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Such an uneventful morning, but a great one for that. I have the house to myself. It has been a wonderfully cool morning, though the day does seem to be warming up a little too precipitously. There was a dream of school days, law school days at that, but there was nothing for me to really pull at. It was odd in that a lot of us were in one of the large auditoriums to watch a play, or rather to watch groups take turns at giving a performance. True to form, I was not prepared to do anything. Anyway, I am enjoying my biography on Mann. We are at the part where he is working on "The Magic Mountain". There is one chore on my mind. I do need to change the grease in the fryer. I should have done it last week, but I haven't had fries in a while. Pop, as a consequence, has been using some pretty dirty grease. I am surprised he has not said anything. He has been pretty tolerant lately.
Nov. 19th, 2015
It's almost four. I feel good, like it has been a very nice day, an easy day, but ... I cannot think of anything to blurt. Or maybe I am losing some of the blurty spirit. The main problem is that I don't want to say crap about nothing, when that is the whole spirit of the spill journal. It's the 'conversation' with the page itself, not so much what is said. I had a somewhat interesting Hallway Dialogue last night, and I am tuned into a new Netflix series that really seems to have my number, but I cannot feel moved to sit down and transform the experience into words, not even half-assed words. And there is also the fallout from the Paris attacks. A few weeks ago, I would not have had the least trouble with banging out a few paragraphs on these things. They would be crappy paragraphs, scarcely worth reading, but that's not the point. It would have been enough just to be 'talking'. I wonder if I am too satisfied with my new hardcopy journal. Although I am not spending that much time on it, it seems to be filling an emotional space in me, and maybe that is why I do not feel especially hungry to blurt. I don't know. Maybe there is no connection there, but maybe there is. Although I have not picked up a social life, I don't feel the kind of hunger that made blurting away seem like a meaningful use of my time and energy. I am also very happy with my reading life, and I hate taking too much time away from that.
The Paris Attacks
Nov. 19th, 2015 08:59 pmMaybe I should try to say something about the fallout from the Paris attacks. In addition to carrying out bombing raids in Syria over ISIS targets, France's socialist government makes Dubya look like a carefree slacker when it comes to effecting a security state. Aside from the hundreds of door-crashing raids going after suspects, they have gone into a kind of lockdown mode, minimizing activity on the street, and the people are saying 'yes' to having their communications monitored by the authorities to uncover terrorist conspiracies.
As for America, the anti-immigrant anger, which was already raging through the Republican primaries, has only picked up steam and gone into hyper-drive. There is now a popular drive to keep Syrian refugees out. Meanwhile, it is interesting to see Obama trying to maintain a deliberate calmness, rather than playing to the hysteria. This goes not only to his call to continue accepting refugees, but also to his resistance to send in ground troops to clear out the ISIS nest in Syria, as if it were only a termite problem.
ISIS, for its part, is also trying to play off the hysteria, to whip it up more. They are promising more attacks, and I think they said that Washington D. C. is next, threatening to turn the White House black with fire. New York continues to be a live target as well. One suspects that this is bluff and bluster. However, if there should be a catastrophic attack on American soil, it may be that Obama will have little choice but to take the battle to the streets of Syria, and we will find ourselves becoming more of a police state. And the racism! And the post 9/11 atmosphere of the War on Terror becomes real again. Maybe we will even go back to color-coded charts to measure the levels of terror threats. To think that for some years such jihadic activity seemed fairly well-contained, so that most people could practically forget about it as they went about their daily lives, barely tuning in to the TV-news on the nastiness going on in the Middle East with the drones and bombing runs and the strife in the Mideast countries.
As for America, the anti-immigrant anger, which was already raging through the Republican primaries, has only picked up steam and gone into hyper-drive. There is now a popular drive to keep Syrian refugees out. Meanwhile, it is interesting to see Obama trying to maintain a deliberate calmness, rather than playing to the hysteria. This goes not only to his call to continue accepting refugees, but also to his resistance to send in ground troops to clear out the ISIS nest in Syria, as if it were only a termite problem.
ISIS, for its part, is also trying to play off the hysteria, to whip it up more. They are promising more attacks, and I think they said that Washington D. C. is next, threatening to turn the White House black with fire. New York continues to be a live target as well. One suspects that this is bluff and bluster. However, if there should be a catastrophic attack on American soil, it may be that Obama will have little choice but to take the battle to the streets of Syria, and we will find ourselves becoming more of a police state. And the racism! And the post 9/11 atmosphere of the War on Terror becomes real again. Maybe we will even go back to color-coded charts to measure the levels of terror threats. To think that for some years such jihadic activity seemed fairly well-contained, so that most people could practically forget about it as they went about their daily lives, barely tuning in to the TV-news on the nastiness going on in the Middle East with the drones and bombing runs and the strife in the Mideast countries.