I can’t stop thinking about those victims in Miami. Can we spell INFRASTRUCTURE?!?!? This is why a federal government was invented to put controls over profit maximizing building and safety code bypasses. What is DeSantis doing? Wouldn’t you be there digging through the rubble with your bare hands? Why does this not look like 9/11 rescue efforts? My heart breaks for these families.
Actually, what I haven't seen in the news was the Urban Rescue staging area in my Miami Beach neighborhood, that I observed yesterday.
From a couple of e-mails I sent out:
Condo Collapse in Surfside
E-Mail - Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 11:42 AM
For those who have been following the Condo Collapse tragedy, the fact that it is rainy season complicates the rescue attempts, which I'm afraid by now is mostly a recovery attempt. They may soon bring in heavy equipment to remove the debris & deceased floor by floor.
Surfside for those who don't know borders Miami Beach to the north and this building at 8777 Collins was exactly one mile from my apt. In fact that oval hi-rise you see in the aerial shots borders the North Beach Oceanside Park where I do part of my bike exercise and watched its construction over the past few years. By the fact that it is taller than the other buildings makes me think that it is actually in Miami Beach, since Surfside has a limit on building heights at about 12 stories.
This building collapse was a surprise wake-up call for possibly many others from that era 40+ years ago that border the beach on Bal Harbour, Surfside & Miami Beach.
E-Mail - Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 11:00 PM
I wrote an e-mail this morning in the midst of a thunderstorm that popped up but it subsided and the sun came back out by 12:30 PM, so I took off to the library to return a couple videos and pick up some more.
I then decided to take the rainfree moment to do my bike exercise in the Park and Beach Walk. When I got to North Beach Oceanside Park, I noticed all the Urban Rescue and First Responder vehicles parked along Collins starting at 79th Street. So, I took a detour from my ride in the park and walked along Collins looking at the help from all around the state working on this tragedy in Surfside.
Just walking around taking pix, my tank top was soaked with sweat. Consider how it would be to do fysical exertion in this heat & humidity. Interspersed with pop-up thundershowers.
It's been 3 days but they say it is still considered a rescue operation, but the reality being a time consuming recovery operation is getting close.
----------
I sent a bunch of fotos in this e-mail of the various trucks from all over Florida parked end to end for half a mile along Collins Ave. from 79th St to beyond 85th St, the furthest I was allowed access. Also the air conditioned tents that filled the north end of the closed off park for the rescue workers. A couple of Miami Dade rescue workers I talked with said it was still a rescue mission but it has been 3-days and you can see the 12 floors stacked with no room between them. I suspect they will soon say it is a recovery mission and start tearing into the debris with heavy equipment.
Remembering Sept 11, 2001 - along with the nationwide outrage and anguish was a desire to help, to do anything. Being a regular blood donor since last century, I along with millions of others nationwide decided to donate for this major tragedy. My donation was on Sept 13, but it was not needed. There were very few injured, just 3K dead. In this similar but smaller bldg collapse, there are 156 ppl still missing with only 5 dead recovered so far.
“12 floors stacked with no room between them” so all that concrete just crumbled? You don’t think there are spaces where people could still be found alive? I know nothing of engineering but isn’t it bizarre that concrete walls just crumble? Especially if it gave way from the bottom? I can’t wrap my brain around this.
Yeah, IDK the specifics of construction, but from what I've seen, floors are poured solid concrete, with solid support beams & rebar holding them, with concrete blocks filling in the wall. If it collapsed on an angle, which the pic indicates since the floors look like steps, the beams & less solid CB would have fallen sideways & crumbled.
From local news, there are going to be thoro investigations and already increased inspections of similar buildings (Like the second version of this bldg, by the same company and the same age just up the street). Oh, and lawsuits are already being filed.
This USA Today clip suggests it started at the top which is different from most of the other guesses I’ve read so far talking about the need for repair at the bottom. Frightening to just see a condominium collapse like that. And reading of all the lives of those presumed to be inside is heart wrenching.
And in addition to strengthening building codes and digging through the rubble with his bare hands, DeSantis should be working on Climate change mitigation!!! Few states are as affected by rising sea levels more than Florida. Considering the incredibly porous old coral underneath what soil there is there, they are facing more problems like this and soon. Add in the horrific heat in the Pacific Northwest, the droughts across the West (and here in Minnesota) and the floods in the South, and climate should bubble to the top of the agenda- immediately after all the residents are accounted for. Heartbreaking and scary for all of us.
I read Bill McKibben's 'Climate Newsletter' in the New Yorker for all-round news on the topic. All these dreadful people who think only of the bottom line. I wonder what their children will think of them in 15-20 years?
You’re right about literally digging through rubble with bare hands. I work in emergency response, and my frustration was that urgency and immediate coordinated responsiveness were not more apparent, which does not mean the search and rescue efforts were not in fact underway.
“ Erika Benitez, the spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, said that rescuers are moving as fast as they can and have not stopped working, even though their work looks slow. Rescue workers are taking a strategic approach, officials added, taking care to not shift the rubble, put excessive weight on it or cause another collapse. ‘Moving something that could cause an additional collapse would be negligent,’ Ms. Benitez said in Spanish.”
Oh, Ellie, that was a profound report making statistics of a tragedy so real and personal. Full of stories of the diversity of the people who were living or visiting that apartment complex, and most likely, have perished. Thank you, it makes the solemnity of Buddy's photo this morning all the more poignant. 😔
Yes, it’s beyond my imagination. I’m sitting out on our deck, drinking coffee with my husband, surrounded by the sprawl of today’s NYTimes… and it is so hard to enjoy this sliver of paradise while reading the article Ellie posted, as well as Rob’s on the ground reporting, and the plethora of coverage everywhere…..
my husband reminded me that last weekend we were mourning the tragedy of the school bus crash and the 9 children killed, of course the sadness and insane apprehension we are dealing with as every week we tabulate the numbers killed in random shootings anywhere and everywhere…. I don’t mean to pop anyone’s balloon but while the 24 hour news cycle certainly exacerbates the daily tragedies, as Ellie also said INFRASTRUCTURE!?! And let’s toss into that scream, CLIMATE CHANGE, and GUN CONTROL…. and softly in the background we can hear the rumbles of ‘Delta, Delta, Delta…. that will get louder and louder as the weeks go by…. I shudder to think how long it might be for hospitalizations and deaths start becoming part of the daily report again… Or much louder and bolder as it was last year.
So I’m not an alarmist, but if we all aren’t alarmed, angered, and saddened by this information exploding every day of our lives, I wonder if we’re all developing a numbing of sorts to inure us so that we can go on with our lives… who do we write a letter to? Who do we call? Where do we organize a protest or March….
It all makes me so mad. And breaks my heart. We’re on a runaway train and who is at the controls?!
Thank God for Joe Biden… I honestly believe he sees all this and truly aches for all of this, and all of us, and then there’s the international morass on his (our) plates too….but he can’t do this alone… I want to ‘storm’ the Republican Congressional members and confront them and say ‘do you not see the big picture here!? You are too busy playing bullies and ego wars to do anything meaningful to help with anything that is going on?!’
I know it’s not totally black and white, but this is so tragic… I really want to be a force for good, and at 70 years old I feel so limited in what affect my voice and my anguish can have… I will not despair, and I thank God, Heather, and you here at Heather’s Cafe to allow me to rant, cry, and beg for an answer to this mess we are in …. I will say that as silly as it may sound, I have really ramped up my determination to go out of my way, every day and with everyone I interact with to be as kind, patient, loving as possible, and I think I’ve always been a loving person, but now I’m on steroids…. I see that in others too, some others…. Please don’t think of this as ‘What would Pollyanna do?!’
It just seems like all I can do right now.
I’ve written letters, and I was really an activist in so many issues from my college years and + against Viet Nam, racial discrimination, care for the earth, and for the past decade I took up fighting to end poaching and desperately trying to raise money and awareness to save our spectacular species, the elephants….. but here I sit, so lucky in my little corner of the woods and so sad and helpless…..
I too have become even more determined in being as kind as possible to everyone I encounter these days, because everyone has even more burdens and worries that are not externally visible. I believe in the simple phrase, "Peace begins with me." Everything we do or say ripples outward and we can never know how a small kindness might affect many others.
Keep on being kind!! It is how I have raised my children.
Cynthia, between you, Ellie and my own intense feelings about so many things and losses, my grief came flooding through this morning and was unstoppable. Felt like more water coming from my eyes than my hose on my thirsty, young plants. And everything I thought about with our Constitutional crisis, the frustration of everything and all the ills we should be focusing on but instead are forced to deal with the survival of our democracy. Our sanity. All our people this time. Efforts seem so pale and impotent over greed and white supremacy and pandemic. I am not beat, but I need to feel this grief and let it roll from my heart down my cheeks. And the one word that keeps rising is "powerless."
Powerless. The only way I know to get my power to rise back up with a vengeance is to step back and recalibrate. I realized that July 4th marks the three years since my husband had a stroke and died month later. I need a break from saving the world and helping clients to taking care of myself. But the grief is for all the trauma of the past five years, all the trauma of how unfair life is because of skin pigmentation, silver spoons, luck of the draws. Time to garden and re-plant seeds of strength because I now understand how big this fight is going to be. Thank goodness I trust our souls to listen to those who went before us and taught us what must happen this time to truly be free, to evolve. It has to begin deep inside and is all about perspective. Makes me think of Elie Wiesel. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ghandhi. Young Poet, Amanda Gorman. Young climate activist, Greta Gorman. I think I will cultivate all the inspiring people and leaders today and who went before us into my garden. They stood up because they loved their fellow human beings. Love is a mighty tool-- I look forward to returning here with a fetching bucketload for anyone who needs some! (Now we will see if I can really stay away from this dear community that helps keep me sane!).
Oh dear Penelope. I am so sorry for your loss and that it happened on a celebratory holiday. The good thing about groups is that others are here to carry on while you step back to spend time with your husband’s memories and feed your soul. You already do work with youths to help heal their troubles and find a way to make this world a better place. It’s an irony of life that we have to know pain and sorrow in order to know joy. Love gets us there and is our superpower! We’ll keep the light on!
Penelope...I am headed up to 'call it a day'...the 'land of nod' beckons... but I want you to know, that I am going to sleep with you in my heart... I am really hoping, and actually believing \, that you are following a breeze that captured you! I hope you just do whatever you want to do...and if you change your mind in 3 days or 3 months...switch tracks... just let yourself find anything or nothing... You have a safe place here ion you ever want to stop be! (I feel like I am trying to give a really meaningful 'speech' to my daughter upon her 'send off' to college!
Thanks, Penelope, for taking time off to regroup. Yes, you need to refuel b/c there's more to do but yours is a good example of taking a break when needed. Goodluck. I look forward to your return.
I agree, Ellie, I can't stop thinking of all of them too, the victims, families and friends. SO sad. The serenity of Buddy's photo makes me grateful for my blessings.
Thank you, Ellie! Has anyone ever compiled a list (I know it would be SO long!) of all the disasters, construction, environmental, and now climate related, that were directly caused by incompetence and neglect on the part of private corporations maximizing profit over life that could have been averted by government oversight? Or that later prompted such to be enacted? It would be helpful to have in the back pocket when the subject of big government comes up in conversation with libertarians masquerading as republicans.
Finally, here is the news of the search efforts, including expert teams from other states and countries and with search dogs. It was puzzling that there was only one story of finding a survivor alive, that I saw—a 12 or 13 year old boy whose arm was sticking out of the rubble. Hopefully there are more whose stories simply were not reported or just missed. The search and rescue people are truly heroic.
I am so inspired by this photo and it’s glorious message that I just sent it to my husbands older bro who is dying. I know it will lift him up. He is ready to go now. Just a matter of days. Thank you for this. Fills my heart too!
I have a friend in Victoria, B.C., and she said it's 105 even there! Maybe the Rethugs should visit for a few days, then reconsider the concept of global warming.
They're pretty freaked out. Fortunately, this couple just had A/C installed. Her daughter's house was close to 100 degrees inside, so she is staying with her parents until this breaks. She might be breaking the Covid lockdown, as they're still regulating that, but I didn't ask.
Yes. We've got a forecast high in Eugene today of 111 down from 115 earlier in the week. As of 0530 it was 74 degrees with 79% humidity. Portland is almost identical this morning.
Tensions simmering too in the country as well as temperatures. Makes me think of last summer and many more when protest heightens and voices are raised. May our brothers and sisters in the Northwest and in the Miami beach town of Surfside find just a spot of shade today.
Please be careful! This kind of heat is deadly. 108 in Portland yesterday, 102 in Seattle, just over 110 in Lytton in BC, the highest temperature reported in all of Canada EVER. And due to be even hotter today and Monday. Meanwhile, down here in the not-so-sunny South, we're in the 70s with showers and humidity off the charts...a little strange for us right here at the cusp of June/July when it can be pretty toasty. I have friends in Portland and Seattle who are sweating it out, literally. The rest of the summer does not bode well for the West. Keeping y'all in prayers for a break in this. Take care!
Spokane (eastern WA) is expecting record breaking temps too....and it's still June! I have an app that alerts for local emergencies. The number of medical calls seems high.
Hi Ally, I went to a church picnic in the 1960s at Bush park in Salem, Oregon when in was a 110 degrees. It is going to be rough, but I believe humans will learn to evolve and adapt. Could it be that these struggles now are opening the way to a new enlightenments? I do believe that the power that guides us does so for our good. Sorry, kind of preachy but it is Sunday. Take care and stay safe
It's 80 degrees right now (7:30am) in Portland (OR) & expected to be 115-118 today and tomorrow, cooling off to maybe 80 tonight. I'm one of the (very) lucky ones with a/c... the majority of our homes do not have it. The convention center & two other large facilities are set up at "cooling zones".
I've read that about half of people have air conditioning, the third-lowest in the country. So with 115 degrees forecast today and Monday, the heat is a life-threatening situation. Many businesses, especially restaurants, have closed. Luckily, we have AC.
If you are without AC and need a place to go, go to the library, movies or a mall. For the mall, take a book, maybe some headphones if noise distracts you, find a place to sit, read and relax. Believe it or not many families in Yucatan do not have AC - they take advantage of libraries, theaters and malls as places of respite from the heat.
I was referring to Portland, not the entire state. Also, Seattle, which previously had logged only three days of 100 degrees or above until yesterday, has the lowest percentage of air conditioning nationwide.
Thankfully, we have a fairly new heat pump which does a wonderful job and ceiling fans as well as solar panels on our roof to help with the electricity bill. They do not help during a power outage because they feed into the grid what we do not use, so linemen do not get a shock. The power companies say they are ready and so far all is good. We do have a couple generators and gas just in case. We are up early watering the garden as it looks like it will be over 110 and it is already 72 at 6:37 am with 85% humidity. After tomorrow we will "cool down" to the 90s. The people I really feel sorry for are those who are homeless. There are cooling centers open but not all night; the overnight temps are a record also. Lots of people trying to help out with water, popsicles, etc.
Also one of the favorite swimming rivers near Salem in the mountains, the North Fork area, is closed because of the fire damage during last fall's horrible fires. The sheriff put out a reminder about that because deputies had already encountered several people trying to get in and it is not safe. The beach is swamped as it is much cooler there, but the north coast was seeing some high temps for that area. I am just hope people are sensible especially next weekend as we are also in a drought. We don't need more fires although there are already some in eastern and southern Oregon.
Indeed. It was good to see various birds and squirrels enjoying the bird bath - a song sparrow taking refuge in a watered garden and a bumble bee drinking from a watered plant. Still another day of this hellishness to endure - grateful the AC hasn’t gone offline - and concerned for those less fortunate - which at any moment could include our household. 🙏🏻
As helpfully peaceful as this image is, we must realize that each trap weighs quite a lot (one source I found indicates 40-65 pounds), so there's a lot of physical labor involved in just stacking and securing them in the boat let alone whatever it takes to lower them into the water and retrieve the lobsters and then restack the traps at workday's end. Thanks, as always, to Buddy for taking time to show us the beauty of his work environment.
Then there is the challenge of shifting to new rules for lobster fishery to protect right whales who were getting entangled in the ropes for lobster traps.
When I was very young my father took me out early one morning. I knew it was a special day, but at my young age I understood very little of why any day would be so important that we would leave our warm beds before dawn. He took me by my hand, sleep still on me and we walked out to the edge of the field and waited for some time. He held me up in his arms and as the sun broke the horizon he simply asked me, "Do you see that?' I squinted as the rays broke thru the clouds on the edge of the horizon. "Yes daddy" I said. "That's Easter, that's Easter!" he said quietly. My father is many years gone now and from time to time when I've seen the sunrise I've puzzled about what exactly he meant. Now that I'm getting older myself I believe that was the point.
And the collapse of a pedestrian bridge in Baltimore Wednesday, with no serious injuries, but still a reminder that bridges can collapse on cars, with people in them.
And this means private infrastructure and not just government-run things like bridges and highways. It means that joke of a power grid in Texas and the plumbing, wiring and integrity of the century old urban housing providing shelter for those who cannot afford anything better. In NYC, a "plus" in a housing ad are the words "pre-war," (WW2) meaning the building is at least eighty-years old. When does this "plus" become a "minus"? These things were not built to last forever.
Actually, it's the humans who need to keep moving - away from the coasts.
Science has a dedicated issue this week to managed coastal retreat as a means to combat the rising tide of climatic events likely to impact human populations living there.
Even that article talks about our population "retreating" from the coasts on a very, very, long term basis. I don't know the numbers, but I suspect a very large portion, possibly a majority, of Americans live within a dozen miles of the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico or the Great Lakes, making such a "retreat" problematic. And talking about building structures to last 100 years, time is running out on those who thought that way a century ago. Massive urban renewal should be part of rebuilding our infrastructure. We are beginning to learn why ancient cities, like Troy, were built one on top of another. The older ones just fell apart.
Yes, we need to think on long-term scales of activity but this does not discount the fact that the actions we plan and take NOW should be more aligned with reality, which is that coastal areas will be flooded. (The Great Lakes ought not be too affected by SL rise.).
There is a series of these articles in the print version of Science and they determine the costs and risks only increase with time; that planning needs to be holistic and the time for action is the present
Further the population issue needs to address the questions of which populations folks migrate, to where and who gets to migrate, how do we make these determinations, who gets buyouts versus forced relocations which are all critical social factors. And here is where the rubber hits the road with policy and social justice. We can be recalcitrant and let market and economic forces determine outcomes of retreat and relocation or we may have a good opportunity to progressively release some of the systemic and institutional barriers that have segregated communities until now.
How we plan retreat, which is inevitable, then, is not only one of our greatest challenges, but, quite possibly mark the most transformative moment of social justice and redemption
Another consideration for relocation is the potable water source. Here in the west, & I'm not on the coast, water is going to be the next big "war". Without lots of snow in the mountains with a slow melt, the rivers that feed the southwest will dry up.
I doubt that these problems can be addressed within the framework of our democracy. An undemocratic country like today's China might do it, but not us.
Stuart - trying to bypass the backslapping - I've been a long time reader of Kunstler, and he appears to have gone completely to the "dark side" - pure Q-anon. Assuming that you read him - what's your take? Or is it a case of "bring on the Revolution". Some folk (commenters) attempt to pull things back to reality, but no shift. Sad, because on many issues, he was (once) on target. https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/narrative-soup.
Admittedly a very selective view and largely "reasonable" trumpist and republican. Liz Cheney could still approve as he sticks to the surface of questions claiming the "best of intentions" . Far from the whole story of course but underlying his view all is not wrong. The world is changing fast and the people risk getting left behind by either by potentially autocratic utopists of the right or left and are starting to complain loudly and will not take it sitting down. It certainly isn't Joe Biden's world that is shaping up and he is unlikely to become the leader of "a Brave New World" more like a transition, allowing a little catch-up in the meantime. The world wont wait very long.
Hi Stuart. Thanks for your comment. Your word "changing" jumped out at me from your reply. 2 questions: 1) Can you elaborate a little, what changes are you seeing/hearing in the big picture? I can see the attempts and moves away from democracy toward authoritarian rule worldwide. Why is this happening? and where the heck does DJT fit in the picture with such politicians, such a bumbling idiot, imo. He's crass but way out of his league politically. 2) Who are these people in the US who adore him and/or are so afraid of him, our senators and reps, in particular. Does it come down to keeping POC from having power in the world? Or is it keeping the masses in general, the majority, from having the vote/power? Why this rise in authoritarianism?
In my opinion, republicans are responding to the fact of not being able to win popular vote and significant races combined with the in your face numbers that indicate “white” will not be the majority within 15 or less years-regardless of how census is reported. The Republican Party will sell its soul to autocracy and authoritarianism to maintain wealth, privilege, and political power. The “land of the free” and democracy holds no appeal if their boot cannot be on the neck of those below them on the ladder of caste.
I agree, Christine. Thank you. It does, imo, describe the situation here in the U.S. My problem is that I can't believe the Rs are willing to do this. Surely, they must understand the long-range affect on our democracy and also the world-wide implications if authoritarianism wins in the day.
Ah Where to begin, Mary? Rather than write a book, I'll try to synthesize a little.....
1/ Changes that I can see; firstly the destruction of existing institutions which have until now governed our existence...
------Multilateral organizations are no longer functionning as decision making bodies with national vetoes preventing imposition of "majority" views. (eg Russian and Chinese and American blocking actions in the Security council of the UN)
------Multilateral institutions are increasingly viewed as being impervious to, and uninterested in, very basic people's concerns. (eg The 27 member EU)
------National Parliaments are either being undercut by judicial structures or reduced to irrelevance by overly dominant, highly disciplined majorities or beingrendered impetent by blocking minorities ( SCOTUS, GOP and the US Senate, Constitutional Court and Council of State as well as Macron's docile supra-majority in France)
------Elections are being fought between parties that nolonger represent anyone, offering up candidates that nobody believes are really up to the challenges that the people would like them to face (eg DEMS/GOP or Todays Regional election in France....around 12 noon only 8% of voters had exercisized their right and we are heading for abstensions of 66% again. Germany's boredom contest in choosing the replacement for Merkel in September. Italy's refuge once again in non-elected technocrats to govern)
-----Voting laws that do not count the people who choose none of the candidates offered in an election thereby allowing the politicians to continue to ignore the people. (eg in Belgium and Australia there is an obligation to vote but it is the exception and nobody does other that "debate" massive abstensions and propose spurious hypothetical solutions.
-----Voting laws favour one group or region over another (eg obvious US examples of gerrymandering and voter registration difficulties. This year in the UK where an equalization of voting district population counts is likely to massively increase the Tory advantage at the expense of the overrepresented Labour Party which has persisted for over 50 years
-----the "liberal", mostly de-regulated, capitalist system with globalisation, free trade and free movement of capital which has been put in place by a succession of centre-left governments in Europe and center right in the US is increasingly seen as being very much against the interests of the majority of the population. With very few exceptions the wealth gap has widened at an accelerating rate and none of the resulting economic growth and gains has been shared with the poorer end of the economic and social ladder. (eg take the real wage of the non-graduate and often only semi-skilled worker in any Western economy you care to choose and look at the statistics)
-----Social movements in response to the above have been "successfully" contained by the existing authorites as they are as yet, even if largely supported by the people, largely unstructured and apolitical. (eg Gilets Jaunes in France and Greta Thuneberg, eco-blocking tactics in the UK, and we'll see whether BLM escapes from this conclusion)
------On the Part of the Western Alliance, G7, Nato etc a lack of global strategy, political weakness, concentration on economic gain and significant "Munich" tendencies have left the field clear for autocratic systems to enhance their control of their own people, dare to expand their territorial domaine and their efforts to destabalize any democratic opposition abroad.
Perhaps enough of what is falling apart. What can I see coming to take the place of what we have known and with which we felt comfortable?
The only thing that one can be relatively sure of now is that the people are angry, but that they know more about what they don't want than what they do. They are initially going to look for a "messiah" who understands them and will lead them to the promised land! However these are few and far between on the ground these days. There is no going back to being ruled by an increasingly estranged, university educated, rootless elite who keep all the goodies for themselves. The impact in the UK was Brexit and in the US you got Trump. None of the forces that drove these two phenomena have gone away or dissipated. They remain very much latent simmering below the surface. People want systems with which they can associate themselves and to which they feel they can contribute; communities in which they can live in relative comfort and harmony and to which they are proud to belong. Who knows where the battle will end?
2/The people who support him do not necessarily adore him, they often just don't like what the Democrats offer. They don't want massive change in society, they are comfortable with their current illusions and they don't want to be told that they have to accept the absolute "legitimacy" of social changes when they are only prepared to "tolerate" the changes. They want repect for their opinion and not to be told that they are ignorant trolls....and they don't want, effectively, the tax and distributary consequences of the changes on top of what they see as their declining status and competitive prospects.
There are also of course lots of "crazies" in the Band of Trump. They have effectively given up hope of getting ahead or even standing still and are bent on breaking things. They feel that their community is venturing into quicksands and nobody else if offering an olive branch to haul them out; If they can't have it, no one can.
Why did Trump manage to rise to the top.....he happened to be there, knew a selling "story" when he heard one and his ill-gotten gains enabled him to achieve "visibility". The people would have listened to any snake oil salesman at this point....anything to break the cycle, pierce the smug self-satisfaction of the political elite....and he did it very well. Trouble was, he had ratty coattails full of putrid rubbish and had no plan for when he got elected and improvised no holds barred as he'd done all his life....knowing that he had always thus survived, and survived very well thank you in his terms.
Thank you, Stuart!! It sounds like the beginning of a book, indeed!! I will copy & save your answer and send it to a friend if that's okay. Sitting in my little house in Indiana, USA, I have recognized the smell of skunk from a long way off. You've uncovered the skunks and named them and I will read more about each of them -- thanks very much!
For sure, I have more questions. As a starter, if I may: 1) In your opinion, is there a head skunk or body of skunks, a cabal of skunks? I suspect of cabal (e.g., Trump with Putin and other autocrats, maybe just informal) Or is this rise in authoritarianism driven chiefly by a global discontent of the masses feeling the governing "elite" are out of touch with their everyday lives, with what they want, or being left behind? And do these people realize there is move toward authoritarian rule? President Biden has said so clearly after his visit with Xi Jinping, but they don't listen to him.
Maine IS a special place, particularly before December 1. Well, I have to admit to loving the first snow, which may arrive very early this year. And the 4PM sunset in late December is very special indeed
I can’t stop thinking about those victims in Miami. Can we spell INFRASTRUCTURE?!?!? This is why a federal government was invented to put controls over profit maximizing building and safety code bypasses. What is DeSantis doing? Wouldn’t you be there digging through the rubble with your bare hands? Why does this not look like 9/11 rescue efforts? My heart breaks for these families.
https://apnews.com/article/miami-immigration-religion-health-coronavirus-pandemic-ded76155a33b0b0e092ef67b4455b333
Actually, what I haven't seen in the news was the Urban Rescue staging area in my Miami Beach neighborhood, that I observed yesterday.
From a couple of e-mails I sent out:
Condo Collapse in Surfside
E-Mail - Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 11:42 AM
For those who have been following the Condo Collapse tragedy, the fact that it is rainy season complicates the rescue attempts, which I'm afraid by now is mostly a recovery attempt. They may soon bring in heavy equipment to remove the debris & deceased floor by floor.
Surfside for those who don't know borders Miami Beach to the north and this building at 8777 Collins was exactly one mile from my apt. In fact that oval hi-rise you see in the aerial shots borders the North Beach Oceanside Park where I do part of my bike exercise and watched its construction over the past few years. By the fact that it is taller than the other buildings makes me think that it is actually in Miami Beach, since Surfside has a limit on building heights at about 12 stories.
This building collapse was a surprise wake-up call for possibly many others from that era 40+ years ago that border the beach on Bal Harbour, Surfside & Miami Beach.
E-Mail - Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 11:00 PM
I wrote an e-mail this morning in the midst of a thunderstorm that popped up but it subsided and the sun came back out by 12:30 PM, so I took off to the library to return a couple videos and pick up some more.
I then decided to take the rainfree moment to do my bike exercise in the Park and Beach Walk. When I got to North Beach Oceanside Park, I noticed all the Urban Rescue and First Responder vehicles parked along Collins starting at 79th Street. So, I took a detour from my ride in the park and walked along Collins looking at the help from all around the state working on this tragedy in Surfside.
Just walking around taking pix, my tank top was soaked with sweat. Consider how it would be to do fysical exertion in this heat & humidity. Interspersed with pop-up thundershowers.
It's been 3 days but they say it is still considered a rescue operation, but the reality being a time consuming recovery operation is getting close.
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I sent a bunch of fotos in this e-mail of the various trucks from all over Florida parked end to end for half a mile along Collins Ave. from 79th St to beyond 85th St, the furthest I was allowed access. Also the air conditioned tents that filled the north end of the closed off park for the rescue workers. A couple of Miami Dade rescue workers I talked with said it was still a rescue mission but it has been 3-days and you can see the 12 floors stacked with no room between them. I suspect they will soon say it is a recovery mission and start tearing into the debris with heavy equipment.
Thanks for your first-hand report of this dreadful tragedy, Rob.
Remembering Sept 11, 2001 - along with the nationwide outrage and anguish was a desire to help, to do anything. Being a regular blood donor since last century, I along with millions of others nationwide decided to donate for this major tragedy. My donation was on Sept 13, but it was not needed. There were very few injured, just 3K dead. In this similar but smaller bldg collapse, there are 156 ppl still missing with only 5 dead recovered so far.
Take care of yourself, Rob.
Thank you for your reportIng, Rob.
Thank you for this on-the-scene account. Such an unthinkable tragedy.
How very sad. But thank you, Rob, for a first-hand report.
“12 floors stacked with no room between them” so all that concrete just crumbled? You don’t think there are spaces where people could still be found alive? I know nothing of engineering but isn’t it bizarre that concrete walls just crumble? Especially if it gave way from the bottom? I can’t wrap my brain around this.
Yeah, IDK the specifics of construction, but from what I've seen, floors are poured solid concrete, with solid support beams & rebar holding them, with concrete blocks filling in the wall. If it collapsed on an angle, which the pic indicates since the floors look like steps, the beams & less solid CB would have fallen sideways & crumbled.
From local news, there are going to be thoro investigations and already increased inspections of similar buildings (Like the second version of this bldg, by the same company and the same age just up the street). Oh, and lawsuits are already being filed.
This USA Today clip suggests it started at the top which is different from most of the other guesses I’ve read so far talking about the need for repair at the bottom. Frightening to just see a condominium collapse like that. And reading of all the lives of those presumed to be inside is heart wrenching.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/06/26/building-collapse-multiple-factors-could-contribute-experts-say/5350661001/
Dear God….
Thank you, Rob, for sharing your in-person report of this tragedy. Please stay safe.
Thank you, Rob, for your on the scene report. Stay well!
😔
And in addition to strengthening building codes and digging through the rubble with his bare hands, DeSantis should be working on Climate change mitigation!!! Few states are as affected by rising sea levels more than Florida. Considering the incredibly porous old coral underneath what soil there is there, they are facing more problems like this and soon. Add in the horrific heat in the Pacific Northwest, the droughts across the West (and here in Minnesota) and the floods in the South, and climate should bubble to the top of the agenda- immediately after all the residents are accounted for. Heartbreaking and scary for all of us.
I read Bill McKibben's 'Climate Newsletter' in the New Yorker for all-round news on the topic. All these dreadful people who think only of the bottom line. I wonder what their children will think of them in 15-20 years?
Today's bottom line. This will cost exponentially more down the road.
No Desantis should not be digging and neither should anyone else who doesn't know what she or he is doing. Ever play pick up sticks?
You’re right about literally digging through rubble with bare hands. I work in emergency response, and my frustration was that urgency and immediate coordinated responsiveness were not more apparent, which does not mean the search and rescue efforts were not in fact underway.
“ Erika Benitez, the spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, said that rescuers are moving as fast as they can and have not stopped working, even though their work looks slow. Rescue workers are taking a strategic approach, officials added, taking care to not shift the rubble, put excessive weight on it or cause another collapse. ‘Moving something that could cause an additional collapse would be negligent,’ Ms. Benitez said in Spanish.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/27/us/death-toll-rises-surfside.html
Oh, Ellie, that was a profound report making statistics of a tragedy so real and personal. Full of stories of the diversity of the people who were living or visiting that apartment complex, and most likely, have perished. Thank you, it makes the solemnity of Buddy's photo this morning all the more poignant. 😔
Yes, it’s beyond my imagination. I’m sitting out on our deck, drinking coffee with my husband, surrounded by the sprawl of today’s NYTimes… and it is so hard to enjoy this sliver of paradise while reading the article Ellie posted, as well as Rob’s on the ground reporting, and the plethora of coverage everywhere…..
my husband reminded me that last weekend we were mourning the tragedy of the school bus crash and the 9 children killed, of course the sadness and insane apprehension we are dealing with as every week we tabulate the numbers killed in random shootings anywhere and everywhere…. I don’t mean to pop anyone’s balloon but while the 24 hour news cycle certainly exacerbates the daily tragedies, as Ellie also said INFRASTRUCTURE!?! And let’s toss into that scream, CLIMATE CHANGE, and GUN CONTROL…. and softly in the background we can hear the rumbles of ‘Delta, Delta, Delta…. that will get louder and louder as the weeks go by…. I shudder to think how long it might be for hospitalizations and deaths start becoming part of the daily report again… Or much louder and bolder as it was last year.
So I’m not an alarmist, but if we all aren’t alarmed, angered, and saddened by this information exploding every day of our lives, I wonder if we’re all developing a numbing of sorts to inure us so that we can go on with our lives… who do we write a letter to? Who do we call? Where do we organize a protest or March….
It all makes me so mad. And breaks my heart. We’re on a runaway train and who is at the controls?!
Thank God for Joe Biden… I honestly believe he sees all this and truly aches for all of this, and all of us, and then there’s the international morass on his (our) plates too….but he can’t do this alone… I want to ‘storm’ the Republican Congressional members and confront them and say ‘do you not see the big picture here!? You are too busy playing bullies and ego wars to do anything meaningful to help with anything that is going on?!’
I know it’s not totally black and white, but this is so tragic… I really want to be a force for good, and at 70 years old I feel so limited in what affect my voice and my anguish can have… I will not despair, and I thank God, Heather, and you here at Heather’s Cafe to allow me to rant, cry, and beg for an answer to this mess we are in …. I will say that as silly as it may sound, I have really ramped up my determination to go out of my way, every day and with everyone I interact with to be as kind, patient, loving as possible, and I think I’ve always been a loving person, but now I’m on steroids…. I see that in others too, some others…. Please don’t think of this as ‘What would Pollyanna do?!’
It just seems like all I can do right now.
I’ve written letters, and I was really an activist in so many issues from my college years and + against Viet Nam, racial discrimination, care for the earth, and for the past decade I took up fighting to end poaching and desperately trying to raise money and awareness to save our spectacular species, the elephants….. but here I sit, so lucky in my little corner of the woods and so sad and helpless…..
I too have become even more determined in being as kind as possible to everyone I encounter these days, because everyone has even more burdens and worries that are not externally visible. I believe in the simple phrase, "Peace begins with me." Everything we do or say ripples outward and we can never know how a small kindness might affect many others.
Keep on being kind!! It is how I have raised my children.
Cynthia, between you, Ellie and my own intense feelings about so many things and losses, my grief came flooding through this morning and was unstoppable. Felt like more water coming from my eyes than my hose on my thirsty, young plants. And everything I thought about with our Constitutional crisis, the frustration of everything and all the ills we should be focusing on but instead are forced to deal with the survival of our democracy. Our sanity. All our people this time. Efforts seem so pale and impotent over greed and white supremacy and pandemic. I am not beat, but I need to feel this grief and let it roll from my heart down my cheeks. And the one word that keeps rising is "powerless."
Powerless. The only way I know to get my power to rise back up with a vengeance is to step back and recalibrate. I realized that July 4th marks the three years since my husband had a stroke and died month later. I need a break from saving the world and helping clients to taking care of myself. But the grief is for all the trauma of the past five years, all the trauma of how unfair life is because of skin pigmentation, silver spoons, luck of the draws. Time to garden and re-plant seeds of strength because I now understand how big this fight is going to be. Thank goodness I trust our souls to listen to those who went before us and taught us what must happen this time to truly be free, to evolve. It has to begin deep inside and is all about perspective. Makes me think of Elie Wiesel. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ghandhi. Young Poet, Amanda Gorman. Young climate activist, Greta Gorman. I think I will cultivate all the inspiring people and leaders today and who went before us into my garden. They stood up because they loved their fellow human beings. Love is a mighty tool-- I look forward to returning here with a fetching bucketload for anyone who needs some! (Now we will see if I can really stay away from this dear community that helps keep me sane!).
Oh dear Penelope. I am so sorry for your loss and that it happened on a celebratory holiday. The good thing about groups is that others are here to carry on while you step back to spend time with your husband’s memories and feed your soul. You already do work with youths to help heal their troubles and find a way to make this world a better place. It’s an irony of life that we have to know pain and sorrow in order to know joy. Love gets us there and is our superpower! We’ll keep the light on!
Good Morning Penelope💕
I am sorry for your grief and pain. Let it Flow, Please!
It's so good here, to know We Are Not Alone!!! Please take care of Yourself.
And Know that, Love is a Mighty Tool. Just like You said!!!💖
Penelope...I am headed up to 'call it a day'...the 'land of nod' beckons... but I want you to know, that I am going to sleep with you in my heart... I am really hoping, and actually believing \, that you are following a breeze that captured you! I hope you just do whatever you want to do...and if you change your mind in 3 days or 3 months...switch tracks... just let yourself find anything or nothing... You have a safe place here ion you ever want to stop be! (I feel like I am trying to give a really meaningful 'speech' to my daughter upon her 'send off' to college!
typos...grrr. ALWAYS...the last sentence should be 'You have a safe place here if you ever want to stop by... anyway, sweet dreams to all!
Thanks, Penelope, for taking time off to regroup. Yes, you need to refuel b/c there's more to do but yours is a good example of taking a break when needed. Goodluck. I look forward to your return.
Hi Cynthia,
Thank YOU for This, and ALL you've done. And ALL that YOU are Still doing!!! Your Heart is in the right place!😊💕
Thanks LouAnn, I have a hunch that most of us here have done all this and more…❤️
I agree, Ellie, I can't stop thinking of all of them too, the victims, families and friends. SO sad. The serenity of Buddy's photo makes me grateful for my blessings.
No words. Thanks, Ellie.
Thank you, Ellie! Has anyone ever compiled a list (I know it would be SO long!) of all the disasters, construction, environmental, and now climate related, that were directly caused by incompetence and neglect on the part of private corporations maximizing profit over life that could have been averted by government oversight? Or that later prompted such to be enacted? It would be helpful to have in the back pocket when the subject of big government comes up in conversation with libertarians masquerading as republicans.
Thank you for this report.
Hear, hear.
Finally, here is the news of the search efforts, including expert teams from other states and countries and with search dogs. It was puzzling that there was only one story of finding a survivor alive, that I saw—a 12 or 13 year old boy whose arm was sticking out of the rubble. Hopefully there are more whose stories simply were not reported or just missed. The search and rescue people are truly heroic.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/27/florida-building-collapse-search-efforts-aided-israeli-team/5363235001/
😔
I am so inspired by this photo and it’s glorious message that I just sent it to my husbands older bro who is dying. I know it will lift him up. He is ready to go now. Just a matter of days. Thank you for this. Fills my heart too!
Our hearts with your family, as well.
The love within your family shows in the way you speak of them. Thank you for showing the beauty love can provide even in your family's circumstances.
Peace to your brother in law and all of your family.
Nice!
We, in the other Portland, are having a heat wave. 😓
Hang in there all you Pacific Northwest folks!
Thanks, Linda. Eugene is sweltering as well.
108 degrees today, a new record. It will be shattered Sunday and maybe Monday.
I have a friend in Victoria, B.C., and she said it's 105 even there! Maybe the Rethugs should visit for a few days, then reconsider the concept of global warming.
Reconsider? Consider even for 60 seconds. Preferably one summer day in a bldg with no air conditioning.
Right on. I wish them lots of horrible heat, and no A/C.
That's astounding given that Victoria and Vancouver Island are surrounded by cold Pacific waters.
They're pretty freaked out. Fortunately, this couple just had A/C installed. Her daughter's house was close to 100 degrees inside, so she is staying with her parents until this breaks. She might be breaking the Covid lockdown, as they're still regulating that, but I didn't ask.
Portland, Oregon temp???
Yes. We've got a forecast high in Eugene today of 111 down from 115 earlier in the week. As of 0530 it was 74 degrees with 79% humidity. Portland is almost identical this morning.
Tensions simmering too in the country as well as temperatures. Makes me think of last summer and many more when protest heightens and voices are raised. May our brothers and sisters in the Northwest and in the Miami beach town of Surfside find just a spot of shade today.
Blessings
Please be careful! This kind of heat is deadly. 108 in Portland yesterday, 102 in Seattle, just over 110 in Lytton in BC, the highest temperature reported in all of Canada EVER. And due to be even hotter today and Monday. Meanwhile, down here in the not-so-sunny South, we're in the 70s with showers and humidity off the charts...a little strange for us right here at the cusp of June/July when it can be pretty toasty. I have friends in Portland and Seattle who are sweating it out, literally. The rest of the summer does not bode well for the West. Keeping y'all in prayers for a break in this. Take care!
Spokane (eastern WA) is expecting record breaking temps too....and it's still June! I have an app that alerts for local emergencies. The number of medical calls seems high.
My son, a UO Duck!, just returned to Eugene yesterday and is moving apartments during these next days! No a/c at either.
Hi Ally, I went to a church picnic in the 1960s at Bush park in Salem, Oregon when in was a 110 degrees. It is going to be rough, but I believe humans will learn to evolve and adapt. Could it be that these struggles now are opening the way to a new enlightenments? I do believe that the power that guides us does so for our good. Sorry, kind of preachy but it is Sunday. Take care and stay safe
I'm late to the "party" here Ally. Just wanted to send you my prayers, too!
Oh my God. That's hotter than Mérida by 20 degrees.
It's 80 degrees right now (7:30am) in Portland (OR) & expected to be 115-118 today and tomorrow, cooling off to maybe 80 tonight. I'm one of the (very) lucky ones with a/c... the majority of our homes do not have it. The convention center & two other large facilities are set up at "cooling zones".
This is terrible!
Sending "cold" prayers your way, too, Nancy. Yikes.
And Seattle is 108 degrees at this very moment (7:00pm)
So sorry! Is air conditioning in homes common?
I've read that about half of people have air conditioning, the third-lowest in the country. So with 115 degrees forecast today and Monday, the heat is a life-threatening situation. Many businesses, especially restaurants, have closed. Luckily, we have AC.
If you are without AC and need a place to go, go to the library, movies or a mall. For the mall, take a book, maybe some headphones if noise distracts you, find a place to sit, read and relax. Believe it or not many families in Yucatan do not have AC - they take advantage of libraries, theaters and malls as places of respite from the heat.
I was referring to Portland, not the entire state. Also, Seattle, which previously had logged only three days of 100 degrees or above until yesterday, has the lowest percentage of air conditioning nationwide.
Meh, who needs air conditioning?
Thankfully, we have a fairly new heat pump which does a wonderful job and ceiling fans as well as solar panels on our roof to help with the electricity bill. They do not help during a power outage because they feed into the grid what we do not use, so linemen do not get a shock. The power companies say they are ready and so far all is good. We do have a couple generators and gas just in case. We are up early watering the garden as it looks like it will be over 110 and it is already 72 at 6:37 am with 85% humidity. After tomorrow we will "cool down" to the 90s. The people I really feel sorry for are those who are homeless. There are cooling centers open but not all night; the overnight temps are a record also. Lots of people trying to help out with water, popsicles, etc.
Also one of the favorite swimming rivers near Salem in the mountains, the North Fork area, is closed because of the fire damage during last fall's horrible fires. The sheriff put out a reminder about that because deputies had already encountered several people trying to get in and it is not safe. The beach is swamped as it is much cooler there, but the north coast was seeing some high temps for that area. I am just hope people are sensible especially next weekend as we are also in a drought. We don't need more fires although there are already some in eastern and southern Oregon.
Not really
😔
Put out water for wildlife! Help them survive this!
I put out water for my bees. They are taking to it like ducks.
Absolutely!
There’s shade and food for them too.
My wife covered some of our vulnerable flowering plants too.
This heat is most unwelcome. 😓
Yes! I keep water out front and back for wildlife, and shallow dishes of water for geckos and bees. We have to think of all creatures!
Indeed. It was good to see various birds and squirrels enjoying the bird bath - a song sparrow taking refuge in a watered garden and a bumble bee drinking from a watered plant. Still another day of this hellishness to endure - grateful the AC hasn’t gone offline - and concerned for those less fortunate - which at any moment could include our household. 🙏🏻
I went for a walk yesterday and someone had put out a kiddie pool on the parking strip with a sign that said 'doggie pool'.
I hope you'll be OK!
Thank you—my kind of church☮️❤️
Thank you, Professor Richardson – we could use a little Divine intervention.
Have a restful Sunday.
Have a beautiful Sunday. Lay your cares of the world down for at least a few minutes and allow your spirit to rejoice.
As helpfully peaceful as this image is, we must realize that each trap weighs quite a lot (one source I found indicates 40-65 pounds), so there's a lot of physical labor involved in just stacking and securing them in the boat let alone whatever it takes to lower them into the water and retrieve the lobsters and then restack the traps at workday's end. Thanks, as always, to Buddy for taking time to show us the beauty of his work environment.
Then there is the challenge of shifting to new rules for lobster fishery to protect right whales who were getting entangled in the ropes for lobster traps.
When I was very young my father took me out early one morning. I knew it was a special day, but at my young age I understood very little of why any day would be so important that we would leave our warm beds before dawn. He took me by my hand, sleep still on me and we walked out to the edge of the field and waited for some time. He held me up in his arms and as the sun broke the horizon he simply asked me, "Do you see that?' I squinted as the rays broke thru the clouds on the edge of the horizon. "Yes daddy" I said. "That's Easter, that's Easter!" he said quietly. My father is many years gone now and from time to time when I've seen the sunrise I've puzzled about what exactly he meant. Now that I'm getting older myself I believe that was the point.
Peace, love, compassion, kindness and intelligence common sense to all!
Enjoy this day. Rejoice and be glad in it.
And the collapse of a pedestrian bridge in Baltimore Wednesday, with no serious injuries, but still a reminder that bridges can collapse on cars, with people in them.
Infrastructure must get moving.
And this means private infrastructure and not just government-run things like bridges and highways. It means that joke of a power grid in Texas and the plumbing, wiring and integrity of the century old urban housing providing shelter for those who cannot afford anything better. In NYC, a "plus" in a housing ad are the words "pre-war," (WW2) meaning the building is at least eighty-years old. When does this "plus" become a "minus"? These things were not built to last forever.
Actually, it's the humans who need to keep moving - away from the coasts.
Science has a dedicated issue this week to managed coastal retreat as a means to combat the rising tide of climatic events likely to impact human populations living there.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210618091642.htm
Even that article talks about our population "retreating" from the coasts on a very, very, long term basis. I don't know the numbers, but I suspect a very large portion, possibly a majority, of Americans live within a dozen miles of the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico or the Great Lakes, making such a "retreat" problematic. And talking about building structures to last 100 years, time is running out on those who thought that way a century ago. Massive urban renewal should be part of rebuilding our infrastructure. We are beginning to learn why ancient cities, like Troy, were built one on top of another. The older ones just fell apart.
Yes, we need to think on long-term scales of activity but this does not discount the fact that the actions we plan and take NOW should be more aligned with reality, which is that coastal areas will be flooded. (The Great Lakes ought not be too affected by SL rise.).
There is a series of these articles in the print version of Science and they determine the costs and risks only increase with time; that planning needs to be holistic and the time for action is the present
Further the population issue needs to address the questions of which populations folks migrate, to where and who gets to migrate, how do we make these determinations, who gets buyouts versus forced relocations which are all critical social factors. And here is where the rubber hits the road with policy and social justice. We can be recalcitrant and let market and economic forces determine outcomes of retreat and relocation or we may have a good opportunity to progressively release some of the systemic and institutional barriers that have segregated communities until now.
How we plan retreat, which is inevitable, then, is not only one of our greatest challenges, but, quite possibly mark the most transformative moment of social justice and redemption
Another consideration for relocation is the potable water source. Here in the west, & I'm not on the coast, water is going to be the next big "war". Without lots of snow in the mountains with a slow melt, the rivers that feed the southwest will dry up.
I doubt that these problems can be addressed within the framework of our democracy. An undemocratic country like today's China might do it, but not us.
The fact that we can have open discussions about this, as a society, suggests otherwise, particularly compared to China.
Thank you for this beautiful photo and for a sense of peace.
Just to keep the political ball rolling (sorry)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/06/25/orwellian-hellscape-v-neoliberal-caretakers-american-politics-in-the-post-trump-era/
I suspect that those caught in the collapse never knew what hit them, for which we must be very grateful (on their behalf).
Thanks for the source, Hugh.
Stuart - trying to bypass the backslapping - I've been a long time reader of Kunstler, and he appears to have gone completely to the "dark side" - pure Q-anon. Assuming that you read him - what's your take? Or is it a case of "bring on the Revolution". Some folk (commenters) attempt to pull things back to reality, but no shift. Sad, because on many issues, he was (once) on target. https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/narrative-soup.
For me, no kuntstler on a day of rest as today. And any other day. Dime a dozen.
Admittedly a very selective view and largely "reasonable" trumpist and republican. Liz Cheney could still approve as he sticks to the surface of questions claiming the "best of intentions" . Far from the whole story of course but underlying his view all is not wrong. The world is changing fast and the people risk getting left behind by either by potentially autocratic utopists of the right or left and are starting to complain loudly and will not take it sitting down. It certainly isn't Joe Biden's world that is shaping up and he is unlikely to become the leader of "a Brave New World" more like a transition, allowing a little catch-up in the meantime. The world wont wait very long.
Hi Stuart. Thanks for your comment. Your word "changing" jumped out at me from your reply. 2 questions: 1) Can you elaborate a little, what changes are you seeing/hearing in the big picture? I can see the attempts and moves away from democracy toward authoritarian rule worldwide. Why is this happening? and where the heck does DJT fit in the picture with such politicians, such a bumbling idiot, imo. He's crass but way out of his league politically. 2) Who are these people in the US who adore him and/or are so afraid of him, our senators and reps, in particular. Does it come down to keeping POC from having power in the world? Or is it keeping the masses in general, the majority, from having the vote/power? Why this rise in authoritarianism?
Simple answer to “why the rise”, Mary?
In my opinion, republicans are responding to the fact of not being able to win popular vote and significant races combined with the in your face numbers that indicate “white” will not be the majority within 15 or less years-regardless of how census is reported. The Republican Party will sell its soul to autocracy and authoritarianism to maintain wealth, privilege, and political power. The “land of the free” and democracy holds no appeal if their boot cannot be on the neck of those below them on the ladder of caste.
I agree, Christine. Thank you. It does, imo, describe the situation here in the U.S. My problem is that I can't believe the Rs are willing to do this. Surely, they must understand the long-range affect on our democracy and also the world-wide implications if authoritarianism wins in the day.
Ah Where to begin, Mary? Rather than write a book, I'll try to synthesize a little.....
1/ Changes that I can see; firstly the destruction of existing institutions which have until now governed our existence...
------Multilateral organizations are no longer functionning as decision making bodies with national vetoes preventing imposition of "majority" views. (eg Russian and Chinese and American blocking actions in the Security council of the UN)
------Multilateral institutions are increasingly viewed as being impervious to, and uninterested in, very basic people's concerns. (eg The 27 member EU)
------National Parliaments are either being undercut by judicial structures or reduced to irrelevance by overly dominant, highly disciplined majorities or beingrendered impetent by blocking minorities ( SCOTUS, GOP and the US Senate, Constitutional Court and Council of State as well as Macron's docile supra-majority in France)
------Elections are being fought between parties that nolonger represent anyone, offering up candidates that nobody believes are really up to the challenges that the people would like them to face (eg DEMS/GOP or Todays Regional election in France....around 12 noon only 8% of voters had exercisized their right and we are heading for abstensions of 66% again. Germany's boredom contest in choosing the replacement for Merkel in September. Italy's refuge once again in non-elected technocrats to govern)
-----Voting laws that do not count the people who choose none of the candidates offered in an election thereby allowing the politicians to continue to ignore the people. (eg in Belgium and Australia there is an obligation to vote but it is the exception and nobody does other that "debate" massive abstensions and propose spurious hypothetical solutions.
-----Voting laws favour one group or region over another (eg obvious US examples of gerrymandering and voter registration difficulties. This year in the UK where an equalization of voting district population counts is likely to massively increase the Tory advantage at the expense of the overrepresented Labour Party which has persisted for over 50 years
-----the "liberal", mostly de-regulated, capitalist system with globalisation, free trade and free movement of capital which has been put in place by a succession of centre-left governments in Europe and center right in the US is increasingly seen as being very much against the interests of the majority of the population. With very few exceptions the wealth gap has widened at an accelerating rate and none of the resulting economic growth and gains has been shared with the poorer end of the economic and social ladder. (eg take the real wage of the non-graduate and often only semi-skilled worker in any Western economy you care to choose and look at the statistics)
-----Social movements in response to the above have been "successfully" contained by the existing authorites as they are as yet, even if largely supported by the people, largely unstructured and apolitical. (eg Gilets Jaunes in France and Greta Thuneberg, eco-blocking tactics in the UK, and we'll see whether BLM escapes from this conclusion)
------On the Part of the Western Alliance, G7, Nato etc a lack of global strategy, political weakness, concentration on economic gain and significant "Munich" tendencies have left the field clear for autocratic systems to enhance their control of their own people, dare to expand their territorial domaine and their efforts to destabalize any democratic opposition abroad.
Perhaps enough of what is falling apart. What can I see coming to take the place of what we have known and with which we felt comfortable?
The only thing that one can be relatively sure of now is that the people are angry, but that they know more about what they don't want than what they do. They are initially going to look for a "messiah" who understands them and will lead them to the promised land! However these are few and far between on the ground these days. There is no going back to being ruled by an increasingly estranged, university educated, rootless elite who keep all the goodies for themselves. The impact in the UK was Brexit and in the US you got Trump. None of the forces that drove these two phenomena have gone away or dissipated. They remain very much latent simmering below the surface. People want systems with which they can associate themselves and to which they feel they can contribute; communities in which they can live in relative comfort and harmony and to which they are proud to belong. Who knows where the battle will end?
2/The people who support him do not necessarily adore him, they often just don't like what the Democrats offer. They don't want massive change in society, they are comfortable with their current illusions and they don't want to be told that they have to accept the absolute "legitimacy" of social changes when they are only prepared to "tolerate" the changes. They want repect for their opinion and not to be told that they are ignorant trolls....and they don't want, effectively, the tax and distributary consequences of the changes on top of what they see as their declining status and competitive prospects.
There are also of course lots of "crazies" in the Band of Trump. They have effectively given up hope of getting ahead or even standing still and are bent on breaking things. They feel that their community is venturing into quicksands and nobody else if offering an olive branch to haul them out; If they can't have it, no one can.
Why did Trump manage to rise to the top.....he happened to be there, knew a selling "story" when he heard one and his ill-gotten gains enabled him to achieve "visibility". The people would have listened to any snake oil salesman at this point....anything to break the cycle, pierce the smug self-satisfaction of the political elite....and he did it very well. Trouble was, he had ratty coattails full of putrid rubbish and had no plan for when he got elected and improvised no holds barred as he'd done all his life....knowing that he had always thus survived, and survived very well thank you in his terms.
Hope this opens even more questions for you!
Thank you, Stuart!! It sounds like the beginning of a book, indeed!! I will copy & save your answer and send it to a friend if that's okay. Sitting in my little house in Indiana, USA, I have recognized the smell of skunk from a long way off. You've uncovered the skunks and named them and I will read more about each of them -- thanks very much!
For sure, I have more questions. As a starter, if I may: 1) In your opinion, is there a head skunk or body of skunks, a cabal of skunks? I suspect of cabal (e.g., Trump with Putin and other autocrats, maybe just informal) Or is this rise in authoritarianism driven chiefly by a global discontent of the masses feeling the governing "elite" are out of touch with their everyday lives, with what they want, or being left behind? And do these people realize there is move toward authoritarian rule? President Biden has said so clearly after his visit with Xi Jinping, but they don't listen to him.
Thanks Stuart - a great synopsis - it's very concerning.
Looks like church to me! Transcendentalist Church, of course!! :-)
Beautiful. Thank you! Maine is a special place.
Maine IS a special place, particularly before December 1. Well, I have to admit to loving the first snow, which may arrive very early this year. And the 4PM sunset in late December is very special indeed
Maybe we will see a photo of that someday
There must be a well placed, gorgeous church clock bell tower, and as the dimming sunlight hits 4PM, the shutter snaps.
Putting on my bucket list.
Bring a hearty wind breaker and many layers for your late Dec, 4PM sunset 😂
I want to visit!
Thanks to you and to Buddy. Have a lovely weekend.