Freedom to Obey?

 Those last two books of Bertrand Russell's career—Unarmed Victory (about the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Sino-Indian war) and War Crimes in Vietnam—both written in the tenth and final decade of Russell's life—are both oddball entries in his oeuvre that share a number of eccentricities in common. 

I won't say they are my favorite Russell books. They are missing some of the wit and wry humor that are so conspicuous and delightful in the middle phase of his career (though there are still flashes at times of both in the books). 

The Great Whales

 News broke today that Trump has convened the so-called "God Squad" of executive branch officials to grant an exemption from the protections of the Endangered Species Act to expedite his proposed oil and gas drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico. Predictably, they signed off on his plans. 

The winner here is the fossil fuel industry. The losers include all of us who must reside on a warming planet—plus the animal life that supplies much of the biodiversity of the region. 

Then How Come...?

 Last night, an ad played for fifteen seconds at the start of a YouTube video—and I'm still kicking myself for letting it play to the end. I was effectively suckered in. Goddammit, their tricks worked on me. 

The ad consisted of a series of wholesome images and awe-inspiring scenes, set to the sounds of a child's voice asking some very valid questions: "Why are we here?" "Is someone punishing us?" 

Wastrels of Our Sorrows

 Here's the thing about living with a loved one with terminal illness. They are still alive. You can wake up every morning and see them. If you are mourning their absence in advance, you can still go and give them a hug. That, surely, is something. 

But it can also give one an illusion of normality. On a given day, you can catch yourself up in the miniature struggles for survival and daily living. You can lose yourself in your work. You can forget, for a time, that anything's changed. 

The Psychologists' Assertion

 In an essay on Emily Dickinson, collected in his Required Writing, Philip Larkin refers in passing to "the psychologists' assertion that an obsession with death conceals a fear of sex." 

Larkin—whose poems evoke more than enough dread of both—may have known whereof he spoke. 

Objective Correlatives

 I've never been a good barfer. I can count on one hand the number of times in my conscious (post–five year life old) life when I've thrown up. 

Once was when I was on a bike ride for a DACA advocacy action for work, and I misjudged ahead of time my ability to bike several miles uphill without having the slightest prior physical training or exercise. 

High Help and Proved Complicity

 Jesus Christ! That was all I could think to say to myself, when I read the AP story this morning about Pete Hegseth's latest blood-curdling "prayer" to the troops. 

Hegseth has a long history at this point of invoking God's name to defend his various wars and atrocities. ("Ye hypocrites! are these your pranks? To murder men and give God thanks!" as Robert Burns would put it.)