My Blog Week: August 16 to August 22

Posted by ractrose on 23 Aug 2020 in The Latest

A black cat, nicknamed Nortie, who serves as Torsade's site ambassador.

All the Latest from Torsade!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Word on the Week

 

 

 

Readers, we are here within the Safe Box o’ Fiction, to moot a theoretical scenario. President Whump has again thought of a clever thing. It’ll be a big October Surprise for the American people! Whump lays the groundwork by criticizing drug companies for not producing a vaccine (to combat the present pandemic) fast enough. Luckily, the nation of Exsovia, which many don’t trust, but which Whump has a particular fondness for, touts a vaccine already in production. What if Whump could use taxpayer dollars to buy a hundred million doses from Exsovia? There’d be enough money in float to kickback a chunk to all the gang! Meanwhile, it seems apparent that a crisis calls for emergency orders; isn’t it just common sense to require every voter who goes to the polls in person, to show certification of having been vaccinated? A lot of people would want to vote by mail, if that were the case. But if they’re getting started as late as October, it’s gonna be a little tricky. The Post Office has lost the use of some of its equipment. On the other hand, polling places are also limited, and the extra paperwork will delay lines even more… 

Some of Whump’s supporters don’t like vaccines. They’re the most flexible-minded people, though… Before 2016, many of them were even considered sane; their ideas just “a difference of opinion”. Of course those ideas came from their own heads. But they didn’t mind a bit replacing them with received ones, from their favorite newsliketalk provider. Among supporters of Whump, who occasionally feel concern about his policies, the alternative view has been advanced that the vaccine’s efficacy doesn’t matter anyway. A placebo effect would be fine. After all, the whole pandemic is a hoax.

People think they’re so smart, heaping scorn on Whump because he keeps saying more testing means more cases. But see, if you let liberal states claim the numbers come from “testing”, you’re playing into their hands. The testing just gives the hoax its veneer of authority. After the election no one will have any reason to discredit Whump, and so magically, the cases will go away. Whump will have walked off with the election, and picked up a little pocket change to salvage his teetering businesses… One more month’s loan payment—then on to the next scam!

 

 

 

And the regular word is brief. Reasonable people want to make reasonable decisions based on principles of reason. Their hope is to grow more tolerant and fair-minded as the decades of their lives pass. Ten years of further observation, exposure to new ideas, should be ten years of improvement. (People in their sixties and seventies should not be awful, though we’ve seen many unreasonable ones who are.)

Reasonable people like improvement in themselves and look forward to more of it. The Never Forgive, Never Forget attitude has nothing of reason in it. When you forgive you are framing the thing done in the past in a way that empowers you in the future. You’re quitting yourself of a burden; you are not letting someone “get away with something”. Whereas forgetting isn’t necessary, and not even useful, when your goal is to learn and grow.

So you don’t need electroshock therapy to make a wise decision, beneficial to you. Forgiving doesn’t mean keeping toxic people in your life. It means, in fact, that you’re done with the pattern of behavior. But if your pattern of behavior is the problem; if you’re the one who keeps coming back, insisting on Then, refusing Now, you may need the forgiveness of others. And especially if you would see tyranny win, because your preferences have not been wholly met.

 

 

 

On Monday, a new Totem-Maker, the character uncovering mysteries of the Kale-Kale tribe. Tuesday, The Mirrors (part fourteen), and the end of the island adventure, some ride-back explanations. Wednesday, a new Jumping Off poem, “Switch”. Thursday, part five of Shine!, by Mathilde Alanic, Annie and her uncle in commiseration. Friday and Saturday, excerpts from A Figure from the Common Lot, “Battlefront”, and “Imprisoned”, Honoré putting himself in the middle of things; and a prewar adventure at job seeking.
Images on my posts often have a link to related information (click first image), sometimes serious, sometimes whimsical, sometimes in answer to a direct reference. Since people can be leery about links, I include them here: what they are, what sites they point to.

 

 


 

 

My Blog Week: August 16 to August 22

 

The Totem-Maker: Crafter Becomes Maker (part five)
August 17

 

The Mirrors (part fourteen)
August 18

 

Switch (poem)
August 19

Poetry Foundation: Rosemary Tonks, “The Sofas, Fogs, and Cinemas”

 

Mathilde Alanic: Shine! (part five)
August 20

 

Excerpt: A Figure from the Common Lot (Battlefront second)
August 21

 

Excerpt: A Figure from the Common Lot (Imprisoned second)
August 22

 

 

 

%d bloggers like this: