At 2:22 AM, I woke up. I could say my heart was heavy but that’s more of a figure of speech than an actual physical sensation. What is more real is the sense of sadness and the burning in my eyes. I want to cry but can’t. Perhaps won’t is the more accurate word.

J opened an Alumni mailing  from her college and learned of her ex- husband’s death. She had not heard anything from or about him for over thirty years until this notice. She  shared a life with him and then she didn’t. I remember my own experience with ex-wife #2.I learned she was dying six weeks before she passed away. We did have a son together, so that link endures. J and B had no childrrn.

But that whole situation brings up the brokenness of the world. I brought that to Our Lady this morning as I prayed  The Rosary.  All I can do is carry my pain to Blessed Mary and share my hurt. I can pray for healing.  I go to You Tube and pray the Rosary with the priests at Lourdes. Don’t ask me why.

When I finished The Rosary, I turned to watch a freight train pass through Ashland on another YT channel. I find the trains oddly comforting, the noise and the rhythm of the cars moving on the tracks. A coal train just passed through. So much for the the facade of green energy policy. That coal will be burned somewhere in the world, John  Kerry be damned

I’m tired now and lonely. I will go back upstairs. And I will sleep beside my wife on this last morning of March, the calends as the Romans called it.

OK. They’re not fun. They’re down right terrifying, as in we better pray and hope that somebody in the Department Of Agriculture knows where we are going to get the ammonium nitrate we need that we now buy from, wait for it..,, The Russians.

I don’t think the climate change geniuses know or care where we get it and what it’s used for. Or that natural gas is the source material used to make fertiliser synthetically.. So if we’re not producing enough natural gas, agricultural productivity goes down the drain. Those who are curious can look up the Häber-Bosch Process. Those who do know probably took organic chemistry.

We need fertiliser, as well as rain and Mr. Sun to grow large, no, gargantuan quantities of wheat, maize, soybeans, sorghum, etc. that keep our granaries full. And our livestock fed.

Don’t bet any of these grandstanding scoundrels in DC have the foggiest idea. They think in terms of Artificial Intelligence rather than artificial fertiliser, because the people who give them money 💰 make their money off Artificial Intelligence . See how it works? The pols can ask the tech giants to censor, de-platforming or changing the algorithms, and prevent dissenting opinions, or even the facts themselves, from coming to our attention. Ask Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) about controlling the facts on the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Sen Warner is a typical Swamp Rat. To call him that is a disservice to all the honest swamp rats in nature. He sits on the right committees, Intelligence, Foreign Relations and swallows whole whatever swill the Council on Foreign Relations wants him to believe or think. His constituents in Virginia, either government employees or employees of government contractors, provide enough votes to tilt the electoral scales his way. War in Ukraine, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Burkina Faso, etc. is good business.

The takeaway is that the politicians don’t care about American self-sufficiency because the arms contractors and the hedge fund managers don’t care. And the farmers, miners, construction workers, and machinery workers won’t be running into them when the politicians and lobbyists go on holiday in Aspen or Nantucket.

Next time people march on the Capitol, they should carry torches, scythes, and pitchforks as any good 1930’s monster movie would demand.

We may be technologically advanced, but at our cores, we are as simple as children, as fascinated by technology as an infant is by their crib mobile.

We eventually come to replace intimacy with this electronic facilitator.

I had a long dream, almost a hallucination, which was a long and compelling and seductive take in reality, as if my phone were an entry way to a madhouse, as if Rod Serling was beckoning me to The Twilight Zone.

Love him or hate him, Trump is larger than life. His political saga has qualities of a Nineteenth Century bel canto work. What’s missing are heroic female characters. Hillary could be a magnificent character, vaulting ambition, with her dubious sexuality highlighted by making Bill Clinton a trouser role. Obama would be a back stage schemer. The Russia Collusion Hoax could be a plot for the narrative, with the Hunter Biden laptop figuring in the subplot. Melania could be a stalwart wife, giving The Donald the strength to persevere.

Let’s face it. It is a story of epic proportion. Of course, the pezzo novante of High Culture hate Trump’s guts so it won’t ever happen unless Trump is cast as the villain. Two competing versions could be written, Trump as Hero, then Trump as Villain. The story is just too rich to ignore.

It’s not every day one can stare into the face of Evil and see Evil smile back at us. Vladimir Putin has this proclivity. It is easy to understand why. He doesn’t want us to know what he is thinking. That he has twisted the grandeur and spiritual depth of the Russian Orthodox Church into the “civilised” veneer of his oligarchy is, in retrospect, all too obvious. That the Russian faithful no longer have to practice their faith secretly is a blessing. However Putin ignores Church teaching on moral questions like a just war and civil governance. He does so at his own peril, not only of his grip on power, but of his immortal soul.

In America, I have watched the mask that is the smile of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. The Senate would appreciate some insights in to her judicial philosophy, if she even has one. Now I don’t care if she is a Progressive in the tradition of Justice Ginsburg or even an anti-Catholic fanatic like Justice Black, just let us know. She knows damn well what a woman is. But, upon her appointment to The Supreme Court, Jackson may have the unenviable challenge to redefine “woman” in a case before the Court. Her cordial evasiveness is completely understandable.

I don’t know how much longer Western Civilisation can ignore or contort the fundamental truths that define us. Orwell’s chilling example of the illogic of “2+2=5” is slowly moving toward acceptance. But acceptance of a falsehood does not make that falsehood truth. If one can make Lia Thomas a female by fiat, what other mischief can be perpetrated on the truth?

Lord, deliver us from clever people!

Last night I dreamt I was selling printing equipment in a strange room where large pieces of equipment kept materialising . Strange cataclysmic events were occurring, like wind and a flood. I was in Richmond in the dream and all these things were happening here. Floods from the James River used to be problematic until a dike ( not that kind ) was constructed The job in the dream felt like a mashup of every suck-y sales job I ever had.

I got a call from the Doctor that my lab values say I have to eliminate carbs, lose weight and double my metformin dosage. No surprise there. So I’m all down for that.

There’s this big empty hole in me. I start singing and talking about odd things There is me that simply wants to come out and fuck my wife without a lot of asking and negotiating. She would wear makeup, perfume and lingerie. She would also talk dirty and suck my cock and not worry about bullshit. We could live in the moment and stop looking at Senior Living gulags, writing advance medical directives and planning our funerals.

I could leave… but I won’t.

I’m sitting here watching Gutfeld!, waiting for J to get off work.

Fox uses the same news filler insert about the Ukrainian blood bath at the 30 minute break as it did at the start of the show.

This guided tour of Bedlam continues. We never cease our amazement and amusement over the antics. of the mad. What was 2020’s disinformation has now been authenticated by The Grey Lady. aka The New York Times. The Biden laptop story is now being recycled, the way we reuse the plastic take away dinnerware from Cracker Barrel. So Hunter Biden really is the train wreck depicted in the laptop

I took a nap in hopes it would morph into full blown sleep. No luck. This explains why I’m now watching Gutfeld!. Gutfeld can make us laugh at what’s happening, by taking our focus off Ukraine, if only for an hour.

The spectacle of American material wealth amid American spiritual emptiness is the great takeaway from twenty-first century television. In case you were wondering what can lift your spirits during War and after Plague, it’s more stuff, an electric vehicle, a tropical vacation (with or without a zip line), Botox, a new contraceptive. This is the Stuff Cycle of 2022. We have to wait for the next Christmas season to see what will cure us in 2023. Forty years ago, Jordache Jeans and a Sony Walkman were supposed to satisfy us. And now, aTesla and a trip to Jamaica will be the panacea.

Poverty and Chastity never looked so good, but then that pesky Obedience vow creeps in. And that tells me the purpose of my life can’t be self-gratification. Whatever you do, don’t let God spoil your fun.

I’m sitting on the front porch, drinking an iced coffee. Tobey the Pit Bull came by for Newman’s Own Peanut Butter Dog Treats. He is twelve now, as cute as only a dog can be. He moves toward my house(and the treats) whenever I’m on the porch. Yes, it is priceless.

I’m reading an anthology Best Lesbian Love Stories 2005. The authors write good stories. Since I’m a cis heterosexual male, I can say with some authority that these stories are readily approachable to all iterations of human being who read them. Good writers can do that, build bridges, without being obvious, sanctimonious, or supercilious. It’s amazing what you can hear, if you’re willing to listen.

I see clouds rolling in. I guess it will rain tomorrow.

It feels like Small Town USA out here today. All who’s missing are Robert Preston and Shirley Jones.

Later Folks.

That phrase comes from Washington’ s Farewell Address, wherein he famously admonishes the young nation to avoid the political entanglements of Europe. At that time, the key players in rivalries and wars were England, France, and Spain. His words were a guiding maxim in American diplomacy until 1917, when America entered the Great War on the side of Great Britain, France, Italy and, for a while, Russia.

The experience of the war reaffirmed the wisdom of Washington’s advice. A period of isolationism followed, exacerbating the ascent of Fascist and Communist states. Another world war would make America and Soviet Russia the world’s so-called superpowers, with nuclear bombs and missiles in their respective arsenals. The world teetered on the brink of nuclear Holocaust until The Soviet Union collapsed, ending The Cold War. The United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union fought proxy wars in Asia, (Korea, Malaya, and Vietnam), Africa, ( The Congo, Angola, Southern Rhodesia, and Mozambique), and Central America (Guatemala, Nicaragua).

The collapse of the Soviet Union and its client states in Eastern Europe redrew the map of Europe. One of the new nations to emerge was Ukraine, long a part of Czarist Russia, then the Soviet Union. Ukraine had nationalist aspirations that sparked a brief war in the Bolshevik Civil War era.

Independence sentiment in Ukraine caused Stalin to use famine to kill off millions of Kulaks, Ukrainian small farmers, who resisted collectivisation in the 1930’s. Many Ukrainians sided with the Germans during WW Two and participated in the Nazi genocide against Ukrainian Jewry. Calling Ukrainian/ Russian rivalry a long, tragic and brutal history scarcely scratches the surface of their past.

So we come to the present. Both nations are beset by corrupt oligarchs Both sides have a habit of jailing or murdering domestic opposition figures. What we do not have is a White Hat vs. Black Hat, Wild West melodrama. Of course, Ukraine has a right to its sovereignty and independence, but how much American blood need be spilled in an ultimately futile effort?

What is incumbent on the United States and NATO is avoiding entanglement in what is arguably a civil war, given the centuries old bond between the two nations. A century ago, we barely noticed the war between the respective nations or regions. Satellite technology and the so-called “news cycle” make remote feuds immediate problems to us.

Consider this. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, large numbers of Poles, Jews. Ukrainians, Hungarians, Lithuanians, and other groups emigrated to the United States to escape the long standing persecutions of the old regimes and empires of Central and Eastern Europe. Old animosities die hard.

This is the classic foreign entanglement Washington warned us about It will not turn out well for the U.S of A, NATO or the two belligerent powers. Sadly we have become too conditioned to bloody and pointless wars, where tenuous claims of US national interest and a threat to “freedom” are made to perpetuate the folly of the bipartisan War State, festering in Washington. We should know better, by now.

• I want to spend money to validate my own self-worth.
• I imagine owning certain things to fulfil a fantasy. Specifically I fancy a Staffordshire Pottery Brown Betty teapot to fully savour a cup of tea.
• Situations have to be “just right” in order for any particular effort to succeed.
• I “need” my Smartphone to stay connected to the “world”, i.e. the culture in which I live.
• I couldn’t possibly be enslaved to the surrounding and omnipresent technology.
• This technology is omnipotent because I surrender my power and freedom to it.
• The gains of modern technology validate the loss of freedom to it.
• Why am I making this list at 2:00 AM?