I have noted the possible end of the world. Just in case.

 

Russian state television political editor Maxim Yusin warned that Putin intended to push the button on a nuclear attack in the “coming days or weeks,” adding that people should “have fun because it would be a shame to live out the remaining time with pessimism.”

How thoughtful.  As a blogger I am inclined to immortalize such words, just on the off chance that this might be the start of something. One hopes this is not the case. I had hoped to report on our convention experience instead.

We here at HIL-GLE have spent the last month or so in the shadow of COVID. I was hospitalized for it earlier this month, as was another member of my household, and all three of us have tested positive at one time or another. We are now all free of the malady, although one of us is still not anywhere near 100% right now.

Sort of puts things in perspective.

My stocks have taken a header. This has been going on for a few months. The national cable stock channel that I watch is now wall to wall gloom and doom, trotting out prognosticators who beat up the present like a dead horse. With the exception of the Gold Bugs and those rare everything-is-always-bad types, none of the Market Gurus can claim to have seen any of this coming. And their current predictions are nothing more than readings of the present and immediate past. Yep, Russia is screwing everything up and this COVID stuff isn’t helping, either. Our latest spate of weird and deadly weather is just piling on. It looks like a long, cold winter ahead.

Despite this, life moves on. The NFL season got back underway earlier this month. I note that their endzone and helmet messages are back again for another year. Each message is a knife in the face to the Republican Party. It’s odd how a plutocratic bunch of monopolists would turn and turn so strongly against their ideological brethren. The Republicans earned this, though. Like all bad things, this started with Trump’s complaints about the league’s tolerance of player opinions. He then launched into a campaign against player safety. At some point messages started appearing, first on shoes, then on the backs of helmets and now in the end zones. Most of them literally say “End Racism” but the true message isn’t lost. The NFL has deplatformed Republicans and all of their mantras.

The NFL has a hard time forming an opinion on much. It took them a while to be sure that the term Redskin was somehow derogatory. Suddenly they are lockstep entirely against one of our two institutional political entities. And college football is following them.

I know Republicans hate lamestream anything, but I have never witnessed anything like the alignment of all Normal American Entities against one political flavor before. One wonders who is left in the GOP? Fox News? The Fox News that started the drumbeat FOR the Russians AGAINST Ukraine. That won them sooo many converts. The National Review? I still read it. It is worse than the stock market gurus, now prone to dig into the recent past and whitewash the incomprehensible into a dialog with a beginning, middle and end. Making it make sense is a bit beyond them, but they are dealing with the second draft of history. The history they’ve been writing makes the DC Universe look Homeric. The whole Earth One, Earth Two analogy has now been imparted to the public.

We have a number of tour dates to announce, starting with Stranger Con on October 8^th here in Chicago. I am hoping to do a convention recap this weekend. If there is a this weekend.