I thought I’d talk a little bit about politics since we are, I guess, at war now. Well of course we are. As someone somewhere in the Discourse – the constant clanging chatter of social media that takes up all the space where the collective unconscious used to go – noted, that’s what Republicans do: they trash the economy and start wars in the middle east. When I was young they used to mostly do it in middle and south America – but really, anywhere that has brown people in it. (that’s a good and prescient George Carlin clip; listen to it.) Since the orange bag of shit that is currently desecrating the oval office seems to basically still be stuck in the 80s, I figured when he started in on Venezuela he’d stay on that side of the planet. Remember Venezuela? We’re doing a regime change there too but it was uh at least 3 weeks ago so, yeah, old news. But no. Of course he could not resist Iran. After all, Obama got a nuclear deal going with Iran, and everything Obama did must be destroyed. One thing you must always, always remember about Trump is that the racism is the core. The grift is very important, the mob is important, the rape is important, but the racism is the center, the core, the most important thing and the prime motivation for that horrific collection of nightmare fuel masquerading as a member of the human species.

There are a couple things I want to say about this war and politics in general. They are not happy things. You may want to skip the next four paragraphs.

First off , this war is not a distraction from the Epstein Files. Trump doesn’t actually give two shits about the Epstein Files because he is rightfully confident that absolutely no consequences will come to him. In fact, it looks like there won’t be any consequences for anyone except the Andrew formerly known as Prince (I stole that; I did not make it up. I will say that I thought maybe I would marry him when I was a little girl. He is a few years older than me and thus obviously the best candidate if one is to grow up to marry a prince – and I figured that I would likely do that. I mean, why not? I read a lot of fairy tales. Fortunately I never met the creature.) but most particularly, there will be no consequences for Trump. Nobody actually cares about young girls; anyone who did has long since been weeded out of the government. And honestly, and I can say this with utter confidence, having been one, NOBODY CARES EVEN ONE LITTLE BIT about young girls. Or young boys, for that matter, but they might eventually be powerful, so people pretend. The Epstein Files, like the Panama Papers before it, will change nothing. People will express regrets, maybe. A few people will quietly retire. Ooh poor them, have to stay home and sit on their millions and not go to work. Ghislaine Maxwell will probably eventually be murdered. But nothing will actually change. Nobody is bothering to distract from the Epstein Files. Get over it. They sure have.

The real end game here is Feudalism 2.0 – it is better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. Climate change is accelerating and rapidly making swathes of the planet uninhabitable. In the next couple decades it will get worse. We could join together as a species and work together to fix this, to help the planet, to be actually decent stewards of the environment OR we could just kill everyone and everything ha ha ha ha! I will give you one guess what the oligarchs who run this planet have chosen. They intend to live in pleasure domes as absolute rulers of the few who remain in the smoking ruins outside. This is actually kind of great because – stay with me here – these people are otnay ootay ightbray. They have not quite grasped that smoking ruins do not produce food or clean water or clean air and even immortal techbro vampire war loving rapist podcasters with great Fox News ratings need those things. Or they figure that since the population will have been culled down to practically nothing, they can get slaves to produce, somehow, what they will need to survive. Or AI will figure it out for them. And they do not, actually, care, because they only need thirty or forty years of soylent green and they don’t give a flaming shit what happens after that. I have been saying this for years and years now but nobody wants to hear me. But I think it’s starting to trickle through the zeitgeist. After all everyone seems to have finally noticed that Israel is doing a genocide and nobody, but nobody, is doing a good goddamn thing about it. This is ethnic cleansing and it’s just beginning. Donald is fully on board. Naomi Klein wrote a pretty good article about some of this in the Guardian a few months back.

You must remember, they – the oligarchs, the billionaires, the Epstein Class, the overlords – don’t care. They don’t care about you, about me, or even about their own children. They don’t care about any children, actually, or trees or dogs or the planet. They care about profit and their own pleasure. Which is why when the revolution comes leaders will be chosen by lotteries, because anyone who wants to lead should be automatically disqualified. But actually I think that by the time the long overdue revolution comes, we will all be dead and the zombies will be ruling from their skull thrones. That is what they want and so far, they are getting what they want.

And in the meantime, the Trump empire wants oil, wants money, wants real estate in the middle east to build castles on and wants Netanyahu to owe him a favor. He also doesn’t want to fuck around with midterm elections even though Elon told him they were already in the bag. The war means emergency powers which means no elections, which will be easier for him.

Keep on going to work every day, kids! Maybe you could say, He can’t do that! It would be illegal! now and then. Or write your congress person. I do, all the time. We can all see just how much good it’s doing.

And now for something completely different, let’s talk about the photos! Or, as I have noticed, Where I Walked the Dog This Week.

Spring is starting and on Sunday I saw this tiny purple flower surrounded by thorns out at the sawmill trail in Warrenton. There used to be a weasel living in that little thicket; I saw her once or twice and the dogs would always go nuts around it, but she has been gone for a year or two. I lose track. On Monday it rained and those are wet stones outside the college. I could actually just take pictures of wet stones forever and be happy. On Tuesday we went down to the marina for a little golden hour dog and child walk and it was incandescently lovely. On Wednesday my best friend in Asheville called me up to tell me that her father had just passed away. I stood outside and these geese, hundreds upon hundreds, flew by and I thought of souls flying away into the air, how we are only here for a little while and then we go, fly away north, fly away south, but others come back. On Thursday at the other side of the airport dike trail the mysterious daffodils are blooming and Harvey and I looked at them. On Friday I emptied a box that was packed up “for four months” three years ago and found all the refrigerator magnets so now the fridge has returned to its former glory. And Saturday was yesterday; another day I didn’t get out much but we did manage a little trek on the trail behind the forestry department where they have trees like that one. And now it is March and yet again, I forgot to say rabbit rabbit. Probably why everything is going to hell in a proverbial handbasket.