Recently I’ve contended that there IS no “Freedom” without being able to drink from the river.

Maybe you thought:
whatever dude. Water comes in pipes now. It’s better that way, join the 21st century.
Or maybe you thought:
whatever dude. It’s too late to bitch. Nothing can be done. What does it matter?

To the moderno-fatalists I have nothing to say–‘night’night.

To those who would claim that the Civilized way is better, I would say yes … okay …

Until it isn’t.

Until the piped water is full of E. coli, until the pipes leach lead and give kids brain damage, until you have to, in one way or several, pay for it.

For water. To drink.

Meaning that ‘working’ at a job (probably to make someone else rich) is suddenly Mandatory, assuming you don’t want to drink at gas station bathrooms, or die of thirst, and all because the river is full of killer shit.

Maybe you even like your job. Maybe you’d be one of those megamillions lotto winners who keeps right on going to that job every morning regardless. Which is fine …

But liking some form of enslavement still isn’t Freedom.

For that reason and many others, this is not now, nor has it ever been The Land of The ‘Free’.

***

This line of thinking was inspired (this time) by something I heard part of on the NPR while I was out doing laundromat laundry.

It was from a guy who lives in a part of New Orleans that gets frequent ‘Boil Advisories’ regarding the civilized pipe water.

He got tired of having to tune in to various places before knowing whether his water was ‘safe’ or a grave health risk.

So for the last seven years he has both filtered, and then boiled all the water his family pays for and then drinks. Filters, through a costly Brita. Boils, on a stove that uses gas he also pays for.

It’s not so very different here. I pay for and use tap water for cleaning and showering. But anything I drink comes from the reverse osmosis machine a mile up the road, at forty cents a gallon plus the labor of hauling it.

Why do we think this is even normal, much less ‘better’?

Answer it for yourself. I’m not going to digress in the direction of the brainwashing tangent just now.

You and I are among the blessed. We don’t live in that part of New Orleans. Or in Flint. Or Jackson Mississippi.

Or out on the Rez.

Blessed, maybe …

But still not ‘Free’.

You can’t be both socialized to be civilized …

and free at the same time.

You can’t be Well-Adjusted to an insane way of living …

and still function as a healthy autonomous animal.

I don’t care who you vote for, or if you vote. I don’t give a shit what you think about abortion or which bathrooms should have tampons in them or whether JD Vance is weirder than Tim Walz or Kam-Kam is still better than the orange one.

Tell me about your water.

Tell me when we’re eating today, and what we’re having, and about who we paid to butcher it for us and wrap it up in plastic like a serial killer.

If you even know their names.

Then maybe we can have a dialogue that actually matters.

***

I don’t drink from the river.

I pay a water bill every month and I pay at the blue machine, every few days.

That’s all more or less working, for now.

The problem is not getting the water. The problem, here at the house, is about getting rid of it after I dirty it.

There’s a blockage in the main drain, somewhere between the toilet (which is the final stop on the indoor sewage system) and the street.

So I am putting next to nothing down that mostly blocked system.

You might care about that, if you plan to visit soon. Here are some of the salient and current details of the modus vivendi around here.

1) The kitchen sink drains into a bucket, which I haul to the curb and dump after cleaning up the dishes.

2) The washing machine is not in use at all, which is why I’m hitting the laundromat.

3) I use the bathroom sink for handwashing and spitting out toothpaste, which doesn’t amount to putting much down its drain.

4) When I use the shower every few days I do it quickly. The water will come up to my ankles but then drain away in an hour or two, since it is by far the sub-system responsible for the biggest volume of wastewater at the moment.

5) Nothing’s going down the toilet at all. I will mercifully leave the details to your imagination.

***

It’s true: I don’t have to live like a refugee.

I’m doing it anyway. I have my reasons, which … Reason knows nothing of.

You will be too, probably, when you come, at least at first.

Perhaps we’ll work on making things better together.

For certain half-baked values of Betterness.

***

In more felicitous news, the revolution against the tyranny of the Sun King is underway as of this afternoon, and the prophets are saying that by tomorrow, the terror part of his reign may really start to fade for good.

Something to celebrate with sincerity I should think.