Friday, August 4, 2017

Societal Hot Buttons, Smugness, Storms

Self-Congrats
 
rich kid on plane

I blundered into a hot button mine field at the recycling center, silly me. Standing by the bins, I was breaking down cartons with a box-cutter, the plane hijacking tool. 

A high energy woman joined me, tossing in cardboard bits and announced, making conversation,

"Aren't we good people!"

I laughed, giving her a grin.

"Yeah, I've about sprained a wrist, patting myself on the back."

Not only was she not amused, I'd offended her! She stomped off and shunned further interaction. 

Actually I'd meant no offense; I've been ruminating self-congratulation as a current societal meme, and a fracturing one. Very strange.

For example, I have many friends and many in this community who regard themselves as trail-blazers of societal transformation. A truly stupendous time to be alive.

Having helped elect the first pigmented president, by hook or by crook it was intended to get the first woman into super-power. Grief, rage and resistance soon followed.

Performance was never an issue, nor did it matter when possibly felonious, treasonous and certainly self-aggrandizing behaviors began oozing into public scrutiny. 

Intelligent folks, still patting selves on the back, were untroubled by continued pile up inconvenient whistleblower cadavers. 

I can spell cognitive dissonance, and navigated some when a total stranger threw her arms around me weeping at the US election results, saying, "I know you feel just as I do." Good thing I studied psych.

For awhile, I had made a study of commodity and equity markets, which means visiting what?--the snake pit arena of high IQ pathological liars.

There's a natural segue to politics, but hazardous to mention. 

And while we perform societal Terrible Two's, there's a lot going on, "new normals" the many, and attendant Angst. Consider, storms...

Yesterday a little after the noon hour we lost power, to the sound of distant thunder and smell of rain. Sudden wind struck with violence and heavy downpour; temperature dropped 30 degrees F. in what seemed a heartbeat.

It turned so dark and chilly in the middle of the day that I began reading by solar lamplight, and pulled an Aran cardigan and woolen throw out of the cedar chest. 

The outage lasted thirteen hours, a generous amount of time to ponder bar codes, ATM's, gas stations, melting food in the freezer, well pumps, and don't flush the toilet.

Yes, this happened at Rocky Mt. elevation, and yes I remember summer storms not dissimilar in the Alps. But it's barely August in a year of late snows and killing frosts. 

A year without local orchard fruits, and serious grain crop losses on the High Plains, olive crop failure in Italy, etc.

We've entered a Solar Grand Minimum, a cyclical phenom associated with colder temperatures and even Little Ice Age conditions.

It may be that the "Global Warming" scientists who corrupted data and lied for tenure and research grant lucre have harmed more than we realize.   

They've earned contempt from colleagues of integrity, but the science high priesthood, corrupted, can harm the Global Commons.

Those of us expecting torrid temperatures and continued plenty, do not insulate our houses, install wood stoves, or imagine feeding our families beyond a few days of inconvenience.

Liars may reap rewards short term, but long term, people and planet live the delusion.

Of very long term vintage, assurances were given of the affordability, safety and peaceful use of nuclear power. (Follow the money, that tedious refrain, though the "buck" stops nowhere.)

We give you Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima.

Oppenheimer watched the first mushroom cloud of the atomic era and is alleged to have thought of the Gita: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

File:Shiva's statue at CERN engaging in the Nataraja dance.jpg
 
And synchronistically speaking, the entry to the bowels of CERN in Switzerland features a statue of dancing Shiva, Hindu god of destruction, often worshiped as a lingam (phallus, penis.)

Storms aplenty ahoy, and tempest in a teapot diversions. What could possibly go wrong?