Notices by Muro deGrizeco :toad: (murodegrizeco@toad.social)

This time?

As an older teen, I remember going to the lake one summer with my friends, watching them drinking beer at a picnic table near the shore, playing in the tepid water.

As the dusk approached my drunken friends decided to swim across a bay to a distant shore.

They set out, laughing and splashing. A couple of them were drunk enough that they just sprawled in inner tubes and let the other swimmers tow them along. Into the failing light. Across the dark water.

I waited at the shore.

#memory

That time?

That time, my friends were able to hail a random ski boat who offered them a ride.

They piled in and were delivered safely through the dark water, back to their origin, still laughing and unconcerned!

The event stays with me, though.

I think about it now and then.

Think of it as a point of bifurcation in the world path.

In another path, confusion and sobbing.

We walked in the chill quiet of the last part of the day, listening to the water birds calling as they flew nearby, listening to the wind sweeping over the cattails (Typha latifolia).

#sfba #nature

@minorusaba

Manipulation methods, now supercharged by new technology.

For us, it was a terrible injury in 2016, and now our ongoing transformation into a fake "managed democracy" in 2024.

We do not have ways to defend against these attacks.

We barely have an understanding of what is happening.

To me, it seems likely that these techniques, "political technology", are now going to be used everywhere, globally, continuously.

@minorusaba

"Political Technology"?

(no words right now)

@minorusaba clearly, in demoralized times like these, I need some machine that helps me move my legs and just keep going.

I hope people get that "Mass Deportation" is not just about deporting masses of people.

It's about building concentration camps for the disappearance and mass murder of multiple groups targeted by a cruel new regime.

#fascism

oh yeah...

#espresso #coffee

Night shift guy shows up for his shift. I see his lower face for the first time; he has a graying moustache and goatee. Every previous time I've seen him, he's worn a surgical mask.

I ask him why no mask, and he explains:

"My wife asked me if anyone else was wearing masks and I told her no. So she said, 'Take the stupid mask off, you dumb mf!' "

So he got peer-pressured into taking his mask off, by his spouse.

Someone in his team out sick with covid that very day.

#covid

"This is nice, kitty, but I have to get up."

"no."

#Caturday

@justiceLICSW

Years ago, I was visiting my parents, and thumbing idly through a ham radio book. I read out loud, "You might meet Jordan's King Hussein on the air."

My frail late mother, mind failing, heard just the name Hussein, tightly bitterly said,

"I don't like that man!"

The hashemite ruler?

No.

It was Obama's middle name she'd reacted to.

Years of poisonous talk radio into her ears, until the hate became instinctual in her mind, even as everything else faded.

#Propaganda works.

@minorusaba There is a gesture I have taken to making in angry reaction to articles like this.

With my right hand, I point to the left. With my left hand, I point to the right.

As if I am telling someone to go in two opposite directions at the same time.

@minorusaba

That is unfortunate.

I am sorry for their suffering.

Indeed, at times, nature has dangers unseen, that will harm us. Our temporarily dominant position among earth's lifeforms makes this fact easier to forget.

Tomatoes, tomatoes, more tomatoes.

Metal owl.

If a state of misery is a growth medium for fascism, then won't fascists try to spread misery as much as possible, in as many ways as possible, as quickly as possible?

If that is a pattern, then where does it appear?

#fascism

Me: "Did we tell you that we might get a new kitten?"

Tortie cat: "Whaaaat?!?"

#Caturday

Out in the garden, watering the tomatoes. Unscrewed the spray nozzle and just put a bit of soak on each plant.

Sat having a simple dinner alone at the garden table, getting up to move the hose and get a few cherry tomatoes for my plate.

The beans have climbed their trellises and are making pods.

A mystery squash climbing the trellis looks like it might be a pumpkin. That's fine, join the party!

#garden

mirabilis jalapa, fragrant in the afternoon.