Will the lockdown re-elect Trump?

i have several theories about this, none of which make me happy. Yes, the polls right now put him way behind. alas, when people poled, they're not really thinking about their own self-interest, not even about how they ultimately feel. people polled react more to the news than facts and figures. if someone isn't obviously popular at the moment, they go with the mass, lemmings over the cliff. when it comes right down to it in november they think about something like TAXES. yes, people hate them. 

and what drives them up: government programs, those meant help minorities and the poor. those meant to preserve baby seals and the arctic from oil pipelines. who proposes these? the democrats, of course. look at the percentage of voters who don't believe in global warming. it's enormous, even though the potential for a world catastrophe much greater than for a measly virus. and as for covid 19, trump has taken a positive attitude from the beginning. he's the voice of HOPE, saying essentially americans have dealt with much worse, the depression or world war two. he appeals to americans sense of invincibility.

and the most vocal of governors, newsome of california and cuomo of new requiring the most draconian (extreme) measures, both of them democrats, californians and new yorkers not beloved by the rest of the country. this plays into the feeling democrats always want more laws, more restrictions on people's behavior, more money for everything under the son. a large part of the population doesn't give a damn about the disadvantaged or minorities. they can be persuaded once in awhile to join demonstrations, or even do some community service. unfortunately closing down churches doesn't help anybody's cause.

most of all, is the lockdown doing any good? with everybody wearing masks the cases going up in california and new york. even closing the beaches doesn't seem to be helping. and what is the logic of keeping grocery stores open while putting bookstores and museums off limits? those places the easiest for social distancing. and talk about damaging the cultural heritage of the nation! the visitors to those places the most vocal in the country, and their numbers the smallest. thousands of museums may have to remain closed, laying off workers right and left. this may very well drive many people not well-disposed to vote for trump. 

and i have to say, when biden said he would make everyone in the country wear masks, he drove a nail into his own coffin. i feel that alone may lose him the election. so, there are my glum thoughts. here's hoping none of it proves to be true. i'd rather save a few reindeer and keep the public lands cared for and unpolluted. 

Log from May 12, 2020

twice i have been put on a pedestal by younger friends and been knocked off, both times receiving a powerful dose of disappointment and sarcasm. it's been surprising and painful. i enjoyed their admiration, especially criticising  myself so much! a bit of praise makes up for a lot. unfortunately, in disappointing them i fall from grace myself. 

this must be why i've always hesitated to be a counselor or teacher. or even a politician. i'm not great at being called to task. my older friends know my faults and hopefully are more forgiving. Especially, they know their own failings and can put themselves in my shoes. also, i tend to joke a lot. and that is not always understood. 

i have now written over five hundred blogs showing what a fool i am. it should be no surprise to anyone. however, when i set up expectations and don't fulfill them it's a shock to someone not in on the open secret. those who value me too highly know too few facts, no matter how much i  throw them out there. somehow i have to shout from the housetops how imperfect i am. 

now, that's certainly a claim to fame and form of vanity. can i really be worse than Jack the Ripper, Alexander the Great, Attilla the Hun? i've never reached such heights. i merely forget an appointment, over-reach my ability to empathize, forget the clean the bathtub. these aren't minor pecadillos, i grant you, yet they don't seem to in the same class a serial killers!

true, i'm not always honest. i do pretend to be better than i am. i'm easily embarrassed when i'm found out, when i don't prepare a speech adequately, or miss finding a fire and have to make it look like i didn't. a counterfeit, that's what i often feel like. as a teenager my favorite song was The Great Pretender. i played it over and over again, driving my family crazy. children should never spend too much time with their  parents.

and speaking of parents, how i hated discovering mine had feet of clay. this seems to be a common occurrence in our society. i don't know why it takes so long, until puberty. this must be a shock to have their sweet child turn into a monster of sarcasm. maybe that's why i avoiding being a parent. i knew the day of reckoning would come. alas, and now it's come to me again. 

Log from May 23, 2020

SATURDAY, MAY 23, 2020

LOCKDOWN: how profoundly anti-American it is

i really don't think we thought this through ahead of time, reacting to an internet panic. yes, i see this as an internet virus more than a medical one. after all, what makes Americans?

        1. Freedom of movement
        2. Limited interference of government in public and private life
        3. The formation of small groups
        4. Eating out
        5. The denial of death
        6. A lack of fear
        7. Individual identity

take number 7. masks erase identity and make us all bandits. more than once i've been unable to recognize someone i know, even after talking.  masks also make communication difficult, voices muffled, hearing impeded. and after all the talk of covid being so transmitable (now CDC, months later, says it's very difficult to pick the virus up from surfaces), couldn't it infect the eyes? i feel like we've all been in a form of Islamic purdah. 

as for the denial of death, this is the very foundation of the American psyche. i always think the most dangerous thing i can do is climb in my car. 50,000 Americans die on the highways every year! the line down of the middle of the road is no protection, especially if the trucker coming your way falls asleep, or you do. we live with death on the road every day, yet how little this impinges on me if i answer my cell phone. people die out of sight, in hospitals, immediately shunted off to funeral homes.

and so i live most of the time with a lack of fear. foolish of me, i know. having been hit by a sedan in a crosswalk and thrown over the top of it, i no longer trust traffic signs to protect me. okay, that does contradict what i've said. i am afraid of cars making right turns at a stop signal, and i look both ways when crossing a one-way street. once in Berkeley i was hit by a bicyclist going the wrong way and landed on me back in the middle of a busy blvd. stupidly i stood up and walked away. 

eating out, forming small groups. i am actually very social. at least i like sitting in coffee shops and meeting friends. we hug, pat each other on the back, shake hands. we breath on each other as we converse, keeping the normal American distance, which is probably 2 feet. at 6 feet i might as well be alone. avoiding people doesn't come naturally and i really feel sorry for the kids learning to do so. and was this really necessary, since kids don't get covid 19, with a few exceptions?

the biggest anti-American attributes of the situation: freedom of movement and lack of government interference in private life. commanded to stay home (which i still believe to be illegal), i lost my right to freedom of movement. and forced to wear masks, not meet friends, or go to church, i feel the basic rights of American life taken from me. even a European country like Sweden, where there are more rules, did not take this route. at this point i feel like i've been bamboozled. 

Posted by Smokysun at 9:28 AM    

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Jump off a cliff or risk the virus!

i wonder how many people are feeling the like myself, as the lockdowns around the world continue? to be trapped in your own house must feel like death itself. no theaters, no bookstores, cafes, churches open, means we're afraid to breathe. even where i am, high in a mountain tower, isolated as always on the job, i feel anxious before my days off. 

i have watched a lot of youtube videos. adventurous travelers keep on trucking, where ever there's a crack in the system: snorkling off naples, moving to a new home in portugal, flying to the coast of mexico, taking precautions and accepting the risks. since i can't do any of those things while working, i feel the presence of the end being too close. 

the question is: how do i keep going while in prison? i remember george jackson in solitary confinement practiced yoga all day. it certainly helps to have a cause. i don't really have one. the worship of beauty, the magic of poetry and art seem irrelevant in this time. true, i know that's not true. many folks surviving watching movies, studying art online, visiting with folks in the backyard, yet i have  always been haunted by the sense of the transitory...

that's  part of the problem. feeling nothing i do will survive or have meaning. the truth is any life is finite. as i looked up at the magnificent passing comet a couple of weeks ago i felt awe and at the same time very small. the irony is all of us made of stardust, the right hand from a different star than the left. i'll be recycled in water and air. any breath i have will be breathed by almost everyone on earth as long as humanity survives.

how long that will be should be no concern of mine. yet the present crisis masking the real thing: global warming. the spread of the virus nothing compared to the melting ice-caps and rising seas. i keep wondering if   the antarctic will crack in half, the whole earth wobbling, or meteors fall from the sky. to find the whole earth engulfed by an epidemic leaves me facing my own mortality. i think the best option not always clear.  

fire lookouts, the last guardians of the forest

i hate to see the older generation of forest service folks retire. they joined up from a certain idealism and love of the woods. they had favorite spots, they felt protective, it wasn't just a job. alas, the newer people simply see it as a job to perform, a salary to get, a ladder to climb. a good example is the washington people now in charge. in their last public proposal they urged the selling off of the public lands to the timber industry and mining interests. hard to blame them, since this is the general direction and attitude of the present administration. 

but do they really have to go with the flow? in the past resistance would have risen from within the service itself, those who didn't think of expediency and profit. true, not everything in the past ideal. clear-cutting in the sierra, for example. when i joined up, the mountains here had not been desecrated. the head honchos said, 'we'll leave rows of trees along the road to hide what we're doing.' alas, thousands of people fly across these mountains every day. the scabs not hidden.

and often they won't grow back, the soil unable to hold the moisture. i remember one boss saying how great this program would be. yes, one of the yes-men who approved everything out of the head office. and i could find many examples of bad practices. still, as one forestry teacher at chico state said, ' the forest service divided into 1. those who care about the forest, 2. those clawing their way up, and 3. those who simply go with the flow for a job. unfortunately, the first group growing smaller.

this reflects the change in the country. at first it was seen as god's creation, fully of mystery, to be preserved. luckily, teddy roosevelt jumped in and created public lands, even as much of it was being sold off to the railroads in a great scam, right-of ways never used. the forest service created to care for what was left. despite mis-steps, this did happen, along with national parks and monuments. and the country went along with it, enjoying the natural spaces. this lasted for a hundred years.

what has changed? probably the growth of cities. citizens no longer need the visions of the wilderness to sustain the american myth. in the 1960's the preservationists created the sierra club, friends of the earth, and an environmental movement arose from the university of california, santa cruz. their influence did wonderful work. of course, now everybody blames them for blocking the greed of miners and loggers. they say the conditions of the forest lousy because of them, when the truth is in the reagan era budgets slashed. 

this leaves almost no people in the field whose job it is to further the health and growth of the forest. and this is my point, only lookouts go back to work with a love of the land, deeply appreciative of the beauty they enjoy. as the season has begun, they post photos of the first days at work. this is one reason i would like to see many more lookouts built and staffed. at least there would be someone watching the store. of course, this is a thorn in the side of those who see only with the bottom line. the concern for the public trust fadse into history. only those on towers see what is worth preserving. 

Fire prevention is no longer the name of the game

i always find myself trying to correct a public error. there's no profit in it. in fact it makes me miserable when nothing happens. i keep expecting to create a life-changing blog, one shaking up the world, making it come to its senses. fat chance. crying in the wilderness, that's what it feels like. the tree that falls in the forest with no one to hear!

ok, enough weeping. i'll soon be gone to a better world, leaving this one behind.  let's say it again: FIRE PREVENTION IS NO LONGER THE NAME OF THE GAME. and why is that? in 1962 when i started looking out for the forest service, plenty of patrols were out there checking on campfires and logging. lookouts dotted the landscape to give early warning. alas, most of the patrols disappeared and a huge number of lookouts were closed, especially the california system. 

the reason given always financial. we don't have the funds. lookouts too expensive, even with their staffers supplying their own vehicles and working for minimum wage, which i still am after 56 years and no benefits. "the upkeep, the maintenance, it's all too much!" other than a paint job and new appliances, my lookout has had nothing new in twenty years. "patrols have to take care of you!" i started taking out my garbage and bringing up my own drinking water so that didn't have to happen.

what is really going on here? i've heard the forest service now spends half  its budget on fire. and it used to be if a forest had big fires, the next year they would get more funds. now, if they have big fires, they get less the next year. this happened on plumas national forest the year after one of the worst disasters in fire history: the burning of paradise california. were we being punished? i don't think so. we were encouraged to have bigger and better conflagrations. then we would get huge amounts of money to fight a particular fire, without any increase in next year's budget. 

yes, money comes to big fires. people celebrate the firefighters: thank you, thank you. if the crews extinguish small fires nobody says boo. the organizations become heroes. opposed to the forest service in california, calfire, the state organization, has been flooded with money: new planes, helicopters, engines, cameras, on and on. they have benefited tremendously from the increase in homes and lives lost, from the immense growth in acreage. 

i have answered my own question. prevention keeps fires small. if the aim were to do so, THERE WOULD BE MANY MORE LOOKOUTS FOR EARLY WARNING. unfortunately, lookouts work too well. they have reported themselves out of job. expensive technology costing much more than tower maintenance feeds the ego. of course, no one in any organization would tell the truth, they might not even think it. when will legislatures and voters wise up? i suspect not any time soon. 

how to prepare for your end

I'm not the best person to organize this post. having been suicidal most of my adult life, i should be an expert in saying goodbyes. trouble is, i want to choose my own time and place - to jump off a cliff. i don't particularly like the idea of a virus suffocating me. still i am preparing, and i have a few recommendations. 

WRITE YOUR OWN OBITUARY

even my best friends and family knew very little about me. and especially when familiar faces around town depart, i'm astounded by their stories. i decided to make a preemptive strike. why let others make up things, or deliver platitudes. why not tell them the good, the bad, and the ugly? at least you will be real to them.  the more you reveal, the more unforgettable  you will be. if you're afraid of being a character and pass as a normal citizen, the less your image will live on. here's my own example: https://smokysunsheaven.blogspot.com/2020/02/obituary.html

WRITE DOWN ALL YOUR PASSWORDS

give them to family and friends. don't forget your facebook password so everybody can be notified. as for banks, be sure and give them to whoever you deam responsible. if you don't do this, it will play havoc with those who would like to help clean up your act. this is also a way of letting them know who you are (were). 

COLLECT ALL YOUR DOCUMENTS

that's what i've been doing today, making sure everything  on an external hard-drive. these have gotten incredibly cheap. make sure you get one with enough space. i have thousand of pictures, drawings, digital artworks, personal documents and records. i spend 40 years as a writer and 15 as a photographer/artist. as usual, if you don't have an advocate, all your precious creations will go in the garbage. recently i've seen this happen to half a dozen fine artists  in town.

CREATE A FEW BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS

i have fifty books on amazon. anyone who has amazon prime can download them for free. i have failed to find a audience, so this may have been a futile endeavor. i encourage you to try. a least write your life story for your children. forever after they will be full of questions that can never be answered. i've thought of dozens of questions for my mother. alas, those can never be cleared up. she did make four and  a hours on tape about my childhood, plus several other manuscripts. they make feel i have an identity. 

KEEP YOURSELF HEALTHY

i know this seems odd. my feeling is: the healthier you are when you die, the better you will feel about letting go. for example, i've doing everything to boost my immune system, faced with this crude and stupid virus. here's a list:

sleep
exercise
reduce stress (avoid the news if possible)
vitamin C
zinc
probiotics
vitamin A
garlic
black elderberry
l-phenylalanine
quercetin
citrus bioflavonoids
vitamin D3
echinacea
beta glucan

unlike many people, i'm an absolute believer in using supplements with a shotgun. true, my doctor once said, "you have very expensive pee." i would rather have that than missing the one small item my body absolutely needs. best of luck to you.