Day of the Antler, 43rd of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Deneb): I'm available to be the Stable Genius' next press secretary, if he can accept a candidate who'll tell the truth, thinks Christianity is bat-shit crazy, doesn't trust White people, and hates his fucking guts. 

But I'm free Tuesdays through Thursdays (Mondays and weekends don't work for me).

 

Rustle of the Prey, 42nd of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Castor):  Deneb, Day of Destruction, 31st of the Dog Days, 526 M.E., or as you probably call it, August 1, 2026, was the warmest day ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere. And the El Nino is just getting started. 

A former co-worker of mine, an arch-conservative and climate-change denier, adamantly insisted there was no credible evidence that carbon dioxide affected atmospheric temperature. He would insist that I read some pot-boiler fiction by Michael Crichton, and when pressed on the issue, would hold up  a set of cassette tape lectures he owned titled Water, Not Carbon, Determines the Climate, or some such other drivel. I reminded him that the Eocene had the highest temperatures in the geologic record and the highest levels of carbon dioxide, but he just took that as evidence that nature, not man, controls CO₂ levels, but ignored the correlation between temperature and carbon.  

As for water controlling the climate, I reminded him that Venus can reach an average temperature of 850° F, and if it ever had any oceans, they dried up long ago. However, it is covered by a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide and clouds made of sulfuric acid, which, together, trap heat and warm the planet. He insisted that it's self-evident that the only reason Venus is hotter than Earth is that it's closer to the Sun.

I pointed out that the Moon is just as far from the Sun as the Earth,  and can reach temperatures of 250° F in the sunlight. At night, temperatures on the moon drop to below -200° F because it lacks an atmosphere to trap heat after the sun goes down. "Trivia," he sniffed, and walked off with his comforting copy of Water, Not Carbon. 

To be fair, he wasn't a particularly bright man. He also lived in the far exurbs and relied on his cars (he owned several) to get around, get to work, shop, worship, and socialize. His existence was dependent on gasoline-powered internal combustion engines. He took any discussion of climate change as a prelude to limiting CO₂ emissions, and any limitation of CO₂ emissions as an existential threat to his way of life. 

Anyway, tl/dr: it's hot out.

The Brother Heart, 41st of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): In the 1979 Stephen King novel The Dead Zone, an ambitious and corrupt demagogue grabs a young child on stage at a campaign rally and hoists him up as a human shield after an assassin opens fire. A photograph of the act gets picked up by the press and destroys the politician's career. 

That's fiction. In real life, the Stable Genius was in Ankara, Turkey last month for a NATO summit. Concerned about his proximity to Iran and the Islamic Republic's death threats against him, he boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras to leave for England, and then snuck into an airport catering container and was secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane, not Air Force One or the new Boeing 747-8 gifted by Qatar.

The press corps and White House staff flew in the Old Air Force One as human decoys in case Iran tried to launch a missile (they didn't). They were told to keep the window shades down, but believed the President was on board the plane with them.

Hiding curled up in a little catering container mounted on a mobile scissor-lift is hardly the macho-man symbol of strength the Stable Genius thinks he projects. Letting the press and his staff serve as unwitting decoys may not be as viscerally shocking as holding up a child as a human shield from an assassin's bullets, but it's just as cowardly.  The ethical thing to do in that situation would have been to secretly board the third plane, and then announce that the Air Force One flight was unexpectedly delayed and keep it on the ground until the Stable Genius appeared publicly in Britain, so that would-be assassins knew their target wasn't on the plane.

But just imagine - curled up in a ball in the fetal position in a catering container, sweating your balls off in the summer heat of Ankara while smelling your own farts and adult diaper during the bumpy ride from one plane to the next, all because you're too afraid to fly in the Eastern Hemisphere.

When the news leaked that he wasn't flying home in the new Qatari gift jet that he had flown on to Turkey, but it was still believed that he had left in the old Air Force One with his staff and the press, the Stable Genius sought the telephone records of several New York Times journalists and their relatives, including one reporter’s mother, in its effort to unmask the confidential sources of the leak. Now we know why he was so sensitive and so freaked out by the reports - the truth of the matter unmasks not only his own cowardice but the lies that he and his black-out drunk Secretary of Defense keep telling about the war in Iran. 

They insist that they've won the war, that they have air supremacy, and that Iran has no military assets left after their relentless bombing. If that were the case, what were they so afraid of? Hiding in a little caterer's cart from one plane to the next sure doesn't look like "winning" to me. It looks like weakness. It looks like losing. It looks like cowardice. 

That act alone should be enough to derail a person's political career, but in this anything-goes, "grab 'em by the pussy" Age of the Stable Genius, it's just another news cycle.

 

Day of High Happening, 40th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): As we sit and watch the planet die, it's now official: July 2026 (i.e, the first thirty of the Dog Days) was the hottest month ever recorded in the history of the United Snakes. Last month's average temperature was 76.9° F, topping the 76.8 mark set in July 1936, and 3.3° F warmer than the 1901-2000 average 

The average global sea surface temperature, outside of the polar regions, was the highest on record for July, beating the previous high of 2023. Surface air temperatures around the world in July were cooler than July 2024 by just 0.01° C, leading scientists to consider the two months as the joint-second warmest Julys on record.

In Washington and Oregon this year, more than 2.9 million acres have burned as extreme conditions fueled the fast-moving fires that draped the region in toxic plumes for weeks on end. Oregon has suffered more burned acreage this year than any in recorded history, while Washington is in its most destructive fire season. ever, and the dangers are far from over. There are still months left to go before the highest risks to the desperately dry landscapes begin to subside.

In Spain, officials are worried that the hundreds of thousands of people heading to the hills and beaches to get a better view of Wednesday's solar eclipse will increase the risk of renewed fires. Meanwhile, water levels in the Danube River are at record lows, exposing Roman-era bridges and World War II German warships. 

 

In China, fears over flooding and landslides forced authorities to evacuate more than a million people from their homes last night as a powerful typhoon made landfall. In addition to the torrential rainfall, the typhoon has also fueled a heat wave and Hong Kong recorded its hottest day ever. 

A large area of showers and thunderstorms a few hundred miles southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands is moving lowly westward, and a tropical wave emerging off the coast of west Africa is expected to interact with the system in a couple of days. A tropical depression could form during the latter half of this week while the system moves westward across the central Atlantic toward the Caribbean.

Showers and thunderstorms associated with a separate tropical wave are located about midway between the coast of west Africa and the Lesser Antilles. Some gradual development of this system is possible through mid-week while it quickly moves westward across the central Atlantic toward Venezuela.

Another tree fell in my neighborhood, this one blocking the path along my local walking trail about a mile from my house.  

As Jim Morrison once put it, "I want to get my kicks before this whole shithouse goes up in flames."

 

The Deep Sea Alien, 39th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Helios): A planned power plant for a new Amazon data center in Texas could become the United Snakes' largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Five people in Louisiana and two in Florida have died from Vibrio vulnificus, a flesh-eating bacteria that thrives in warm coastal waters. Vibrio are most common from May through October where seawater tends to be warmer. Due to climate change, however, outbreaks have occurred in recent years in places once thought to be too cold to support the bacteria, such as Chesapeake Bay and the Long Island Sound. 

When you order something from Amazon, you increase the risk of a crabber in Maryland or an oysterman in Patchogue being devoured by flesh-eating bacteria.

You monster.

 

The Moving Hand, 38th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Electra): Much of the problem with trying to talk about consciousness is the word itself is so fluid. "Consciousness" could mean mere awareness, of it could mean sentience. It could mean the creation of a richly detailed mental model of the ego-self, or the luminous experience of that rich creation, including memory, preferences, emotions, and thought. 

In Buddhism, consciousness usually means only awareness, and specifically the awareness associated with each of the six sense organs (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind). They've even gone so far as to define 18 forms of consciousness, three for each organ, such as eye consciousness, sight consciousness, and the realm of vision consciousness. 

The focus in Buddhism, or at least Zen Buddhism, is more on "mind" than consciousness. "Mind" isn't the brain, mind is a function of the brain. Just as sight is a function of the eye, and vision the result of sight, thought is a function of the brain, and mind the result of thought. The brain is just another organ, one that secretes thoughts just like the spleen secretes bile and the pancreas secretes whatever it is the pancreas secretes.

I once heard a Zen teacher object to the phrase "I can't get my head around that." Of course you can't, the skull is hard, thick bone, not exactly noted for it's flexibility. Brain matter is softer and probably more malleable, but I wouldn't recommend trying to physically wrap the organ around an object. It's the mind that moves, as they say, and it's the mind that wraps or doesn't wrap around an object or a concept. 

So, are plants conscious? They seem to respond to light and to rain, so they must have some sense of awareness of those phenomena, so I suppose you can say that a plant possess some form of body consciousness and it's corollary, touch consciousness. Whether their reaction to light and rain is in response to sensation or is just a biochemical reaction to photons or water is debatable, but aren't all of our thoughts and feelings and sensations reducible to mere neurochemical reactions? But when that form of potential sensation in a plant is simply called "consciousness" and lumped in with all the other forms of consciousness, confusion begins, and others argue that a plant can't be conscious because it doesn't have thoughts (or at least an organ to secrete thoughts), but they're talking about different things. It's like saying a blind person can't have memory because they don't have sight. 

Today, Electra, was a sitting day. There are among the thoughts my mind secreted as I sat. Now, if I could only get my head around those ideas.       

 

Day of the Mantle, 37th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Deneb): My Friday routine is finally different from the previous four days of the Gregorian week. It starts the same - radio alarm at 7:00 am, one hour of WREK's The Classics and a second hour of their Just Jazz programing (although neither is strictly "the classics" or "just" jazz). Make my coffee and take my vitals. As I continue to awaken, I take on the NY Times crossword, Spelling Bee, and Wordle puzzles over my first cup of coffee while I catch up on the news, both MSNOW and email newsletters from Axios, the Guardian, and the Times (I like to triangulate my coverage a bit to get different perspectives).. 

But Fridays are different, because in addition to the daily puzzles, the Times also has a Friday news quiz. I got nine out of 11 right this week, and it's actually something of a point of pride for me not to get them all correct - a 100% score indicates I've spent too much time doom-scrolling and watching the news. Everything in moderation, brother.

But Fridays are famously New Music day, the day most labels release their latest albums. I get some notifications of new releases via email, and each Friday I check out NPR's online New Music Friday lists, and Spotify's Release Radar. Today's emails alerted me to a new edition of Jim O'Rourke's Steamroom series (number 68) on Bandcamp and of Thor Harris' new Ditch Girls project, also available on Bandcamp as well as streaming on Spotify, which is surprising because he took much of his own music off of the platform a year or two ago. NPR listed a new albums by electronic artist Lawrence English and by Alabama indie rocker Lee Bains, both of which I found on Spotify. And finally my Release Radar included an album by avant-garde percussionist David Moss (who I used to see in the 1970s performing with local Boston jazz band Baird Hersey & the Year of the Ear) featuring a cast of all-star collaborators including John Zorn, Arto Lindsey, Fred Frith, Bill Laswell, David van Tieghem, and Jamaaladeen Tacuma.

Much of my Fridays are consumer by tracking down all those musical leads and time spent listening to it all. To make it worse, I got a late start today because I was up late last night listening to the Red Sox' 13-inning win over the Chicago White Sox, quite honestly one of the best baseball games I've followed in years (Boston came from behind five times to tie the game, three times in extra innings). 

I fell so far behind that I wound up blowing off my alternating day walk. The forecast at 2:00 pm said there was a 70% chance of rain between 3:00 and 4:00, and that was good enough for me. The rain never came, but to be honest, I didn't want to walk today. I was tired and enjoying all my new Friday music. I try to get in an eight-mile Van Buren on my walks, but if a one-mile walk is named after Washington, the first President, what do I call a day with less than one mile covered? A King George, I suppose. Today was a mad King George day. 

Fridays once also meant watching Bill Maher on HBO but not anymore - fuck that guy. He's changed - I think the covid shutdown broke him - and he's now insufferable. I don't mind hearing opinions with which I disagree, in fact, I like listening to an intelligent debate on the issues, but when the opinions are presented in his smarmy, self-righteous manner, while he changes the subject as soon as one of his guests dares disagree with him on something, it becomes unwatchable. It's too bad - I hope Bill get the help he so clearly needs.

And finally, happy hour! As a rule, I don't drink during the week (although I make exceptions) but on weekends, I allow myself a beer or two, or a glass of wine, or a cocktail (although I make exceptions). Limiting drinking to weekends lessens the potential of turning into a full-blown alcoholic in my retirement, and gives the weeks a greater sense of rhythm. And surprisingly, it's also made me enjoy alcohol less and less - some weekend nights, I simply don't feel like drinking, or finding that there's nothing in the house to drink, simply shrugging it off until the next weekend.

And so it goes. Saturdays are about the same as Fridays, although without the new music, and Sundays are about the same as Saturdays, although with John Oliver on HBO providing the nightly commentary I used to enjoy from Bill Maher.  

And that's my week. Thus is the life of an urban monk, this high-functioning introvert/misanthropic hermit. Just thought you'd want to know.

Now I Make the Moves, 36th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Castor): After my walk yesterday, after the subsequent thunderstorm, and after I posted to WDW, another tree fell in the neighborhood. A pine, just like the tall, tall trees that surround and tower over my house. I get spooked every time a tree falls, partially PTSD from 2020 when a tree fell on my house, shattering the roof, and partially from the assumption that a falling tree will probably be my demise. 

Impermanence. If a tree falls and no one takes it as a reminder of the ephemeral nature of existence, does it contain any karma?

I don't want to sound like one of those pundits constantly complaining about misleading headlines in the New York Times and other mainstream media, but today The Guardian ran a headline, "Mitch McConnell leaves rehab center to continue recovery from fall at home," with a photograph of him in a wheelchair, wearing a jacket and tie, being led from a stately-looking room. He looks old and he's in a wheelchair, but he still looked far healthier that I imagined he would. Quite frankly, I suspected that he was either already dead or at least brain-dead.

It wasn't until one clicks on the headline for the full article that one finds a caption stating that the photograph was from last May, and McConnell was in the Capital being taken to a policy luncheon. I thought it was quite deceptive of The Guardian to use a photograph that appeared to depict what the headline read ("leaves rehab center") when for all we know he left the center in a stretcher or on a gurney. Or in a hearse. We still don't have proof of life.

I found the winner of today's "hilarious but true" typo in an online forum about climate change. "The bulk of the evidence suggests that if we stopped our emotions, global temperatures would stabilize (+/- a few tenths of a degree)." The poster obviously meant "emissions," not "emotions," but either way they still have a point - if we control our emotions, or more precisely, if we stop allowing them to control us, our outlook and behavior would stabilize. And when we stop flying off the handle and upsetting others, their outlook and behavior stabilizes, and so on in a karmic feedback loop. 

I'm going to try and start thinking of temper and anger as "carbon emotions" and see if that helps me reduce their emission.       

 

Foundation of the House, 35th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse):  Wednesday's routine is the same as Tuesday's, without hauling up the trash bins, so no need to go through it here. Thursday's is the same, too, to get that out of the way in advance. 

Betelgeuse is a walking day and I barely managed to get in my steps, a 4½-mile Madison, before the thunderclouds caught up to me. I got back to the house just in time, which was fine with me because it was oppressively humid outside.

WDW does not endorse political candidates (actually, we're extremely biased and make endorsements all the time, but isn't that what we're supposed to say?), but we are encouraged to see that Abdul El-Sayed won yesterday's Michigan Senate primary. We're encouraged by, and in turn offer our encouragement to, all Democratic Socialist candidates running for office. Times are changing and the pendulum's finally starting to swing back the other way, and the fact that so-called "moderate" politicians, the media, and the punditry class all look at the New Left with horror makes us only love the Democratic Socialists all the more.

Naturally, the Stable Genius, the Republican Party, parts of the Democratic Party, and the detestable Bill Maher call the Democratic Socialists "Communists" (they're not). The right and the moderates proudly assert that they're "Capitalists," and the media goes along with the framing that you're either a Communist or a Capitalist, and you have to choose between one or the other. Do you want new cars and a nice house, or do you want to live in a gulag and eat borscht five days a week?

The fact of the matter is we're all Capitalists. Every Democratic Socialist accepts the salary that goes with their elected position, and before entering politics they all traded their labor for wages to some extent or another. The real question is whether one is a Labor Capitalist or a Finance Capitalist.

Here's the issue - under the current economic climate of the United States, the finance capitalists are enjoying huge advantages over the labor capitalists. Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate that salaries, and with the increased profits, the Financial Capitalists can employ lobbyists and afford to donate to PACs to further their advantage even  more. Labor Capitalists are falling further and further behind, and as the economic disparity increases, the government and the Financial Capitalists are shrinking the social safety net, denying access to health care, and defunding public education.

Case in point: to earn $100,000 is salary, one has to pay from 15 to 20% in taxes, so your take-home pay is only $80,000 to $85,000. However, the tax on $100,000 earned through investments typically ranges from $0 to 15%, and if you can afford good accountants and financial advisors, you're probably paying close to the former than the latter. It infuriates me that when I withdraw money from my IRA or 401k, the money is taxed as salary, although only part of it is actual salary and the other part is interest and profit that the fund accrued over the years. 

The Democratic Socialists are not Communists but Labor Capitalists. They want to see tax policies and government benefits not skewed towards the ultra-wealthy, the investment class, and corporations, but to the salaried and hourly workers laboring for a living. It's the same Capitalist system, it just has different beneficiaries.

The "establishment," mainstream politics, and the media have all come to be dominated by the Finance Capitalists. So of course, the billionaires, the CEOs, the tech bros, and their hired politicians are terrified of not continuing to receive ever-larger slices of the pie, and feel threated by the Democratic Socialists/Labor Capitalists. Of course, they're going to paint pro-Labor Socialists as existential enemies to Mom, apple pie, and the American Way. Of course, they're going to call them "Communists," and "antisemitic," and atheistic (or worse, "Islamic"). Don't fall for it. 

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower instituted Democratic Socialist reforms in the 20th Century, America prospered and grew stronger. We need those same kind of leadership now, similar reforms, and leaders like Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are among those who will get us there.

But we don't endorse.                     

 

Day of the Smoking Plain, 34th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): My Monday routine was thrown off last night after I played a game too long and missed Rachel Maddow's show, and then when I finally did settle down at 11:00 pm I discovered that The Daily Show is off for the rest of the month. 

For years, The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert's monologue afterwards were my gateway as I transitioned from whatever evening activities I was engaged in to bedtime. Save the game, put a bookmark in the novel, log off the internet - whatever I was doing that night, I would wrap it up at 11:00 for TDS and Colbert, and then go to bed.

But Colbert was taken off the air earlier this year, and now TDS is off until sometime in September. I've become like a little Rain Man ("Wapner at 4:00!") and if I don't catch my shows at their appointed hour, I'm thrown for a loop.

I'll get by. The only thing that distinguishes Tuesday from the rest of the week is it's the day to roll the trash dumpsters back up the driveway after the garbagemen and recycling truck have passed. Other than that, it's the same routine as every other day - wake up at 7:00, read a little if I can, or just lie back and listen to music until 9:00. Make coffee, take my vitals, do my puzzles, and from there it depends if it's a walking or a sitting day.

Today was a sitting day, my eighth since resuming practice following July's 2½-week hiatus. A strange thing happened today - at the end of the third (of three) 30-minute periods, I had no recollection of the end of the second period. I remembered the end of the first period, getting up to practice five minutes of kinhin (walking meditation), and then sitting back down, but the end of the second period? Nothing. Was I that zoned out, or am I going senile? Where was I then? Who or what was I? 

A heavy thunderstorm occurred between 12:30 and 2:00 today. The strange thing was that it didn't pass over like most storms usually do - looking at the radar, it just materialized right here over Atlanta, didn't move but just stayed in one spot over the city until it eventually dissipated. But for those 90 minutes, we were under severe thunderstorm and flash flood alerts and warnings. The National Weather Service says 0.58 inches of rain fell wherever they keep the Atlanta rain gauge.

I'll probably doing some gaming later. The Red Sox are back home at Fenway, so the games start at a reasonable hour again (they were starting at 10:00 pm while the team was on their West Coast road trip). If the game's televised here in Atlanta (an infrequent event), I'll watch it, otherwise I'll probably listen to the WEEI broadcast over SiriusXM radio. With no Daily Show, I'll have to go straight to bed after the game, but not before reading another chapter of Song of Solomon.

And thus pass by languid days and nights, as if in a dream.

 

Day of the Heart's Blood, 33rd of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Helios): The forecast today was for rain and I almost didn't get my steps in today.

When I awoke this morning, the sky was overcast and it was still rather dark outside. When I saw on the weather app that storms were forecast at 12:00 noon, 2:00, and 4:00 pm, I resigned myself to another stepless day (I missed two days ago, too), and I took my time with the morning coffee and crossword puzzle (even though it was an easy Monday puzzle). 

I updated the sports blog (go, Red Sox!) and went grocery shopping, but while out and about, I noticed that although still overcast, it didn't actually look like rain. So after I got home, although it was already midafternoon, I went out and got in a 4.9-mile Madison. Better to keep a consistent routine of alternating-day walks, even if they're less than my goal of eight-mile Van Burens, than to fall into the habit of missing days if I see even the shadow of a cloud.

Also, weather forecasters don't know what the weather will be. I don't know why I listen to them.

My days are all about routines, daily routines, monthly routines, and annual routines. Since no one else in the world other than me is on the New Revised Universal Solar Calendar, I'm forced to abide with the standard Gregorian calendar on many things. Mondays are the easy, 10-minutes-or-less, New York Times crossword puzzle, rolling the trash dumpsters down the hill for Tuesday morning pickups, and at night, watching Rachel Maddow on MSNOW and Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. 

In addition, there's my daily routine activities: checking my vitals (weight and blood pressure) first thing in the morning, the Times' Spelling Bee and Wordle puzzles over coffee, music exploration on NTS radio, meals (morning English muffin, afternoon smoothie, and evening salad), and of course, time spent posting to this blog and its sisters. I also set some time aside each day for video games, and before bed each night, I try to read a chapter or two of some book (currently, I'm finally reading Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon) or a current New Yorker article.

It may not be exciting, but it's a life, and I find the routine and predictability enormously reassuring and satisfying. 

 

Day of the Grove, 32nd of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Electra): "One cannot maintain oneself by oneself. Only when one gives up the idea of 'I," will one naturally become the self which is connected to the universe." - Kȏdȏ Sawaki

As Michael Pollan puts it, bodies didn't evolve to support brains. Brains evolved to support bodies. In other words, we're not life-support systems for our conception of an ego-self. The conception of an ego-self is just a genetic adaptation that evolved so that bodies can pass on their genes.

To put it another way, thoughts and mental constructs are just complex systems developed in the brain, which itself is a complex system of neurons and glands, which themselves are complex systems of cells, which are complex systems of organelles and organic molecules, which are complex systems of atoms, which are complex systems of neutrons, protons and electrons, which are complex systems of subatomic particles, which are complex systems arising out of potential. 

Complex systems within systems within systems, like some unfathomably complex clockwork all the way down. It's actually kind of marvelous when you think of it.