Thursday Open Thread ~ Winnie The Pooh edition ~ Erika Meitner

212214477_10215077782178283_7987539656372148791_n.jpg

It’s Gunna Be All Right

by Erika Meitner

promises the sound of the tide coming in. Never mind
the no-swim advisory, the sidewalks and parking lots
strewn with yellow and black crime scene markers
on the regular, the reappearing swastikas or the fact

that a quarter of humanity will run out of water by 2030.
I have been invited to the beach during the eschaton,
where piles of sand bags prop up crumbling dunes,
where nests of endangered loggerheads are tended to

by tender volunteers, where a notice posted on the public
boardwalk says visitors are urged not to wade or engage in
water recreation until the enterococcus warning is lifted.
These days I find myself googling end times habitually

and the results mention world events and climax, but
they don’t mean what happens when we touch ourselves
or each other, often on screen. They mean an in-gathering
of exiles, a time of transformation or redemption, rendering

all of our own poor decisions moot, so when the beach
clears out after sunset I snap a topless selfie because
this place was actually a nudist resort back in the 30s.
I stay alert to wonders and signs. When I was running

last week, a black snake at least four feet long slithered
off the road into the dusk and then a double rainbow
so bright vaulted across the sky I didn’t know what
to do except attempt to capture both with my phone

in case: covenant; in case: end of an epoch. We try
to warn ourselves every chance we get about this
dangerous moment, but I was raised by refugees
trained in the art of hyper-vigilance. You don’t need

to tell me anything. On a wall at a local museum
there’s a movie rolling of Holocaust survivors filmed
thirty-six years ago—the last Yiddish generation
sunning themselves on South Beach. They say

don’t be afraid. If we don’t say anything, no one
will ever know what happened. I was twenty-four months
in the bushes in hiding. I was laying three days
among the dead in the wagons. We walked around

like our own shadows. When I came over, I didn’t
have nothing. Here I’m alive, and I love it.
They are singing talking sewing playing cards
doing aerobics on the beach, arguing and feeding

pigeons crumbs of bread, reading or napping on
park benches, dancing with each other on hotel
porches, the women often in pairs. Everything
blows through—even the lightning breaking open

thick clouds on the horizon. If I were to describe
the waves here to a landlocked friend or lover, I’d say
they’re a roar or a shush or a breath. I am alive.
There is nothing I can say to comfort us.

26212496565_b2b949e0a3_41.jpg

Share
up
10 users have voted.

Comments

sounds like a tune...

~

~

~

one can hope
thanks philly!

up
7 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

and speaks to the future. If we have a future, it seems that we should also have a pasture, but that is something else again except that being put out to pasture does speak to the future, it's all verrrry confusing.

Both the bells of Rhymney and the bells or Merthyr spoke to the future:

Oh, what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney
"Is there hope for the future?"
Say the brown bells of Merthyr

and Stevie Wonder asserted that it was gunna be

all right, uptight, and out of sight

which, I suspect nails it -- out of sight (and out of mind) --

can't go there, can't know there

No doubt why Ram Dass exhorted all to "be here now", as if there were any other option and is if here & now were somehow separable and not the twin yin and yang of the herenow, the tathegata that is all we got(ta).

This is, of course, going no where because, of course, one can't, yet somehow

Thanks for the OT

be well and have a good one

up
7 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

magiamma's picture

@enhydra lutris

Gate gate para gate para sam gate bodhi swaha

up
2 users have voted.

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

Granma's picture

up
7 users have voted.

OK, maybe not that shocking

Scores of people crowded a major Miami-area highway Tuesday, chanting in support of rare protests that erupted days earlier in Cuba against the country’s communist government.

The rally caused an hours-long closure on part of the Palmetto Expressway in Miami-Dade County. It was the sort of scene envisioned by a divisive Florida law that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) pushed amid last year’s wave of racial justice demonstrations. The legislation calls for protesters to be cited if they block traffic.

But no citations were given Tuesday, according to state and local law enforcement. Critics took issue with the lack of citations, saying the law is unclear or unevenly applied. DeSantis, who invoked the possibility of protesters shutting down a highway as he signed the bill into law, has been vocal in his support of rallies against the Cuban government. Asked about the Palmetto Expressway protests during a Tuesday roundtable with reporters, he said the recent demonstrations were “fundamentally different” than last summer’s protests that had inspired the law.

up
7 users have voted.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/563210-microsoft-disrupts-products...

Microsoft on Thursday announced that it had disrupted the use of what it described as “cyberweapons” manufactured and sold by an Israeli-based company to target victims worldwide including journalists and human rights activists.

The group, known as “Sourgum,” is what Microsoft described as a “private sector offensive actor,” and was known to sell weapons to government agencies around the world that were then used to hack into the personal devices of targeted individuals, including phones, computers, and other internet-connected devices.

“These agencies then choose who to target and run the actual operations themselves,” Cristin Goodwin, general manager of Microsoft’s Digital Security Unit, wrote in a blog post published Thursday.

“The weapons disabled were being used in precision attacks targeting more than 100 victims around the world including politicians, human rights activists, journalists, academics, embassy workers and political dissidents,” Goodwin noted.

up
4 users have voted.