There are storms….
And then there are STORMS.
And then…. it strikes! And then in Irma’s wake not a shoe store with cook kicks is safe… as usual.
Incoming!
WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
Gerard Van der Leun
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Dark shawled within the skies,
Upon our eyes will Starfish dance
Their waltz of Blind surprise.
The sun will Rise within wine Dark
As Argonauts imbibed,
Whose drunken arms embrace that sleep
Where Phaeton’s horses Stride.
Upon all of Earth’s wind-sanded shores,
As dolphins Learn to soar,
All we once were on the land
Shall be sealed behind the door
Of Ivory and Chastened Gold,
That the Mystery solved complete
Shall never til the seas’ Long fall
Wake mariners from their sleep.
— Van der Leun
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
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The usual suspects.
The greatest threat to the continued existence of America as a unified state rather than a geographic label is the Negro underclass.
The Command Station
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Our son and his family showed up about an hour or so ago and they have 4 computers set up on the dining room table, all of them streaming live video from various parts of Cape Coral under attack by hurricane Irma. The eye hasn’t crossed into the land mass yet.
When they heard 2 days ago that there was a potential storm surge of up to 18′ they decided to leave as the finished floor elevation for almost all newer homes is about 10′, and older homes is who knows. Back in the old days they just set em right on the bare ground, flooding be damned.
So they threw as much stuff as possible, including 2 young kids and 2 cats, and headed north to their sanctuary, our house, well out of harms way. They’ll be staying here for the duration and possibly beyond. Everything is unknown at this point.
The is a unique situation occurring in Lee County, Florida (Lee county??? OMFG!!!! Somebody call Sharpton!!!), in that the counter rotation of the storm is aligning in perfect harmony on both the front and back sides of the eye with the high and low incoming and outgoing tides. It appears the Caloosahatchee river is being sucked dry as Pine Island Sound is being flooded, and as the storm passes this effect will reverse. This has never happened before. The river is rather large so the force to do such a thing is tremendous. I saw video awhile ago of manatees laying on the empty river bed suffocating under their own weight. Their numbers are already endangered and this will make it worse. If I was there I’d be airboating all over the dry river scoping out the treasures that had been trapped underwater – watches, wallets, fishing gear, who knows. And the large Groupers floundering, not to mention the crabs and lobsters. Mmmmmm…..
My son is insured and there is little they can do about the things that are going to happen to there property. It all may be gone entirely. I told them to turn off the drama cause all that unsolveable horror and angst is not good for the system. Come out on the porch and crack a brew and watch the wild turkeys frolicking in the yard. And think ahead, about all the potential scenarios, the aftermath, and the solutions. In a way, the now is the past for them and it cannot be changed. But the future can be accurately predicted if you make it happen, and that’s what they should be doing. Making it happen in their minds, rather than lamenting what was.
No, it’s not my problem so I see it differently. But I’ve been a problem solver for other people for a very long time and that is where my mind spends much of it’s time, including now. I may go back down there with them and help with the clean up but what I’d really like to do is help them pack their shit and move up here to the hinters where life is easier all the way around and the notion that you life and your things can be disappeared in a moments notice is almost absent.
Man! The things you see when you don’t have your Thompson SMG. That gun is well known to bring order out of chaos. The shooting of looters is a well known, and long used remedy for civil disorder. It seems that when it went out of fashion to shoot looters, the looting class made a comeback.
Wonder why the videographer didn’t shoot them?
Oh that’s right – – massive pussification nationwide.