The Subtle Cabinet, 14th Day of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): "The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre or to balls, or to the pub, and the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you will be able to save and the greater will become your treasure which neither moth nor rust will corrupt - your capital. The less you are, the less you express your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life, and the greater is the saving of your alienated being." - Karl Marx

Layman P'ang (740-808) was prosperous in his youth, but decided that he worried too much about his wealth. One day, he piled all his worldly goods on a boat, floated it out to the middle of a lake, and sank it. Those around him said, cool, we get it, but you could have donated it to the poor and needy instead. He countered that whoever would receive his riches would become attached to wealth just like he had, and why should be inflict that suffering on others? 

It's a brilliantly sunny autumn day outside, sll crbut it's also quite a bit chillier than so far this season. We're under our first frost and freeze advisories in Georgia since last Childwinter as the coolest airmass of the season falls across the Southeast. While overnight lows will be at or below freezing, temperatures are expected to slowly warm up during the week with pleasant fall weather forecast. 

But we haven't seen anything yet. The earliest Sudden Stratospheric Warming on record has now been confirmed. With the ongoing Super El Niño in the Pacific, stratospheric temperatures over the polar region have risen to over 45° F above normal for this time of year and winds around the Polar Vortex reversed course on November 10th, the earliest that has been known to occur. The forecasts show the resulting disruption working its way down across Canada as early as around Thanksgiving, and some forecasts show cold air spilling into the United States at that time. With such unusual conditions, there's a good deal of uncertainty in the 10- to 15-day forecasts. There are, however, strong signals of cold arctic air spilling down into the Southeast by Thanksgiving. 

I don't like cold weather. Not one little bit. I didn't leave New England to live in Georgia because I wanted frost on the goddamn pumpkin.

The prison of one's own preferences.

 

Day of the Given, 13th of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Helios): "Rich people jog past discount stores in two-hundred-dollar leggings and sneer at working-class folks for being overweight. Try feeding three hungry kids on forty bucks a week when fresh broccoli costs six dollars and a box of chemical macaroni costs eighty cents!" - Anthony Bourdain 

One of the good things about the Universal Solar Calendar is there are no Fridays the 13th. Today, the 13th of Hagwinter, I walked a 4.6-mile Madison without coronary distress. I feel confident I can achieve a full five-mile Quincy by the 15th of Hagwinter. 

They're up to something. Increased National Guard troops patrolling the streets of D.C. Senior administration officials being moved to military bases and other protective housing. Today, the FAA announced a rare nationwide ground stoppage in what appears to be a major outage affecting the entire national air-traffic control system. Markwayne Mullin, the former MMA fighter and talk-show host who is now inexplicably the Secretary of Homeland Security, said he does not suspect foul play. “It’s just a telecommunication outage as of right now," he said. 

 

The multidisciplinary team of experts from numerous fields who identified the emerging threats most in need of greater attention notes the global decline of democracy seems to be congruent with the rise of increasingly sophisticated technologies for mass surveillance and social control, such as the combination of drones with facial-recognition algorithms, or multiple data streams supported by machine learning. These surveillance methods are further aided by new sources of data, including DNA databases, biometric scanning, and social media. 

The intrusiveness of surveillance tools is often justified by the conveniences they allegedly provide. For example, some communities embrace the idea of Flock camera as "license-plate scanners" to purportedly identify criminals driving through their neighborhoods. However, the network of cameras can also be used to track the residents themselves, even when out of state. For example, the cameras have been used to follow women in states with restricted abortion rights when they travel to more lenient jurisdictions. 

What's more, either due to convenience or ignorance, people often voluntarily submit their data to the systems. I know of one retired old man who posts his daily thoughts and activities online where they can be read, and possibly misinterpreted, by anyone with an internet connection.

The increasing use of interconnected surveillance technologies like Flock may trap societies into subservience to regimes and/or companies dominated by entrenched surveillance systems. Controlled populations have diminished agency, as their range of actions and responses are restricted, which can make them more vulnerable to even greater surveillance and render them less capable of responding to dangerous scenarios and crises.

In the past, biological weapons were thought to present too great a risk of inflicting harm on friendly forces to be of much strategic value. The potential for misuse of surveillance technologies for crime deterrence should similarly be viewed as too potentially harmful to law-abiding citizen to justify their use. 

Hmmmm. They're up to something.

Ascendant Eye, 12th Day of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Electra): "The poor don't eat cheap sugar and white flour because they lack moral character; they eat it because a starved belly demands the quickest, cheapest fullness available, and food cartels engineered poison to be cheaper than a single honest apple from an orchard." - George Orwell 

A poorly conceived and mismanaged war in Iran has led to disruptions in trade routes through the Strait of Hormuz and by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea. Those disruptions of trade routes are preventing, among other things, fertilizer from getting delivered to global farms, which will result in diminished crop yields and eventually famine. Famines lead to unrest, mass population displacements, and eventually more global conflict. 

Nearly 217 million people around the world currently face high levels of acute food insecurity. However, the complex global distribution system that feeds the world’s growing population is susceptible to disruption because of its very complexity. Potential disruptions may include droughts and other natural disasters, pandemics (e.g., covid), or conflicts (e.g., Russia’s invasion of Ukraine). Failure in one part of the system can trigger a domino effect creating further shocks in related systems at local, regional, and global scales.   

Cascading hazards often reinforce each other, such as when one issue strains the resources needed to respond to another. A shock in one place - a war or a failed harvest, for instance - can ripple through global trade and politics to have disproportionately large consequences elsewhere. In addition to the food chain, that effect can occur to the equally complex global manufacturing supply chain. For example, as the output of a critical good falls, export bans are introduced and conflicts over access rise, creating further trade disruptions. 

Beyond food-chain and supply-chain disruptions, the world is facing numerous other potential threats and catastrophes, from nuclear war to engineered pandemics. Recently, a multidisciplinary team of experts from numerous fields identified emerging issues they deemed most in need of greater attention. They identified, among other threats, AI in nuclear systems and in the bioengineering arms race, global famines, climate change, and supercharged surveillance states. .

Climate change is the driver behind several of the identified risks, including large-scale heat stress, the uncertain future of the ocean carbon sink, climate-induced population displacement, and political radicalization and polarization driven by ecological destabilization. They further warned of "termination shock" if geoengineered solutions to climate change, such as aerosol dispersal, are used to temporarily mitigate the incoming solar radiation without a simultaneous reduction in the concentrations of greenhouse gases.       

Another broad category of concern is the collapse of truth in the age of AI. In addition to AI-generated disinformation, they cited concerns about the erosion in the quality of decision-making processes due to inadequate education, ideological biases, and poor mental health. While not a new phenomenon, the decline is accelerated through AI content and the internet. 

And as if all that weren't enough to keep us all up at night, the study also cited instability and collision of Earth-orbiting satellites, such as SpaceX’s Starlink system, which accounts for 35.3% of all objects in the low-Earth-orbit. The accumulation of satellites raises concerns about the Kessler Syndrome, where collisions generate space debris faster than it decays. The tipping point would be when there is such density of objects in orbit, that a collision sets off a self-sustaining cascade of collisions, rendering low-Earth-orbit unsafe for satellites. This would threaten modern communication technology, GPS, and global communication systems. What's more, as the satellites drop from orbit, they leave conductive, electrically charged particles in the atmosphere, weakening the Earth’s magnetic field and exacerbating ozone depletion, leaving humanity vulnerable to solar storms and radiation. 

I walked three miles yesterday - a Jefferson - and will shoot for a four-mile Madison tomorrow as I attempt to resume my alternating-day walking schedule.

The Wander Stones, 11th Day of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Deneb): "Do not laugh at a lonely old widower sitting at the diner counter tipping the waitress ten dollars just because she called him 'honey.' In a country where tenderness is rationed like gold, buying a warm smile is just survival." - Kurt Vonnegut

Remembers his first name. His first name. Nobody dies from lack of advice, the climate is warm or cold. Any meaning is found in Anton Chekhov. Thousands of dead birds have been starving and dropping dead into the ocean eventually washing up on Cayucos Beach along Big Sur. Along Big Sur. The universe is indifferent it cares not whether the birds live or die or if a man will walk five miles through the freezing rain, the freezing rain. The warming waters are causing rockfish and other prey of the common murre to go to deeper waters and people die because nobody touched their shoulder for ten years. The birds can't reach them there, reach them there. Consequently, the murres just sit in a noisy tavern where the bartender existence is human invention, washing up on the coast of California due to climate.

They're up to something: The impeachment motion against the black-out drunk Secretary of Defense failed, in part because 11 Democratic representatives were absent from the vote, claiming D.C. traffic made them late. Hmmm, the Secretary of Defense authorized additional National Guard troops to D.C., including police cars and military vehicles, and suddenly there's massive traffic jams that keep Congress from attending votes for the Secretary's impeachment? Just a coincidence, right? Right? 

Something's brewing, and it doesn't smell like coffee. In addition to increased troops in the Capitol, senior members of the Stable Genius' administration, including the Secretary of State, the new Chief of Staff, and most recently, the Secretary of the Treasury, have left their homes to moved into military bases or protected housing. The administration is citing Iranian threats against their lives as the reason, and now we're supposed to believe that Iran has suddenly developed the capability of remotely executing senior administration officials.

Or are they planning something they know will trigger a major backlash and are hunkering down with more troops of the streets and senior officials hunkered down in military bases for security?  

 

The Red Hand, 10th Day of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Castor): "A man will walk five miles through the freezing rain just to sit in a noisy tavern where the bartender remembers his first name. Nobody dies from lack of advice; people die because nobody touched their shoulder for ten years." - Anton Chekhov.  

Thousands of dead birds have been washing up on the coast of California due to climate change. The warming waters are causing rockfish and other prey of the common murre to go to deeper waters and the birds can't reach them there. Consequently, the murres are starving and dropping dead into the ocean, eventually washing up on Cayucos Beach along Big Sur.

The universe is indifferent, it cares not whether the birds live or die, or if the climate is warm or cold. Any meaning found in existence is a human invention.

 

Day of the Iron Crown, 9th of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): The Blue Wave, Blue Tsunami, Blue Enema, or whatever you call it, is feeling more and more each day like one of those transformative historical events not unlike the first election of President Obama in 2008 or the fall on the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Newly elected members of Congress showed up in Washington today, and outgoing Republican Senator Thomas Massie introduced a measure to force a vote on the impeachment of Pete Hegseth, the Stable Genius' black-out drunk Secretary of Defense. But even as Washington D.C. officials are pushing newly elected Democratic governors to pull the National Guard troops sent by their Republican predecessors back home, Pete has authorized an expansion of National Guard operations in the Capitol, including military-style vehicles, patrol boats, and police cars. 

The Stable Genius himself, after initially receiving the news of the Blue Whatever with surprising grace, has finally gotten around to claiming the election was somehow rigged. He also replaced his Chief of Staff with Stephen Miller, probably his most extreme, most hard-line supporter. Might Stephen have convinced him to make the unsubstantiated "rigged" claim,. and could Pete have increased the military presence on the streets of D.C. in anticipation of the next move planned by the Stable Genius? 

Those who though the united snakes was going to transition seamlessly into a blue utopia after the overwhelming election may be in for a rude surprise. Power doesn't politely step aside when asked to. Also, Schumer and Jeffries have to go. It's not a time to go back to the failed policies and policies that gave rise to MAGA, it's time for new leadership to lead us on to a new way of governance. 

I walked a full Adams today. 2.0 miles. Third walk in a row. No negative health effects, at least as far as I could tell, but it got me out of the house and gave my lungs some fresh air. 

I'm going for a Jefferson tomorrow.      

 

The Open Stages, 8th Day of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): Fuck "doctor's orders!" Fuck "every other day!" I walked again today, even though I had walked just yesterday (ironically cue up Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild). I took in a full Washington today, 1.2 miles, my greatest distance since the 52nd Day of Autumn and the second greatest since the 30th of Autumn. 

This coming from a person who formerly averaged about seven to ten miles per walk, every other day.

I can't just sit around my house all day. Believe me, I tried. For five weeks. Almost seven weeks in the New Revised Universal Solar Calendar. I can't do it. I have to get outside, I have to breathe some fresh air, I need to move around, even if only a little bit. I need to see things that aren't on my computer, television, or phone screens. I need to hear the laughter of children in the local park and the babbling of the brook that runs through that park. I need to see my neighbors, and feel the change of the seasons. I need to live, in order to survive.  

My PCP and my cardiologist agree that I should refrain from any "exercise" until they can run some more tests, and then schedule the next test for the 60th of Hagwinter. I can't lie in limbo at the convenience of their schedule, and I honestly believe that getting out and walking isn't going to kill me. I honestly believe they underestimate how easy it is for me to walk several miles - I really don't even consider anything less than five miles to even be "exercise."

That's it for today's rant. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

 

Anaconda, 7th Day of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Helios): I'm still under doctor's orders to avoid my alternating day walks. I haven't walked so much as an Adams since the 30th Day of Autumn. Ironically, the longest I've walked since that day was one-and-a-half Washingtons on the 52nd of Autumn, when I walked to the hospital to seem the cardiologist. 

I find it interesting that since my walking stopped, so has my sitting. The two activities were on alternating days, and each practice supported the other. Once I stopped walking, I also stopped sitting zazen (meditation).

Since then, I've developed a pretty good case of cabin fever. My weight's going up. All my life, I've been warned against a sedentary lifestyle, and now here I am sedenting my ass off under doctor's orders.

Fuck it. I'm going to die when I'm going to die. I went out and walked today, a lovely autumnal day even though technically it's now Hagwinter. To test my legs and my heart, I deliberately kept the walk short, half a Washington, and listened to my body for any signs of distress or trouble.

Hearing none, I'm going to shoot for a full Washington the day after tomorrow, then a Washington-and-a-half, and then an Adams, and so on. If I fall over dead from walking a Jefferson, then I was unhealthier then I had thought and probably wasn't going to live that much longer anyway, so fuck it, I'll die with my hiking shoes on.

Day of the Thigh Whip, 6th of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Electra): This week's elections were about a lot of things, but one thing they weren't about was a wistful nostalgia for Biden-Era politics or a return to milquetoast, laissez-faire, middle-of-the-road governance. To answer my own rhetorical question form two days ago, "How will the Democrats blow it this time?,"  Hakeem Jeffries and Chick Schumer think they may have an answer. Reinstating them as Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader would, IMHO, put this country right back into the position it was in that allowed the Stable Genius to get elected to a second term. 

The public relations campaigns have already begun. New York Magazine is currently running an article headlined, "How Hakeem Jeffries Engineered the Democratic Rout." The talking points and keywords are already spreading - this morning, I saw Al Sharpton on MS NOW saying that Jeffries "engineered" the seismic Democratic landslide by handpicking the best, most electable candidates.

"I'm about to get sick from watching my T.V." - Frank Zappa (1966) 

Let's be perfectly clear here. More credit, exponentially more credit, goes to the grass-roots organizing of Stacy Abrams and others, mostly women and mostly Black, over the past 10 years. The landslide was the result of a long-game, grass-roots, bottom-up effort, not a top-down campaign "engineered" in the last 12 months by the House and Senate Minority Leaders. Their claiming credit is just another patriarchal example of men trying to take credit for the hard work of women. I heard one person on Reddit compare it to that person who contributed nothing to the school project insisting they be the one to present it to the class. 

The DNC was slow to recognize and often failed to endorse several progressive candidates, and even those that did manage to win their primaries despite lack of support were chronically underfunded by the DNC, leaving them to scrape together campaign finances as best they could alone. 

Schumer's age, low energy, and lack of comfort with Democratic Socialist candidates disqualifies him from leadership in these new times. I like Jeffries - he's younger, than Schumer at least, and has more energy - but like old Chuck, his acceptance of large AIPAC campaign contributions and his recent, closed-door meeting with Jared Kushner disqualifies him from leadership.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that there's good reasons to continue to support Israel's military. They're not apparent to me, but the last persons I would trust to make those arguments is someone who is in office and power because of his acceptance of AIPAC campaign contributions and who has secretly met with the pro-Zionist Kushner. 

I also can't trust prosecution of fair and independent investigations of the Stable Genius' administration to someone who just met with a member of the Short-Fingered Vulgarian's family. While I understand the importance of inter-party cooperation and meetings during political transitions, you're kidding yourself if you believe that was what the meeting was about. The Stable Genius famously resisted transition meetings the two times he took office and even fired his transition team before taking office, so excuse me while I scoff at the idea that he suddenly embraced the concept in this mid-term election.

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I'm suspicious that the sudden media campaign to present Jeffries as the de facto new Speaker may be part of the backroom deal between him and Kushner. The deal may have been something along the lines of don't investigate my Saudi dealings or the President's business ventures, and in return we'll give up, say, Hegseth and Patel, or don't cut off aid to Israel and we'll get the tech bros to popularize the idea of you being the next Speaker in the media. The word "may" is doing a lot of work in the sentence above, but do you honestly believe the Kushner took time off from the on-going negotiations with Iran and between Ukraine and Russia to merely ask, "how can we best assist Congress in the coming years?" 

The hoary old precedent of congressional leadership being based on seniority is a relic of the politics of the past. The people voted for change, real change, and we need new leadership and fresh voices to bring that change about. Not old Schumer and Jeffries.

Anybody but Schumer and Jeffries.

 

Frozen Reeds, 5th Day of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Deneb): A few late thoughts about Tuesday's Blue Wave:

• John Fetterman just became irrelevant. With 54 confirmed Senate seats held by Democrats, and two more still up for grabs, no one has to appease a lone, holdout Senator any longer. Even the old Joe Manchin-Kyrsten Sinema strategy of two hold-out Senators is no longer a threat to passing legislation. It would now take four, maybe six, Senators to impede a piece of Democratic legislation, and if that many object to it, then maybe there are some issues to consider before passage.


• If Ted Cruz or Dan Crenshaw or any other Texan politician decides to run for some other office, now their seat will be filled by a Democratic Governor. Jim Jordan up in Ohio and a bunch of others, too. Georgia has already replaced all of its Washington representatives who could conceivably hold higher-office ambitions, so Keisha won't be nominating any Democratic replacements anytime soon.


• Remember Lauren Boebert? She's down by 3,277 votes as Colorado's Fourth Congressional District waits for the last of the mail-in ballots to arrive.       

That's it for now. 

 

Smith Dynasty, 4th Day of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Castor): In the earliest years of the 1920s, Silas Junior, my grandfather, moved into an apartment at 580 Saint Nicholas Avenue in New York City, home to the, no, who am I kidding? You don't want to hear about that today and that's not what I want to talk about. The Blue Wave actually did materialize yesterday, and wow. Just, wow, man. The wave, the flood, the tsunami, the blue enema, whatever you want to call it, delivered and flipped both the U.S. House and Senate, as well as numerous states, including Georgia. 

Prior to last night's Blue Wave, the united snakes was perilously close to autocratic, one-party rule. The Presidency, the House, the Senate, and the supposedly non-partisan Supreme Court (wink, wink) were all controlled by Republicans. The Stable Genius, that short-fingered vulgarian, still occupies the White House and it may take a generation to change the Court, but last night both the House and the Senate flipped from red to blue. Some races are still being tallied, but as of noon today, the day after the great general erection, the Democrats control 54 of the 100 Senate seats and 232 House seats, fourteen more than the 218 needed for a majority.

Sweet home Georgia, that former member of the old Confederacy, is now officially a blue state - we have two Democratic Senators, one Jewish and one African-American, and a handful of Democratic representatives, including Nikema Williams (my Rep), and Hank Johnson, one of only three Buddhists in Congress. Talk about diversity, we now have a Black woman, Keisha Lance Bottoms, as our new Governor, the first Black woman to be elected as Governor to any state in the Union; and a Democratic Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. Democrats assumed almost every major office in the state and while the Georgia House and the State Senate are still controlled by the GOP, their majorities are now smaller.

And it didn't stop there. Texas flipped too, and now has a Democratic Senator and a Democratic Governor. In North Carolina, Roy Cooper became the first Democrat elected to the Senate there since 2008, and every single county in North Carolina swung toward the Democrats. South Carolinians rejected the Stable Genius' hand-picked candidate for the Senate, the woefully unqualified sister of the late Lindsey Graham. Democrat Abdul El-Sayed won in Michigan, Susan Collins lost in Maine to a complete political unknown, and the disgusting Vivek Ramaswamy deservedly lost in Ohio.

Democrats won in gerrymandered districts in Florida, North Carolina, Alabama and Texas, denying Republicans the advantage they had hoped for by redrawing district lines. Democrats won where Republican megadonors and billionaire tech oligarchs spends hundred of millions trying to persuade voters not to vote Democratic. They failed.

You know all this already and besides, this isn't a news site, but it just feels so good to say it all out loud. Hooray for our side, we won!, and the other side lost. Bigly.

 

So now the big question is, how will the Democrats blow it this time?

If I may, I'd like to make a couple of recommendations. First, Democrats need to remember that the electorate voted for change, not a return to the same old same-old. I doubt few voters were motivated by a nostalgia for the politics of the Biden Era. To be specific, we don't need and I don't want Chuck Schumer as Senate majority leader or Hakeem Jefferies as Speaker of the House. Let's let those fresh new voices be heard and it's time for some new leadership for a new day. Its time for Ocasio-Cortez to be new Speaker of the House, and while I wouldn't mind seeing Georgia's Jon Ossoff as the new majority leader in the Senate, I'd rather keep him free to run for President in 2028. Perhaps Raphael Warnock, the Senate's de facto spiritual leader? Or Elizabeth Warren, the intellectual leader? Maybe Chris Murphy, assuming his health allows, or Mark Kelly? Really, there's a lot of good options and all are better than tired, old Chuck Schumer and his middle-of-the-road compromises.

Democrats also have to remember that despite last night's victories, there are literally millions of Americans who despite everything in the past two years, still voted red. The Dems need to deliver on good governance and helpful policies to win over the hearts and minds, s well as wallets and purses, of all voters if they want to hang around past the next election cycle.

And finally, there are lessons to be learned from Merrick Garland. The crimes, the corruption, and the unconstitutionality of this Administration are all out there and readily apparent for all to see, and to overlook prosecution under the guise of impartiality is to fall into the trap that got the Stable Genius re-elected in the first place. Release the Epstein files, impeach Hegseth and Kennedy, and of course, the Stable Genius himself. Now that the Dems control both chambers, an impeachment by the House won't automatically lead to an acquittal by the Senate, but they have to act fast before the politics change. Don't be held back by accusations of "Banana Republic" politics and weaponization of Congress.  Hold the fuckers accountable, just like the voters held the Republican incumbents accountable. 

But, wow, what a night!     

 

Day of the Five Riders, 3rd of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Erection Day. Hard as it is to believe, the day of reckoning in the united snakes of amerika is finally here. 

Remember the Kelvin wave? Some sort of El Niño effect that was supposed to flood California? Well, it's finally arrived, and today the ocean is swallowing highways and whole neighborhoods in Huntington Beach and other places on the California coast. There's no storm, the water just rises up and takes the land anyway. 

Seawalls and sandbags are completely useless. The ocean doesn't even bother going over the top anymore. It just comes up from beneath the ground. Seawater pushes up through storm drains and comes out of cracks in the asphalt. The cities mobilize giant pumps to fight it, but the machines fail in minutes.

The beast which once was and no longer is shall rise from the bottomless depths and bring destruction with it. Those still living on earth will be surprised when they see the beast that was and is no longer, and yet appears. (Revelations 17:8)

Thank you for the wave, that great blue enema which will wash away all the garbage and the trash. All the animals on the far right: the Nazis, neocons, MAGAs, proud boys, groypers, oath keepers . . . sick, venal. Someday, a real wave rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. 

Erection Day. Time to save amerika from itself.