The Lost Island, 31st Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Atlas): I'm exhausted and don't have much to say here today. It's the 31st day of the year, and I think we can all agree that this January had to have been one of the worst months in memory. From the opening days of terror attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas, to the closing days of a pair of plane crashes, to the Trump inauguration and all the shenanigans of the new administration, to devastating wildfires in L.A., to snow in Atlanta (twice!) and bitter cold here in the South, and finally to my mother passing away, I have to say I'm not at all sorry to see this month go.

Take care of yourselves. Stay healthy and stay sane. Love each other and don't forget to breathe. Wear sunscreen.    

Structures of Earth, 30th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): As if this year couldn't get any worse, yesterday a commercial jet carrying 64 people collided midair with an Army helicopter in Washington, D.C. No one survived. That's bed enough, but even before a formal investigation has even begun, Trump immediately blamed the tragedy on DEI and former Presidents Obama and Biden. 

Citing no evidence, he said at a news conference today that standards for air traffic controllers have become too lax due to so-called DEI requirements, but when pressed for details, admitted that the investigation had only just begun. Moments later, he blamed the pilots of the Army helicopter and then went back and forth between blaming diversity goals and saying that an investigation was necessary.

He's shown this instinct to immediately frame every major event through the lens of his political views before, whether the facts fit or not. After the terrorist attack in New Orleans a month ago, he immediately blamed illegal immigration even though the attacker was a US citizen born in Texas.

When asked how he knew diversity hiring was to blame for the crash even though basic facts about the accident were still being sought by investigators, he said, “Because I have common sense.”

“For some jobs, we need the highest level of genius,” he said. 

Trump claimed “A group within the FAA determined that the workforce was too white, then they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and to change it immediately,” Trump said. “This was in the Obama administration.” He also blamed Pete Buttigieg, who served as Transportation secretary during the Biden administration.

He didn't point out that on January 21, he fired the heads of the TSA and Coast Guard before their terms were up and eliminated all the members of a key aviation security advisory group. The former head of the FAA, Michael Whitaker, resigned on January 20, after months of Elon Musk demanding that he quit. Whitaker had proposed fines of more than $600,000 for SpaceX last September, prompting Musk's demands for his resignation and threats to sue. Trump named a new acting FAA head during the news conference, but the agency is without a Senate-confirmed leader for one of the biggest crises in its history. 

Appearing at the conference with Trump were transportation secretary Sean Duffy, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and Vice President JD Vance. All three began their comments by praising Trump’s leadership and repeating that they would eliminate diversity requirements and focus on competence.

The investigation into the crash will be led by the independent NTSB, which is chaired by Jennifer Homendy. She has also clashed with Musk in the past over the safety of self-driving software in his Tesla cars. She was present at today's news conference but did not speak.  

Acrid Takeover, 29th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Electra): An interesting 24 hours - since my last post here yesterday, a federal judge put a hold last night on the Trump administration's freeze on all federal grant money, and then the administration announced that it was rescinding the freeze, although it was still reviewing federal programs for evidence of any "woke" activity, whatever that means.

Meanwhile, about two million federal employees, including my daughter who works for CDC, received a letter appearing to offer a buyout for their resignation, claiming they would be paid eight months salary if they left their jobs by February 6. The letter had the title, A Fork in the Road, the same title that Musk sent last year to Twitter employees as he thinned the ranks of employees there. The sincerity of the offer is not apparent, and recipients are being cautioned against replying until more is known.

Then today, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., vaccine skeptic and nut-job health conspiracy theorist, had his Senate confirmation hearing to lead the federal Department of Health and Human Resources. The questions, especially from the Democrats, were lacerating, and Kennedy showed that he didn't understand the role of the Department he was tagged to lead and was unable to distance himself from his inflammatory statements of questionable veracity (mostly outright lies) from the past. Still, despite his obvious lack of qualifications, he'll probably get confirmed, because Republicans. 

But barely noticed because of all the attention on Kennedy today, the Senate confirmed Lee Zeldin to head the EPA, where he will be oversee Trump’s directives to dismantle major environmental regulations and possibly parts of the Agency itself. The Senate voted 56-42 to confirm Zeldin, a former congressman with little experience in environmental matters. Zeldin will likely work to erase rules to fight climate change and chemical pollution, while shutting down programs designed to help poor and minority communities that are disproportionately affected by pollution. 

May providence have mercy on this beleaguered nation.

Day of Drifts, 28th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): An internal memo sent by the White House on Monday instructs agencies to pause all federal grants while evaluating their compliance with Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting policies that promote "DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal."

Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the OMB (the same organization that issued the narc-on-DEI-supporters snitch line), wrote “Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.” 

The memo is not only unconstitutional, it has its facts wrong, claiming funds spent to advance "Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve." The money, it says, should be used instead for the administration's priorities.

The memo is poorly written and includes some vague caveats, including that agencies pause grants “to the extent permissible under applicable law,” although it is not at all clear how the agencies will interpret that. The ham-fisted, partisan nature of the memo gives itself away with its Fox News talking points - "woke gender ideology" and "Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies" are not terms serious federal administrators use but MAGA shorthand for "shit we don't like or understand."  

However, the funds are in fact Congressionally directed spending, and Trump is ordering people to violates the constitution itself, which gives Congress, not the Executive Office, control of spending. Compliance with the memo would mean overthrowing the most fundamental constitutional checks on authoritarianism and balances of power. "Congress approved these investments and they are not optional; they are the law,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). 

It's a blatantly unconstitutional power grab by the President, arguably even a coup. No wonder he couldn't put his hind on a Bible when he took the oath of office to defend the constitution - he was busy keeping his fingers crossed. 

The memo could impact billions of dollars of federal grant money for state, local and tribal governments. This includes  universities, the non-profit sector, cancer research, food assistance, suicide hotlines, hospitals, community health centers, non-profits that help disabled veterans, disaster relief aid, education and transportation funding, and loans to small businesses. It does explicitly exclude Social Security and Medicare and "assistance provided directly to individuals," although Medicaid portals across the country were reportedly not working today.  

Funding for research and monitoring of climate change is certainly at risk, as are studies on the health effects of chemicals and pollutants. Health research at both the CDC and in  universities will be affected, which is alarming as avian flu is on the rise. The price of eggs is now over $5 per dozen in some markets due to the flu. The entire egg shelf was empty at my local supermarket because no one will buy eggs at that price and the supermarket doesn't want to be left with unsellable stock. And oh, look here -  a second human case of avian flu just emerged in England as the virus mutates and crosses over to humans, but who needs research, amiright? 

The memo says the freeze begins at 5:00 pm today.

Day of Barren Swarm, 27th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Castor): "Drill, baby, drill." I'm old enough to remember that sixteen years ago, before it got to be a MAGA slogan championed by Trump, that was a Tea Party cheer led by McCain and Sarah Palin. But these days, Trump is recycling the chant in his own, unique sub-lingual manner as a catch-phrase for his efforts to move U.S.  energy policy in favor of fossil fuels. But as Rebecca Elliott reports today in the NY Times, oil and gas companies say his changes aren’t enough for them to engage in the new drilling that Trump wants.

Trump’s flurry of executive orders were designed to make life harder and more expensive for renewable energy companies and easier and cheaper for the oil and gas industry. In his orders, Trump defined "energy" to include oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear, geothermal and hydropower, excluding wind turbines and solar panels. He instructed the Department of Energy to restart permitting reviews of gas-export facilities and threatened to place tariffs on foreign countries, including Canada and Mexico. Depending on how the tariffs take shape, however, such levies could be extremely disruptive to oil and gas, a highly global industry.

The Department of the Interior has placed a 60-day freeze on new solar arrays and other renewable energy projects on public lands. Trump instructed agencies to stop distributing money that Congress had appropriated for products like fast-charging stations for electric vehicles along highways, although legal experts say that presidents can't stop congressionally authorized spending.

Trump also ordered federal agencies to stop issuing leases and permits for new wind projects pending an environmental review. Already, RWE, a German firm, announced that it would slash spending on U.S. offshore wind development, saying that the risks for new projects here had increased.

Collectively, Trump's orders lay out a road map for making it cheaper to produce oil and gas and more expensive to build equipment that could help people reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. Oil and gas companies are thrilled by Trump’s orders stacking the deck in their favor, but executives say that unless oil prices rise, and by a lot, there's no incentive for new drilling. 

"For drilling and fracking to pick up substantially," Elliott writes, "oil and natural gas prices would have to rise, executives say, an outcome that is at odds with Mr. Trump’s goal of stemming inflation by reducing the cost of energy. Oil companies won’t spend money on production, which is already near record levels in the United States, if they are not confident that they can make money from the extra fuel they churn out."

Oil prices last week slid to below $75 a barrel, and to below $73 today. Natural gas prices have surged recently as much of the country contended with cold weather, but it's typical that they rise in the winter.

Further complicating the president’s efforts to increase drilling is that Wall Street firms, which used to invest heavily in fracking companies, now want to back shorter-term profits.

Trump's reliance on "gut instinct" over fact-based evidence, and a mindset made up of outdated mental models formed by anachronistic experiences, from the energy crisis of the 1970s to the "drill-baby-drill" chants of the 2008 McCain campaign, have resulted in a set of policies that won't meet their intended goals in the real world. But Trump's an old man and these things take time, and Trump probably won't be alive to witness his policy failures. 

Not that he'd acknowledge them anyway even if he were to survive. 

The Crescent Heart, 26th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): To be clear, and to set the record straight with regard to yesterday's misappropriation of the "nation will prosper" koan, "to kick up dust" - also translated "to raise dust" and "to hold up a single atom" - in Zen means to engage in a single thought. "The nation" is not a sovereign country, but the whole world, nay, the entire universe. As soon as we engage in thought, our mental models (samskara) arise, and the world in nothing other than what we perceive it to be. In the state of meditation, however, when our mind is still and quiet and we're not engaged in thought, that perceived world disappears ("the nation perishes"). 

Zen Master Dogen often described the state of realization found in meditation as "body and mind dropping away." When there's no thinker, not only is there no perceived world but there's no more thinker. That's why Fengxue says, "if you understand this, there is nothing more and everything is your teacher."       

The world is as we perceive it, and many of the problems we encounter in life result from the conflicts of different perceptions. Our samskara determines our attitudes toward the world, and we often fail to see that the differences of opinion we have with others is a result of differing schema.

Writing in The Guardian today, Oliver Milman points out that Trump’s personal schemata have shaped his environmental priorities as US president. Withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement and declaring an “energy emergency” were among Trump’s executive orders on his first day in office, but his list of priorities also included measures regarding efficiency of shower heads, toilets, washing machines, lightbulbs and dishwashers. 

Trump has long complained about poor water pressure in home appliances. He claimed in 2019 that “people are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once” because of a lack of water pressure. “You know, I have this gorgeous head of hair," he said in 2023. "When you go into these new homes with showers, the water drips down slowly, slowly.” 

"When I take a shower, I want water to pour down on me,” he said. 

Andrew deLaski, executive director of something called the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, said there's "no doubt some people don’t like their shower heads and there is a nostalgia for old things." He acknowledged that there were initial performance problems with some newer, energy-efficient products, "but that was back in the 1990s. Consumers generally like their efficient products now." 

"The president may be operating on some out-of-date information," he concluded. 

A separate executive order titled Putting People Over Fish instructs federal agencies to divert more water from northern California to the southern part of the state, which has been ravaged by drought and wildfire. The order blames the “catastrophic halt” of water due to protections for the delta smelt, a small endangered creature that Trump called an “essentially worthless fish.” The smelt has been pushed to the brink of extinction by water diversions, pollution and development in the Sacramento-San Joaquin river-delta ecosystem.

“Los Angeles has massive amounts of water available to it,” Trump said on Tuesday. “All they have to do is turn the valve.” During the campaign, he fantasized about some giant, imaginary valve. "It takes one day to turn it," he claimed, "and it’s massive, it’s as big as the wall of that building right there behind you. You turn that, and all of that water aimlessly goes into the Pacific, and if they turned it back, all of that water would come right down here and right into Los Angeles.” 

No such valve exists.

His statements may mistake a more complex situation in California, where water resources, under pressure from rising global temperatures, are being closely managed by a network of dams and reservoirs for big users such as agriculture and, to a lesser extent, cities.  Very little of that water is appropriated to support the delta smelt. Reservoirs in California were full of water when the wildfires erupted and no “valve” could have released more water from the north.

Trump is basically exploiting the tragic Los Angeles wildfires to condemn an endangered fish that has nothing to do with the fires. It's a blatant and brazen effort to bolster developers, Big Ag, and fossil-fuel interests that are cashing in on destroying the environment. Trump's orders, from Putting People Over Fish to the  "energy emergency" order, are based on his own schemata, personal fixations, and outright lies, and will not only weaken endangered-species protections but degrade the environment, well-being, and health of Americans. 

 

Second Ocean, 25th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Atlas): To misquote and mischaracterize an ancient Zen koan (one of my favorite activities):

If you kick up dust, the nation will prosper and the people will frown. If you don't kick up dust, the nation will perish and the people will be at ease.

These words (or something vaguely similar) were spoken by Chinese Chan master Fengxue Yanzhao (869-973 AD, or 1396-1473 of my New Revised Universal Solar Calendar's Common Era). He studied Confucianism as a youth but failed to pass the state civil exams. Disappointed, he left home and joined a monastery. He traveled extensively to broaden his understanding, and eventually settled under a rigorous Zen master and became his teacher's heir and successor. He began teaching at the already dilapidated Fengxue Temple (where be got his name), and attracted students despite the run-down condition of the temple. Eventually, he and his students moved to a new temple where he served as the head abbot for 22 years. 

Reportedly, after saying the words above, he told his monks, "When you understand this, then there is nothing more and everything is your teacher. If this is not understood, then your teacher is a priest. Together, this teacher and priest can enlighten or delude the entire world."

"Do you want to understand the priest?," he asked and slapped his right side and said, "Just this."

"Do you want to understand the teacher?," he then asked, and slapped his left side and said, "Just this."

Really. That's how they talked back then.

To take the koan literally and not at all how it was originally intended, in these times and in this country, we have to kick up some dust and raise a little ruckus for the nation to prosper. This, however, will make some people very unhappy - if a protest doesn't inconvenience at least some people, it isn't very effective. On the other hand, it's good for the people to be happy and at ease, but in these times, that may mean the nation as we know it will perish.

Which is better - to maintain peace and harmony or to make the nation a more perfect union? Fengxue's "just this" implies that these activities aren't necessarily opposites but just two sides of the same coin. It's time to act and kick up some dust (good trouble), and it's also time to maintain peace and harmony.                 

 

Second Twelve, 24th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): There is a street in downtown Atlanta named Marietta Street. It's one of the main streets downtown, and it's one of the principal north-south arteries for traffic to and from the city. If you follow the road long enough, you will eventually arrive in the town of Marietta, Georgia. The street name is logical - it is literally the road to Marietta.

But there's one thing - then you're in Marietta, that same street is called "Atlanta Road," because when you're in Marietta, it's the road to Atlanta. The road changes name at the county line.

It's all relative. No one in Atlanta feels slighted that the road leading out of town to Marietta isn't called "Atlanta Street" here.  

When you stand on the western coastline of Florida, or the southern coast of Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana, or the eastern coastline of Texas, you're looking across a great body of water. If you sailed far enough across that water, you'd eventually land on the opposite shore in Mexico. For that reason, it's called the Gulf of Mexico. 

If you applied the Marietta Street/Atlanta Road logic to the Gulf, you'd call that same body of water, when viewed from the Mexican shoreline, the Gulf of America, as from there it's the sea that separates you from the United States. But because of American exceptionalism and international recognition, no one calls it that. The U.S. point of view is accepted across the world, and everyone calls it the Gulf of Mexico.

To insist on calling it the Gulf of America is to give priority to the Mexican viewpoint. It's the opposite of "America first." 

One other thing: the distinctive shape of Mexico is largely defined by the shape of the Gulf coastline. The shape of United Sates is affected by the shape of the Gulf, too, but to a much lesser degree. The shape of the United States is primarily defined by the two adjacent oceans - the U.S. is the nation that extends from "sea to shining sea." The northern boundary is the Canadian border and the southern boundary is defined in part by the Gulf shoreline, sure, but also the Rio Grande and the Mexican border. The shape of the country is not nearly as dependent on the Gulf coast as is the shape of Mexico.

So, what I'm trying to say here is if you think the Gulf should be called the Gulf of America, you're an idiot, and if that offends you, I don't care. If you're an idiot and think it should be called the Gulf of America and are offended if others point out the idiocy of that proposition, I'm not writing here for you anyway and  don't want or need to have you here. Go away!

The Last Counsel, 23rd Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Electra): On top of his announcement that the U.S. is pulling out of the Paris Agreement and order for the EPA to review the endangerment finding on greenhouse gases, Trump also announced a national energy “emergency” that could unlock authority to suspend environmental regulations and speed permits for mining, drilling, pipelines, and natural-gas export terminals.

Most of his orders, however, will require that federal agencies to repeal regulations, a time-consuming process. Environmental groups are also expected to file lawsuits, which could slow down or stop some of Trump’s agenda. However, the orders could collectively put the United States on a path to increasing production of coal, oil, and gas at a time when, due to global climate change concerns, governments need to move away from fossil fuels and their associated greenhouse-gas emissions.

“We aren’t going to do the wind thing” either, Trump announced before he signed an order that seeks not only to stop new offshore wind leases but also to “terminate or amend” existing leases. The sweeping order calls on the Interior secretary to review wind leasing and permitting practices for federal waters and lands, and to consider the economic impact of wind on wildlife (Trump thinks wind farms and not pesticides and habitat loss are responsible for loss of bird populations).

The Biden administration pushed the expansion of wind energy and approved eleven commercial-scale wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean. Industry leaders said terminating those projects or even threatening them could risk billions of dollars and throws into question the renewable energy targets that several Eastern states had set.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but The Guardian reports today that a recent analysis  by the environmental advocacy group Climate Power revealed that Big Oil spent a stunning $445M throughout the last election cycle to influence Donald Trump and Congress. The total includes political donations, lobbying, and advertising to support elected officials and specific policies. The report was based on campaign finance disclosures and advertising industry data, but since it does not include money funneled through dark-money groups, which do not have to reveal their donors, it is almost certainly an underestimate. 

The report found that fossil-fuel interests poured $96M into Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and affiliated political action committees and another $243M lobbying Congress. Big oil also spent some $80M on advertising to support their interests. Additionally, they spent another $25M on Republican down-ballot races, including $16M on House races and $8M on Senate races, and more than $500,000 on GOP gubernatorial candidates.

Much of the money was from megadonor oil billionaires, such as the fracking magnate Harold Hamm, the pipeline mogul Kelcy Warren, and the drilling tycoon Jeffery Hildebrand. Additional contributions came from lesser-known oil and gas interests, including fossil-fuel trading hedge funds, mining corporations, and the producers of offshore drilling ships and fuel tanks. The donors stand to profit from priorities set by Trump's cabinet appointees, such as Chris Wright, the fracking CEO who was tapped to head the Department of Energy, and Lee Zeldin, the former New York representative who has accepted more than $400,000 in fossil fuel-tied campaign donations and who will lead the EPA.

Day of Speaking, 22nd of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): In the 2007 Massachusetts vs. EPA case, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gas emissions qualify as air pollutants and can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. Two years later, the EPA concluded that six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, are a threat to human health and welfare.

Based on that 2009 conclusion, known as an endangerment finding, EPA is required to address greenhouse gas emissions in some manner or another, and the finding is the legal basis for almost all subsequent federal climate policy. Climate denial groups have been trying for years to revoke that finding, including the notorious Project 2025, which calls for reversing the endangerment finding.

Hours after his inauguration, Trump signed a barrage of executive orders that would dismantle President Biden’s climate and clean-energy agenda. The executive orders include eliminating programs aimed at protecting communities disproportionately affected by pollution, and demanding an end to protections under the Endangered Species Act for the smelt, a tiny fish in California that Trump incorrectly blames for water shortages in the state.

Buried deep within Trump’s order on “unleashing American energy” is a directive that requires the EPA Administrator to review the endangerment finding and make a recommendation within 30 days on its “legality and continuing applicability.” A negative recommendation could not only end current climate regulations, but could also ensure that future administrations couldn't regulate emissions from fossil fuels.

Trump has nominated Representative Lee Zeldin as the new EPA Administrator. Zeldin represents New York's 1st Congressional District, which consists of the eastern two-thirds of Long Island's Suffolk County, a district I know well, having lived most of the first 21 or so years of my life there. It's not surprising if you've never heard of Zeldin, as he hasn't particularly distinguished himself in office one way or another. He's a fairly standard-issue MAGA Republican, not a fire-breathing dragon like Greene or Gaetz, but is opposed to abortion, same-sex marriage, and the Affordable Care Act (i.e., "Obamacare"). 

Zeldin doesn't have a particularly distinguished record on environmental issues or background in environmental law and policy, and most of his legislative achievements on the environment have involved commercial fisheries. In his unsuccessful run for New York State Governor in 2021 (he lost to Kathy Hochul), he pledged to reverse a ban on fracking. In Congress, he voted along party lines against the Inflation Reduction Act. 

So why did Trump pick a nominee for EPA with so little environmental experience? Because Zeldin is and always has been a staunch Trump supporter. He endorsed Trump as the Republican nominee in 2016 and again in 2023. He supported Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, and in 2018, called for the criminal prosecution of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. He also called for a special-counsel investigation into the FBI and the Department of Justice regarding the Russian interference claims (the so-called "origins" case) and called for an investigation into the FBI's decision to end its investigation into the Hillary Clinton email controversy.

Zeldin prominently defended Trump during the first impeachment over the Ukraine scandal. Following the 2020 election, Zeldin voted against certification of Arizona's and Pennsylvania's electoral votes and was among the Republicans who signed an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court contesting the results of the election. 

No, it's clear that Trump did not nominate Zeldin for his environmental qualifications or any unique insight into the environment. He nominated him to lead the EPA because he's proven to be a loyal foot soldier who will do Trump's bidding upon request, including reversing the 2009 endangerment finding.  

In 2014, Zeldin expressed doubts about the severity of climate change, and in 2018, he said he did not support the Paris Agreement due to his concerns about emissions by other countries. However, during his confirmation hearing for Administrator, Zeldin stated that climate change is a real issue and needs to be addressed, but if we've learned anything over the years it's that nominees will say virtually anything during the nomination process to get approved and then reverse themselves post-nomination. After all, how many Supreme Court nominees swore that Roe v. Wade was "decided law" before voting to overturn it?

 

Day of Awaking, 21st of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Castor): Awaking, not awakening. Awake, certainly not woke. I arose this morning to the first full day of the second Trump term, a feeling of dread and disappointment hanging over me. The crushing depression I felt from 2016 to 2020 was crouching at the foot of the bed, just waiting for the opportunity to jump back on my psyche again. 

It didn't help that on my clock radio, NPR was prattling on about President Biden's pardons to his family members. That supposed bastion of progressive liberalism was airing some pundit claiming that Biden had set the bar so low on preemptive pardons for his family members that Trump had nothing to lose by pardoning some 1,500 convicted January 6th rioters, including violent offenders who attacked, beat, and in some cases, killed, police officers. The whole world, certainly the media, seems to be aligning itself with the new brand of fascism taking hold of this country.

After a lot of consideration, I decided that instead of ignoring Trump and his shenanigans here, I will bear witness to what I believe is the end of the great American experiment in democracy, this last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams as William S. Burroughs once put it. But instead of exhausting myself by addressing each and every outrage through the endless 24-hour news cycles, I'm going to concentrate on the one area where I have some degree of knowledge and expertise, the environment. I'll let others, who can do the job much better than I, cover immigration, international affairs, abortion, LGBT etc. rights, women's right's, racial issues, the economy, and so on. And there's undoubtedly people who can cover, and are covering, the environment much better than I, and more power to them. But I'm still going to add my two cents here.

Not that this is a statement of intent that this is going to become some sort of anti-Trump environmentalist blog, though. You'll see plenty of those kind of posts, I imagine, but rest assured I'll still talk about my alternating-day walking-and-sitting routine, music, video games, and what have you. Zen and contemplative stoicism, too, I suppose.

But yesterday, in his first couple of hours following his swearing-in ceremony, Trump signed a Presidential Order taking the United States out of the Paris Agreement. The US joins Iran, Libya, and Yemen as the only countries outside the global agreement, 

It's snowing outside right now in Atlanta, and I understand it snowed in New Orleans today and in lower Alabama and Mississippi, too. SoCal practically burned to the ground, and North Carolina is still struggling to recover from the catastrophic flooding last year. But Trump still believes that climate change is a hoax, a "Chinese hoax" to be more specific, and prioritized pulling out of the only global agreement to curb emissions. A third of the Arctic’s tundra, forests and wetlands, a vast global carbon sink, have now become a source of carbon emissions according to a recent study, as global warming ends thousands of years of Arctic carbon storage.

Project Drawdown Executive Director Jonathan Foley, Ph.D., said, "This short-sighted move shows  disregard for science and the well-being of people around the world, including Americans, who are already losing their homes, livelihoods, and loved ones as a result of climate change."   

Climate change will continue, and at the pace of the world's compliance, would have continued even if we hadn't pulled out of the Agreement. The appropriate response, however, isn't to stop limiting emissions but to limit them even more, and faster. Now we'll see more violent storms, more drought, more flooding, more intense hurricanes, and more wildfires. And also, for various other reasons, less infrastructure to help cope with the destruction and less relief and assistance to the victims.

On a positive note, however, the decision will mean even more profit for the CEO's of big oil and energy corporations, so there's that. The fossil fuel industry donated $75M to Trump’s campaign, but I'm sure that's not related to the Agreement decision.

We're off to a bad start, and I'm sure things will only get worse.

 

The Open Book, 20th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Oh, the lengths my mother went to in order to avoid a second Trump administration. The dead know what they're doing when they leave this world behind. . .

The living aren't so sure. I'm still grappling with whether or not to discuss in this blog the historic nightmare that began today. On the one hand, I have a ringside seat to bear witness to the end of the American dream. On the other, so do you and everyone else, plus the apparatus being installed is intentionally provocative and feeds on attention and outrage. There's no "shock and awe" if there's no one paying attention. 

The convicted felon is going to appoint the least qualified and the least worthy people to run the various offices of the government, and as promised he's going to sign a boatload of the most irresponsible and damaging Executive Orders on Day One. But what if we just don't pay attention? Will they go away, or will they behave even worse like a toddler until we acknowledge them? I'm not asking rhetorically - I'm really wondering. 

We will see.

 

The Long Hold, 19th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Atlas): The vigil is over.

The end of the vigil was not unexpected, but what was surprising is that it should have ended Friday. Mom passed away in hospice care around 1:00 a.m. early Friday morning, but the hospital failed to inform next-of-kin. My sister, Mom's health-care proxy, and I had been waiting on pins and needles since Wednesday for the dreaded phone call and I finally called the Hospital (Holy Family in Methuen, Massachusetts) today. I wasn't the proxy and they wouldn't give me any information, but I did manage to get them to reveal that she was "discharged" on Thursday but they wouldn't tell me to where.

My sister, the legal proxy, called after that and was told that Mom passed away overnight on Thursday. We're still trying to find out why the hospital couldn't be bothered to tell us the news. 

But I don't want to substitute anger at the hospital for grief over Mom's demise. Impermanence is swift and life-and-death is the great matter. She will live on in the hearts and memories of her children. 

Day of the Undertone, 18th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): The vigil continues and we remain suspended in a strange and painful place somewhere between suspense and grief.

 

Day of the Gap, 17th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Electra): The vigil continues.

Day of Dusk, 16th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): White Ferlinghetti clouds are scudding over Lowell today and in the Merrimack’s shrouded waters, the birch-white face of a madonna is shadowed by streetlight. In a secret garden in a private place, a nightbird's song echoes outside a Lowell window. 

The deep sound of a woman singing a broken melody in a shuttered room in an old wood house in Lowell as the world cracks by, thundering like a lost lumber truck on a steep grade.

These words are adapted from Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Canticle of Jack Kerouac, written in 1987. Today, they resonate with me, even in this bastardized form, as I think of my elderly mother, her lungs filling with pneumonic fluids, her body refusing to accept the oxygen the hospital provides, still clinging to life despite the fact that she's crossed a point of no return. There's nothing more we can do for her, they tell us, and are providing her with comforting hospice care and company and morphine. Sadly, she's been in this agonized state for some five days now.

For the record, she's in a private room in a hospital in Methuen, Massachusetts and not some old wood house in nearby Lowell. But still, the mood of the imagery seems to fit the current situation. It's so lonely here in Atlanta, I guess (to misquote another bard), with her in Methuen, it's almost like living in Lowell.

To quote (correctly) a third bard, David Berman, "When the dying's finally done and the suffering subsides, all the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind."

 

Day of the Left Hand, 15th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Castor): Mom is now in hospice care and is being provided comfort and care in her final hours in this world.

Impermanence is swift. Zen Master Dogen taught that our dew-like life flows by swiftly day by day and changes moment by moment. This is the reality before our eyes. We don't need the words of teachers or philosophers to see this. In any moment, we cannot expect tomorrow to come and should think only of this day and this moment. 

Since the future is very much uncertain, and we cannot foresee what will happen, we should resolve to live selflessly, if only for today, while we are still alive. To live selflessly, Dogen said, is to give up our bodily life and act to bring benefit to all living beings.

 

Day of the New World, 14th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Nothing, of course, is certain but today appears to be my 91-year-old mother's last day on Earth. She's in the hospital right now on 1:1 medical supervision but her oxygen levels are dropping and her heartrate keeps racing. The doctors say they'll let us know when it's time to transition to comfort care.

Life-and-death is the great matter and impermanence is swift. All other topics seem insignificant today.

 

First Ocean, 13th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Atlas): The Atlas days after the 12th, 24th, and 36th days of the year (First Twelve, Second Twelve, and Third Twelve) are for some reason called First, Second, and Third Ocean in the Universal Solar Calendar. After that, the Ocean days seem to be more random and indiscriminate for the rest of the year. Today is First Ocean, even though yesterday, the First Twelve, is known for some reason as Day of the Thought Market. Mysteries of the Universal Solar Calendar.

I took my alternating-day walk today. There's nothing like the temperatures in the low 30s last weekend to make the mid 50s feel warm. I was probably overdressed and might even have sweated a little bit. But the warmer temperatures are obviously allowing the Earth to expand again - my mileage today was 6.3 miles, even though the exact same route last week was 5.9 miles.

The soundtrack for my walk today was provided by Dave Lombardo (Slayer), James McNew (Yo La Tengo), and composer Sarah Davachi on NTS internet radio. The site provides an amazing slate of live curated playlists by a diverse roster of musicians, as well as archived sets from the previous ten years, and before I left the house to start walking I was listening to the live set by Claire Rousey. NTS is an incredible resource for discovering new music and doing deep dives down various rabbit holes. There's no advertisements, even with free access, and they pay their musicians ethically (the same BMI and ASCAP royalties that over-the-air radio pays). You can subscribe if you so choose for additional content, and 50% of their subscription income goes to the artists who curate the playlists. There's no algorithm or AI-generated playlists - it's all, in their words, music for music lovers by music lovers. 

Much better that Spoti-you-know-who, although as I was out and away from wi-fi, the NTS signal frequently dropped and buffered, which got annoying. To test if it was them or me (my equipment), I switched over to Spoti-you-know-who and it played fine - a steady stream of music with no buffering or losses. But I'm back home now and listening over my hard-wired internet connection to an archived NTS playlist by the eccentric Japanese avant-garde artist Phew, and it's playing just fine.

Bonus points: the Phew playlist includes a track by the criminally underrecognized minimalist composer Jon Gibson, who I saw at Big Ears in 2018, two years before he passed away. To give you an idea of the eclectic nature of the playlist, it also includes Jonathan Richman.   

If I'm sounding like a zealot, then yes, I did just discover NTS today. It's been around for since 2011 and I don't know how I've managed to miss it all this time but I'm glad that I did finally discover it. I'm not a fan of internet radio in general - never cared much for Rhapsody or Pandora and their ilk - but this one works for me. To some degree, all radio is as Steely Dan once put it, "somebody else's favorite songs," but this one seems to work for me.              

Day of the Thought Market

Day of the Thought Market, 12th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): Today marks the second Helios (last of the six days of the week) of this year, the 525th year of the Modern Era. In the timeframe of the New Revised Universal Solar Calendar, the Modern Era began at the end of the Middle Ages and the previous Common Era began at the start of the so-called Axial Age, or what is generally considered 500 B.C. The Common Era, "common" because it marks the rise and prominence of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and other religions, lasted until the end of the Middle Ages, or the year 1500. The current Modern Era began 525 years ago, or in 1500 A.D.

One of the many accepted peculiarities of the conventional calendar is that the years before 1 A.D. are counted backward, while the years afterwards are counted forward. That is, 500 B.C. occurred earlier that 100 B.C., but 500 A.D. occurred later than 100 A.D. How absurd! How confusing! 

In the NRUSC, the year 500 B.C. is considered Year One of the Common Era, or 1 C.E., and years are counted forward to 2000 C.E., or what's commonly called "1500 A.D."  The years prior to 1 C.E. (500 B.C.) are considered the Vedic Era and date back to 1500 B.C., so that Year One of the Vedic Era (1 V.E.)  is 1500 B.C., and 500 B.C. is the year 1000 V.E.  

Before the year 1 V.E. is the pre-Vedic Era and I used to think that due to the scarcity of historical documentation, those years could be discussed simply as years before the present without reference to an  Era, e.g., "1975 B.C." could just be called "4,000 years ago." But it's not like there wasn't history 4,000 years ago - the pharaoh Senusret I launched a military campaign against Lower Nubia that year and Erishum I became the thirty-third ruler of Assyria.    

The oldest known calendars date back to 3100 B.C. in Mesopotamia and  around 3000 B.C. in Egypt. I suppose if we have to fix a start date to the pre-Vedic Era, it could be 3000 B.C. (instead of 3100 BC to keep it simple), so the pre-Vedic period from 3000-1500 B.C. can be called the "First Era." 

To summarize:

First Era: 1 F.E. to 1500 F.E. (3000 B.C. - 1500 B.C.)

Vedic Era: 1 V.E. to 1000 V.E. (1500 B.C. - 500 B.C.)

Common Era: 1 C.E. to 2000 C.E. (500 B.C. - 1500 A.D.)

Modern Era: 1 M.E. to present (1500 A.D - present)  

Anything before that, well, you're on your own, man. Good luck.  

Sorry. I was going to discuss other stuff today - the cold weather here in the South, my alternating walking/sitting practice, music, games, or maybe politics ("Orange Man bad!") but my attention got sidetracked by the dateline to this post. Old men are easily distracted. 

Today is the Day of the Thought Market.  

A Winter Walk

 

The Ecstatic Alarm, 11th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Electra): Apparently, I survived yesterday's snowfall in Atlanta without a power outage. Frankly, I'm surprised. There were lots of other power losses here in the Atlanta region, I heard on the news, but the old trees around here managed to hold up against this latest assault. This time.

I stayed home and in the house all day yesterday. I didn't see any reason to go out into the cold and snow-freezing rain outside, and had food, television, video games, and books inside.   

"Hey!," a neighbor texted me last night. "When I was walking by your house, I noticed your snow is undisturbed. You all good?"  

No footprints on my driveway, I suppose. I was touched that she was checking in on me and felt a sense of community and security knowing that we neighbors have each others' backs. I'm reminded of the kindness in this world as the power company linemen brave the cold, wind, and snow to replace downed lines and restore electricity to those in the dark without heat. The police and firemen and other first responders who still have to go about their work despite the conditions. The truck drivers and grocers who are even now restocking shelves and replenishing our food supplies. There's a lot of cruelty in the word, true, but there's also a lot of kindness if we look for it. 

Despite the cold today, it being the alternate day, I took my walk this afternoon - 5.8 miles, the same as  last time. I made sure to take several pictures of the rare snow cover in Georgia. The picture above is Tanyard Creek from a footbridge along the Beltline path. 

At some point during the day, the clouds broke up and the sun finally came through, which was brilliant and helped accelerate the snowmelt along the roads. The roads appear to be generally navigable for the most part. Fortunately, though, it's clouded back up. Fortunately, since an overnight cloud cover caps in the little warmth accumulated during the day, instead of letting all the heat radiate out into the darkness of space on a cloudless night.

I walked today with my headphones on and listened to Perverts, the amazing new dark ambient drone album by Ethel Cain. Highly, highly recommended and it brings up the question, can an AOTY be dropped on the 8th of January? After the 90 minutes of Perverts, I continued my walk listening to Joy Guidry's decidedly more upbeat Amen, and then the country-ambient Rave Angels by Jules Reidy. I hadn't set out intending to listen to all transgender musicians, but I just got lucky, I guess. Anyway, an amazing soundtrack for a cold and moody day.

Day of Quartz

Quartz Day, 10th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): The throat of winter is upon us. It's the rare snow day here in Atlanta. I woke up at 7:00 am and snow was already on the ground, and it continued to fall until 10:00. They say three inches have fallen, although accumulations are highly irregular. They say more precipitation is coming, but in the form of freezing rain and ice. They say to expect power outages as limbs and whole trees fall from the accumulated weight of ice and snow.  

They say tomorrow will be sunny with highs in the mid 40s, so hopefully the ice will melt off the branches and roads. Hopefully.

I'm prepared to lose power and heat. I'm expecting the next 24 hours or so to suck. 

Oh winter, winter, winter, are you but a servant of the Bad One?

The Cold

 

Morning and Evening Asylum, 9th Day of Childwinter, 525, M.E. (Castor): Fuck, it's cold outside. It was 24° F when I got up this morning and warmed up to barely 35° by noon. The forecast calls for snow tomorrow, turning to freezing rain and ice, and overnight temperatures staying down in the 20s for the next week or more. This may not sound all that cold to friends and readers in northern climes, but here in the American South, that's a catastrophic forecast. Our infrastructure here isn't build for these occasional cold snaps, and this drafty old house of mine with its cracker-jack AC system struggles to keep up with sub-freezing outdoor temperatures. 

Despite the perfectly adequate excuse of the weather outside and despite the warmer comforts of home, I still got my alternate-day walk in this afternoon - 5.8 miles for the same route that was 6 miles earlier this week, 6.9 miles last weekend, and 7.7 miles last month. I guess the Earth isn't the only ball that shrinks with the cold.   

It's not lost on me that while we're facing a frozen hell here in the South, Los Angeles in Southern California is in a more traditional hellscape, with out--of-control wildfires fueled by Santa Ana winds destroying homes and property. It's heartbreaking and devastating. 

Xfinity sent me an email last week saying that due to ongoing work on service upgrades, I should expect internet outages today.   

Jimmy Carter's funeral is being held today in D.C. 

2025 is already giving off 2020 vibes.

Day of Granite

Granite Day, 8th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): "Also know this, that in the last days perilous times will come," Paul the Apostle allegedly wrote to Timothy, a fellow missionary. In Chapter 3 of the Second Book of Timothy (King James version), Paul prophesized that in the end times, "men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." Paul advised Timothy, "from such turn away." 

I'm not a Christian and don't believe the Bible in any but the most allegorical sense. I don't put any stock in prophecy, biblical or otherwise. But doesn't the one whom Paul is describing sound a lot like Donald Trump?

If lover of his own self, boastful, proud, and unthankful don't describe the president-elect, I don't know what does. If you disagree with that description, fine - you're free to have your own opinion - but I suggest you examine your own self-delusion and cognitive dissonance. His narcissism, self-aggrandizing, and reluctance to credit others are essentially his defining characteristics.

"Blasphemer" and "disobedient" are example's of the Judeo-Christian emphasis on patriarchal authority and control and no small part of my quarrel with that belief system, so we'll set them aside for now.

Without natural affection: I see no evidence in Trump of genuine affection for his children, other than an unseemly lust for his daughter and reliance that his sons will remain loyal to his needs. I see no evidence of affection between him and his immigrant trophy wife in what appears to be more of a business arrangement than a marriage. He has no close friends other than business associates whom he turns on when it's convenient or profitable for him, and he famously doesn't even have any pets.

Trucebreaker: The 75-year-old NATO treaty is in dire jeopardy and Trump has almost gleefully broken or withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement, the Trans-Pacific partnership, UNESCO, the Iran nuclear accord, and the UN Human Rights Council. You might not agree with the value of all these treaties and accords, but you can't deny that the man is a trucebreaker.

False accuser: "They're eating the dogs!" is but the start of a long, long list of false accusations by Trump, far too numerous to catalog here. If you're somehow still unaware of his many, many lies, you might want to start at the Wikipedia page about his numerous false and misleading statements.

Incontinent: I love that Paul included incontinence in his list of faults. By scent alone, we can follow the trail of prophesies to the present-day wearer of Depends adult undergarments.

The rest of Paul's list (despiser of those that are good, traitor, high-minded, lover of pleasures more than lover of God, etc.) only serve to cement the target that the Apostle already put squarely on Trump's back.

So in all sincerity, I ask Christians how they can support the president-elect. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson once said, "pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That's my worldview." Yet in spite of Paul's clear warning, Johnson is fastidiously supportive of Trump. Even if the words in 2 Timothy 3 aren't a prophesy of Trump, they're clearly a warning against a certain personality type and an unambiguous command to turn away from such people. Why the blind eye then to Paul's words? 

Or is the Bible just a joke to them, a convenient document most of them haven't read but which they can conveniently hide behind whenever it serves their purpose?

Hellscape

Luminous and Ashen, 7th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Atlas): "Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World!” the president-elect claimed last week on social media. But as Peter Baker pointed out in the New York Times a few days ago, by most traditional metrics, America is actually in better shape than at any time since 2001 ("Great," the online cynics noted, "On the last month of his Presidency, the Times finally reports that Biden actually did a pretty good job!").

For the first time in 24 years, no American troops are at war overseas. Murders are down, illegal immigration at the southern border has fallen to even below the level when Trump left office in 2020, and the stock market finished its best two years since Y2K. The economy is growing, jobs are up, wages are rising, and unemployment is as low as it was before the covids. Domestic energy production is higher than it has ever been. 

Not to sound like Steven Pinker, but the manufacturing sector has more jobs than under any president since Bush the Younger, and drug overdoses have fallen for the first time in years. Even inflation has returned closer to normal, although prices still remain higher than they were four years ago.

Trump's dark vision of the U.S. as a hellscape that can only be fixed by purging the government of Democrats simply does not reflect reality. 

We've completed out first week of Childwinter yesterday. Weeks in my New Revised Universal Solar Calendar are six-days long, and the days are named alphabetically for stars: Atlas, Betelgeuse, Castor, Deneb, Electra, and Helios. The F- and G- are skipped so we can name the final, triumphant day of the week for our star, the Sun. Today is the second Atlas of the year 525 of the Modern Era.

I got my second walk of 525 in today, despite the cold (34° F when I started), despite a trip to the supermarket, and despite a 3:15 doctor's appointment (I'm fine, just a routine follow-up). In other words, every excuse to just bag it, but I got 6.0 miles in anyway. My phone measured the exact same route as 6.9 miles on Sunday, and 7.7 miles last month, but the Earth continues to contract, I guess.  

Day of Basalt

Basalt Day, 6th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): The attributes so many American mass killers have in common, from school shooters to terrorists, are gender (I don't even have to tell you which one), a military background, and a history of relationship problems. The urge to dominate those who disagree with them seems to be a common consuming goal. 

The active-duty Green Beret who blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day left letters on a phone found at the explosion site. The letters urged a focus on strength and winning (domination). "Masculinity is good and men must be leaders,” he wrote. “Strength is a deterrent and fear is the product.” He called for weeding out "those in our government and military who do not idealize” masculinity and strength, and urged military personnel, veterans, and militias to “move on DC starting now.”

Explaining why he was performing what he called “a stunt with fireworks and explosives,” he claimed he wanted to “WAKE UP” servicemembers, veterans, and all Americans. The U.S. is “headed toward collapse,” he claimed, and he listed as reasons diversity programs, a weak and corrupt government, an economy that permitted the top 1% to leave everyone else behind, and Americans’ moral failings. 

He wanted others to follow him and occupy (dominate) "every major road along fed buildings and the campus of fed buildings by the hundreds of thousands. Lock the highways around town with semis right after everybody gets in. Hold until the purge is complete. Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary. They all must go and a hard reset must occur for our country to avoid collapse.”

His  thoughts reflect the far-right notion that a government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights crushes the individualism on which America depends.  

The idea of reclaiming the country for white men by destroying the federal government is not a new one. “Is a Civil War imminent?,” Timothy McVeigh asked in a 1992 letter to a newspaper. "Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn’t come to that. But it might.” McVeigh later set off a bomb at a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, including 19 children, and wounding more than 800.

The notion of destroying the government has only grown in the yeas since McVeigh. In 2016, as a Republican candidate for President, Donald Trump insisted that his Democratic opponent belonged in jail and that he alone could save the country from the Washington “swamp.” As president, he attacked the government over the FBI’s investigation of the ties between his campaign and Russian operatives, and then, after his first impeachment, went after any official who tried to hold him accountable to the law. Although many of his critics were Republicans, including his own appointees, he called anyone who crossed him a "Democrat." 

As the incoming president-elect, he continues to vow that he will dismantle the federal government.

(Attribution: much of this post is largely modeled on a longer article by Heather Cox Richardson)

Discipline

 

Sun Quarter Pass, Fifth Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Electra): After a 2½-week break to obsessively watch college football, I resumed my walking exercise routine today. My iPhone logged 6.8 miles this afternoon, although it claimed the same route before the break was 7.7 miles. The planet is obviously contracting.

For those who don't know, early last year my doctor told me my glucose and A1C levels indicated pre-diabetes, and recommended diet and exercise, without specifics on what that actually meant. But I did a little online research and found the advise to be all over the map ("Try this one weird trick to lower your A1C"), so I improvised a low-sugar, low-carb diet and started walking every other day, initially about four miles or so but gradually increasing to six or more. Eventually, I started practicing zazen (sitting meditation) on the alternating days between my walks.

It worked. I lost over 50 pounds between April and November, and in my follow-up medical exam, my bloodwork was back in the "normal" range, well below the pre-diabetes level. My blood pressure even dropped significantly, from a hypertensive average of 140 over 84 to much healthier 110 over 70. 

But what's more, having a goal and the discipline of the routine enhanced the quality of my life. It takes me a couple hours to walk six miles (and it takes me an hour-and-a-half to sit 90 minutes in meditation), and some planning and dedication were required. Instead of aimlessly hanging around the house indulging in what ever pastime presented itself, I'd have to time my meals and watch the weather and daylight to get in my steps. It gave some structure and order to my days, and psychologically and spiritually, I responded well to the discipline. 

During the college bowl season, I felt that structure and order fall away and my days were filled with ennui, made especially worse when my teams kept consistently losing.  I missed the discipline of setting some time aside to walk or to sit, not to mention the activities themselves. Yet, even when the football schedule allowed times for me to get out and walk (or sit down and, well, sit), I found it hard to motivate myself and kept finding convenient excuses ("too cold," "might rain," or the need to do something else). 

I'm glad that I finally overcame my inertia (a body at rest tends to stay on the sofa) and got out today, and look forward to setting some new goals and instilling new discipline to carry me through 2025.

Current Events

Pre-Dawn Chart, Fourth Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): On Thursday,  President Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 Americans who performed exemplary deeds of service for their country and their fellow citizens. The recipients included Republican Liz Cheney, formerly House Representative from Wyoming, who served on the bipartisan January 6 Committee. Trump denounced the recognition of her achievement and called her and others on the Committee “dishonest thugs.”

In response Cheney said: “Donald, this is not the Soviet Union. You can’t change the truth and you cannot silence us. Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened? Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you. Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave? Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic? We remember. And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic—to protect the America we love from you.”

On Friday, Judge Juan Merchan ordered Trump to report in person or virtually for sentencing in the election interference case in which a jury found Trump guilty of 34 felonies related to payments he made to film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public with the story of their sexual encounter before the 2016 election. Trump had tried to get the case dismissed because he had been elected president. Merchan rejected that argument, but said he would not be sentencing Trump to serve time in jail.

This has all been widely reported in the news and in not mentioning it here because I thought you didn't know. But if fate has assigned me a ringside seat to the fall of America, the least I can do is observe and record what I see. For posterity, or however long Google leave these posts online.

Realm of Violent Dreams

Realm of Violent Dreams, Third Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Castor): Yesterday, following the observations by Rebecca Solnit, I pointed out that the ISIS-affiliated man who drove his truck into a crowd in New Orleans on New Year's Eve, killing 15 and wounding more, fit the profile of a mass murderer. No, I'm not talking about his Islamic faith. I'm talking about the fact that he was a male, ex-military, and with a history of domestic and marital problems.

As if to prove the point, it's now been revealed that the person who blew up a Tesla truck in front of the Las Vegas Trump hotel - after killing himself, apparently - on New Year's Day was male, Green Beret, and had just had an argument with his girlfriend. He also had contacted several previous ex-girlfriends in the days before the bombing.

As Laurie Anderson once said, "Oh boy, right again."

For those of you keeping track at home (i.e., no one), my cumulative walking mileage for 2024 was 910 miles, or the distance from my Atlanta home to Foxborough, Massachusetts (home of the New England Patriots). From here to Minneapolis. A circle with a 910-mile radius centered here would intersect the northern part of the Yucatan peninsula, yet doesn't quite reach the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas.