Trump Is Our Guy Now
“After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world” — President Calvin Coolidge
"America is all about speed, hot, nasty bad-ass speed" - Eleanor Roosevelt
We are all aboard The American Enterprise and Donald John Trump is back for his second tour as our commanding officer. I didn’t like all of my COs when I was an active duty enlisted sailor in the navy. And they didn’t always like me. But I, without exception, busted my ass for every CO I served under. And COs almost universally love hustle and initiative. Their periodic evaluations of us reflected fairness and recognition of our *game* whether they thought our face was punchable or kissable. Kissing ass never got anyone the EP; busting your ass did.
There are obviously ugly elements of the voting public who support Trump (proud 🙃 boys, racist gravy seals etc -- all of whom are functionally harmless and represented a net loss in credibility for Pres. Trump with on-the-fence voters who want change [and I think he knew, too!]). But I think a vast majority of his voters did so, even if reluctantly, because the thought more of the same political *bloodline* was too much. And they maybe felt pandered to by Harris' use of celebrities as surrogates while she evaded answering substantive policy questions. Like "woah, we're adults and we are also Swifties, and Bruce Springsteen is awesome, but can you please inform us about your policies," which she did but apparently so unconvincingly that she lost the election.
I admit total and complete naivety and ignorance in most things political or even politically adjacent, but I sincerely think Trump is going to do the things that gain him the most personal clout and cash (dealing with that for four more years will be annoying, but here we are; he is off-the-charts charismatic and clearly an effective and skilled orator in the mold of Benito Mussolini, so I get the comparisons to other dictators; this charisma has not resulted in us invading other countries [GWB, GHWB, RN et al] or interring vast numbers of our own citizens and repatriating their property or allowing other, un-interred citizens to steal that property [FDR]), angering his core supporters who think he's ideologically driven, when he has simply been pantomiming all this dictator nonsense and is just an older naval officer with low self esteem (we are all junior officers or enlisted with low self esteem) who wants more money so he can have a nicer jet (or other upgrades to personal property, which we all want), and for other billionaires to be nice to him (most of us want our peers to like us or to respect us). He’s doing what every sapient humanoid has done for tens of thousands of years – he is instinctually improving his life with every tool he has at his disposal to do so. We are all just like him; it’s up to you whether you accept that or not. We all arrived on this pale blue dot involuntarily as a result of unevenly and randomly-distributed suffering. Our ancestors back to LUCA have all existed to murder or create in equal parts in atempts to alleviate that suffering. It’s as natural as hating the fact that it is precisely that way.
This will be an uncomfortable four-year denouement of the MAGA movement after which both parties will have begun necessary changes to bring us back to the same-old same-old bohica days most of us seem to be reluctantly leaving behind for some reason. Like, democrats effed over Bernie Sanders long-🍆 style because he made the mistake of wanting fundamental, human-focused change. The GOP tried the same 💩 with Pres. Trump but he’s a two-term president with all of the branches of government under his control. Again, I may be wrong and could be in Gitmo hanging by my ankles upside down and blindfolded with a wet rag over my face on January 21, 2025. But the AAFES exchange on that base has a Taco Bell and as a disabled veteran I am eligible to eat there 🤣🤣🤣😰😰😰
Tulum Juicy Juices
Here, at this corner, is the most amazing fruit shop and they sell ice-cold one-liter bottles of exotic fruit juices. The video is here to help you recognize it visually as you arrive — I’ve passed by it fully alert with my head on a swivel, but it has some kind of voodoo urban jungle camouflage that confuses me. Or I am functionally blind.
I’ve lost 35 lbs. deliberately since I’ve been here, walking about 30k steps per day. My first 15 days were spent water fasting and walking everywhere. Tulum is an effective place to heal.
Mexico is awesome
It’s been a minute. I’m in Mexico. Mexico is awesome.
It’s also election day and I have my fridge stocked with fresh juice and chicken breasts bought here in Tulum. We’ll have more about Tulum later because I am unable to sit here and type or otherwise concentrate on anything other than my worry about how this election proceeds. Additional information about life in general and things adjacent to the juice and the chicken breasts mentioned two sentences ago are forthcomoing.
This blog has been dormant for a while because I forgot it existed.
Overture
001 Overture
The pants whose knees have since been scarred by life’s
Journeys, woven with hands lashed to guilted
Looms, brave their days buoyed by nature’s good eyes.
Spoken motives camouflaged by wilted
Innovations lash themselves to bodies
Not ready for revolutionary
Conduct unbecoming tasks beyond these:
Work, suffer, die, and be forever free.
The joy of escape is thus far odeless.
Except for the sounds of extinguishing
Neurons once patterned on conspicuous
Moves to push consumption levels gushing.
But the hope is there, and wanted by all
Of us whose still mortal faith is installed.
24mm Prime First Shots
First shots taken with my new Canon glass. Its narrow field is going to be fun getting used to.
Evening walk cloudscapes
My evening walks are always punctuated with amazing clouds in the autumn
Some images have been unnecessarily filtered to look cooler
Autumnal Council Bluffs
The sunsets are otherworldly between the autumnal equinox and winter solstice here.
Music that slaps
Shoe gazing as I do my walks
I think I’ve fallen in love with Beach House. How have they escaped my ear canals for so long? I recommend listening to Devotion first.
Beach House
I had failed to discover Beach House until today. They are right up my alley and ear canals.
Bitter sun
The burning ball of fusion above us is expressing frustration regarding its inability to control the tilt of our planet. That solar emotion is manifested in lower surface temperatures which inspire the donning of flannel.
Walk shots
Some of the freely distributed southwestern Iowa late afternoon beauty from my walk today
I’m trying to understand why we even perceive beautiful sunshine. It serves to inspire wonder and happiness. But if I was blind I could only feel radiance. Is there a fitness advantage to perceiving natural beauty and phenomena like beautiful sunsets or sunrises?
Seeing for fitness
We don’t see truth
I’m about a third of the way through (or am I) Donald Hoffman’s book A Case Against Reality. What a treat! I’m glad I took statistics and a science reasoning course in college. It makes this book super enjoyable. Do we see reality or do we see for survival?
Is this place open?
Happy Chickens
I like eggs but only ones from chickeney chickens
I was on temporary assigned duty to a place called Sylhet, Bangladesh, in the mid aughts, where we were documenting an engineering civil action project for aquaculture. The hotel we were staying at had a backyard kind of place where people would go to smoke and chill out. And there were chickens back there. Skinny runt little chickens about the size of pigeons. Me being the stupid American, I sat down and was feeding some of them pieces of the granola bar that I had with me. I was petting them and giving them scritches. Little did I know that these little chickens, skinny and bony as they were, were on the menu for a dinner in my team’s honor that night. That is one of the reasons I only eat free range eggs now. Poor little chickens. Vital Farms has a webcam set up so you can watch their chickens chickening out in a pasture.
