Let me just say, I never meant to hurt nobody, though I guess there's some I couldn't look in the eye.

 I don't think I'm going to get this one under the gun, but what the hell. What is time? Something I really don't pay attention to all that much anymore.

 And why should I? It's rare that I have to interact with the outside world at a specific time, and I like drifting around wherever and for however long I want. So, it's a waste of time, for me anyway.

 I'm not going to lie, this might not get done until tomorrow morning. It's past midnight already and we got word from the good people at Tombigbee Electric that the ol' internet would be done for some terribly good reason that I can't remember. I was playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker all evening, working on a "serious run" and I'll probably go back to that. Beyond that, I don't know.

 August 31 came and went, and best I can tell, the U.S. didn't leave anyone in service in Afghanistan they didn't mean to - apparently there's going to be an armed presence for a little bit - and they, along with the EU, cut a deal with the Taliban to get Afghans out of there if they want to go. Money talks and bullshit walks on that, so we'll see.

 There is much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over this, by both conservatives who don't want to give Joe Biden a win and the big-time press because war sells newspapers. Plus, a lot of them were big cheerleaders for this back in the day and they've all been proven to be dumb bloodthirsty bourgeoisie shit asses.

 One wonders what the next thing that will be used to wind up the gibbering masses. The yacht-left Substackers are still banging on that being disagreed with or, worse, mocked is akin to brutal, Orwellian censorship. But I don't think they really pay attention to anything else, which makes sense if you think about it. These people have convinced themselves their words and thoughts are golden.

 They might circle back around to "wokeness" and Critical Race Theory, but I imagine it'll be another round of refugee panic as they forget the whole "bring our partners and helpers out of Taliban tyranny" by the middle of the month. They haven't had a good reason to build up a serious hate-on for Arabic folks, that's always a favorite.

 Moving on, at least four wingnut talk show goons have caught COVID and died over the last couple of weeks, and all except one were fanatically anti-mask and anti-vaccine and pro-"this is all a hoax to make Trump look bad and, anyway, it's just a light cold only old people and fat people die from and we don't really care about them." The other might be, too, but I'm too lazy to look.

 We've also seen a passel of just regular jackasses who scoffed at the vaccines and the masks, only to wind up with a tube down their throat begging everyone else to get the shot. I should be more empathic with them, but I'm not. They need to do more work on their own because we've still got ding-a-lings showing up at school board meetings accusing vaccination efforts to be Satanically inspired.

 Two of my cousin's kids tested positive. They're both under 10. Another cousin tested positive and I've been directly exposed. We're averaging 5,000 new cases a day in Mississippi. More kids died from it last month than the entire 17 months beforehand. The hospitals are past strained further than they need to be, and more people will die.

 And it's all their fault. I don't celebrate an anti-vaxxer going down like I don't cheer when a drunk driver wraps their car around a live oak tree. It's the damage they cause to others that piss me off. Because of them, we're going to have to let COVID burn through us like the 1918 influenza plague, and not all of us will survive it.

Lord, if you won't take care of us, won't you please, please let us be.

  Y'all, Hurricane Ida hits land tomorrow and by all accounts will be a booger. If you're in the Gulf Coast area, take the proper precautions and split if you're told to. If you're in the rest of the South, get ready for some bad rain and possible flooding. And that's on top of everything else kicking us in the collective teeth. 

 Okay, it's 3:25 a.m. and I slept on this. We took Little Brother back to the airport today, and driving to-and-from Memphis wore both me and Momma out. I remember thinking I need to get something down but it was a losing battle.

 In any event, it was a good visit from the LB, who I haven't seen in almost two years due to COVID. Granted, now is not the best time to come to Mississippi, in re: COVID, but he'd already bought the tickets and couldn't refund them. That tells you, if nothing else, just how quickly this Delta variant slipped up on us.

 He brought me some good smoke, which is great, but I think he really enjoyed spending time with Momma. I won't go into details, but Momma grates on him and he usually spends his visit avoiding her as much as possible. This time, though, they'd spend hours talking, even when that meant listening to Momma spin her conversation roulette wheel and hope to keep up.

 So it was a good visit and I'm looking forward to him and the Sister-In-law visiting this winter. Visit with your people, y'all, it recharges your batteries. Okay, then, onto the News. Good week. Big week, too. Between the FDA's approval of the Pfizer vaccine and the ongoing Afghanistan withdrawal, it has been interesting times. Add a Category 4, potentially devastating hurricane into the mix, and you can't help but wonder why the Washington Press spent so much time on Biden's dog. Good god.

 I'm not sure what else. I have noticed that even a couple of sessions has reset my brain somewhat. Now and then, I'll do this thing where I'm sure I've been thinking about something but I forget it. I can't for the life of me remember what it was or even if I was actually thinking about it. May not sound too deep but it always serves to shake me some. Man, I've missed this.

 Well, it's been at least a half-hour since I wrote the above paragraph. I don't really have anything to roll with, nothing particularly noteworthy I'm reading or watching or playing. My PowerBender harp came in the mail yesterday, but so far I really can't tell much difference. I find bending notes sort of easy, which has to mean maybe I'm doing it wrong.

 This last little bit is like pulling teeth, man. I think I'm going to go back to bed. I've been scrolling through Tubi but I don't think I'll mess with crap cinema. Just wrap this up, finish my drink, and call it a whatever-it-is. Seriously, though, y'all. Hurricane Ida looks to be no joke. Be safe.

Programming note.

  I have some Actual Paying Work due tomorrow, so probably no Gibberish tonight. I know, contain your disappointment. But my brother's visiting and he's keeping Momma busy. Plus, he brought me a bit of the good smoke, so that's nice.

Charlie is my darling.

  We have to drive to Memphis this evening. Little Brother's coming for a visit and we have to get him at the airport. His plane lands at 10:30 p.m. local time, so this is as good an excuse as any to get this done.

 I haven't seen him since the Thanksgiving before this whole COVID thing started. He and his wife live out in Oregon and they don't get out here much. I don't blame them. He's had this trip planned and booked since before the whole Delta surge started in on us, and by the time things go out of hand, it was too late to get a refund.

 He's had the shot and Oregon has put more effort into not letting the jackasses run things. Hell, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the head of the State Department of Health, is getting threats and people are claiming his getting kickback from the World Bank. So I'm more worried that he might pick up something here, even being on the airplane is safe than just walking around Mississippi.

 So there's that there then. It'll at least give Momma someone else to fuss over for a couple of days. He's got me a hook-up in the works, too, so that's nice. I'll say it again, I don't understand how or, more importantly, why people do this on purpose.

 Anyhow. I'll probably save it for tomorrow's News but according to the White House, over 70,000 people have been airlifted from Afghanistan. The goal is to be over and done with by the end of the month and they say that looks to be doable. It's still unknown just how many people, Afghans and Americans, are in-country, but for the most part, it seems to be going fairly smoothly. The Taliban isn't making too much of a fuss about things but they seem to have noticed a "brain drain" going on, and I don't know what they expected. It's not like they're known for fostering freedom of thought.

From all I can tell, the evacuation is going as the White House claims. This is from both national and foreign news sources, but everyone agrees that folks are getting out if they want. It's pissing off the GOP and Trumpists, but fuck them, they're scum anyway. I still find it laughable that all this is dropped on Biden's lap after 20 years and that anyone truly thought it would go off in some fashioned other than harried. I also find it laughable that either the press or the average American wants people to believe they've given Afghanistan a second thought in 15 years, particularly conservatives.

 Charlie Watts died today. He was 80. Tom T. Hall died this past Friday. He was 85. Venerable years, especially in the music business. I haven't heard what the Stones are going to do but I really can't see how they go on as the Rolling Stones without him. Bill Wyman quitting took a chunk out of them and there's no shame in calling it a day after spending nearly 60 years as The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band.

 That's good enough for now, I think. Nothing earth-shaking but it's nice to be able to put something down without having to pull teeth. If something interesting happens between here and Memphis, perhaps I'll come back.

Yeah, baby, everything's gonna be all right.

  While I haven't been putting this off all day, not really, it just occurred to me that I've not been at my best lately. Might as well get something down before the storm moves in and we lose power. Let's just ignore that I really don't have anything worth putting down in print to offer.

 I don't know what's going on, but this week's been a bummer, man. I thought the extra dose of Prozac the Psych Doc ordered was working finally but now I wonder. I'm not down, per se, just listless. Some of it has to do with the redness in my right eye that came from nowhere and won't go away no matter how much Visine I use. It's uncomfortable and makes reading a serious drag. And writing for that matter.

 Anyhow, let's get the News out of the way. The pullout of American forces from Afghanistan and the rampant spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19, that's your news for the week. I said it on Twitter, but maybe the most depressing thing about the Afghanistan pull-out is it's the most attention that country's gotten from the American press and populace in the past 15 years. Blame Biden or Trump, but that is a glaring example of why the United States needs to cut that sort of shit out.

 You can't tell me that we spent 20 years and two trillion bucks there, just for it to go tits up in a week, that was time and money and lives well-spent. Whatever the reasons why it was an absolute failure of American foreign policy from start to finish. It would've been this bad five years ago or five months from now. There was no good outcome, especially not twenty years into it.

 Okay for that. And I'm not going to get myself worked up over COVID again. I imagine I'll be raging about that for the next couple of months. I've already put the kibosh on my New Orleans trip and now it's looking like Athens is probably out. Dammit. Little Brother is coming down to visit next week. He said he might be able to get something together, but I doubt it'll come across. I could desperately use it, though.

 This eye business is making me miserable, man. I'm trying to use my glasses but they don't seem to be helping. Too bad I don't have access to an eyepatch. This is killing me, I think I'm going to have to lay down for a bit. I haven't reached word count but it will have to do.

UPDATE: It's one a.m. and the nap seems to have done my eye some good. At least it's giving me a reason to sleep all the damn time. I still don't have anything interesting to say, unfortunately.

 Just looking back, it has been a dismal week for this pitiful nonsense. The News has been solid this week, nothing spectacular or mindblowing but good work. And I've spent the last 20 minutes reading about Thin Lizzy and Huey Lewis. I think this is good enough, word-wise anyway.

Not worth a clever title, trust me.

I screwed around last night and not only did I let the hour creep up on me, but I also didn't plan on an all-night internet outage. Well, I guess you can't plan for such things. In any event, it's Friday morning and I'm writing Thursday's Gibberish, and of course, I really don't have anything to work with.

 It's true, I really don't have anything. My brother's supposed to come out next week, and I'm not going to lie, I'm worried about it. He's coming from Oregon and they've been much more on the ball than Mississippi has, in re: the whole COVID thing. He's flying into Memphis and I'm more worried about him flying out. Every day Momma announces another dozen or so folks she knows or people related to people she knows who have it. Most just have a light case but there's always a couple who are in bad shape.

 I can't believe there are still people bucking this thing. Look, the government doesn't care enough about you to track you and you're pretty easily controlled right off the boat, going through all this with a vaccine they're giving away seems to be a waste of time. But, hey, we all think we're the Hero of the Story and no one can convince us otherwise.

 Moving on, it's fun watching the big-time Washington press bend themselves into pretzels trying to find something wrong with Joe Biden's pull out of Afghanistan. Granted, Biden himself said some things could've been done differently and the future for women under Taliban rule is worrisome. That being said, it's hilarious to me watching all the people give a shit about Afghanistan for the first time in 15 years, especially the dirtbags who actually cheered on the American aggression in Afghanistan.

 And it's just darling that so many people are shocked and dismayed that Afghanistan fell so quickly to the Taliban despite 20 years of America showing them how to do freedom. The only "wins" there came for military suppliers and I don't know of an occupation situation run by the U.S. that hasn't been completely corrupt and incompetent. Maybe we should stop doing this shit, or is that too much to ask?

 Okay, what else. I'm really not sure where to go with this. I could give it a miss since my Actual Paying Work clocked in around 1,700 words all totaled. But nah, that's cheating. Granted, I'm not getting anything accomplished with this, but what the hell.

 It's been kind of a useless week, I guess. Nothing really interesting. Blowing the harp, listening to the blues, reading professional Carnacki fanfiction, and playing mainly Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I did play a little of Lovecraft's Untold Tales. So far, so good. It's an action RPG running with the pixel retro-look. Hard as a bastard, even on easy level.

 The weather's been kind of a drag. Lots of rain from the tropical storms and hurricanes messing around in the Gulf. Not as hot but fiercely humid. Hey, aren't we all glad I put any effort into this whatsoever? Totally a good idea and worth doing.

Programming note.

  I have some Actual Paying Work to get done tonight. It's not all that difficult, research-wise, but it is a good bit. Plus, I have nothing interesting to say about anything. The media reaction to the Afghanistan withdrawal is tedious and predictable. So is the reaction of the war pig bloggers and pundits from the early days of the War on Terror reminding everyone they should be beaten about the head and kidneys with a fungo bat until they spit teeth and piss blood. And you can't get me to care about Tim Tebow being cut by the Jags after one pre-season nor the outrage his fanboys have if someone dares speak ill of his ability or lack thereof.

 Anyhow. Read the News this week as I got some APW due Friday. As you were.

UPDATE 8:30 PM

 I've said it before, but my subconscious hates my guts. I had a dream where I was telling an erstwhile girlfriend I wasn't jealous of her new beaux because he made her happy where I couldn't, and that's what's important. Which is something I firmly believe and have told several former romantic affiliations. People want intimacy, I can't do that, and no one's been a big enough influence.

She asked if "what about you," and I told her not everyone gets to be happy. Which is something else I firmly believe. There are loads of single, childless people out there who are flat miserable. But there are also many partnered folks with kids who are flat miserable. Plenty of them are happy, too, but the point is there's no indicator for happiness.

 That all being said, it's a bummer of a thing for your subconscious to just cut the shit and tell you this. I don't know what you'd do about that.

I can't think of anything clever to put here.

  I think I've got a good start on getting out from under the blue funk I've been for the past couple of months. I don't know it's anything in particular. Maybe that extra shot of Prozac is kicking in finally.

 Whoo boy, the News this week. It's been a depressing one all the way around. We found out Monday that we're further in the hole than we thought when it comes to climate change. Wednesday wasn't so bad as there's been some good progress on the much-need infrastructure plan, but Friday was depressing as shit.

 Y'all. Get the damn shot. Wear the damn mask. Stop gathering in huge groups. Nobody wants to control you or break your will. You're not that important and you're pretty easily led anyway. This has nothing to do with freedom or tyranny, vaccines are perfectly safe, and the idea that this is the first step to future dystopia, a la 1984, it ain't.

 Climate change will probably do it first. People think the problem we'll face is the heat or the rising sea levels, but that's not what'll kick us in the nuts first. It's going to be the prices the Powers That Be will be hiking to compensate for shrinking resources. You think those fuckers are going to go with air conditioning in their dog's house? Hell, no, and you'll appreciate the scraps they let you have. Furthermore, anyone who thinks they shouldn't be the only ones with potable water, you'll call them a goddamn commie. We'll be too busy slitting each others' childrens' throats to buy a loaf of bread to worry about the woke government controlling you.

 Hey, moving on. I watched Slither last night, the 2006 horror movie that crashed when it came out but has become some of a cult film. Michael Rooker is in it and he's always fun to watch. Nathan Fillion plays the hero, and while I've never cared for him in anything else, he plays a pretty enjoyable protagonist. Elizabeth Banks is fine but she has the worst Southern accent I've heard since Jodie Foster's in Silence of the Lamb. Character actor Gregg Henry has fun chewing the scenes he's in and ingenue Tania Sulnier should be in more movies. It's currently streaming on Tubi, so check it out.

 In harmonica news, this guy's worth checking out. The kid's name is Liam Ward and his lessons are fun and easy to process. He's also got a lot of neat licks and tabs to learn on his YouTube site. Check that out. I also bought a Lee Oskar Melody Maker in C. These are tuned different, in that the key of the harp is played in the second position. It's supposed to be good for country, R&B, and reggae, but not for blues. It's a neat little dude, but it's like that Irish tuned harp I bought in that if money was tighter, I'd be sore with myself for buying it. For some reason, I've forgotten how to warble on the harmonica, too. I hate when that happens.

 I'm going to get ahead and pinch this one off for now. I might come back lately, but will probably play some more Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I've restarted it and playing "know what I'm doing" run. Or I might just call it a night and read until I fall asleep.

 Anyhow. Enjoy the weekend. Get vaccinated, stay cool, and keep an eye on the Gulf.

You know I don't need a lot of money 'cause I ain't going nowhere.

 I generally avoid "political sex scandals," to paint perhaps too wide a brush. But that's the point. Katie Hill was forced to resign from the House for basically being in a threesome that took naughty pictures of themselves. Matt Gaetz is accused of trafficking underage girls for sexual purposes. They're both considered "political sex scandals" and that's just bullshit on every level.

 So I've kept away from the Andrew Cuomo affair. From what I can tell, he's been credibly accused of being an extreme creep to his female subordinates and staff. I don't think he's assaulted anyone, but that doesn't make anything better. He's the mayor of the most important city in the world, he can't act like that. Come on. I don't know why this continues to be so difficult for powerful men.

 But what was most interesting to me is, we've known about this for at least two weeks, and all we heard out of Cuomo was "fuck you, plebes, come and get me." Even as subordinates quit and his staff begged him to shut up and sit down if nothing else, he belligerently stuck to his guns.

 Until this morning, when a piece in The New Yorker by Ronan Farrow concerning how Cuomo gave Obama a call to complain about a wholly unrelated deal the New York City AG was shaking his tree over. Before we all finished lunch, Cuomo announced he'd step down from his office in two weeks. He might've opened up himself to ethics violations, but for whatever reason, he is no longer the most powerful mayor in the country.

 Don't fuck around with Ronan Farrow, y'all, that boy's a beast. He's spent the past couple of years acting as an investigative journalist and made a practice of putting power men who seemed untouchable into the fucking ground. Notably, he's the guy that brought down Harvey Weinstein, a rotten piece of filth that should've been buried alive a long time ago and everyone knew what he'd been doing.

 That was entertaining to see. Always nice to see no-bullshit, ball-stomping investigative journalism, and you'd think people would know not to mess with Farrow. The minute he calls for an interview, you might as well announce your retirement from whatever because he knows what you've been doing, even if you don't.

 As I said, though, generally I find "political sex scandals" distasteful. It's either a powerful man being a nasty creep and calling it a "sex scandal" that merely downplays truly horrific things like rape and sexual assault. Or it's because someone's trying to get their rocks off in a way society pretends it disapproves of though no one is doing something they don't consent to, and more often than not it's used as an excuse to shit on some woman for having sex and not feeling dirty about it.

 I'm a guy that firmly believes any animosity that women feel against men is legit because of the obnoxious shit we continue to do despite being told otherwise, over and over and over. I also firmly believe it's possible to maintain healthy, respectful relationships with the women in your life - people you work with or go to classes with or work at your favorite restaurant - and have an active, interesting romantic/sex life and not be a creep about it. Guys who complain women always take it wrong never seem to stop and think that maybe it's something they keep doing that turns the ladies off.

 Don't ask me to explain it because apparently, it doesn't seem to register. If you're interested in someone, pursue them and leave everyone else alone. If they tell you to fuck off, then fuck off and get on with your life. I have never understood putting any effort into someone once they've told you they're not interested. Life is short, there's plenty of fish in the sea, and frankly, I got other things I want to do as well.

 Of course, that's not something I have to worry about now and my approach to romance might possibly be partly the cause of my monastic lifestyle. But so what? Have a good time and be nice to people when you can. The rest is just details.

 Right, then.

Leaving would be the last thing on my mind if I could turn back the hands of time.

  The News and what's been on my mind today meshes. That is, the explosion of the Delta variant of the COVID-19 and just how poorly we are prepared to deal with it. Plus, the planet's on fire. Jesus.

 The country finally reached Joe Biden's goal of 70% vaccination but considering how virulent this new strain is and how adamant the pro-COVID group is, as small as they are, one wonders if it'll do any good in the long run.

 And for the record, yes, if you're nutty about wearing a mask or getting a vaccination in this day and age, I'm saying you're pro-COVID. Like people who want to ban abortion are anti-choice, I'm tired of screwing around with you. The last couple of days, Twitter's been inundated with tales of right-wing disc jockeys, right-wing club owners, and right-wing politicians who've spent the past year screaming about their freedoms being curtailed because of said masks and vaccinations... dying from COVID. In some cases, they're expressing regret for not getting the shot.

 There's just no sympathy for these yo-yos, mainly because we're also seeing stories of kids younger than 13 having to be flown 150 miles because all the surrounding ICU beds are filled. There should be, or at least some empathy, but they put a lot of work into this and it's really hard to feel bad for them when it bites them in the ass. 

 Now, Sturgis is starting and Lollapalooza happened this week, and I swear before God, I don't understand people. I mean, I get being stir crazy and wanting to have a good time, but really, does anything think this is a good idea or something that's necessary? I wonder if I weren't in the position I'm in - middle-aged and disinclined to have anything to do with anyone - where I'd fall on this. It's like everyone always says they've been against slavery or for Civil Rights had they been alive in that era, when the truth is most of us go along to get along.

 Anyhow. This is pretty interesting. It's about voids, empty parts of space billy-uns and billy-uns of light-years across. And when I say empty, I usually mean empty. No stars, no gas, no galaxy, no nothing. However, by pure definition, the largest void in the universe is one we're more or less in the center of. It's a matter of density, really. There's less stuff in our area of space than in the rest of the universe. This means we have fewer stars in our sky than planets in other parts of the universe. It also means we're in what could be considered the backwaters of the Universe. Douglas Adams downplayed it.

 We really underestimate not only the incredible distances in space but just how isolated we really are. We've yet to leave our gravity well. The much-ballyhooed dick-wavings of Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson cost a couple of billion dollars apiece and barely scraped the edge of space. We haven't figured out how to keep a human being in space for any length of time without their body being destroyed by radiation and lack of gravity.

 Y'all, get the shot and demand governments do something serious about climate change. This is all we got. Have a nice weekend.

He packed no star as he wandered far, where the only law was a hook and a draw.

  I'm really not in the mood for all this. I don't have anything interesting to say nor have I done anything noteworthy the last couple of days but sleep late some more. But, needs must, so let's squeeze something out and get on with our evening.

 I did have a rather vivid, narrative dream. Essentially, it was set in a future dystopian utopia-type of deal. Everything appears great, no one's hungry or poor, but... that sort of thing. There was a powerful central government and everyone was tagged. However, being tagged wasn't necessary for different reasons. That being said, some sort of technology was necessary to do about anything, so essentially everyone had cell phones that were used to do everything from opening the bathroom door to buying a hamburger at a concert. No money, that sort of thing.

 It started with a rebellion being crushed, and our Protagonist survived the last crush by hiding sort of like in Ravenous. Somewhere along the line, - five years sticks in my head - he steals one of the government's soldiers' ID box and claims his chip was burnt out due to an EMP. That sort of thing happens all the time. Riding on a train taking young soldiers back home to visit, he masquerades as a veteran and picks a stop way off in the boonies. Seems like it was in the Pacific Northwest.

 So, he starts walking in search of a fabled technology-free community, basically, so he isn't executed by the government for being a rebel. For the most part, though, no one cares about the war. During his travels, he sees how the Great Society fails like the rebels thought it would but he also sees how it succeeds in ways they never expected. At one point, he comes across a concert and people having a good time, which doesn't mean anything in particular except he has to radically alter his course because he can't actually buy anything.

 Anyhow, as he got close to the mythical Luddite colony increasingly conflicted about everything I woke up. I don't know where it goes from there nor do I know if there's anything in there worth expanding. I do think it says something about my own internal conflict with the good and evils of American society. The richest, most technologically advanced country on the planet that's being ravaged by poverty and an easily avoidable pandemic out of human arrogance and selfishness, that sort of thing.

 Probably related to stories I've read about former Confederate soldiers in a post-Civil War America, a la Johnny Yuma. I've mentioned before how much I dislike my dreams. I like the narrative ones and just wish I could do something creative with them. I guess if I could, I wouldn't be doing this or the News. It's probably for the best, though, as everything I've read lately says making any sort of living as a writer is a rube's game.

 And that's about that. I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of the evening. I may just go back to sleep or I may play some more Pillars of Eternity II.

Come one, come all. We're gonna have a ball.

  I ate too much. I'm sure everyone wanted to know that, but it's true and I'm fighting off drowsiness because of it. Still, I want to get this knocked out, and, no, I don't have anything useful or interesting to add to the conversation.

 Though I brought it up with yesterday's News, Initiative 65 was supposed to go into operation this week. If it weren't for the greed and selfishness of certain Republican lawmakers around the Jackson area, I would've been able to swing by a dispensary in Tupelo yesterday afternoon after my therapy session and pick up a half-ounce. However, because of said greedy dirtbags, I could not. Indeed, it's doubtful any serious progress will be made on this, either this year or at all. I really don't see the current state government busting their ass to get this done regardless of how popular it was with the population.

 To expand a bit on that thought, the real problem with Mississippi politics isn't the Democratic versus Republican in most of the rest of the country. We've had rotten bastards running us for about as long as we've been a state. We were founded by plantation owners and, to be quite frank, that mentality still exists. Race is definitely part of it, but there's a huge class divide, as well, more so than most of us white folks want to admit. The reality that we're the rich's bulkhead against Black folks isn't one we want to own, much less admit that we're sort of enjoying the situation.

 This culture, this country, is full of mean-spirited, rule-crazy swine, people who worship the wealthy and powerful. It's why every time there's a video of a cop beating the shit out of someone with a broken taillight, some jackass says "well, you should follow orders." That's what they're saying, we deserve to be controlled and certain groups deserve to be in charge. If you ask them what they'd say if it happened to them or their loved ones? If they're honest - and they often are, surprisingly - they'd believe they'd deserve it.

 Crazy, I know. But that's the world we live in and that's the world these screwheads want. My running theory on such inexplicable behavior is that we're slaves to the Narrative. We believe in Stories. There has to be a start, a middle, and an ending, and it all has to make sense. There are Good Guys and Bad Guys, all easily and readily identifiable, and it must be unambiguous. It has to make sense. That's what the story says.

 And the universe just doesn't work like that. Nor, for that matter, do any of the major religions preach this. God may have a plan but we don't know it any more than we know Allah's will. The universe existed for billions of years before we came along and will most likely exist for billions of years afterward, with no evidence left behind that we stomped the terra.

 This infuriates us. It terrifies us. The anti-vaccination movement is based on this. It just isn't sexy enough that the Powers That Be push vaccinations because if they let us all die to an otherwise easy-to-prevent viral infection, it might be harder for the rich to become even richer. There has to be some sort of sinister reason. There must be a reason to go through this much effort to control a group of people who can easily be influenced by semi-clever beer commercials.

 That's enough for now. I've been digging into Pillars of Eternity 2 again and perhaps I'll actually finish it this time. We'll see.