I interviewed and you can hear more about that than you want to at the vid for today on YT.
On the looping way home I had the NPR on and they had a shockingly brief interview with William Shatner, who seems to be on a book tour at the age of 91. May we all be so lucky.
I’ve never been a huge fan, but this time he did himself proud.
He said that when they took him up into space for the first and only real time, the experience broke down into grief for him, an unshakeable sadness of tears that lasted well after he returned to the ground.
The interviewer gamely tried to tease out of him why he was so sad, clearly struggling the whole way to not be a Debbie Downer, to retain her chirping optimism.
Shatner said he cried because we as a human species have already lost the game of life, and he only really realized it when looking down from above. He cried, he said for his great grand-daughter, knowing she will likely be alive and aware as humans send themselves over the edge into extinction, and he cried because it was us, our couple of generations, that made that unhappy ending inevitable. I paraphrase of course. But this is what I heard. Respect, William.
They let him say it, even if they did cut the interview short, and move directly onto more immediate, and solvable, problems of this wacky world we live in. Because after all, this is radio crafted for the tender ears of professional managerials, and not prophets of doom.
One day you will disembark this ship of fools, and I will too. Sometime a generation or two later, the ship will sink with all hands lost, and now you have heard it directly, from the Captain himself. He isn’t wrong, and he is man enough to tell you the unpleasant truth, and to weep for it.
***
I have told you that I won’t be voting anymore for any D’s or R’s of the duopoly. But maybe just maybe, I would have to reconsider, at least if I lived in Vermont. Because on the ballot there this time will be a self proclaimed fake Republican.
Fake Republican Wins Vermont Republican House Primary
He made use of a damned interesting strategy, and in the interview he says some damned interesting things besides. Like for instance, that his position on climate change is that it is only a symptom of a much bigger problem. He never quite comes out and calls that problem Capitalism-As-We-Know-It, but that’s what he means. He says that the universally acclaimed goal of endless growth is what dooms us, and that even if we went there on the wings of solar power and harnessed wind, it all ends up leading to the same unsustainable place.
He’s a young man, a veteran, and also incredibly wise in knowing that already.
I will meditate upon the wisdom of joining the fakeRepublican Party. Even if Shatner is right, and of course he very definitely is.
***
Hey, did you know that we’re setting ourselves up to invade Haiti next?
The headline is premature, but close enough. “We” are sending the Haitian cops military trucks to help squash a popular rebellion against the Empire puppet who is currently running the Haiti show. The protestors have been in the streets for seven weeks running. The puppet is getting edgy, as well he should. So we’re starting out with some stomp-them-down and prop-him-up military-grade assistance. My prediction is that it will not be enough, and ‘advisers’ will come next. The propaganda is already underway–it seems that the protestors are a bunch of ‘gangs’. Soon they will graduate into terrorists and so Uncle Samuel will step in for the very best humanitarian reasons of course, to save the day for yet another ‘democracy’ a little closer to home this time.
Cui bono? Well I won’t spoil it, but their initials are The Military Industrial Complex, those nice fellas President Eisenhower warned us about on his troubled way out the door.
***
Dear Mr. Vairtere. Have you not learned by now that no one loves the messenger who brings the bad news? This belletrism, this small business as you somewhat facetiously called it today … can it ever succeed even marginally if you insist on being that kind of messenger? You’ll never see the cave art in France or Spain at this rate my dear.
Dear Reader. Of course you are right, and seeing more clearly than I ever will. But I have a secret weapon yet to deploy. It’s code name is Endearing Cat Videos, but of course I cannot yet tell you more.
Don’t touch that dial, though. You won’t want to miss it.