The force of water

  even in higher elevations rumbled trees, entire trees, along creeks.  Up by Mt. Mitchell State Park and Micaville High School where homes and service buildings are nestled in varying elevation trees up higher than level surfaces came down.  Onto wires and shelters trees came down.  Old Glory's still flying up here!  And in the mix of policy and loophole--wild west--of Newport TN, I did hear about eligible bachelors and meat bingo.  A lot of people stuff is just the same.  And the work on soggy and dry rot and polluted continues!  A lot of area in and around Asheville is considered "toxic" still so be careful.

The moon had risen

  in a wash of cloud that squished it unperfectly round.  Skunk made his rounds undisturbed by the campers.  

  The poorer than poor kamp talk sputtered into that campfire space between resilience and giving up.  Still breathing so I'm guessing work in the a.m.?!  A man drying feet asked and told his woman.  Same as yesterday?  Or today?  Days are already blurring.

  Speaking of AM, did you guys hear on WLIK that I think it's Memphis is having a, like a sanctuary day?  Working with a church or something to help people sort through the whole criminal v just broke paperwork.

  Makes a big difference this time of year.

  Oh, this is normal?  I thought it was just, like, political change.

  That too I'm sure.

  None of it's gonna help me fix my roof.

    The small fire crackled, makeshift hearth.  We'd gotten some notebooks and were looking over budgets and trying to figure how people come up with $9000 just for heating and air.  We'd calmed down some from being chased and people we didn't even know had helped spread the word, they're not even Jewish or Iranistanians.  One guy tried to compliment by asking if we were sex slaves.

  I don't have sex for money.

  I do.  It's called marriage.

  I'm going over to bed.  You come home tonight 'stead a making extra money out there.  The man waved a cruddy boot in the direction of the road.

  We were girls.

  Eyes searched each others' faces sternly before a kiss.  Us girls looked at each other sternly too.  We stay put.  Agreed.

  It's never extra, the lady in the sweater assured.

  Extra?

  Money dear.  No such thing as extra.  Ever.

  It's the same back home.

  And where is that?

  One girl punched another's leg.  Ooowwwah Minnesota.

  Minnesota huh?  So this weather isn't real cold to you?

  No m'am.  I been in snow so deep it was like, like

  Like?

  Like totally deep.

  Good, you're an experienced survivalist.

  Sortah.

  You'll be fine with this one bundle of wood then, for the three days.  It wasn't a question.

  You still a virgin?  A gruff voice called into the tarped area.

  Then another man came crashing up the creek bank.  Who's he?  The gruff voice asked.

  A Native American, tracker.  Gonna help with the lumber stuff.

  That weird beetle thang?  A skinny guy in a leather jacket stuck his head out of the tarped area and asked.  Up from Panther Creek?  He also asked but we couldn't hear the answer.

  Go to sleep girls.  The mountains are, she made quote marks in the air, "under God" again.  Then the lady in the sweater left.  But a biker woman came back from the shower and sat near the fire.  Steam came off her hair.

   America is unique in our ways of capitalism putting people on their own for quality of life, and together on some things like safety.  We didn't start out helpimg each other with money but we did start out helping each other in service to God and to Country.

30 years ago

  People had to stop blaming overall shitty situation on each other, so the States could work independently and together.  Fear breeds fear and that ruins business and keeps abusers able to dominate as we're all overworking and are basically trapped financially.

  It was back then, for example, a woman named Lisa explained that sex trafficking is not fake news.  And we outed abuse of surveillance in hunting people.

  Got through it!  Stay positive.

  We were young but there were children younger, so we got sucked into the make it a good day vibe.  Problem was we needed the help of real journalists!  And when we reached some M-F 9-5, they were like

  Well, journalism is fact-based, they needed evidence or at least "a strong lead" to even go out on a beat which people had stopped doing pretty much.  We finally caught back up with mentors and trusted older-than-us's.  We hadn't meant to run but what happened was, well, it had to do with racism and data thievery.  Some people we had met camping were in various states of service in foreign military stuff.  And the American political stuff kicked up old hatreds plus a fighting of their wars here.  So it was kind of scary.  And we thought we were imagining it, but realized people were hunting people.  Not American law enforcement.  They assured a bunch of us, they don't "hunt" people.  Not even when they are after bad people.  Different communities worked together to help the law enforcement get back to normal.

A diversity of character

 and point of view.  Now get in the cabinet.  All with the same mission to shore up a proper baseline of America.  It's great.

  Especially as the West is already, technically, engaged in real warring, all countries sift through best for the task at hand.

  It's interesting how we have to think right now, before things are formed into what they might be in subsequent phases of working on the country.  An example is the vaccines.  No one would keep good medicine from a fellow countryman, however when the "healthcare" "system" is all over the place, there's too much danger to say yes "this" is good and right.  We went through this as a body politic with "aspirin" and came through the initial fears and arguments with a better handle on what's good for people, how there's generally good, but also specific body types, how enemies had hands in products, services, policy, and "poisons".  Pre-new it's really good to analyze where things went.

  Even homeopaths and curandarismos let people rest first, to see what is really wrong with someone.  Sometimes stress and weather is compounding the challenge of our immune systems to get healthy.

Not weird, yet

   Usually they talk about UFO's as filler...long time 'til January 2025.  And buffer.  The world and its space debris goes on no matter who's where.  Of course, people gave Obama the benefit of the doubt (no weirdness going on) but wars complicated the roles of diplomats.  Kerry not selling but giving permission to the axis country Iran to go ahead and have nukes (if y'all can get them), that was pretty weird.  But it was weird in that cabinets are supposed to maintain loyalty like the military leaves no one behind.  So then there was questioning of Obama and the Democrats' motives.  But, we were in war.  Things can get complicated but aiding the enemy is treason or something, some most serious crime.

  In a ruckus it's difficult to pin blame, so post ruckus there's a lot of finger pointing.

Back up in Knoxville

  I'm sure I look as thrilled, not as Trump getting back to the roost of the White House.

  A homeless lady tells me she's pretty good about pooing in a container that can go in the trash.  But most of the homeless here pee and poo wherever, and throw the needles wherever.  It's that part of the cycle where people with no money are endangering the whole of us, so keep your pets safe!

  I was lucky to find some affordable hand sanitzer at one of the gas stations.  And where I camped was clean and gated.  Did get bit by a tick.  Felt like a bee sting.  And got red rashy the next day.  Changes to environment like the flooding moves lots of stuff around, and "pests" and petu-lence beefs up its own take back a place.  Some places couldn't recover ground gains after Covid.  So that's another reason to promote landscaping.  It'll be a busy spring.

  Cha, u can imagine our tee-shirts, something like 379whatever, we pee and poo everywhere

  Great.

  I did hear that; some of the US sanctuary cities have community action groups with info about options depending on which direction you are taking your life.  Of course as the nation phases total law and order back in, the police on the whole do not want for violence either.  So one foot in front of the other....

  Guy at the pop up Trump store said something interesting when I was buying an AMERICANS FOR TRUMP bumpersticker.  Said people are afraid.  A lot of people may be.  And it takes really repairing trust to get each other through that.  So here we go again like 30 years ago.

  Plus we're tighter than tight wallet in a transition like this out of necessity.

True colors

  I'm sure you've seen them.  Everybody's got colors besides cammo and red, white, and blue.  Just like every human is more than skin color!  That message has been going around since the 1980's when some punks got pissed off about something.  About somebody calling a mawmaw an old blue hair, I think.  They got pissed off so they dyed their hair some different colors and put their feelings into music.  Some suit said, I'm not voting for you, in an Australian accent, and the punks worked their response to that right into the lyrics.  Music AND performance art, take that.  We don't need no stinkin' patches.

  Yep, political cycles leave a lot of bruises no matter who all is campaigning to manage the money.  And managing the money is really the bottomline even though the whole gamut of lifestyle, American lifestyle, has shown its true colors.

America's already great.

   A couple nights good sleep free from political noise and the sentiment is settle back down.  Slogans come and go.  So do transitions and shifts.  

  At the clean and still drying out from Helene--like all the mountain areas--Triple Creek Campground (open 'til December 1st) the atmosphere is late season mellow.  Spacious parking for what all we're hauling for change of season.  And well kept grounds make tenting a breeze.  Affordable.  And the office is very welcoming.

  Hot cup of coffee at Janice's Diner where a lot of locals eat early.  Too early for me to start asking, for you what would make America great again?

  I imagine the answers would be as varied as us Americans are.  And our journies to achieving great also diverse.

I'm a sucker for

  high gloss paper magazine stock, so of all the brochures, this one caught my eye, Discover Cocke County, Vol 5, 2024.  A downtown turbocharged with coffee and cars; foothills nature; people history even older than the Revolutionary War; real people doing the business of America in the ads; a creamery -- as in ice cream, all the flavors are great smiling faces assure; MEAT!!!! at the Hillbilly's Smoky Mountain Diner (Texas-style fare like BBQ and sauces to go), and axe-throwing!  All in Newport, TN.  Forget about Disney.  Put Dollywood on hold!

  Them there's fightin' words, I'm sure.

  I81 to 77 adds hours to crossing between T'see and Carolina.

  Trump won all seven battleground states (flipping six), won a huge popular vote, Republicans won 53 Senate Seats, and the votes for the House are still being counted, radio tells.  A rest area hosts OVERSIZE LOAD labeled vehicles.  Even before sunrise traffic slowly but surely rolls onto the highway.

  It's Veteran's Day.

  The blue holiday lights line the fence between parking lot and world on the move.  A lifesize statue of a soldier stands ground and always salutes an enormous Old Glory.  Trucks parked in rows start to come to life, parking lights, head lights, tail lights....a quiet nod to another work day.

  A framed write-up on a woman cook for Ihop is amongst the articles and photographs of honored people, professionals, at the travel center.  She's had the job for 33 years!  And also values spending time with family and friends.  Even cold, the next morning, the country fried steak and hashbrowns melt in the mouth.  A school bus's yellow flashing lights blink in stark contrast to the mist and low cloud foggy weather.

  The bond market is closed for Veteran's Day, the radio relays.  Across from a giant Davy Crockett (whose birthplace is not far from here) is the Baileyton Antique Mall.  Antique Mall is printed on the tin roof so even barnstormers can locate themselves in the landscape of homeland.

  TVs at dinner last night served up tough talk, a truck carrying 46,000 pounds (or pieces) of apple crash, and war stuff.  The vague beyond the fringe does and does not have specifics attached just yet.  A man on the radio explains nations taking roles in holding other nations accountable, de-escalating destruction to peace & prosperity, and people living the values of "peace through strength".  An overall feeling "in the streets," as they call popular people, is that we'll all be safer when the wagons are circled.

  As governments transition the stage metaphor loses appeal for people in a real defensive position about transparency and strategy.

  At a pop-up Trump Store a worker is bemoaning the late arrival of potential stocking stuffers.  He takes his time to explain forty five dash forty seven.  Been to dozens of rallies, including July's shots fired and Trump hit rally where nobody ran.  Little cardboard Trumps show the man with an authentic smile.  No doubt about "winner" and currently in the standard process of picking loyal people to stand with him and the Republicans migrating back into managing the country.

  A billboard advertises a selection of 6500 bolts of fabric and mountain farmland makes its own sort of living Americana quilt.  Rolled hay and handpainted sign: Eat More Turkey jogs memories of how we make this work now that the competition-proper is over.  In America's heartland--all over the country, city and nature-preserving places--we buy, sell, and trade!  It's staple to hospitality.

  My next stop is the Roadside Station~Garden & Gift.  The lady is closed on Sundays and Mondays, but kindly finds out if there's something she could help me with.  Wishes for a good day to each other and I'm on my way.

  My days off from work are special no matter what I'm doing but to drive through our country makes my days booocoooo special.  Soaking up memories of family and life 'cuz I have thinkin' time.  I remember driving mama around and meeting lots of people in seasonal transition.  Budget-minded people, work and play schedule-ing people, people who think ahead to grandchildren and future people still needing to tend to where we live.  Taking stand now so we can live how we want to live in a future world.

  And then there are the animals.  Me and mama had not had country time in a while and it was almost shocking to learn anew about the crazy steed.  "We need more meat," a stout-lipped farmer type relayed of where he was representing.  The girl steeds were stuck somewhere else and the tensions were building.  "Are those bulls humping that hill?"  Someone drinking spiked ice tea asked.  A glance.  "Guess so." A cell phone call, They'rah ready.

  Hot, dark roast at the Seven Brew Drive Thru Coffee.  We are stacked up on the Tennessee side to savor.  A road sign lets us know these commercial/businesses are in a Main Street zone.  The sun peeks through broken cloud and the mountains show themselves.

Seventy-eight

   The paint was starting to peel off the fire hydrants as our peoples' movement to celebrate 200 years of surviving the experiment of USA became reality v red, white, and blue image of us.  There was some disappointment that the symbolic couldn't do it for us.

  One brother picked finger grips into a Nerf football.  Dad couldn't believe his hand was still that small.  Mom handed the ball back to the older brother and said, Deal with it, you're not getting another one until Christmas.  The boy took in the order to deal with it, then grinned because realized, less than six months.  

  Mom put Dad's hand on her expecting tummy beneath fashion that didn't reveal healthier than over the past few years, so, more prayers for you Sherry, the note had read.  And, we're off to California.  I voted for "touch", hopefully everyone has fun.  The guests were prepared to hold the line on a fun day.  Cool.

  I ran towards a neighbor's Dad so happy to see him but stopped myself short of leaping into his arms like the Victory Day photograph.  "Thought you people went to California," my Dad said.  "Well, the Mrs. did." This war is far from over, others had said talking late into the night.

  Some of the neighborhood girls were borrowing Mama's jewelry to wear.  She wanted to know the why of each pick.  Kept up with all the news and used a proverbial fly swatter on gossip.  She herself that day put a thoughtful selection of pieces in one of her pockets.  And then asked me which piece she should wear first.  I gazed at the collection gathered from thrift store and holiday gifts and thought about the past.  Since you're the hostess of this worldly event, small world afterall, supposed to have a fun day in spite of all the evil, let's see....I dramatically took my time picking and then whispered the why to her.  "Sounds complicatedly simple.  I like it."

  They'd been thwarting us at every turn.  Haters of the Old Glory.  Haters of selves, that's what a lot of druggies are.  Haters of law and order.  Freakish twists and turns in everyday life because of, well because for every plan to be good and do good, horrible people were able to organize.  Done in the dark was a phrase equally applicable to any "fringe" activity since we all had to battle evil in a straighten up and fly right position.

  It wasn't all bad, people had good days.  Groups within being good citizen groups had particular flavor from strict to laid back.  Then the criminals would make moves and we'd have to snap into action.  Sometimes the police and communities had total safety going on and schools could honestly present amazing little people.  Other times, at least near cities, it was really warlike.

  Some blamed it on "the Asian war", brought home all the tumult and couldn't shake it, some.  But the drug availability kept re-starting fires that people'd just barely survive.  And when there wasn't drugs, there was lots of booze.  Smoking and liquor.  And so many people never getting ahead or getting settled and then losing it one way or another.  The politics were fire and ice between neighbors and family because the politics were point blank about upholding beliefs and owning space to live those beliefs.  Middle grounds weren't faring well.

It's not "fake"

  I think we all go through that feeling, sometimes alone and sometimes together.

  Of course it's compounded by our abilities to produce, create, fabricate.

  I think it's also why people find something like the Ten Commandments a worthy thing, standard, for self and country.

  You've probably had that feeling in church or at a family meal-- where something feels fake, like the formal aspect of situation isn't revealing of the whole truth...maybe a messy house until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, or everybody got drunk on Friday night.  Part of the astounding innovation that Jesus brought to the structure of religion and way of life is forgiveness.

  Believe me, there have been times people called me stupid 'cuz I did something stupid.  If the shoe fits, somebody else tough didn't cave on holding people to the standard.  Okay, okay, that was stupid.

  In America we're allowed to do stupid?

  Life is NOT some neatly FORMAL thing¡!

  You can hear our struggle in our Rock and Roll and in the spaces between the curtains of "the stage".  And that's not fake either...the external to self world is like a stage.  Even if there's no other people around when we consider ourselves under God or as people in relation to "a higher power".

  It's always been part of the fight in taking an anti-war stance.  Warring appears to change the standard(s).  And when more and more people get on that bandwagon the standard stands less of a chance to exist.

  America is often the voice that says no.  We're not doing that.

  But there have also been times when we're all over the place in terms of upholding our standards.  Then we have to get to the church of the Constitution and look to each other to get out of the mudhole.

When the Hungarian woman called me stupid

  I had to wait the whole seminar-class time to get affirmation that I am not stupid.

  It was just...

  Well...

  Fallaci explained sore subject, analogies...warped...like wars, political phases get named afterwards or by others.

  I think it's that United States of America that many of us voted for...the one that battled out World War II to establish freedom from a real tyrant or two plus a tidal wave of hate and confusion.  Ironically, we elected a sometimes foul-mouthed cranky type to stand up for us, for all of us.

  

  It was also more than thirty years ago.  At the time we were in a checkmate cold war with Russia so the two number ones -- chief amongst Allies, head of the orbit that was soviet union/Axis -- were like in a wrestling match.  And for most of the world it was a horrifying prospect, to talk about there, wherever it was.

  Besides fighting tooth and nail over how to understand politics and violence, how to talk about stuff/not talk about stuff, there were a lot of unknowns.  Even the scholarship about fascism was kept under wraps, and many scholars walked a razor thin wire between saying and not saying.  Gets into censorship and safety, violence and war, journalism as not fake news and sometimes too hot to print.

Like a vigil

  for our votes to be more real than the bitterness.

  At a rest area a truck bears wound.  The signage along the side reads:

  SUPPORT OUR TROOPS: WE WILL NEVER (ripped out) and shows the American flag.

  We will never forget was also a group response to our nation under attack, to hate displayed in violence.  

  The majority is not into it.

Most of the Middle East

   doesn't give people choice.  The choice to have a job or work, for example.

  In the U.S. we get to the same point with automation.  And we choose everytime.  Stay a human-being centered nation, or

  Leave it to precision warfare

  Leave it to the robots

  It's hard on us workers because we feel robotic, more so sometimes than other times.

Remember how

  the Milwaukee returns were not as quick as some others?  It's correlated to "affordable housing" and other community action movement--which is not necessarily socialism.  Needing affordability on food, clothing, and shelter is not socialism.

  Affordability is something the baby boomers have always demanded, if only by sheer numbers if not by choice--I'm not paying thirty dollars for a piece of plastic (storage bin).

  And, in a weird way affordabilty had to do with January 6th.

  Way back when we had a group discussion around

  Defending democracy in relation to property law

  It also got into the fifty shades of grey surrounding a flag and what the flag represents ideologically and in actuality.

  I'm still refresher course-ing The Case Against Socialism before I can get back into Arendt.

Scrimmaging selves

  We'll have to get to thinking about this war of the egos that's getting called facism.

  A lot of people have no cause to have done any service to nation, USA.  So, no idea about being a part of something that's not necessarily creepy.

  And, when I felt like the whole humanities fellowship at the University of Hartford should also study about facism, especially in relation to our image as all of us in football gear emblazoned with USA, USA...a beautiful, intelligent, hardworking woman from Hungary had to explain why she said that was stupid and even saying the word facism is like saying the word holocaust.

  It's never accidental.  It's not like Trump's gonna fall through a trap door that socialism left behind in DC and become a fascist.  And the antidote to as much socialism, marxism, and war that's got our flag gnarled up in the political spectrum is to be more American.

  Sigh of relief.

  At this point in these long-winded conversations with passports in hand many of us chose to talk lightly with questions like, Is the Pioneer Woman really a pioneer???  And, ever been to Disney?????

  In other words, when the popular conscience gets dragged into heavy issues like war and who should live and who should be killed--as a matter of politics--there's a divide between what to talk about at dinner for everyone and what might be better digested in levels of "schooling".

Buncha wounded political animals

   I blame the socialism creep.  Not Bernie, of course, but socialism/communism more general.

  Back then we were also a mix of ilk.

  Our friend Christian had a proverbial whip to break down the last of the sediment of "political" so we could just feel human again.  And in doing that people participated more freely or at will.  Some chose not to.  This is not China.  That's baseline.

  I guess the whip which never touched anyone was a more effective prop than gavel in judgment-free zone.  And it was Asheville, so there was a lot of "smudging" going on.

  Not so strange for the word healing to come out of Trump's mouth.  Certainly lots to heal up.

  Well, of course the older people are cranky.  Just chits to the democrats!  And a lot of them with no companionship whatsoever in those places.

  Critical, critical everyone's got opinion especially because we've all got votes!

  We move on.  Non-violently; that is what a peaceful transfer of power really is.  The grievances mount to the moon but the best anyone can do is move forward.

  Gosh, I remember being a young white kid and the election rollercoaster of emotions coming to a plateau.  It may have been Denzel Washington who did a voice like Sipsy in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes.  Point was, buck up.  It takes longer than 48 hours for the stocks to go go and the trickle to sputter to life.  It's not like there aren't 1000 little things to tend to.  It's not like the cozy middle America has to get uncomfortable.

  Boy did we cry though about the horrors that had happened.

  And, what about, what about we carried on.  Our bleeding heart liberal emotions had us emotionally worn out, then angry--at socialism.  And then to find out, more work, more work....

  Felt like dreams crushed.  The just a bit olders in the Holston camps put on their best black ladies and redneck "dads" as characters.  They'd imitate us blubbering, too hard, life's too hard, then character act the toughest, most caring people they'd met.

  Do you think the Republican dictators should just make the hand-to-mouthers slaves?????

  Course it was real black women and men that had somehow survived in the real world who brought the play-acting into the realm of real conversation.  In Knoxville we did all that with an element of art and "pizazz".

  Around here there'd been family members--white, black, and purple who'd gone without to hold onto properties.  And neighbors who picked casseroles up off the ground when helping hands were turned away because of color and flavor of religion.  While the north's election cycle mood thawed pretty quickly, the south made some pretty icy barriers as boundary against "the circus".

  But hos-pit-ality is part of good business, women business owners stayed in place and rather tearfully explained, not really understanding all the loaded in tensions about accusations of stealing, or being told how to look now.  A lot of their men were having to travel farther and farther as sales went into region phases, and budgets were so like leaky dams team leaders had to physically bring stuff from one location to another so as not to waste and to make pennies but profit.  Then be so careful about reinvesting the profit into sustaining the businesses.

  No safety net.

  Not much margin for error.

  Be careful!!!!  Comes out of the manager's pocket and no manager, no store, no restaurant!  My God, be careful!

  Not "just an onion ring".  We were learning a lot of stuff for the first time while also trying to heal up loved ones from such a long bout with socialism running us into the ground.

  Some people didn't want to start partying again.  And some people stayed away from businesses because would rather say nothing at all.  Others scrounged sofa chamge to help people get a house cleaning or carpentry odd job done.  People felt funky.

  Yeah, we did see that onion ring as symbolic of the whole business!  None of us was perfect but together we could make a successful business and so each of us was successful.

  We did that in graduate school.  "You" don't want to stick to the script?????!!!! Jeeeeeeez, it's 7AM and you're coming at my friends like you're a missile.  Okay, you write it!  You write what you will say...load up the powerpoint with your genius phrases!  Turned out to be a great practice which helped people develop their own thoughts and navigate defending thesis.  Some people had never seen their thoughts externalized.  Even some people with great stature.

  Cha.  Some future world leaders cared to take on the practice!  It matters especially when/as real world happens more quickly and by a kind of ongoing conference call.  And practicing lets people ask people...how did you hear that?  Of course, some interdisciplinary students realized they can issue orders to some of the people they speak at, but there are others they want to reach but can't force.

  I was really glad to see an authentic smile on Trump the other night.  It's that authentic happy people want me doing my life's work smile that every American should get as we turn this around.

  

Ice chips!

  Thirty years ago when the hospital in Asheville didn't have clean ice chips for the suffering, loved ones and caring practicioners brought ice cream machines and bottled water!  It was around the time Israel got more into de-salting water.  And recycling, re-purposing was gaining in strength to offset "trickle down".

  It was a big story.  Because it brought up "issues" about divisions between people regarding resources and overcoming types/categories/-isms.  And overcoming bias with caring was ground-moving in the old south.

  It was the start of WNC's exceptional health care network.

Out of subjective and into the frying pan

  In journalism we long ago "got into it" regarding perspective and reality.  In anthropology some of the same debates quietly raged.  Over the years people seem to have used perspective like a tool.  Argument about perspective seems to have taken center stage to issues of omission and other manipulations of "news" and so what all we're doing.  We, on the whole, for example, got better at knowing the difference between PR and reality of situation.

  It's interesting that at the end of an administration on the hill but before a new one has arrived the "news" is full of perspective and opinion.  Both chock full of bias and even some wild imaginings.  Some of that is true about us and some of it is conjecture.

  Hearing from a random sampling of Mexicans, for example, to media-tab Trump's personality as "unpredictable" really speaks more to some other things than it does Trump's personality.  There's political strategy for instance, rarely discussed like a futbol team's game plan.  There's also all of America in a state of jostling, maybe repositioning, around "issue".  Before a democracy comes to resolution about anything there's a lot of bluster and analysis and landing technique. There's difference and discussion.  In America this really does checkmate dictatorship.  And there's always revelations regarding who pay dat?!

  The sources of funding are just as important in equasion with "policy" and law...though "credit" and willy-nilly printing of dollars has affected that reality.  

  During times like this a lot of issues--stuff in the pile of working on--gets called "crisis" but very often the crisis part comes from like getting people elected and walking away; a sort of disengagement instead of working through the reality of situation.

We've got cardboard Dolly!

  Like in that movie Twister...we've got cow in the debris.

  Gosh, movies remember those?!  I have barely thought of anything but politics for so long now, it is over the top cool to see cardboard Dolly.

  Had to go way north from mid North Carolina to get back to Tennessee.  Through beautiful farm country.  Fall colors like pheasants and geese refresh the mind which has blue and red map of us all emblazoned on it.  Woke up to hear Trump's acceptance of our voting for him, mostly because where I fell asleep on the sofa, the TV is wall-size.  It was like Trump walked right into the home and said, "Okay!"

  Now we get to it, all of us more spirited for all that red all over the map.  These transitions in the past seem to bring a last phase of survival mode still more necessary as we gain traction...get more pro-business, and, apply all that compassion and caring that is part of patriotism.

  We've got some serious challenges!  But we've demonstrated--we're up for it.

But of course,

  My mom would be beaming proud and would def point out that her generation did it!  Got Reagan in too.  And I would agree that this election it was so important to join forces and put the good America first.  And it's important to live our values.  And hugely important to be an example for young people.

  To set the course and achieve the goals of re-Americanizing ourselves and honing that legacy that makes us different than most places on earth.

Pee and go

   Once I81 dumps you out of TN there's no mappage showing how to get to NC.  And if you're coming from fast food job, you get reprimanded for going into the women's bathroom not looking something enough, I guess.

  Everything is nice and quiet.  But the field of broke down tractors and lawnmowers kind of tells where we're at.  A gas station couple is quietly closing down a Sunday workday.  Kindly give directions.  More bananas from a grocery and the reassurance that there are still mountains to go before the flatland.  It's a thirty year de ja vous with the good people of America just doing the same USA we've been doing since I was a kid.

   It's like when "everybody" started wearing jeans.  We never really got back to "fashion" after that.  Big divides.

  The campaigning brings ideological politics front and center but for the majority of people most things are just routine.  Most people can't ride a ticket to get out of poverty.  A lot of people don't get to wear a suit and tie.  In everyday situation we don't yell RIGHTS, I WANT MY RIGHTS.  Or, Garbage, y'all are garbage and I'm gonna....

  We have a couple people as presidential candidates and we see them everywhere.  And the idea is to pick a side and go in that direction.  There's no "magic pill" that is going to turn the world into all one thing at this point.  Not even war.

  We do have big divide(s) and a lot of it is really about how we approach the same issues.  Finances do dictate most decision-making.  And each political party does offer particular forms of support for ideas and activities.  Some of it is moral support -- you can do it!  And here's why....

  The more self-reliant, street and trickle down, are actually greatly influenced by overall political tone because of that tone's coloring of environment, but environment--not in disaster mode--isn't a dictator in America.

  The current stagnation seems more like a paltry footbridge over chaos and non-participation or apathy about being a citizen.  But not about being American since we, in many ways, let that be even more lax than just wear jeans.  It became an illusory anything goes.  Of course, that sort of lack of commitment, absence of discipline, waffling about ideologically has put a strain on leftover system (much of which stemmed from programs and have long been past their "shelf dates"), and with an optimistic naw we didn't give up, really, at least not totally, we put the rug of politics over the gigantic imperfection of big divide.

  It's kind of important to have some kind of structure to nation.  The rug is not gonna do it.

  Headlines this past week give us rockets, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and drones stalking and killing people in the streets.  And American elections.

  The question that everyone is asking of leader and people really seems to be

  Is America mightily different?

I choose to care anyway

  It's not about gender for me.  I care about men and women and children doing America as America.

  I think to be too specific-cause defeats the purpose of our nation.

  My vote (if I can get to NC) goes to Trump because the stuff that we are up against needs someone that committed, that stubborn, and that willing and able to fight against the gigantic drone of ah, just leave it like it is.  It's been a wretched four years.

Sometimes I wonder

   what Martha Stewart's cats r thinking too.

  When I wonder about serious stuff, I also ask.

  It's a wonder that we have ICBMs and drones stalking people and news is still giving out location information.  Everyone had to stop doing that in like, the Vietnam War.  But back in the early 1990's I was able to put a similar question to some experts.  Interestingly, the censors and military and vague popular were hung up on numbers!  Yeah, because elections require the use of numerical data, we had to put a hold on a critical block on some other information.  Seriously.

  Of course we were freaking out; we were young people.  Especially as creatives we were afraid censorship would be forever.  And there were official lists of words we couldn't use.  It was a challenge to express ourselves with buzzers clamping down on all our ideas.  We had academic arguments with the living censor people.  And, heart-to-hearts with older than us professionals and loved ones.  Advertising had to be part of the phasing in of temporary restraints in communications.  That made for some "funny" ads.

  We talked through jarring issues like having full faith and confidence in our Armed Forces.  And, even, what ifs and how to carry on without the usual conveniences.  It's always intense when we have to ready for maybe swift action.  But we do so as a nation.  And not just one nation, but a nation with allies.  

  And it's always comforting to know that grown ups are always doing their work, so even while we got to do some less serious stuff, the grown ups had been on it.

  No stress.

Scary

   What I feel is close to hatred for disorder and chaos and other issues it would be easy to blame on one party or another, one gender or another.  Think I'll vote for eating lots of candy today.

  They made fun of people for recycling too!  Sometimes guys make no sense.  They made fun of a woman reporter covering a typhoon or tsunami in Japan and it became a harmless guy rally cry, "The recycling!" They'd say in a girly voice.  Totally missed the point-- that even in a disaster SOME PEOPLE CARE, especially about maintaining progress on making life's problems better.  They're so duh sometimes.

  Heck yeah I voted for Nikki Haley in the primary!  Duh wears me out. 

  It's okay, we're going to get Taiwan and U.S. chips going forward.  Better chips.

Getting dark now, watch out for trick or treaters!

Mas mejor chips.  I might even invest in that if the Spanish-speaking people where I'm doing laundry don't put me in their garbage can.  Thanks

  Ah, just candy wrappers and food truck taco empty plates in the garbage can!  I love Knoxville.

  Happy Halloween

 

   In a down home sitting area of the Hartford, Tennessee Welcome Area I had the chance to sit and tarry-a-bit in a rocking chair beneath the regal-looking and very muscled World Grand Champion Tennessee Walking Horse ~ Justified Honors.  The horse's name sort of goes with the legacy of the state of Tennessee.  It certainly seems to as I'm absorbed into some history displaying the noble role Tennessee braved in the Civil War.

  The display or installation has a profound portrait of men on battlefield.  The work of art shows The Battle of Fort Sanders (courtesy of the East Tennessee Historical Society) and in the reproduction of a painting Old Glory looms large over the fort under attack.

  The display tells of Tennessee as a strategic location crucial to both the Union and the Confederates due to the state's "location, river routes and rail paths, industries and farmlands".  The Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area together with the Department of Tourist Development and the Department of Transpirtation has a partnership program called the Tennessee Civil War Trails.  This is part of a five-state trails system that helps people explore the "places associated with America's greatest challenge from 1861-1865".

  There are over 1000 sites "that tell the epic and heartfelt stories of civilians and soldiers, both black amd white, who experienced triumph and tragedy".  There are several sites in the Hartford, TN region.  And the Welcome Center (one of 19 in Tennessee) tells us about the Longstreet Campaign of 1863.  Confederate General Robert E. Lee sent his corps commander General James Longstreet to try and capture Knoxville ~ "a vital railroad junction that had fallen in early September to a Union force under the command of General Ambrose Burnside.

  "Fighting between the armies continued throughout the winter of 1863-1864 until Longstreet returned to Virginia, leaving the North in control of the Knoxville area for the remainder of the war."

  Almost 1500 engagements took place across Tennessee and, "The war years brought misery to almost every Tennessean," the display tells us.  "Yet, out of the ashes of war, Tenneseans, black and white, built a new society where slavery was abolished and citizenship redefined."

  The numbers are staggering:

  66,000 Confederates and 58,000 Federal soldiers were killed or wounded on Tennessee battlefields.

  "The division that made Tennessee a reflection of the rift between North and South also made it a testing ground of political reform after the war.  The state's many Unionists took power during Reconstruction and proceeded to abolish slavery, ratify the Reconstruction amendments to the Constitution and return Tennessee to the Union earlier than any other ex-Confederate state."

  "The sacrifices of African-American troops for the Union side strengthened the former slave's claim to a full share in postwar society.  These first steps toward emancipation and citizenship were the most hopeful legacy of the Civil War in Tennessee.  At war's end, 275,000 Tennesseans formerly enslaved were free."

  The information about the history of the U.S. including actual, physical war on homesoil amongst neighbors and families and citizens stands in stark contrast to contemporary Tennessee.  Like the glowing electric fire in the hearth here and the beautifully cared-for Welcome Center, today's Tennessee focuses more on ways people can experience the heartiness of an enduring spirit.

  From its Native American places to its other historical and peopled places; it's many trails through a diversity of commerce and craft, to its interconnectedness with real nature, Tennessee's portrait is so much more complex than even its complicated war time iterations.  

  Dozens of brochures invite to attractions ~ each its own mountain of interesting, and, proof that this state has weathered social transition and challenge to thrive locally-made and industrial-sized.  While the brochures boast of mainstays of fun and adventure each place of Tennessee, America also has its heroes and villians, humor and sorrows.

  The timberhewn Welcome Center with its wood furniture, handpainted scenery art and well-cared for vending and bathroom facilities presents that side of tourism that's about care and hospitality.  It's apt that here the wooden state-shaped "Tennessee" sign above an information desk is trimmed in gold.  Authentically valuable, Tennessee, as part of an America that is still rooted in tradition AND adaptable to such a diversity of people and purpose.  The mountains in this part of the state make for a pleasant preservation of space between states and population centers but the distances are fjorded by people well-versed in both formal and casual socializing.

  On this visit I talk with two men doing security and maintenance of the Welcome Center.  They confirm, as I've seen firsthand, that there is a lot of damage caused by Hurricane Helene.  It's posing real challenges to transportation between North Carolina and Tennessee.  Mr. Mike Washam relays news of at least four spots along I-40 that truly make the interstate impassable.  A four-lane area reduced to one lane of barely stable asphalt due to flooding, for example, is in need of repair.  The amounts of disaster relief money are up in the millions though, so there is a hopeful patience.  "And," Jesse McGaha points out, "Dolly Parton donated two million" for the fix up!  That puts monies for TN in the 32 million dollar ballpark, and NC is looking to use $100 million on disaster relief.

  The Hartford Welcome Center may see some changes in the future too, though not storm-related, there are electrical system updates and accessibility issues to be addressed.  But Jesse is proud to show me a unique feature of the Welcome Center...."It's the only one with a porch!" The rocking chairs are tucked inside so the porch can be pressure-washed.

  It's almost the start of November and up near the Martha Sundquist State Forest many of the leaves over the road are dropping hard now.  The forest road through there is temporarily closed so the TN Dept of Agriculture can repair wood bridges.  But on a clear night the starry sky and the sound of the stream there make for a perfect moment out of this year's political excitement.

  In some ways the weather and persisting clean up and repair have people doubling down on tending the homefires no matter what happens in national politics.  Word from the Welcome Center is that the major repairs will take into late next year (2025).

  The Soundtrack of America ~ Made In Tennessee movement or campaign or rally-around has made great effort to supercharge the Welcome Center with tourism and vacation ideas covering all of Tennessee.  With the Smokies and other area mountain spots involved so deeply in recovering from Hurricane Helene while getting ready for winter, it may be a good bet to plan immediate get-away time elsewhere in T'see.  All through the mountains and valleys of this region work is being done to save this land we love.  The overall tone is letting summer go, seasonal change, and we'll be here.

  Hot coffee and sausage on a biscuit at the locally owned Downtown Hartford Amoco.  The sun lights up the tops of nearby mountains revealing a patchwork of reds and browns and pine greens.  The gas station has handpainted team mascots in the windows.  Go Cosby Eagles!  Go Grassy Ravens!  And the assurance they've got The BEST pizza in town!

  On down the river road there is still a lot of debris from the storm and, sadly, peoples' soaked and ruined housewares.  The sounds of work trucks set a steady pace to morning.

  Behind the Ober Zipline and near the Moonshine Distillery the river is a tangled knot of tree and building parts.  River makes an oxbow there, a sort of "U"shape that gets waterlogged.  It's home to some rafting outfits which over the summer were quite bustling.  Some of the local eateries are badly damaged.  All along the river trees and people goods are cramming the banks.  Under a low bridge whole trees are jammed in and piled a dozen or so feet tall.  Then for several miles the landscape and peoples' homes bear the scars of raging river.  Fields of corn are battered and run over by the now-receded, mostly--but for the ponding and boggish sunken spots--flooding.  Home after home has water-debris-smashed wreckage.  In some spots vehicles were carried and smushed into poles and other structure.

  At points on the river road there is rock ledge that must've forced the flooding away from it and widened the path of destruction.  Vegetation is still hanging, dragged by the current, in some spots, fifteen feet above the riverbed.

  Over to Cosby I went hoping to get in one more night of camping before saying goodbye to summer.  To no avail.  Like most else anywhere near the Smokies, the storm eclipsed a lingering with nature as the seasons change this year.  Crickets, slow and not too loud in a not-too-hot sunshine was the parting kiss.

  All over the byways that aren't I40 the people traffic is a mix of regular day and repair.  Close-to but not directly impacted by storm is also a buzz of seasonal change and people like myself cut out of getting to North Carolina.  Trucks--asked not to travel those routes--barreling and turning around, turning around.  

  To my knowledge I81 is really the only legitimate way to go.  For me, it's compounding stress and hardship about voting this year.  The quiet but solid message from the mountains is can't go this way.  We're flummuxed.  Even miles and miles of pushing onward brings sudden Road Closed into the twists and turns of travel.  Whether it's storm-related or private property matters there is a maddening barricade between our states right now.  Probably closing normally welcoming places of the forest will alleviate the snarl.

  The shops and artisan places in Gatlinburg are welcoming leaf peepers and mountain haunt seekers!  And all through the area between Gatlinburg and Sevierville autumn hangs on regular like holiday decs.  So does a calm and steady show of support for Trump.  The signage, some handmade and vibrant red, white, and blue has definitely increased since earlier this year.  But there is an understated campaign feel.  Goes with storm-driven, let's get back to the business of being us.

  For sure the changes per Helene are forcing the hand on camping and tourism, but as people compelled to visit we're going with the flow as much as possible.

  Back in the city, Knoxville.  Our part of town is also feeling decided.  There's a welcomed relaxation of a hard-driving campaign season.  I feel proud of all of us for not being as ugly as we have been in some years.  Seems like way more determination in a mighty tide-turning...if not for assured outcome, at least in speaking out against sinking in a mysterious and lurking "socialism".  We're holding down the fort ~ the Stars and Stripes front and center.

So say

  Say a person has an accident and messes up their spine.  The way to have best chance recovery/life going forward is to re-align the spine to its original functioning position.  Politics in a Republic is not the spine.  The Republic is the spine.

  This matters even more at times when the whole world is configuring as economic markets/entities and institution (for lack of a better word).

  As if the planet is shifting its center of gravity or on its axis, the will of the people and the powers of organization sometimes require us to prioritize what's most important, right now.  In a rumbly world it is most important right now to define nation as nation.  That's a baseline.  The particular politics within the different kinds of nations are the most contentious rumbly.

  A lot of Americans are afraid that we will lose our political rights in voting for the Republican party to manage our Republic, but in terms of world politics, it is most critical right now to BE a Republic.  The world stage is forming into a more staunch version of different kinds of nation, each with economic and social structures of their own.  We have to be strong as America on that stage!

  Oh yeah.  There is some difference for us on some stuff between political rights and Constitutional rights!  That's especially important as we realign our social boundaries to stuff like property law.  Our law-scape is layers of local, State, and National.  And just existing in physical space/place makes us subject to all the laws/rules of that place!  That's why sometimes we each choose to keep our opinions and expressions to ourselves.  "Talk" is not a legal move.

  Reading?  Today I am re-reading Rand Paul's The Case Against Socialism.

  

  An example of important independent within syndicate reporting, the kind Jason Stanley talks about as redemptive, is in Senator Paul's [not sure if he's still a senator at this time, but was] book....so economic collapse happened in Venezuela and an immediate issue for everyone was food scarcity!  The newspaper USA Today ran a report of a reporter talking with an out-of-work construction worker who was standing in line with 300 other people at a grocery store.  Not only was it testament to not a normal day, but it was also letting other places know what was happening there.  When our social boundaries contract, it's even more important for us to keep in touch about our home turfs.

  In our country I was once in a grocery store line of people (2008 or 9 I think) of +1100 people wanting to work in that grocery store.  It had closed because of black mold in the building but then after a couple years was able to re-lease that property.

  I've noticed around Knoxville many stores are getting in good shape for people to buy what we need on budgets that have really reduced doing a lot of shopping.

  Even our local thrift shops are looking cool for reward and holiday gifts.

  Overall, it's going to be a hard climb back to prosperity.

  Our "popular" agrees about some stuff.  But in addition to guarding the Republic, self-care, and working on everything we have to be careful not to get knocked off balance by too far left, or, too far right.  That was the reason people came up with the word "extreme" and why us North Carolina and Tennessee people really got into a hot pepper contest.  And why we call some sports extreme and others not so much.  Some activities are sports category, but some activities are too "ultra" or "extreme" to fit neatly into the "sports" category.  At least that's what we were talking about thirty, forty years ago.

  

Ah yeah, it matters

  It matters that members of both parties welcome Trump back to the mothership of total party, so it matters to admonish the "dark humor".  His and Trump's potty-mouths only fly as campaign stunts frankly.  Oooooo tough guy talk.  Having to call the land we all love a dumping ground because it's too dangerous to say much about other countries' spies being here, other countries' operatives being here to rattle the cage we are in as a nation at the moment.

  It also matters to keep businesses open and the whole country functioning so no mysterious "they" prevents us hand-to-mouthers from being able to survive another week and afford voting!

Hybrid terms

   A term like "Christo-facism" is like a description of a compound.  To me, I intellectually understand why we come up with ways to describe even not fully formed happenings, like warnings.  But Christianity is actually opposite of facism.

  I'll write more after work.  It's terrifying to hear people telling us that Christianity and wealth/prosperity/success is Nazi-ism.  Makes a cloudy day spooky.

  Day was not spooky here.  Bunch of professionals getting work done.

  So, we heard the hybrid term "Christo-fascism" on the program "On the Media".  And I am so grateful to author of Erasing History Jason Stanley for writing up some description and warning about what can happen when very complicated political theory (largely revolving around "hate") is being brought to life by popular movements.

  He points out the many comparisons between factors in the world today and stuff that happened back in history.  In the United States we have not fully erased our history of freedom and liberty for all citizens, but elsewhere in the world that is happening.  People erase or omit parts of history and often replace the vacancy with a one-sided version or what is called "propaganda".  He also made the point that being aware of history is a really positive way of not letting it be erased.

  There is fear that we can't go back in time and correct mistakes and horrors, or even truly compensate for history.  Some people have come to settlement--legally, financially, through learning and growing, and through commemoration and memorial.  And some have had to come to terms inwardly and privately.  Sometimes people can forgive.  Sometimes forgiveness is not possible.  Sometimes not forgetting though forgiving is what has been forged.  And even when people forgive and forget (move on) there is cause to put the event or actions/feelings into a state of remembrance about, so we're not forgetting pain caused, pain felt.

  Historical happenings are collective re-experience, so it's difficult to pin one perspective onto time periods and social/political experience.

  The "On the Media" program introduced us to a baseline wondering in thinking about fascism as "ideology", or,  "a way of doing politics".  There are examples in history of nations, groups, leaders whose "politics" did evolve from idea into mechanized or systematic.  The classic examples are Hitler and Stalin whose political ways dragged the world into phases of warring.  And whose dictatorships sculpted generations of people into "like-minded" and without choice (survival wise) about "supporting" what came across as the "popular" or majority-driven, overall way of their nations.

  Some countries adopted political structuring according to dictators' plans.  Other places became a mix of tendencies and trajectory.  Still other territories were designated in the orbits and spheres of dominate rule.  Some places have developed along world religion lines.  Some have developed with a decaying religious rule propped up by secular solution.  And many have declared to be democracies or not under authoritarian rule.  That doesn't mean there aren't rules and dominating trends.  And it doesn't mean there's clearcut paths to solutions.  A secular solution in the West has been rule of Law.  But almost everything about laws and even the legal systems has also come under scrutiny and had contentious debate surrounding it.

  Jason Stanley's book discussion on the program is sort of a messenger about some major turbulence in the world resurfacing in our own times.  He looks at how the United States has "often used fascist solutions to national problems" and so clarifies some of the friction that exists in calling ourselves both a democracy and a Republic.  A grave danger is that such a potentially "great" nation can be co-opted or used by forces and people who make the effort to strip America of it's unique properties (found in our Constitution) or who endeavor to get hold of our nation and use us to power their group's thing.

  Stanley also argues that degrading any human as not human, or worse, vermin, beasts, trash...villifying or monsterizing some lends itself to making some of the people targets and others the targeting.  When hate gets political, in other words, we all lose ways to transcend the outcome which is destruction and death.

  Historical research and analysis of philosophy and social movements, law, and civilization shows that people and places can change into something different from principle.  History gives us a lot of samples.  And current events display national differences.  Fundamental shifts in world politics and warring have brought us into having to have critical awareness of ourselves first and how we as a nation-- that is not a fascism-- can survive and thrive.

  One way I'm processing "the fascism debate" is thinking about the issue of "abortion".  The political "left" of center is saying it's proof of "fascism" for the political "right" of center to have made abortion (a medical procedure) a State rather than a Federal issue.  Un-federalizing the medical procedure is as much about how tax dollars get spent as it is a moral issue on the whole.  So while the left side is saying, that's them (the right side) taking away a woman's control of her own body...the right side is not out to control a woman's body so much as not being forced to pay for abortion as a national chore.  Also, it's a move to demechanize abortion as a federal tool.  Putting it back to State puts the medical procedure back to a more local level.  It deflates the federal power regarding the procedure which is more in line with a goverment not being authoritarian.

The tank?

  That year was hairpin turn on the road to getting politically settled.  And like every year all of life was/is ongoing.  In some ways before people do things wrong or incorrectly or not as best as we might there's a lot of build up and a co-measurate "abundance of caution" so for people entrenched in life-saving and safety-tending there's ready for anything.  There was also a lot of proving going on.

  Between proving ourselves worthy of investment, proving we had done the work--even in a largely chaotic to form environment, proving I'm NOT him, proving potential, proving self to self, proving I CAN...and fighting poverty, storm damage, a  falling short of the myth of things (like we're "great") us individuals were being torn apart.  Torn apart wasn't helping anything.  It compounded hungry, sick, and tired!

  I guess it was time and God that unfurled as Old Glory or unfurled us all, from immigrant to soldier, as a living Old Glory because as we made way through each day and night the chaotic feelings and acts per impossible cleared.  Lists, missions, objectives, some sorting of tasks to talent and duty...and people explaining why.

  Still for all the facts clarifying there were versions.  And there was something else, harder to name but why we came up with "hometown hero".  The National Guard was on the move--even before anybody could/would say so.  How do you know? I asked a guy I trusted because he's also a realist, especially on a rollercoaster of optimism/pessimism.  He and I were making a generator gas run.  All along the roads there were T'see tree markers of where a National Guard person had forged way and made it to mustered.  While he was showing me something evidentiary, and the facts of things getting better were matching up to all of us making things better, I saw those pieces of tree like poetry or music, or something so much more profound than just storm-destroyed tree.

  It had taken some time.  And every person who came as one person had a tale involving sometimes a lot of others, identifiable and unknown, all kinds of people.  No ordinary communications possible.  At camp people were able to restore somewhat--sleep, a little bit of food, maybe some water.  Internationals, non-Guard citizens, soldiers in other branches of the Armed Forces and other armies of the world...all proving resiliance and moving forward despite trashed finances, ruined homes, hadn't been sures about direction...moving into the next day and the next day.  Moving in grief and shock and uncertainty by being selves and those selves aligning with others (and keeping to self) to achieve.  Little things, big things....

  Like getting that tank to its mountain resting spot.  Like showing a person with extreme political views "where the turkies walk" so the person wouldn't get hurt by people with different extreme political views--a sort of back door for safety's sake.  Like moving a field hospital halfway round the world.  Like mitigating: I won't take that person's chainsaw, family guy, even though I could.  A grandmother eating for the first time in ten days.  Letting someone borrow a fishing pole and not belittling in asking, You do know how to use this particular kind?

  We were part of a Tennessee spirit forged by people part of State and Country.  As other state Americans we were impressed.  Some of the visiting foreigners and in-process im/migrants were blown away impressed.  No better diplomacy than being part of function!

Been the worst kind of year

  for that sort of thing.  We're ALL crazy, we're ALL homeless criminals, we're all a burden on the businesses we power, we're all trash.

  I recommend getting uplifted by someone else who is not a fellow human trying to find the floor and clear the covered in all American citizens.

  But I don't think some people crying, wall, wall, deport, deport is gonna do it.  This realignment will start with voting and have to progress as the majority asserting, re-asserting we can't be this mob.  We have to live by Law.

  When an admin makes that impossible for the average person, other citizens have to make process and make that law.  Otherwise we're not able to stay actual citizens in an actual nation, we're ALL just whatever.

  I am glad I have at this point in my life tough enough skin to know that neither myself nor any other human is trash.  Harris running to the microphone and telling everyone, he just called us trash, kind of reverberated the notion for me and it kicked around in my head for a while but I slept it off.  What I knew for sure was that I am not deaf, I heard it from the horse's mouth; I am not in the Harris possee so I didn't feel compelled to act; and we're just not trash.

  People are really ready to switch gears I think.  Get out of the hype-mode of campaigning.  I know I am.  

  So much of life is like seventh grade.  I was a hot mess on the inside and Sister Rose kept making us classify everything under the sun as parts and pieces of wholes and named, named things.  The Latin, the American (a mix of old, middle, French, Greek), the scientific, the slang.  All that categorizing filled up my head and didn't leave much room for hot mess.  It was hard.  It was a lot to learn.  And then I went through a phase of reality not really being any of those labels!

  I guess all the two-party build up coming out of mob and loss of self to various forms of socialism-like is twanging my brain.  We're being accosted by branding at this point and have to reassert our humanity.

  Went through that process again and again as a young person.  Squishy boundaries.  Especially in regards love.  But also with stuff like drinking.  All squishy, cool, until running over a goat (just kidding, but) or falling for some punk getting me into fist-fighting.  Take things as far as they'll go in "experimenting" and then.

  Friends were always helping friends reorganize.  Find self in the remains of a mosh pit.  Lessons learned.  Move on.  Look at that guy, he'll not get that eyeball back.

  Lots of prayers.  And believing that forgiveness is forgiveness.  That was part of maturing too.

It is hard to describe, but

   it doesn't have ti be a confusing mess.  Peoples' faith holds them sway.  Routine works for a lot of people.  There's medicine.  And, persinal fave--creativity!

  Even colonials had a hard time with colonialism.  I mean that is why we birthed a new nation.

  We've never been socialist or communist and have had collective run ins, glances, heard all about its about people who have to live that way, and that has only strengthened resolve to stay American.

  There were old raging debates about rational v "feelings" that endeavored to seal gray areas shut, and yet, some people do wrestle with compassion.  Compassion in all matters is extremely challenging.  And it seems like we've only incrementally added compassion to otherwise brutal situation.  While there's accusation that human nature is brutal, even in cultures that never knew about Jesus, there is evidence and witness to something other than brutal.

  A lot of youthfulness in life is about just that.  That's not being a socialist and has not necessarily anything to do with "socialism".

  Nor is "social media" or "socializing" necessarily form of socialism.

  Just like the words liberty and freedom there is texture and contour and other characteristics to the word "socialism".  It is not a blanket or a net for the McCarthy types to use in a round up of everyone but themselves.  To discuss the concept is not contagion.  Even to compare one political way to it will not turn someone into it.

Gotta go to work.  Have a good day.

  I will tell you that as kids we were so afraid of it and so afraid of being it, we worked up the nerve to ask permission to eat "salsa".  Our mom said finally, "Okay, we can try it.  But that's pushing it." We all studied Dad's face after he got through not trying something new.  He liked it!  Even licked the little dish when we emptied the jar while describing the experience.

  As an adult I've always found the antidote to the grip of a delusional socialism as an American to be realism.  That's what motivates me to talk with all kinds of people and read and write.

  Sometimes in the midst of political transition for us we have not a tabula rosa but a deveiling of the emperor's clothes.  For example, businesses can't take the place of a doling out government; so there's a big adjustment while people see where we are realistically.  I know I can't afford to eat out much.  That's just realistic.  And survival of self doesn't work very well when what money I do manage to generate as income goes for somebody else to eat.  Just doesn't work realistically.

  The theory is the same for nation as it is for individual.  We have to be realistic about getting involved militarily for instance.  It's heavy stuff, but to be imaginary about life doesn't really survive people either.  So, here we are.

I strongly disagree

  with the notion that Trump is a would-be fascist.  I think we are, as a nation, so drenched in socialism right now, "they" that are saying that are calling their end game out.  It could be a natural progression to go from 20+yr war nation, mired in debt, and smothering in togetherness to go fascist.  Like all the factors are in place to support a dictator stepping onto a podium.  Snap a photo and call it a day.  New dictator in place and lots of dumbed-down, helpless, collateral damage, and commodity "voters" just raise a thumb.

  Maybe they're hoping he is.

  He's not.

  And we can't even truly compare his first go at president of a republic as truly that since everyone's hands were tied--we were all in war that whole time! 20 freakin' years.

  That's a whole generation in average age difference.  Young people don't even know what socialism is, or an America not as a statue of war-bound.  And the world can't wait to rope us into that even more.  Then we'll have no choice about being something unique.  We'll just be smear.  War smear.

  When I said this thirty years ago Betty White made a funny and an admission...not really understanding "socialism" either.  JimBo Hannan managed a call-in on the topic.  He also spent some of the last years of his life wishing Trump wouldn't just say random stuff or jump on the buzzword bandwagon.

  But seriously sometimes despite our desires to be well, we are not.  Likewise we can become something and not know it.  I know some jerks like that.  And they can list a hundred excuses for why, but the why is not really the point as much as not being a jerk.  We all go through time periods together and transitions too.  And it's hard to force want to be well and being well in a cycle that just beats down.  Hard, but we have to keep doing it.

  Nor can we snap fingers and magically repair all this rundown, burnt out, rusty versions of strong.  It's not that kind of election.  It's more a phase of not being exactly what we were in response to 9112001.  It's heavy.  It's a lot of life spent in that mode.  And mysterious help, maybe some calgary gonna appear to help is part of the illusion wrapped up in the word slung around lately-- socialism.

  And we've got some smart Republicans in war mode against socialism but because we're using a technical term in a vague way like it's a bucket for witch things, they are creating more ways of being offensive and alienating.  That bothers me.  Nobody who is actually smart should be acting like that.  Call everyone but yourself ugly and see how many dates you get.

  What I conveyed to Betty was that it's easy to feel overwhelmed with people flinging theoretical around; just be you.  Others agreed, she was a tried and true American, a Patriot.  She and Queen Elizabeth even had ways of communicating through "media" to reflect on their feelings about being traditional in a "mod" world.  In fact, a lot of people got in on talking about what makes America different.  Adding appropriate humor was just what face-masked permafrowns needed to perk up.

  We did, like en masse consider the notion of being deathly afraid of I don't know what.  We even had some different culture similarities.

And now...

  We kind of put campaign mode away like Christmas.

  Younger and older we all know ourselves a little bit more.  Like completing a phase of high school or college.

  It's less externalizing of principles not not being who we are.

  It can seem pretty mundane.  I try and focus on quality.  Regardless of political, business needs people to do quality.  Quality is professional caring.

   Not really "choice".  The thing is in motion, so we have to work off up-to-date, which is that there are consequences for Iran.  It's heavy duty enforcement with powerful weapons in a war.  Unfortunately, warring broke out of battlefield and "theatre" at the turn of the century, so it's all over the world caution.  And it's loved ones and fellow citizens charged with the tasks/duty.

Tell him to get his fat ass

  Tell him to get his fat ass off the sofa 

  It doesn't work that well as a headline for global news.  I feel for the journalists that have to report what our presidents say.  Can't make it up, and can't interpret as journalists, so yeah, it's a challenge.

  But it's also why journalism has historically been a type of institution where there is process and discussion about selection and presentation of information.  And why there are different kinds of journalistic writing.

  Inking the sounds of a car race back in the days of early "new journalism" was shocking and didn't neatly fit into the usual categories of how people thought about truth writing....

  I know in our family our great white father was when we were growing up like maybe 74% Homer Simpson style or personality-wise and 26% dressed in suit and tie business-person.  We voted and suggested that Mom be our spokesperson.  Even she had her fed-up moments but we didn't put those kinds of quips in a newspaper.

  I think one of my Dad's most famous gaffs was when we went on a historical trip and he pulled into town driving that old station wagon and asked the traffic cop, "Where is the rock and the boat?" I was further shocked when Plymouth Rock was covered in grafitti.  Of course my reverent-of-colonial-past sensibilities were offended.

  The world was changing fast and hard by the 1970's but our parents did an extraordinary job of letting children be children.  That in and of itself was "new world".  Even that was arguable especially to the preceding generation who were born right into earning every penny and fighting for every iota of freedom to be an individual.

Can Care

  

Confirmed deaths, not controversy 

  While rumors abound and the media persists in being a mix of personal commentary with some fact, there is also the truth on the ground.  

  Like a war taking on all the weight of attending issues, our Country just spent four years gathering the steam of barely keeping heads above water.  I am not pessimistic though because of us.  Us workers, for example, have upheld routine and baseline economic sanity the whole way through plague and an impossibility of demands on our own lives.  It's taken an enormous amount of strength and determination!  And at the heart of that power has been caring.

  Even as places were beseiged by homelessness and drugs and not enough work for all of us, forced stagnant because of the money situations, and overwashed with seeming don't have to care...government's gonna take care of everything...everyone can just do what they want...it's been us citizens battling to keep things safe--owned and cared for.

  The disasterous weather of late summer has been a bone wearying blow to our overall spirit and security, yet we've managed to calm our political clamor enough to generally express a love of nation and what makes us one of the most God Blessed group of people in the world.  We may not have more than a few bananas left to eat but we've got a lot of compassion for humanity and passion for living in a country where so much is possible.

  We are still working through the finer points of price gouging, proper compensation for acts of God versus a dangerously empty federal funding honeypot, and people using products and services to make political jabs and stabs.  There's always gray area in transition and though no one has officially deemed us in a "war economy" yet, it's like we've been par boiled.

  There's also always been gray area in reporting "truth" as nations realign around the centers of black and white.  It's never okay (or legal) to report in journalism untruths, but in a state close to but not quite totally censored because of real war there is much that is not said or stated for the record.  A lot of the quasi-legal, second-hand-to-fact "talk" that goes around may not seem dangerous but it's basically like winging it on safety issues in the height of a storm...normally people wouldn't be standing around outside but there's an earthquake, foundation like that won't hold, roof shook off...our president just sort of got worn out....

  In our area there'd been a lingering gray area zone since the pandemic was like an earthquake.  What's changing us into more orderly is not strange quips from candidates, it's us getting our shit together!  From the dirt up people have really been motivated to prove survival and are in campaign mode--caring about the Republic despite exhaustion, change of season coughs and colds, and a real uncertainty about some of the stuff going on in the world.

  Uncertainty fuels strange quips.  Our overall context is a diversity of people functioning as Americans, so when there's not a strong Republic of Individuals, it's our context that gets jumbled.  There are a lot of reasons that got us less than strong America, but what's more important is moving forward as capable and not as an uncertain thing.

  We have been here before as a nation--part of "the West" and fires on flanks.  Everyone's role is actually more simplified in supporting each other and sticking together in a mostly defensive position.  Nothing about being American is uncertain.  And just like the economy sometimes gets blanched to the point of war economy--all sinks or swims--the objectives have to be on a priority list.  In that sense our controversial issues are not very different from the days when Abraham Lincoln looked out over people in a mosh of philosophical views who were physically destroying everything.  He himself had to keep pushing himself to hold the vision of America as an ideal always being made into an America of the day.

  There are times in our lives where we must serve the purpose of the greater good.  And this is at the heart of why people sacrifice their own "lives" for their children's future and the perpetuation of Republic.  It's being patriotic and that comes before quandry and emotions regarding a nondescript humanity.  Because the way through, the way to life besides battlefield is to defend nation that is not battlefield.

"Two truths"

  The wording of a person who was born Chinese and then adopted into an American family regarding "identity"; she feels like she holds two truths.

  That is the sort of mindset most people have to strive to accomplish.  It is, I think, having a humility about being human.  It certainly comes up for some of us in being social creatures jammed into these formulas concerning "victory".

  In our early adulthood there was also fierce fighting in the world and our hearts and minds were put through the ringer at each turn in the warring.  It's not just an emotional "roller coaster" when we hold the awareness of it being real people, our loved ones, caught in the consequences of war mode.  There is a necessary solemnity.

  What we can do.  We can be supportive of people tasked with work.  Especially regarding front lines in contentious situation it takes a lot of self control to not keep expressing ourselves--outrage to co-miserating, empathy, intelligence--all of that is valid for everyone, but not helpful in undoing a bomb.  Caring behind the front lines is helpful and that's how people forge real working-solution relationship.

  There's no denying that an American democracy is not for every type of country.  We can't force our way of life on others.  That's not to say we're not caring about all of humanity.  But in real war different countries have their own ways of fighting and surviving.  It's awkward to even give out input on a foreign war.  And staying out of it while being somewhat involved is worse than awkward.  We have to stay us.  And that may have to be a modified version of ourselves as the world is sifted as resource-based and political-military alliance.

  We're in a holding pattern at the moment even as other nations and regions are being dragged along by complex warring.  What's horrifying for most people is warring getting worse, or the worsening making everything unpredictable, so holding pattern is the best we could do at such a time.  And we do have to be "together" in moving out of holding pattern as one nation.

Duly nauseated

   A glance at world morning news today.  My own sense of vomit-welling.  Mostly because of two things.  The first is a photograph of some women dressed to the nines and having what looks like a girl chat like, oooooooo sehsey bone, he's so hot.  Problem is they are revel rousing with complicated topics like the topics are as disconnected from reality and people as whatever.

  They look like surfer girls chatting about the Big Flip.  Which is hardly assured and at best will be or would be different this time because of the other thing.  I mean really, they look like two little pale, fragile human beings on a tray and not knowing under the tray is the fires of hell.

  Like let's just have amnesia about twenty years of warring in the Middle East, let's pretend not to know that according to some Israel and Ukraine are fighting for survival.  Let's hot poker and really get a head start on, what gets called "deportation" (they're in Italy, maybe they quip, we'll give those nasty wasties the boot).  Not sure but it's air strikes and starvation wherever "deportation" is going to magically put them.

  Just so wrong.

  The war stuff is already all around us, so really it's just wrong to be flippant and careless and pom-pomming go team.  It's hard, flying blindly into a world war, to grasp the utter seriousness of what's going on and it's hard to get into that other mode, war, but out here, not on the pastry tray beach, the war stuff is already real.  We should be more mature.  If not for ourselves, for the rest of humanity.  

  They plead the case for censorship because it's already jihad and military commanders (commanding in infiltrated areas) having to operate amongst civilian population.  Much along the way to mind-numbing new styles of warring has already happened before election.  It's way too gravity-laden everywhere to go with that kind of party-sphere election.  Duh.

  We have to be confident not cocky!

  I thought we talked about being more like hockey moms for this situation.

  This is my brain shifting gears.  We have war-routine and other.  We had not much time in the other department.  Just enough to re-focus the binoculars, oh, saw a real bird of nature, then

  Sources like NPR have caught us up on developments.  The developments chugged through what "conversations" were possible.  Through TV and social media "conversations" are really more editorials and opinion pieces and commentary than anything else.  Elections will solidify some U.S. political action.  But war transcends being just political.

  It's something that happens to people as much as it is people making it happen.  It's also something chain reaction.  And it's not a one-sided thing.  So while we are a two-party-system politically and this forges us into "sides" of the same coin, we are also pitted as one nation in war with "enemy".

  In early stages of fighting in war both the enemy and selves are not as clearcut as when the warring develops.  It is now to be careful with fellows in the foxhole.  Tending to the homeland.  Doubling-down on faith anchors.  And assessing how decisions are interconnected; what would be different if....

  I think part of what's broken is like, hiding in party politics.  Philosophically, when one party plays king of the hill it invites disengagement if one can somehow get into the fortress.  Like "owning" the hill is the same as being with the levers controlling the missiles, story done.  Or having money is a pass on being part of world experience, that's a similar mindset.

 Philosophically, if one calls for and enacts a state of elimination, say of a problem nation, that changes things fundamentally into "the other" endeavoring to eliminate back.

  That speaks to both the situation in the Middle East and in Ukraine/Russia.  I think the United States is trying to at least hold some sort of stability, or has been.  Factors, though, have been pushing people towards something other than let's stabilize and live.  Factors are influencing military actions more so than actual people are having influence on military actions.  That way of warfare has a short trajectory culminating in warfare as dictator.

  There may be no way to get along.  No paradise of co-existence, but are we really wanting just all out death and destruction?

Two choices

  When our-agers were kids there was, in the way the internet offers, a ton of "stuff" all around us and we spent a lot of life deciding whether or not to say.  We were often stumbling into serious situation like serial killers and terrorism.  That stuff was just out of sight until we stepped into a day and the seeing and experiencing of it was just happening.  Back in the 1970's those two topics weren't truly developed fields of work.

  Into the 1980's we were also all put into a shelter somewhat guarding us against the Cold War.

  All through the 1970's and 1980's there was an established and well-tended "world" of literature and journalism that had the job/duty of monitoring information.  These professions stayed separate on purpose because it was so important to keep in pace with other professions having to do with safety and law.

  For sprints of time before official warring is called there seems to be total freedom to say anything but that can be dangerous to self and to nation.  It can also help multi-talented people hone their skills, connect with the people they will need to be connected with for such work, and/or build credentials.  That can seem painstakingly slow, especially in a world where people can stick nuclear warheads on any old missile, and disguise spying and other war moves in all kinds of AI, but as the world gets into a more formal stance, the disciplined will be in better stead.

  Um.  You could learn about the controversy surrounding the book News of A Kidnapping.

Yeah, the drugs and other criminal stuff too.  It was/is all around.  That's why so many people consider home sanctuary.  And why our parents went to such great lengths to raise us with standards and the gumption to understand the world as it is.  Not getting destroyed was a major focus of family and friendship.  Though early in life we were also competitive and seemed like everyone could get sucked into that.

  The other morning I was remembering a fierce competition with a boy that had it's moments of drama on par with great romance and war.  He was multi-talented and had natural access to the man's world so had some advantage in that sense.  But I had a way of really taking my time with writing craft and listening to people well.  Anytime we'd get close to, well, maybe we should work together, or help each other it brought out the worst in each of us.  Someone slightly older was beneficial in helping us see that and to each push ourselves to not be afraid to stand alone.  We actually almost got supportive of each other but then word went around and even reached us ten, eleven year olds...big story!

  But you have to come with me to get it.

  We each supersluethed our way to a "top secret" rendezvous point and realized the story-holder would have to pick one of us.  There was awkward silence and sweaty hands then.  Lo and behold we heard a helicopter coming.  And soon we could see it.  Then an emergency fireladder for a building dropped out and the helicopter made a pass, then another, and another.  It was in those few moments that I saw in myself that there was a magnetism of adventure that, for me, was more compelling than even love and bioligical drives like sex and house-keeping.  That pull that I always wrestle with and work hard at to balance with sanity and discipline.  We basically mauled each other to get onto that ladder and then tried to disintegrate the other in air.

  It was not pretty.  I did not win.  And the bruising took quite a while to heal.  Our friendship and prospect of marriage never did.

  It is about choice.  And also commitment.  People who choose to abide by the Ten Commandments, for example, are not choosing to instantly become "perfect".  That choice has its share of challenge and fight.  What we found in the 70's was that opening the Pandora's Box of leeway to the Ten Commandments has people constructing webs and worlds that can seem pretty complicated.  And that banding together as unique people with the common goals of nation built on bedrock of Ten Commandments and founding principles gives people the support each needs to be really American in a full-bodied sense.

  The eat my dust people will always do their thing their way.  That's just how it is.  That doesn't devalue everything else.  And as we discovered by the end of the 20th century, bitter competition in which only one thing "wins" is a trap that flatlines thinking people into commodities.  

  I've got to get to real work.  Organizing blog is more of a hobby these days!