The devastation post-Helene is gut-wrenching, and a reminder that we’re not in Kansas anymore.

What worries me is that the once relatively isolated pockets of destruction are no longer as isolated. They’re growing closer together and so numerous that insurance companies can’t possibly offer compensation and coverage.

Peoples’ lives have been upended and thrown into chaos, and there’s either no easy road back or no road at all. Stress levels are through the roof, bewilderment and shock are taking their toll, and maybe all of us are starting to wonder who’s next. When is it going to be our turn to sift through wreckage and pick up the pieces of our lives?

This isn’t pessimism, exactly. It’s just a recognition that no one is safe, no one emerges unscathed from the immense forces being unleashed by a changing climate.

Our attention should be rapt at this point.

Are social media companies to blame for kids’ suicides? Seems like a 21^st century question.

Sure, let’s blame it on the impersonal behemoths because they’re an easy target who must be preying on our innocent, angelic children’s naivete and undeveloped social and coping skills, and banking on parents who haven’t quite mastered the art of when to be parents instead of “best friends.”

Without reading the article (because I refuse to pay for Apple News), my gut reaction is that social media giants of course spend their days thinking of ways to keep people hooked on their products, keep people on their devices. But someone should be asking about the parents’ role in all of this.

A device that exposes an insecure, immature teenager (or younger?) to potential abuse needs to be monitored by an adult in the room. And maybe this is part of the issue: the adult either refuses to do their job of parenting—providing emotional support, establishing limits and guidelines—or there is little to no parental oversight in the first place. Or maybe the authority figure is feeding his or her own addiction to Facebook or Instagram, looking for affirmation themselves, bragging about a cruise to Antarctica or their gifted children and how great their lives are.

While there may be a need for regulation of some sort, and unless there is found to be something on the scale of concealed knowledge or a cover-up regarding nicotine addiction, it’s just too easy to blame everything on the big guy with deep pockets.

If you take Rachel Maddow seriously, JD Vance is a scary dude who does not have America’s best interests at heart.

Vance subscribes to the rantings and ideology of Curtis Yarvin, a college-educated advocate for, among other things, gutting higher education and selling the properties to developers—which is just the tip of the iceberg of what he has in mind for America.

It seems the height of irony that Yarvin speaks ill of universities—of which he is a product—and considers them repositories for everything that’s wrong with America. What’s worse is that JD Vance mentions Yarvin’s name in the same breath that he talks about doing what it takes to rid the country of anything that smacks of progressive or liberal. Sounds like Vance prefers blowing things up and starting over.

Yes, this is the strangeness with which we are dealing right now. And it’s not like we needed Maddow to remind us—it’s just that she clarifies things, helps us see just how long this shit has been rumbling around in the zeitgeist. It’s been idling in the background for a century or longer, and has once again reared its ugly head.

Trump and Vance? They’d be a fucking nightmare. The fact that people can’t see this, or refuse to process it, is beyond mystifying. It’s infuriating.

What/who is an abortion survivor? Is this someone who actually survived the procedure, or someone whose mother decided not to have an abortion?

The anti-abortion memes one might come across drive home the point that life is precious, that—of course—the life in the human womb can’t be anything but another developing human, no matter the stage of development. Pro-lifers may also cart out all manner of convoluted logic, including a tug at the heartstrings, including the assumption that people who get abortions are all monsters, doing it as a matter of convenience without any forethought or consideration of spiritual or psychological consequences. And that—of course—is not true.

Anti-abortion crusaders speak from the heart in many ways, but they apparently also choose to miss the point of the debate. The argument is not over what’s being lost—a human life is being terminated when a woman goes through with an abortion. That point can’t be argued. But this has never been the actual point.

The crux of the matter, I believe, is that a woman has the right to make the decision and to live with the consequences of that decision. She has, or should have, domain over her own body. It is the business of no one but the woman involved. Apart from the context of a committed relationship with a husband or significant other, in which case having children should have already been a topic of discussion, the decision is left to no one but the pregnant woman.

Those who are thumping their Bibles and pointing to an ancient edict in the Old Testament, i.e. the 5^th Commandment—often times men in positions of authority—have no say in the matter. The issue has always been more complicated than simply harping on what the Bible says.

The Republican ticket for POTUS– especially the VP pick– doesn’t see it that way.

A limited incursion, as if they can just dial it up or down. Israel is on a roll, helping the world to take its eye off of what’s going on in Gaza with a “limited” ground offensive in Lebanon. And the U.S. is impotent in the midst of this carnage.

What can we do, though, since we supply Israel with arms and claim to be its best friend?

How this ends is anyone’s guess, but all war all the time has to be a real drag for everyone involved. Looks like Netanyahu/Israel has finally snapped, or maybe it’s that they’re just not gonna take it anymore. They’re gonna hand it out and hope that it somehow ends well.

Holy war. What a crock of shit.

So, was the dockworkers’ strike on anyone’s radar, or is this somehow a piece of Republican strategy to disrupt the economy five weeks before the election? It’s the first strike of the ILA since 1977—a few years short of fifty years ago.

What the hell?

It is October, so it’s about time for the stock market’s annual swoon. Looks like this year’s catalyst might be a panic over shortages of festively bowed Lexuses and crap to put under the Christmas tree. And toilet paper!

Americans are more reliant than ever on government aid, according to the Wall Street Journal. Anathema to any capitalist worth his salt, and we can’t have that!

All the more reason to elect Donald Trump, right? So he and his cold-hearted cronies can get rid of the detritus and leeches and immigrants siphoning all that precious money from the already-rich who could make better use of it somehow? Just tell people to pull themselves up, get a life– or get out– and stop whining, right?

Forget the aging population and economic distress. Such handouts smell too strongly of socialism, and goodness knows we can’t have that, what with all the socialism we already have and which people have depended on since the 1930s.

There’s something un-American, somehow, about providing a safety net. But maybe “safety net” by another name is simply an indication of a government that is responsive to genuine need, a government that isn’t totally in the pocket of the “self-made”, the venture capitalists and the real whiners who appear to not care about anything besides unsustainable growth and their own well-being. And who think they’re indispensable and somehow the only heroes.

We stopped at our favorite local orchard to get some apples and Asian pears and ended up lingering because the owners insisted on talking politics. It didn’t take long to figure out where these folks are at, so, personally, I wasn’t that interested in hanging around and engaging in a back and forth.

But we ended up exchanging thoughts for ten or fifteen minutes, not accomplishing much but at least walking away still on good terms, I think. They now have a pretty good sense for where we’re at, and we now know the same about them.

What sticks with me is the fear of what the election outcome may mean for the country. These folks see it in terms of Armageddon if Kamala Harris prevails. I guess I‘m not as convinced things will take such a ghastly turn if that’s the outcome. If Trump prevails, they’d likely breathe a sigh of relief, but also acknowledge that more than half the country will be upset, just for different reasons.

Later in the day, I happened to watch a podcast involving John Oliver and some NY Times staffer in which Oliver echoed a prevalent feeling—a disappointment and puzzlement over how things can still be so close. Yesterday at the orchard we got insights into how this is possible: they obviously get their news from Fox or one of the other right wing networks, and they see things through the lens of a certain biblical inerrancy, along with prophecy and Old Testament “wisdom.”

It makes me wonder how things would be different if we could take Scripture out of the equation.

It also makes me crazy to think that Donald Trump is viewed by many as some sort of savior. He deserves no such standing. The orchard owners are smart, savvy, kind, and thoughtful people, but they have a massive blind spot, in my estimation. They’re most likely going to vote for Donald Trump because they see some sort of positive connection between him and the Bible, or they’re just die-hard Republicans.

They’re going to, perhaps reluctantly, vote for the guy who uses people and doesn’t really want the job. For the guy who’s so far gone that he’s buying his own delusions of competence and intelligence and “protecting women” and a biblical mandate and all the rest of the insane proclamations he’s been making for nine years.

So, I guess our encounter at the orchard turned out to be something of a revelation, or at least a confirmation.

Lots of stories to pick from this morning—the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the (big surprise) indictment of Eric Adams, the nuclear ultimatum from the little gnat in Moscow, and the apparent assassination of a Hezbollah leader by Israel. Oh, and a $10 quintillion asteroid, which must contain something more interesting than just silicone and “metal.”

Tough choices, but I have to go with the blurb I saw about Kyle Rittenhouse—the then 17-year-old vigilante who killed two protesters/rioters in Wisconsin a few years back. Seems someone has unearthed a text from Rittenhouse that has disenchanted a former spokesperson and bodyguard and casts doubt on Rittenhouse’s naïve, innocent persona, revealing instead a certain murderous intent.

Big surprise— those tears shed during his trial just masked the familiar ignorance and hatred that can take root in an impressionable mind. Old enough to believe in the Second Amendment myth and that bringing an assault rifle to a public protest is no big deal, but somehow not old enough to face the consequences of his extreme actions. Just another little man with a gun who got in over his head, found a good lawyer, and preyed on public sympathy.

Hurricane Helene hit the Big Bend area of Florida late last night. Sounds like it had potential to be a memorable storm– Category 4 at landfall, twenty-foot storm surge, heavy rain and wind all the way into the Carolinas. We’ll see what the coming days bring in the way of aftermath photos and damage reports. Sounds like people may be without electricity for a while (2 million currently).

This could be just a freakish monster, a hundred-year storm or something. Or maybe it’s just the new normal. Ironic that it’s hitting the state whose governor prefers to drop “climate change” from the lexicon.

Ron’ll be fine, though. He and his ace surgeon general have everything figured out.