Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
>many people think it makes little difference which of the 2 major
parties is in power

I'm not persuaded "think" is the apt verb, although "beguile"
springs effortlessly to mind. All the election of Trump proves is
that most of the people can be fooled some of the time.

There's a reason we have a two party system, and always will do: we
have but two orthogonal foundational principles; Liberty and
Freedom, forever in conflict. Liberty is license, leave to do as
thou wilt; Freedom is security, safety from the malign acts of
others, particularly those exercising their Liberty. The two parties
(whatever they may call themselves) have historically aligned with
one principle or the other. All a third party has ever done is
introduce enough chaos for the Liberty Party to prevail. It is
reasonable to conclude that Third Party movements, especially the
Butthurt Left, are creatures of the Liberty vanguard. And thus here
we are, beguiled again.
  

    
Inauguration Day is coming round at last, one of the few immovable days on
the American calendar. Our national day to honor Martin Luther King Jr. was
once set in calendrical stone, but now it moves with the number on top of
the calendar. This year the fates have ordained that Donald Trump will
ascend his throne on M.L. King Day, and I find it grimly appropriate to
observe the day with the same hope he famously preached, that some day we
will judge people on the content of their character.
  

    
I was sort of hoping to see a State of the World 2026.  Is everyone
too discouraged to try again?
  

    
Starts Tuesday, January 6.
  

    
Yes, indeed.
  

    
Thanks!
  

    
An auspicious date. I'm counting down the hours! 
  

    
But there's a moral to this story,  I, and my ethereal Tehrani wife,
Negin, have been on the front lines of global trends sine leaving
Dubai in 2021. Most of it is too long, and probably boring to tell,
but the exciting and heartbreaking part is the journey we had
through the US immingration system.  In short, about 50 months
before I came here and her able to join me, with academic breas in
Turkey or Cyprus (had to get a pass from the Ministry of Culture to
get Negin in), then escaping the war to get her to Weimar for the
past year, only to have to walk away from our place cold to come to
Winona.

And now we live a scant two hours from Minneapolis, which ain't fun.

And I get the aging thing - seeing my slightly forward friends
starting to hit bumps, and at 63, I'm now a full-fledged cyborg,
reading the messages with AI glasses, saving my RP-infested
remainign vision for remarks.

The point to this is that I remember Bruce cry out at an EFF party
at SxSW, "This isn't the dystopis I wrote aout!"

Damned straight, hermano.
 
And we're looking down the barrel ofn climate change - actually I
g=began doign Neo-Romantic art based on my anxieties about climate
change and AI by making AI rehases of the Caspar Friedrich seascapes
I saw at the Goethe Haus or monuments likt the Eiffel submerged 60 m
at the base.

But we're here waiting for Iran internet to open back up, in shock
but the Renee Good shooting, and I'm doing themost anachronistic
thing of all--finishing a tenure portfolio (my 3rd time doing this)
- that venerable ivory-billed woodpecker of academia. I get it, and
we're bunkered in for a decade in Midwest Ibiza, or we go back on
the road.

The point is, again that chaos is de rigueur now--a polycrisis in
the ambient muzak of the time.  When I was eating horse jerky in
Kazakhstan, I had no idea the world was this weird.  

Or maybe so.
I sometimes think that coming home from Dubai was stupid, then I
look again, and maybe it was one of the best options I could have
had.  At least Negin and I had the forst Xmas at home since 2020.

OK, typo laden rant ended for today.
  

    
Patrick, did you mean to post that in the State of the World 2026
topic? <inkwell.vue.561>
  

    
China.  The Pacific Century.  "The sleeping giant has awoken."
(Napolean)

2019.  Jack (alibaba) Ma said the U.S. has wasted over $14 trillion
on warfare over the past three decades -- money that, could've
been invested in domestic infrastructure and programs for the
American people.  I'd thought he'd also mentioned US debt.  The 2008
debt. crisis was never resolved but only papered over & allowed to
fester worse & worse.  And it's a global issue -- so, for me, an
800-lb gorilla in the world room, which no one talks about, except
occasional references to dedollarization & currency wars.

 
  

    
The giant that Napoleon didn't see was the US.  There is something
that's new under the sun and it isn't China.
  

    
I believe we want the other, 2026, topic.
  

    
Yes, I believe so. No more living in the past...