Jeffrey Sachs calls bullshit, literally this time, on the hegemons, the Empire, and their blatant double standards in international relations and the uses of temporal power.

***

The monsoon isn’t really here–at least I haven’t personally gotten rained on yet–but already its blessing is real.

The cloud cover does drop things down ten degrees, which is nice, but it also takes the sting and glare out of the sunshine, which is transformative.

Yesterday I walked at dusk and it was unpleasant, because way too many other people were out and about then trying to work around the heat too.

Today I walked in the middle of the day, when no one else wanted to do it. It was the same ninety degrees or so, the same taste of humidity in the air … but I was alone, and it wasn’t really uncomfortable in any way.

I will keep striving toward a walk at first light, but on days when the extra sleep from four to six-seven in the morning necessarily takes precedence, I can still be a good boy, more or less painlessly, so long as the clouds are thick enough.

***

The video about driving from Missoula to the Pacific is the most popular thing I’ve done in at least three months, and in the end it might pull the highest number of views thus far in 2024 (mainly the competition consists of that one with the Jackrabbit ‘Here It Is’ thumbnail).

That’s been heartening, especially since I have not been enjoying making the films about Seattle proper. I wasn’t shooting enough footage at the right times to make them great, or honestly even all that good.

Tomorrow I will put up the one about Port Angeles the second time around–still thin on raw material, but a good and solidly memorable day where I felt competent and useful, before it all went to hell the first time somewhere in Utah.

I’m dreading the reliving of it and I’ll probably skip a lot in the interests of catching up quickly to the real time of two-weeks-later.

The better place I am now.