Black Bears on Crack, ah Floriduh!

Dear you,

We sizzle.  Real feel temperature in Seagrove beach today is 100 degrees. That is positively comfy in contrast to other parts of our USA.  We sizzle and deny, deny, deny this very real climate change.  Florida continues its war on Mother Nature with edicts from the governor, #DeathSantis, like these:  1. The Gov declares no laws in Florida shall mention "climate change".  (Very "don't say gay" in intent.  Forbid the saying of the thing, the people, then  both shall cease to be real.) 2. The Gov also signed into law HB 87 that allows for the slaughter of Black Bears who are displaced by development and extreme weather. Sierra Club tried to gather support against the bill that "would have disastrous consequences for the welfare and safety of Florida wildlife and residents alike. Built upon the falsehood that Florida faces an epidemic of “crackbears”, HB 87 would usurp the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s (FWC) sole constitutional authority to regulate wildlife and exempt people from any administrative, civil or criminal penalties for killing a bear if: The person is believed that it was necessary to avoid imminent death or serious bodily injury to their self, another person or a pet; and the person didn’t intentionally or recklessly put their self or pet in a situation where they would need to use lethal force."  

Yes, anti-wildlife, fearful folks will pull the trigger if Yogi and BooBoo are digging through a garbage can searching for food. The comical reasoning about crack came from one representative who said bears have consumed drugs and are now on a rampage.  Again, from Sierra Club, their Florida Political Director Luigi Guadaramma, “Rather than addressing real problems like the property insurance crisis, climate change, or affordability, legislators have prioritized a fantasy. There have been zero people killed by ‘crack bears’ in Florida, and there are zero reasons why HB 87 should be signed into law.”

But of course it was signed into law. #Floriduh. We sizzle, we deny, we kill.

You and I know who is on crack, and it isn't the bears. 

Keep your head up!  Hope is hard to tap into now, but we have to try.  Do what you can.

Bless the wild things everywhere.

Joyce out

Post-Trust Days

Dear you,

Post-D Day tributes, post-Trump criminal conviction, post-trust.  Here we are.  My day began fully post-trust when a scam caller tried to convince me someone had opened a checking account in my name at an institution I do not bank at and this person had also used Zelle to send money to someone named Jennifer.  "Let me connect you to a Zelle Rep to clear this up."  Uh, no.  I said I would just call the bank in question directly and take it from there.  Click.  As expected, big scam.  Such a shame, isn't it?  So very post-trust.  I don't even trust my supermarket, a behemoth chain here in Florida.  The pricing is ridiculous, gouge-worthy indeed.  And they are running a TV ad now that is perplexing and insulting.  Cue music for "Bittersweet Symphony".  

Hear the lovely orchestration?  It is mysterious and lovely.  The ad only uses the music, no lyrics. But for those of us who know the song and its lyrics, this choice seems way off for a store that wants to keep it light, happy, wants to emphasize the shopping pleasure found in its aisles.  Put simply, the lyrics are dark:

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, that's life

Tryna make ends meet, tryna find somebody then you die

I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down

You know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah

You know I can change, I can change

I can change, I can change

But I'm here in my mold

I am here in my mold

And I'm a million different people

From one day to the next

I can't change my mold

No, no, no, no, no

So, paying attention to the words the music sets up, I guess the grocery company defines me as someone who just tries to make ends meet, buys over-priced foodstuffs, and then dies. I cannot change or resist the mold of shopping normalcy.  If they want my trust, they shouldn't assume I won't recall the lyrics when I hear the music; they shouldn't assume I am that stupid and memory-free.  I am now totally post-trust in terms of this company.

Don't worry, I won't starve.  Walmart just opened a new marketplace store just a few miles down the road.  It is clean, sells upscale products and fresh-fresh produce, and is staffed by chill, not-fake-friendly workers. That I can trust.

Word to those who make us post-trust:  we won't fall for phone scams or TV ads that assume we have no cultural knowledge.

We CAN change our molds enough to survive post-trust and work for a trust renaissance.

Cheers to that!

Love, Joyce