The UN opens its fall session today, with an impassioned speech by the Nordic princess of climate change, Greta Thunberg. You gotta admit, the kid has guts and did a great job with her speech, but sadly, to the wrong folk..they have no authority to do anything that will make any changes to the climate – or anything else. Alas.

The only way the world will begin to address climate change is when a critical mass of humans that aren’t poor and brown die. What is really needed here is for someone to find a way to make real money from finding solutions to prevent the earth from heating up. Unfortunately, we aren’t that clever, so it will be a while and a lot of folk will suffer…along the way to achieving that critical mass. How many will it take? 1%? Since there’s 7.7 billion people, that means 770,000 people have to die. So far we’re estimating about 400,000 per year – so we’re halfway there! Anyone volunteering to make up the difference? Not me – not finished with my books yet, and can’t leave my readers hanging.

She’s real fine, my 409, my 409! Old California surf/hot rod car tune by the phony Beach Boys in 1962.

Speaking of phonies, then there’s DtheT/crazy. As Stan Laurel always told Oliver Hardy, “Ollie, you’ve done it again!” This time, our esteemed president has involved himself in petty politics and along with weasel Rudy has threatened to withhold military aid used to fight the Russians unless the comedian president of Ukraine investigates bad boy Hunter Biden. This strategy is a non-starter on several fronts. First: everybody already knows Hunter is a bad boy who has badly used his father’s position for gain – along with stealing with dead brother’s wife. Tawdry. Second, Biden isn’t even the Democratic nominee yet, and most folk in the know think he’ll fade. Third, D&R are talkin’ to a comedian, for Christ’s sake. Yes, the President of Ukraine was a comedian who impersonated the president – before he became president. Once this comes out fully, he’ll have a really good time talking about it in a less than diplomatic way. Eew..creepy…but impeachable? Words..not actions..close, but likely no cigar.

410 more days and David Brooks writes scenarios in his column where Elizabeth Warren wins the presidency in 2020. I’m not sure which is more frightening – her or him the incumbent. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see, but I fear Biden will fade, especially with the younger folk. I’d be happy if Arturo Toscanini won…course we’d have to dig him up & prop him up, but I can live with that!

Missed a day yesterday – got started writing in earnest, so there’s only so many brain cells to spare on any given day, eh? OK, lousy excuse, but I’m here, aren’t I?

Topic for today: Country Music series by Ken Burns. Yes, it was Iran, apparently, that blew up the Saudis. Guess they’re getting serious about trying to pressure the world to let up on sanctions, but they just get worse. What about cyberattacks? Nobody wants to talk about them. But anyway: Country Music by Ken Burns.

We’ve covered 4 episodes of the show, and – as usual with Burns – the work is exceptional. I’ve learned a lot about the history of this genre, and it makes me sad that it’s now become so homogenized. But since I don’t listen to any new music forms, guess that is to be expected. It’s all pap and consistency! Too bad.

One fact does stand out to me – and it seems to me now to be a truism: hard times seem to bring out the best in the arts – all of them. The textual works created by the WPA; the murals; and yes, the music of The Carters, Jimmie Rodgers, and then later on Hank Williams. But it must be said that the entire genre really owes a great deal to what was known as ‘race’ music – whatever that is. But many black artists helped people like Rodgers and AP Carter find and recreate the music that African Americans created. They are owed a great deal of gratitude – should it be in the form of reparations? Boy howdy, that’s a big subject for another day, eh?

Big Huh! The song Hard Times, one of my favorites, was written by Stephen Foster. Who knew the guy who wrote Way Down Upon the Suwannee River could produce a set of lyrics and a tune that are so compelling? For example:

While we seek mirth and beauty and music bright and gay there are frail forms fainting at the door. Though their voices are silent their pleading looks will say Oh Hard Times Come Again No More

Doesn’t get much better than that.

Well, I lost three days somewhere along the way. I guess the hurricane blew them away! Hey, it could happen!

So we’re down to 59 weeks until the election. Somebody bombed some oil facilities on the eastern side of Saudi Arabia. Of course, SA & USA blamed Iran, as the remains of the bomb material appeared to resemble Iranian-made stuff. But can we believe anything either country says? Geez – that is a harsh indictment of one’s own country, but really, can you disagree? I have no confidence that this administration would tell the truth if it’s in their interest to lie. Lying is what they do – not just el presidente, but the whole lot of them. Media has to pick up the ball and find independent sources to let us know what really happened.

Questions abound. Do the Houthis – the Yemeni rebels that took credit for the attack – have the technology to accomplish it? Not thus far, but why not now? Was it perpetrated by the Saudis themselves as an excuse to…to what? That’s an unknown. And how does Israel fit into this drama? They have an election this week and goodness knows what their issues might be – internal and external politics may play a big role here for that country.

But the big question is: is this the spark for war we’ve been discussing? Killing real estate isn’t the same as killing citizenry – not that the Saudis would necessarily care about that since they kill their own if they are problemmatic. But somehow all this is tied together with the weird stuff going on with oil ships in the straits of Hormuz in the last few months. If I were to guess, I’d say – per Occam’s razor – the most obvious culprit would be Iran. But what if there’s a rogue faction in Iran the Ayatollah can’t control? There’s nothing out there in the blogosphere to indicate that, but that is no longer trustworthy because of censorship from both sides. This one is a wait and see and hope the truth outs – maybe a 40/60 probability.

416 More days until the question will be answered: are we continuing to deteriorate or are angels still looking over our collective shoulders?

The answer will only come when if one side wakes up from what they perceive to be a terrible dream and then goes over to the dark side/light. To me, there’s no equivocation on the topic: Trump is dangerous and should not have a second term to make things worse. Those who support him are liable to raise quiet a ruckus if he should happen to not win…and that is when the proverbial rubber will meet the road. Will our institutions save us? We will end up with a government of the Trump, by the Trump and for the Trump? I wish I knew the answer to that question. I surely hope so.

Sleep is not my friend, and every once in a while, insomnia hits me big time. The last two nights were like that..so first night I binge watched The Unabomber and last night watched MIB International with Robin & Colter. Commentary follows.

The story of how the FBI caught Ted Kaczynski was interesting from the perspective that 1) the story that came out in the media at the time far differed from the ‘real’ story; and 2) the FBI caught Ted in spite of their efforts, not because of them. If Ted’s sister-in-law Linda hadn’t bugged her husband David into indirectly contacting the FBI anonymously, they’d still be looking. Investigating the anonymous tip required extraordinary effort on the part of a female agent; without that work on her part, he’d still be out there making and sending bombs.

It’s always difficult to discern how accurate these biopics are – you know, individuals are ‘composites’ of several characters, time frames might be changed, and details of the take down of the suspect are often exaggerated for dramatic effect. But in this case, I think the facts are pretty straightforward, if flawed. You have to read Ted’s manifesto to see that. The main character, an agent named ‘Fitz’, aka James Fitzgerald, must persist mightily with the POB to get them to go after the likes of their nemesis. They were looking for the exact opposite of Ted, using their old methods of detection. Maybe that was part of Ted’s plan – he was a genius, after all. But I don’t think that’s it at all. It was a case of macho male thinking versus intuitive, female-style thinking which apparently Fitz had a smattering of. He also had help – from women, naturally. In fact, the female agent that was the key to the whole thing got fired for breaking the rules. That came out in the story, but apparently Ted never knew about it. Otherwise, he might have used it as part of the defense he wanted to invoke: the fruit of the poisonous tree as he called it. But his efforts concerned the wording of the warrant and the lack of precedence for linguistic usage as a basis for searching his cabin. Nobody was going to buy that anyway…the evidence was overwhelming, and it hinged on the material found in the cabin. Sorry, Ted – public defenders wanted to put you away too. Or get you sent to a mental institution instead of the SuperMax torture chamber in Colorado.

The error I reference above was Fitz noting the use of the words broad or chick and Negro in the manifesto. He assumed Ted was older because nobody used those words any more. But Ted was using them in context – in fact, identifying them as old expressions for women and African Americans to make a point. But I’m being nitpicky. Who knows if that was the writer’s imagination or a path Fitz actually followed. But the series was worth watching. MIB International was not.

In spite of a host of stars (blonde Emma again..jeez), MIBI stunk because the writing was bad. The same guy who wrote the original Iron Man script wrote this one, with another guy. The plot was trite and totally predictable. The emphasis was on CGI creatures versus a real story; and the name actors just walked through their parts instead of interacting effectively with one another. Having said all that, the movie made 2 1/2 times its costs back in ticket sales. Just goes to show – a winning franchise name is all you need these days to make money. So sad.

Watching the returns come in for the 9th District North Carolina special election proves that hope springs eternal in the human heart. The Republican won, and then the commentary started. Oh..My..God!

Everybody took credit for the win, including DtheT/crazy. Dems were lambasted for not turning up. The local public television guy got closest to the reality of the situation, saying the Bishop campaign just did a better job of getting out the vote. But let’s look at the facts.

Geremandering (recall named for Ellsworth Gerry) puts the NC 9th at a Republican +8 standing, per the Cook Political Report. Only a few districts anywhere in the country have flipped those – one in Georgia that had been redistricted after the 2010 census to include more suburban, rich, white folks, and another in Minnesota where voters are capable of just about anything …Jesse Ventura…’nuf said.

So digging deeper into the numbers, McCready lost by about 4,000 votes – 4 times the number he lost by to the previous Republican candidate – a guy named Harris who hired cheaters to throw away absentee ballots and likely cause McReady to lose. But I digress. This time, one county flipped big time – Robeson County.

According to the local paper, their state senator, a popular guy named Britt, was good friends with the Republican winner Bishop in the state house. Britt campaigned hard and in a very organized fashion for Bishop. Also, Bishop helped the Lumbee Indians, who make up a large portion of Robeson County, with some state legislation. Finally, there was a Lumbee Indian Democratic candidate on the ballot in 2018 that likely helped McReady. No Lumbee Indian in the 2019 election repeat.

So there you have it – it wasn’t Trump, it wasn’t lack of turnout from the Dems, it was local politics and a lazy local Dem party that had taken a lot of these normally Democratic voters for granted. Who said all politics is local?Tip O’Neill is credited with it..and he’s probably right. Just look at a political map of the US of A. Notice any color trends? Trump will win in 2020. Really. Sorry, folks…big sigh..

60 weeks left until the election that could let us off the Trump train. What can happen in a mere 60 weeks? Most revolutions take less than that to finalize and dispatch the monarch(s). The world could be vaporized in 60 weeks. But if that happens, you’ll never know how my pentalogy of stories ends (that means five stories that connect in some way). So we’d best KBO and not let the world end yet.

Oh boy, here we go again. Sorry to bring this up again, but it is sort of the topic du jour. Here’s the quote from a guy named Shawn Rosenberg: ” In sum, the majority of Americans are generally unable to understand or value democratic culture, institutions, practices or citizenship in the manner required,” Rosenberg has concluded. “To the degree to which they are required to do so, they will interpret what is demanded of them in distorting and inadequate ways. As a result they will interact and communicate in ways that undermine the functioning of democratic institutions and the meaning of democratic practices and values.”

This is from a paper delivered at the meeting of the International Society of Political Psychologists held in Lisbon last month. This fellow Rosenberg is pretty famous in his circle, so I expect what he says carries some weight. His thesis is “Democracy is devouring itself and it won’t last.” Democracy is devouring itself..now that’s a fraught line if ever I saw one. What he’s really saying is that the lazy, impressionable, stupid people in America are giving away their freedoms to the convenience of the fascist state that will make their decisions for them. So we’re like Russian peasants in 1917? Shawn seems to think so.

So now we’ve heard from another egghead/thought leader/columnist that we are doomed as a country. The ‘golden age’ of democracy lasted only about 70 years…there’s some irony…the Soviet Union lasted about 70 years. Is there something special about that number? It represents three generations…the theory being it takes three generations to forget the horrors that were inflicted on the world 70 years ago.

If democracy is to end and authoritarianism is to take its place, then the institutions of democracy will go with it. Who needs elections every four years? Maybe a president for life is what we need. I know a guy who’d volunteer for the job. In fact, in November of 2020, he might insist on it.

In conclusion, all this reminds me of a song by a Norwegian singer, Ane Brun called One. You may remember it if you’re an avid PBS watcher, as they used it in their ads. Here’s the end of the song’s lyrics:

Stones from dust
Anger from fear
Poetry from heartbeats
Revolution from dreams
Revolution from dreams
Revolution from dreams
It all starts somewhere
It all starts with one
Everything comes from something
It all starts with one
Starts with one

The trouble will start with someone we can’t even begin to imagine yet. But it will end with revolution and war – somewhere. Here? Maybe