@Lookout
There is wisdom in not fretting over what you don't have control over. I thought this comment by firewfire was very insightful.

The Marks believe they are watching a real fight between characters who really hate each other. The Smarts realize they are watching an exhibition of fake mayhem, but enjoy both the spectacle and the histrionics of the Show.

It is so ironic that the upper middle class liberals are the Marks and the unsophisticated and unknowledgeable wingnuts in the empty states are the Smarts -- who see how well Trump's villainous act drives liberals beyond the bend, and love it.

I get that. I keep seeing people running around with their hairs on fire reacting. Seems like that was the plan all along. To unsettle people.

Take good care.

Positive future images are essential for positive progress. I never lost my hippie dippie ideals. The back to the land movement has been my path since my teens. The peace movement is still strong in me as well. And though the ecosystem has degraded and there is ever more war, I keep to the path and heal my little piece of land and try to promote peace when I can.

We are individuals and we just need enough individuals to build critical mass. However, just as I accept my eventual death, I accept the idea we are past the climatic tipping point. I don't really pray to a god or goddess but find the concept in this prayer worthwhile

Wish us all peace and what happiness we can find or make for ourselves.

@jbob
Happy Birthday, indeed. Thanks for the history. Hug a tree for me. Hope the smoke clears. It's here now. No idea where from. Have a good one.

Either way we all must do what we can to slow the destruction of our planet.
Maintaining a positive attitude helps as we strive to keep fighting for a future.
Happy Birthday Yosemite National Park

Today is the 130 year anniversary of the bill signing that made it a National Park. The air is pretty bad here right now due to smoke from wildfires. I've had to cut back on my hiking activities while here to celebrate the park's birthday. Actually it's the park's second birthday due to the convoluted timeline of actions that saved this place. The first birthday is June 30, 1864 when Abe Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant, a first of it's kind bill that protected portions of this place for posterity before there was a National Park System.
The photo of Half Dome above was taken Sep. 29, 2020 at a place called Glacier Point.

@jakkalbessie
you are welcome. Need to settle back from our amygdalas. Have a great weekend. Take good care.

Needed a reminder of why we do not give up our hippy dippy past and continue to embrace it. I will continue to find hope working with causes that seem to be making a difference.

Going to spend the weekend camping in nature up in the jemez mountains and just dropping out to recharge.

@enhydra lutris
imho one cannot just meditate one's way out of whatever. But intuition has always played a big part in my life. I have, many times, awoken in the night with the solution to something I have been working on. I count on it now. Just don't know how that works but apparently it does. I think it was, maybe, the periodic table that came to someone in a dream. There is a lot of space inside atoms between the electrons and all. Interspace. What ever is in there? Take good care.

inspiration. And thanks especially for this:

I affirm that this world will not be driven into oblivion by climate chaos, that the poor will not be forgotten, be pushed to the brink, that Blacks and Browns will find real equality. Just for starters.

And I will continue to work for the causes I believe in because I am just pissed off enough to not give up.

That is indeed the crux of it. They say that "faith can move mountains", but the reality is that shovels seem to help. The other reality is that the mountains are better left alone where they stand are we and the world are both better off if that is the case as well. Perhaps mo bettah, with innumerable historical cooperative ventures in mind is that Belief can build houses, but much more quickly if hammers are provided and used.

be well and have a good one

@enhydra lutris

After participants drank the beverages (a different one on each day), the researchers monitored their blood glucose levels at twenty-minute intervals over the ensuing hour. They found that participants who thought they were drinking the high-sugar variant had significantly elevated blood sugar levels during the monitoring period compared to those who thought they were drinking the low-sugar variant.
...
These findings challenge the mainstream assumption that natural biological and physiological metabolic homeostasis processes require sufficient insulin to allow glucose to return to normal ranges," the authors said of the results.

However, they caution that this sort of psychological trickery cannot treat Type 2 diabetes on its own. A diabetic could not, on a prolonged basis, trick themselves out of diabetes.

"Our study does not indicate whether psychological effects have long-term efficacy. Our findings instead suggest that psychological processes may be, at least temporarily, able to influence biochemical processes in diabetic metabolism."

Mind over matter at work?

Diabetic's blood-sugar levels affected by false ingredient labels
https://boingboing.net/2020/09/30/diabetics-blood-sugar-levels-affected-...

includes link to:

A Psychological Trick Changed Diabetics' Blood Sugar Levels
https://www.realclearscience.com/quick_and_clear_science/2020/09/28/a_ps...

We will ...

be well and have a good one

@randtntx
Great article

As a nature-lover and lifelong birdwatcher, that feeling echoed a greater despair. This planet and her kaleidoscope of species have given me so much – provided me so generously with food for the body, mind and spirit. And yet, in the face of anthropogenic climate change, can I do nothing but panic and watch her go up in flames in my rear-view mirror?
...
I implore all my fellow young nature-lovers and activists to consciously reject – wholesale – the corporate-led, techno-globalist future we are being sold. Such suggestions represent yet another extension of the reductionist thinking and scientific hubris that originally justified exploitation of the biosphere – it’s what got us into this mess in the first place. Tech-based “solutions” are still failing to curb emissions and unsustainable consumption, even as they guzzle more resources and damage more ecosystems in order to operate. Moreover, they are fundamentally about enabling the continuation of a gargantuan global economy that can’t even serve our own well being, let alone that of the animals and ecosystems we love.

This is the conundrum. The world is melting and burning. Biodiversity is fading. We know this. At the same time, knowing this, we must embrace the life that is left, I think. Because not to, leaves me in despair. So yes, we must keep our voices loud. The thought I had last night is that our voices and actions need to be directed in the right place to be effective. Otherwise it's just noise - a shadow strutting and fretting - that falls uselessly in to the abyss. The question is where and who. General strike would work if people would comply. Dunno.

Thanks for this article. Have a good one.

I agree, things are looking grim, and that is a huge understatement. I also agree that:

Affirm we must, because why not. It can’t hurt and it might help.

and being

pissed off enough to not give up.

is highly motivating.

I saw this article the other day and am going to go back and read it again. It ties in very nicely with what you wrote today.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/09/28/what-do-when-world-fire

@peachcreek
I needed to remind myself. Hope is a state of mind and must accompany action. There is so much beauty in the world. That’s what replenishes me. We are here now. So far so good. Hope and intuition work well together for me. My hope is that we can see a way to get out of this medusa of a mess together. Thanks. Be well.

I was inspired by Cass and others to reread Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark essays recently. (Reviewed here). The discussion had to do with political imagination or the lack thereof I believe. Either way, I find the ideas inspiring and, in these times, anything that helps get me out of bed in the morning is good.
From the review:

Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes — you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand.

All the best.

@pindar's revenge
The fickle finger of divine justice or reality tv come full circle. You decide. Comorbidities abound. Stocks decline. The world gasps. Hairs are on fire. Oh noes. Please tell me it isn’t so. /s

Or is this possibly an epidemiological decapitation event in progress? Do Rump and Melons actually have COVID-19, or will this be a show intended to display his "toughness" and "energy"?

It makes sense that the abhorrent, arrogant hygiene (er, lack thereof) practiced by that wing of the ruling class would enable community spread. On the other hand, I still suspect that Bolsonaro faked his infection (you don't hear about lasting effects, do you?), so Rump may have decided to emulate his emulator. What advantage could he derive from faking it? Sympathy? The chance to show he can "dominate" the lowly virus? A good excuse to bow out of debates without having to knuckle down to rules? Pseudo-martyrdom? Only The Shadow knows.

If it's real, could this be a bipartisan decap? Rump was certainly spewing in the nearby Biden's direction. Maybe this is a chance for the "saner" sport team captains to reset the stage and give us, say, Mitt Romney vs Kamala Harris.

How would professional wrestling handle this?