There really is something to race baiting. Airheads with multiple screws loose walk into a place, shoot it up, kill some or many, and then hope it gets the minority in the crosshairs angry enough to retaliate and start a race war. That’s the hope. That’s the tactic.

That’s what too many people decide to do with their time—think up ways to create ill will and foment chaos.

There really is a new normal.

People are working from home more, or at least in a hybrid work mode. Health care workers—including doctors and nurses—are in short supply in places, largely because many walked away, had had enough after weathering Covid.

Workplaces are suffering, or at least the work force is shifting—certain places are thriving, many others never reopened after the quarantine. Online ordering is going through the roof, in part because it’s just easier, but also because there’s less chance of being shot by daring to do business in public at a mall or a fucking Walmart.

Wages are up, way up—at places like Burger King and Dunkin’. But you’ll still need a second job if you want to work full time at a daycare center and work your ass off while being responsible for other peoples’ children all day.

The unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been since 1969, but what kind of jobs are being filled?

Teachers are walking away, in part because Covid exposed weaknesses in the system, because Covid exacerbated the behavior and discipline issues, because no one wants to put up with the shit from students and parents and inept administrators. And in part because the younger generations are neglected or really into themselves and don’t have a clue what it means to behave or sacrifice anything.

Certain segments of the airline industry are years away from recovering financially, or so I read. Car dealerships are just now starting to recover, from the standpoint of inventory, though think about it… do we really need to keep cranking out gas-guzzling vehicles and filling the lots with more stuff that depletes raw materials and poisons the air, all the while considering this a sign of… health? We are scarring the land and digging our own graves.

Tradespeople are in short supply, doctors and nurses are in short supply, police officers and fire fighters are in short supply, EMT crews are in short supply, because no one wants to put up with the anger and bad behavior anymore. No one needs that shit. Fewer want to work that hard. There seems to be a looming crisis of selfishness—people are figuring someone else will do it, whatever it is.

People are buying assault weapons because they can, and way too many are using them to kill others, because they are sick and angry and…  bored?!?!!

Health care succumbs to the marketplace. Rich people with no ties to local communities, along with big conglomerates with no ties to local communities continue to buy community hospitals and run them into the ground. It’s a big house of cards, wouldn’t take much for the whole thing to implode.

It’s like people had a brush with death, in the form of a pandemic, and have treated it as a wake-up call of some sort—they’ve decided to live life on their terms from here on out, and to hell with a civil society and sense of shared burdens, sense of community. As long as I get mine, whatever that looks like.

Everyone wants an easy life.

Usually, travel advisories are issued because of the potential for inclement weather, not because your state has been declared inhospitable to African Americans. But this is what we have now in Florida. It’s not a surprise, given who’s governor and the spell he has been able to cast over the state. It’s just really sad.

Ron DeSantis is a strange, scary man.

You can call this a stunt if you want, Ron. But please take a minute to consider why it has come to this. Hint: just stand in front of the nearest mirror and gaze on that visage sporting the shit-eating grin.

Looks like it might be our turn for some drought conditions. It was supposed to rain a bit yesterday but didn’t, and there’s not much in the forecast except a 55% chance on Wednesday this week.

Don’t know why I’m writing about the weather—guess it’s because I’m running out of gas at the moment. Sorry to bore even more than usual. Gotta get to a 125-day streak and then call it a day for a bit. Might as well not be writing anything as writing this drivel. Time for a break.

So, do we really know what will happen if the debt ceiling isn’t raised? From most accounts, it’s gonna be doomsday for the average Joe or Joanne, but how will Kevin McCarthy and company fare? Are they pursuing this tact knowing that they have nothing to worry about, that this insistence on holding out won’t affect them nearly as much as it will the rest of us?

And what are they trying to prove? Fiscal sanity in one fell swoop?

I can’t imagine it’s anything that honorable.

Jim Jordan. Yes, he of the pale countenance. Most days he looks ill and exhausted. He’s always argumentative, seems tortured by some nagging anger over one thing or another. He appears to be on some sort of mission to make life difficult for anyone who doesn’t share his provincial views.

I believe he’s part of the Freedom Caucus, an infuriatingly consequential group of Republican House members, aka dinosaurs, who apparently don’t have a handle on what “freedom” actually means. Unless it means free to chase tails, free to go down rabbit holes, free to pursue an agenda that wastes everyone’s time.

Makes me wonder how such a person makes it so far. Who votes for him? What do people think he’s going to do for them when he’s consumed by vendettas and spends so much time trying to reshape the past?   

We were supposed to have a cold night overnight. Freeze warnings started popping up yesterday on the weather app—temps in the low 30s or even lower. So we bundled up the tomato plant with a blanket, covered the string beans with a plastic sheet between two chairs, and used individual pots and such to cover the basil and pepper plants. We brought the flat of annuals and the hanging basket with the geranium into the house.

But a layer of high clouds moved in, and must have lingered overnight—it was still 38* at 5:25 this morning, and I doubt it’ll go much lower than that. Saved by the fires in Alberta? It’s been periodically dingy around here—not really cloudy, just a blanket of haze that doesn’t look healthy. But it must have been enough to keep in a bit of the heat of the day.

I’m not complaining. I shouldn’t have planted the tomato so early, but it looks like we’ll be ok.

Hmm, I was gonna say it looks like we dodged a bullet, but it didn’t feel right, for some reason. Maybe I’m really tired of hearing about or making reference to bullets. We get enough of that most days, for different reasons.

*Clarification: the 38-degree reading was off a sensor mounted on the side of the house in the carport. The actual air temp might have been colder out in the open back yard, but maybe not 6 degrees colder. Hopefully, the precautions we took made a difference.

Further clarification: mixed results. The tomato looks ok, most of the beans look ok, but the basil and peppers didn’t fare so well. Might have to replant those.

“This will change everything.”

Are you sure about that? It’s kind of funny how quickly we resort to hyperbole.

“This will change everything.” Can you be more specific? What exactly does that mean– change everything?

Change how we talk and move and breathe? Will we stop butchering each other with high-powered weaponry? Will we stop eating too much? Will east become west, yes become no, red become blue, up become down, rivers reverse direction? Will people start eating their broccoli and being in less of a hurry? Will war become unfashionable and stupid? Will we stop worrying about appearances and keeping up?

What exactly are you talking about when you say this will change everything? Sounds lazy, like a catch-all phrase, more like you’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing if it sticks.  

The writer’s strike is taking its toll on our mealtime video viewing. Normally, we watch clips of Colbert or Kimmel, sometimes Fallon, but now all that’s available is news, if one wants to call it “news.” And the news is approaching unwatchable territory.

I don’t know what their gripe is, though it’s a safe bet it has something to do with adequate financial compensation. Didn’t we go through this a few years ago? Has the landscape changed that much already, or is this some post-Covid bump that’s just now catching up with the entertainment “industry”?

Interesting concept to begin with—the host gets the marquee, but basically he or she is just delivering lines written by someone else? Hell of a way to make a living. But that’s entertainment. That’s Hollywood. Big bucks can be made.

The disciples don’t even need a manual. They just watch and listen and learn from the master.

Told lies to get elected? Padded your resume? Got caught in some sexual indiscretion with someone with whom you should have known better? No problem! Just employ the tried and true Donald Trump Method of Endless Denial.

Seems to be working for him, so why not give it a try yourself, right George? Right Matt? And a variation on the theme is to just be dumber and denser than a bag of hammers.