Cold and wet, warming to cool and wet, while remaining overcast. Whew. Think that’s the most complex guess I’ve made to date. Feels like it anyway, and it describes Monday. The forecast says “partly cloudy” with no mention of rain, so I could be wrong.
Did my pickup yesterday. Got there, and the other customer was complaining about not winning my lot. So I sold it to him. Quick flip, only $20, but hey, money in pocket vs. money in the abstract, and for no more work than figuring out how to make zelle work. Now I know that too…
Picked up the kid, did some domestic bliss, did some auction sorting. Tested a couple of things.
Today if it’s not raining, I’ll probably drop some stuff off at the auction. I’ll also do some pickups and maybe even drop some stuff at my secondary location. If I’m super ambitious, I’ll do all that before the kid needs a ride home. And I can end with taking the Expy in for service. Didn’t yesterday because of the school board drama and my wife wanting to attend that in person. Liars that lie.
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There are daily stories about the breakdown in civil society. One punch killings. Mobs attacking singles. Kids killing each other and adults. Adults murdering their kids. Armed robberies and carjackings are dramatically up. Property theft is so common it doesn’t even merit a report in some places. Other crimes by people better placed to profit from them are exposed daily, to almost zero outrage. Politicians betray their trust. The law is twisted to punish the guilty.
Some of these things have been with us since the dawn of time, and only vary in degree, and by time and place. Some are relatively new to the public sphere. Some were common, but not widely known here in the US. It all is increasing, it all points to a coming inflection point.
Two things are likely. One is that it continues to get worse, the people just accommodating themselves to the ‘new normal’ like frogs as the water boils. (That’s been happening btw, for a while.) Eventually though the frog jumps or dies. The other is that people get angry and determine that they will change the direction the body politic is headed. This is historically very violent and relatively short. The people that built western civilization are (because they are civilized) slow to anger. But once aroused they will vent their anger and KEEP venting it, long after the subject has been subdued. The result is ruined cities, scattered people, and salted earth.
We’ve been in scenario one for decades. The frog is starting to feel hot though, and is about to jump out of the water, splashing hot water everywhere, knocking over the pan, and generally throwing a big fit. Whether the fit is soon enough for the frog to survive, or not, is a bit irrelevant to the frog. The frog who jumps wants to destroy the pot, the water, the one who lit the stove, the stove, the gas that powers the stove, and anyone who approved of the frog boiling policy, so that it doesn’t happen again. Frogs are typically very motivated by hearth and home, kith and kin.
This time the frogs don’t have as much kin, many without direct descendants to protect or provide for. There is a much weaker bond to hearth and home too. I am not comfortable making any predictions other than that things WILL change. They will either bring the water to a boil more quickly and the frog will have missed its chance, or the frog will have his day of reckoning. At the moment I’m leaning toward the violent spasm. Don’t know if it will end in an improvement or not.
When I get anxious, I clean. I prep. I surround myself with stuff. It’s stacked pretty high… but it’s not all neatly put away, yet.
Stack.
nick