only a dream and lots of walking

Last night or rather early this morning, I had the weirdest dream and I don't usually remember my dreams and when I do, I don't really pay any attention to them. I used to when I was young and innocent, in a searching kind of way, and for a while even wrote them down in a pretty little dream diary - which eventually made its way into the deep below the bed world.

In today's dream, I was visited by a medical crew, a group of smart looking youngsters in uniforms, who stood around my bed reading out various diagnoses and observations from charts. I knew right away that this was a scam and somehow ended up talking with them and it turned out they were desperate, had been forced into this. Meanwhile R had called the police and in the end, we both helped them to get away safely before the police arrived. Seriously, what?

So last week I did a LOT of walking, in fact every day, including up a very steep hill on a medieval stations-of-the-cross walk through ancient forest across the river, complete with statues and crosses and I seriously suffered along what with the heat and the climb but I made it and on top, joined the lazy tourists who had driven up there. I usually walk alone or with R who doesn't talk much but points out plants and fungi and stuff like that in his best science teacher mode. But on Friday, I went for a longish walk with a friend who had just been through a nasty divorce and in the end we had walked for close to  three hours round and round the large central cemetery until she had most of it off her chest. We also noted how there are less graves and increasingly more (managed) wild flower fields and bee hives and biotopes ponds which I was informed is due to outrageous funeral and burial plot maintenance costs.

It's the time of summer when we hand out courgettes and pears to anybody silly enough to come near us and possibly some neighbours have gone into hiding by now.

A few thoughts on recent events and why there is no time to rest and sit back and laugh about silly social media memes.

. . .  misogyny is one of the most dangerous weapons on Earth. The best friend of authoritarians and oligarchs. The handmaiden of tyrants.

. . .  it’s misogyny – networked misogyny across multiple global platforms that will earn their tech bro owners billions upon billions of dollars – that is going to decide the 2024 election. And it’s misogyny that’s going to dictate the future of Nato, the outcome of the war in Ukraine, whether we have peace in Europe or more war. And because this is going to be a firehose that will be directed at a single woman – Kamala Harris – it will be misogyny multiplied: misogyny plus racism, the most toxic combination of all.

They used to call us witches because we knew shit. We still do. That’s what makes us so powerful. And dangerous. 

So, here’s what I need you to do now: to shut up and sit down and listen. You are at risk. We are all at risk. Because this is what I know: bad things are coming. We are in a code red emergency.

Because misogyny isn’t bad people saying bad things that may hurt your feelings. (Though it might.) And misogyny isn’t about silencing women. (Though it does.)

Misogyny is now one of the deadliest weapons on Earth. Misogyny is a dirty bomb in the heart of our information system. Misogyny is electoral interference. Misogyny is a national security threat so lethal we can’t even see it.

Because misogyny is invisible. It’s never about all women, it’s always just about one particular, disagreeable woman who just happens to not be very likeable. Or competent. Who is loud or “shrill” or annoying or who got the job because she slept with a man. Or because she was a diversity hire. A woman who can’t even run her own house let alone a country. A woman who is “nasty”. A woman who isn’t and cannot be the strong leader a nation needs. Enjoy the sunshine of the Kamala moment. Breathe in the clean fresh air of facts, of evidence, of information. Of hope. Before the toxic social media chimneys crank up the content. Because shortly, the particulates will arrive, will silently and stealthily and invisibly start clogging our bronchial pathways even as the billionaire bros who own the platforms rake in record profits. 

Soon, we won’t even notice. It’ll just be part of the air that we breathe. A choking toxic misogynistic stew that will silently pour over the culture war trenches like mustard gas. Darkness is coming. This is the world social media created. And we’re much further out than we thought.

Carol Cadwalladr

and there's always that

I would be puzzled to know, if I were in Putin’s position, how to run Donald Trump as my asset. I have no doubt that they have obtained him, and they could probably blow him out of the water whenever they felt like it, but I think they are having much more fun feeding his contradictions and con-tributing to the chaos. ‘The terrifying thing is, the closer he draws to Putin, the more he lies and denies, the stronger his support among the faithful. You don't need to own Trump as an agent. You just have to let him run.

John le Carré
Letter to William Burroughs
23rd July 2018

source: Shaun Usher, Letters of Note

death and a crater

It's sticky and thundery. In the last couple of days, I went for the walk first thing in the morning to avoid the heat. Not sure whether that's the best idea as I end up getting the shakes half way but this is suburbia and there are many benches and walls and stuff for a short rest. A few days ago, I bravely walked the perimeter of an ancient volcanic crater. It only took us three hours of climbing through dense forest but the water was intensely green and still and wonderful to look at. We were the only people around so nobody could hear my whiny voice complaining about the heat and the insects and that R was walking too fast.

Malbergsee

Mostly, I am cranky and seem to have lost my manners but my excuse is that I have been living on a boring bland diet for almost a year now with not a chance of improvement. At least I can do coffee and I am a sucker for porridge and toast. The man has developed some bland soup recipes with fresh garden produce incl. herbs. Soups are really boiled green smoothies, I tell myself. And they do taste good. Good enough. A decent week is one with little or no weight loss. And concentrating on that helps to ignore some other symptoms the expert has noted at the regular check-up last week, at least for while. 

blackberries almost ready

Today, we cycled to the fancy French cafe, in between heavy thunder storms, and while we sat under the awning sipping gorgeous cafe au lait, discussed burial options and costs. I had this dream that both of us had died and our daughter arrived here, jet-lagged and, out of her mind, began tearing her beautiful hair out. 

So we are now putting together instructions and the necessary funds. Current favourite is getting an undertaker from across the border in Holland, which unlike here, would allow collecting the ashes and spreading it where and when anybody wants to. While in Germany the laws are much stricter, you cannot spread ashes willy nilly everywhere. We next imagined her trying to get two urns past NZ customs and started to have the giggles. Anyway, lots to investigate and we are serious about preparations.

poor shot of the bees

We are both old now, more or less, and getting used to it. And while we are clearing out stuff, sorting through papers, preparing our burials, it's just old age, it's not waiting for death, it's life. Our lives will come to an end, it has happened to billions of people before and it will happen to everyone alive, everyone we know. The man is fit and healthy, I am not. Anything can happen.

summer and superpowers and the life of Riley

 

I am very proud of my neat herb bed

It's been very hot, often very windy and in between close and grey and humid. We had heavy thunderstorms, heavy rain and today, it's sticky and grey. Whatever we may think, the garden is doing extremely well. Until a few days ago, I sat for a while every morning shelling the peas that R brought me. Now they are either eaten or in the freezer. We continue to argue about the soft fruit which according to my thinking should be eaten straight away in large handfulls while he believes in freezing it for a rainy cold day of jam making. Let's see what happens when the plums and the peaches are ripe. Any day now. Also, runner beans and courgettes and tomatoes and some lovely fat beetroot. It's also an excellent apricot year but they need to be washed - because stinkbugs. The man has started a big jar of cassis with the fat blackcurrants.

no more peas

Early in the mornings and again after sunset, if we are very quiet for a moment, we can hear the snails holding their fat bellies with laughter. They know, of course, that we grow lettuce and basil, fennel, kohlrabi and beetroot for ourselves. They think it's all a big joke. But we are not without our own menacing thoughts and means and, what can I say, ready for war and it looks like we are winning. But hush, let's not jinx it.

this is the covid patch, the bit we've left idle since lockdown

I used to be that person who could be observed devising schemes for ants, fruit flies or spiders to find their way out of the kitchen without loss of lives. On good days, you could hear me talking to them with heartfelt encouragement, even giving the last ant group a gentle push with the small duster. All for my good karma.

tons of finger aubergines

But honestly, the spiritual and I have not become friends. I probably lack the discipline, or my despair of the world has subsided somewhat. In the limited human reality, I now also find things that make me happy and keep me going. Actually, I always have. I wouldn't be where I am now if it was all gloom and despair. It's just so much more fun to complain and moan.

I've been thinking about all that recently. Someone, a long time ago, told me that not being religious (he meant not being a catholic) was cheap and stupid, leaving the hard work of salvation and whatever else to others while living the life of Riley (who and where is Riley now?). That I should be ashamed of myself. Another person, in a more serious debate, was confounded by the fact that my child, who was not raised with the fear of god and nothing about sins, was spending huge chunks of her time and energy doing what he called good, selfless work. How could this be, her wondered. A heathen child! Indeed. Dear gods, I am so proud of this heathen child, you have no idea.

I'll never understand it but I admit there are days when I wish I could just hand it all - fears, hopes, needs - to some higher force and say, get on with it, give me the rules and I'll fit them in. If only. But then again, how dull and predictable.

I wonder what the gods had in mind when they created Tapinoma magnum, an invasive ant species that used to live predominantly in the Mediterranean basin but has - thank you climate change! - found its way closer and closer to my home. Not there yet, but already established in towns and gardens at the southern end of the big river we live on. Their nests grow to several metres in size and the colonies comprise millions of workers and hundreds of queens. And individual colonies do not fight each other like other species, they co-operate and form the United States of Antsikia, an insect superpower. The shape of things to come. 

observations from the other side of the Atlantic

In a perfect world, people would focus on the political content and, despite Biden's suboptimal form on the day, would take time to read the transcript of the debate, check the truthfulness of the statements made by both candidates and analyse on this basis who has the better plan for the US. If that was the case, I am guessing Joe Biden could win the election in a landslide. The fact that he himself is by now old and slow would be irrelevant, because he would gather around him an extremely capable team.

Perhaps the central weakness of democracies is that they are based on the assumption that the majority of the people acts on the basis of rational considerations, able to justify their voting decisions with arguments and willing to discuss them in the hope that the best argument will ultimately prevail.

Instead: A coup, and the junta wears judges' robes. And the media has a field day.

 

Also this:

Trump's Fetish about Abortion at Term
And why the media is unfit to ask about abortion in a debate (click on this headline to read the full post by the excellent Jen Gunter)

These Trump abortion lies about “after birth” abortion and abortions at eight or nine months are shiny things for the media because they evoke imagery of wanton, careless women and evil doctors. As if at 36 or so weeks (because the women getting these abortions at or close to term were previously too busy with their hair and nails), scores of women finally book a $99 abortion they easily found on their For You Page on TikTok. Unless they can find a friend who was also just too bored to get her abortion earlier, then they can take advantage of the Monday BOGO abortion deal and split the cost. And if they can’t make it to the local strip mall abortuary because of important reasons, such as shopping, for an extra $20, after they deliver, they will get the doctor to kill their now newborn as part of some kind of package deal. It is a grotesque conspiracy theory, and to let these lies fly by several times in the debate falsely implies they are grounded in reality instead of what they are–fascist lies shrouded in double-speak. And unfortunately, replying to them rationally in real time doesn’t work.

And the media can’t help themselves, because a shiny thing from Trump is just the best.