some ideal mirror. Sometimes our behavior is as meaningless as trying to polish a brick into a mirror. Sometimes we realize some concrete thing through our practice, and sometimes our action transcends idealism completely.

Real examples of this occur in daily life. "There are also times," Dogen continued, "when we polish without making anything" (I can relate to that); "and there are times when it would be possible to make something, but we are unable to polish." 

I walked a full van Buren today, as pleasant and nice a late-summer day as we've had all year. The tropical storm that was crossing the Atlantic disappeared and died before it could make it to the Caribbean and cause trouble, so that's good. Tomorrow, it's back to polishing mirrors and warming cushions. Today, I beat the horse; tomorrow I beat the cart (or is it the other way around?).

 

Communique of Unknown Voltage, 32nd Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Electra): "Rabbi, Rabbi," Zuzia asked, "before I die, how can I become more like Moses?"

The great Rabbi said, "When you get there, son, they will not ask you why you weren't more like Moses. They will ask you why you weren't more like Zuzia."  

That's from a Hassidic tale I heard early this morning on NPR as I was getting up.  There are parallels in many of the world's religions, as actual wisdom, that is, truth itself, abides in no single tradition and knows no fixed form.

In a similar story in the Zen tradition, Mazu was practicing zazen (sitting meditation) when his teacher, Nanyue, asked him, "What do you intend by sitting in zazen?"

Mazu answered, "I intend to become a buddha." 

The great Rabbi would have smiled at this. Shouldn't Mazu have intended to become Mazu?  

But Nanyue merely picked up a nearby brick and started polishing it. Mazu asked him what he was doing and Nanyue said, "I am trying to make a mirror."

Mazu asked, "How can polishing make a brick become a mirror?"

The great Rabbi knowingly winks at Nanyue, who asks Mazu, "How can practicing zazen make you become a buddha?"

"What do you mean?," Mazu understandably asks.

"Think about driving a cart," Nanyue explains. "If it stops moving, do you beat the cart or beat the horse?" Mazu said nothing, so Nanyue explained, "Do you want to practice zazen, or do you want to become a buddha? You should understand that zazen is not meditation or contemplation, it is not about quieting the mind, focusing the mind, or studying the mind, it is not mindfulness  or mindlessness. If you want to really understand zazen,  then know that it is not about sitting or laying down. Zazen is simply zazen."

"With regard to becoming a buddha, you should understand that being Buddha is beyond any fixed form and has no abode. The very act of becoming a buddha is actually the killing of Buddha. Therefore, when zazen is zazen, Mazu is Mazu. When Mazu is Mazu, Mazu is Buddha.  When Mazu is Buddha, the brick is a mirror. Each thing is not transformed into the other but is, in fact, originally the other. Practice is merely the realization."

Zen Master Dogen points out that by polishing the brick, Nanyue was admonishing Mazu's seeking to become a buddha, but he did not restrain Mazu from practicing zazen. "Sitting itself is the practice of a buddha. Sitting itself is non-doing. It is nothing but the true form of the self. Apart from sitting, there is nothing else to seek."         

When Zuzia becomes more like Zuzia, Zusia becomes more like Moses. When Zusia becomes more like Moses, Zuzia, Moses and the great Rabbi all become one.