Day of Footfall, 51st Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Castor):  Two-thirds of the Earth’s surface experienced record heat in 2024, yet another blast of cold arctic air has moved down here into the American South - the wind-chill factor right now makes the outdoor temperature feel like 9° F (-13° C). We normally get one "polar vortex" cold-weather blast a year down here, but this is now our third, and this morning I saw a long-term forecast that predicts a fourth is heading this way in early March. I live in a drafty pile of bricks on a hill which manages to stay pleasantly cool in the summertime, but is ill equipped to withstand these arctic blasts. I hate winter. 

I'm not happy with the weather, but I hate these modern times, too. I hate the MAGA movement and all it represents, and the people who elected that urine-soaked cockroach now infesting the White House. It took me a while, but with Trump and MAGA's help, I now hate the United States, that imperialist oligarchy founded on the twin pillars of slavery and genocide. 

For several days now, I've been posting pictures with the motto, "I bow to no king." It might have seemed over the top, an immature overreaction to things I don't like, but just yesterday, Trump posted a picture to social media of himself wearing a crown and the words "long live the king." Can you imagine the reaction if Joe Biden had done that? If Obama had done that?

Lest we forget, let's recite the latest updated version of my now-daily mantra of Trump's malfeasance and incompetence:  

Trump has falsely claimed that Ukraine had somehow started the war with the invading Russian army and called Zelensky a “dictator” who took money from the U.S. to go to war with Russia, and is demanding half of Ukraine's mineral wealth in exchange for providing any military support. He falsely claimed that U.S.AID had shipped $100M of condoms to Hamas and suggested the U.S. should take over the Gaza strip and "own it," displacing all of the native Palestinians to create some sort of Middle East Malibu. He also hinted at taking over Greenland and Panama using military force, and suggested Canada become the 51st state. He imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China and then lifted the tariffs on our North American neighbors after they repeated pledges that they had already made. He had the American workers in charge of U.S. nuclear-weapon safety fired and then after realizing that those workers were actually kind of important, found out they didn't know how to call them back, and then the very same thing happened with Agriculture workers who were researching the avian flu. He proposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico and Denali and then threw a hissy fit when the AP didn't adopt his new names. He blamed the L.A. wildfire crisis on some imaginary "giant faucet" in northern California and then ordered 2.2 billion gallons of water dumped from the state's reservoirs onto Central Valley farmland that didn't need it and where it won't benefit firefighters at all (but will cause problems this summer when droughts begin). He replaced a four-star general at DOD with an inexperienced, alcoholic, black-out drunk Fox & Friends weekend host, and pardoned or commuted the sentences of all of the convicted January 6 rioters, including the most violent felons who pled guilty to attacking, and in some cases killing, police officers. Although two-thirds of the Earth’s surface experienced record heat in 2024, he withdrew the U.S. from both the Paris climate-change treaty and the World Health Organization, and tried to end the constitutional birthright citizenship of those born on American soil. After a tragic air accident, he blamed the incident on "DEI," even as he admitted he had no evidence but just "common sense," and of course his "greatest hit," the continued Big Lie that the free and fair 2020 election was somehow "rigged" against him, despite the absence of a shred of evidence and multiple lost court cases.   

As William S. Burroughs would have pointed out, Trump has finally vulgarized and falsified the American dream, that last and greatest of human hopes, to the point where the bare lies are finally shining through.  And that's the beauty of living in difficult times of crisis - all the bullshit is blown away and things are finally revealed as they truly are. 

A monk once asked Zen Master Joshu, “When times of great difficulties come upon us, how should we meet them?”

Joshu answered, “Welcome.”