Atlas shrugs.

Dear you,

Mythic Atlas holds the world on his shoulders.  Is he losing his grip?  It seems this is so.  

To type my spin on another war, the terrorist attack against Israel this weekend, is something I don't want to do.  My words fail, cannot capture what needs to be said.  I will, however, share a simple moment from this time.  I call it a Bubble Moment:

Sometimes I have to walk away from the coverage of world events; yes, I have the luxury of doing that. I frequently tune in to reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond, Mike and Molly, and Friends late at night.  I know the plots and everything gets resolved or at least tidied up in a thirty minute box.  A night or so ago, a Friends episode featured a view from a character's office, a perfect view of the Rockefeller Center Atlas.  This popped my bubble of escapism.  This god, forever, must support the sky. The Fifth Avenue statue depicts him supporting the entire globe. What happens if and when he can no longer bear the weight?  What happens if he (alluding to Rand's writing) shrugs? That is what I feel like has happened these days. Atlas has shrugged, but the sky hasn't fallen.

Atlas is us, the ones who hope to be on the right side of history. I want to be a part of that. I'll begin by turning off the reruns and emerging from all things "bubble".

That's all I've got this day.

Love and endurance,

Joyce 

Rednecks with Chainsaws

 Dear you,

This moment, the House votes to determine Speaker McCarthy's future.  The usual cast of far right characters are coming for him and they might get what they want.  During all this, the most deranged commentary I hear is about how all this is the fault of the Democrats, who, by the way voted with Republicans to not shut the government down last weekend.  I also hear how our unwillingness to vote to save McCarthy's hold on the gavel is the problem. Lot's of talk. But my focus remains clear and what I recognize is this:  the Gaetz-MAGA chaos machine is armed with chainsaws, happy to dismember and decapitate a functioning government; they dream of a not so good past life.  No subtlety, no negotiation, just slash and burn.  Like the "tree service" crew my condo board sent to oddly deface (and possibly kill) the formerly gorgeous holly tree outside my balcony.  That was Tuesday morning . . .

I was drinking coffee and mainlining MSNBC morning news when I saw the service truck pull up by my building.  Printed aggressively on the truck was the now empty phrase IN GOD WE TRUST. I winced.  In this area, that seemingly benign phrase is often used to cover brutal behaviors. I ran downstairs to inquire, what is up?  Do you intend to take down that holly tree?  "No, mam, we're just here to trim it back."  Fine.  It needed trimming and certainly shaping. I hoped for the best, but then the "boss" arrived". The workers with the trimming tools were told to yield and let him take over.  The boss jumped into one of those crane-lift chairs (sorry, don't know what they are actually called) and proceeded to move into the holly armed with a screaming chainsaw. I winced again. Rednecks with chainsaws, what could possibly go wrong?  And "wrong" went down.  The poor tree is now decapitated, taken down to the second floor level; entire branches hacked off.  It looks like a skeleton version of its old self.  I cried.

Now, again as noted above, I listen to the battle between rationality and chaos going down in the House.  Those who wish us harm (not just the Gaetz contingent but also the "centrist" republicans) push "parental rights" in education (a.k.a. puritanical repression), expansion of fossil fuel production, forced birth policies, and the erasure of equal rights for LGBTQ citizens. They might not all be literal rednecks, but they all wield metaphorical chainsaws.

Wherever you are today, pay attention, please.  So much is at stake, so much more than my holly tree.

Carry on!

Love,

Joyce