Happy Thanksgiving?

As the terrifying Trump transition continues, with dimwitted humans demonstrating every day that there's no bottom in Flatland, it's hard to get excited about the holiday. In the public sphere, this is the single worst year I've seen in my 63 years on Earth. 2017 promises to be worse. Next year we may long for the good 'ole days of 2016. All the evils of this world are loose. This will not end well.

The only thing that might save us, at least for a while, is inertia.

To all those story-telling social animals who invest this empty world with "meaning" within various echo-chambers, I have only thing to say and I think you know what it is — Thanks for playing!

I stopped taking Flatland behavior seriously a long time ago, although I still write about it for the benefit of others. It also passes the time. Let's face it, this human nonsense is the only game in town. Sigh.

And for the record, I do not worry about the stuff I write about. Like the crazy conditions in the Arctic right now, for instance. I stick to personal things and hope that our insane public world will not spillover into my private life. A vain hope, I know, if things go the way I think they will. I worry about my friend Krystyna, whose mother is dying and who has no doubts about her decision not to bring a child into a world as fucked up as this one.

To my readers, I wish the best for you. I hope you find some peace and contentment.

Comments

[Jacob Horner]

THANK YOU

And, Sincerely, Right back at you.

I've said several times that I had taken you to heart long ago.
How can that be? Well, most recently...

http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/05/homeless-girl.html

There are many other examples.

Peace & Love

[Jacob Horner]

...taken to heart

given musical expression, this would come closest...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJCOlmLxLeg

"We played outside in the pourin' rain"

Be Well

[Jeff]

Thank you, Dave, for what is so often a thankless task. There are a few who appreciate.

[Starstruck]

Blame Gobekli Tepe and don't choke on your Turkey. :)

[Mike]

Thank you Dave. I wish the same to you. And thanks especially for the pleasure your blog has brought all these years. I console myself in dark times like these by musing on how insignificant Humans are in the grand scheme of things, just think the number of humans that have actually left our planet, and are still alive could fit int the front room of an average suburban house.

[Tarjei Vatne]

Neal: He says we're going the wrong way...
Del: Oh, he's drunk. How would he know where we're going?

[Starstruck]

In case anyone wants to be a humptydumptytribe member:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5VYh_j40y8

:)

[Dave Cohen]

Sorry to say this but....

Posting some stupid but "relevant" video (even if it's music) without explanation which only has meaning to the one who posted it is not a comment in my view.

It's more akin to masturbation as far as I'm concerned. You're getting off on something you get off on,.

Do I make myself clear here?

Happy Thanksgiving!

-- Dave

[Clancy]

Dave, best wishes to you too... And I hope Krystyna can find some moments of peace also. She sounds uncommonly wise.

Bill Hicks, one who never flinched from the "taboo," would have agreed:

That's why my girlfriend and I broke up: she wanted kids, and I - well, she wanted kids. [laughs]

I had no idea her philosophy was that flawed. She goes, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a kid? To have this fresh, clean slate which we could fill? A little clean spirit, innocent, and to fill it with good ideas?"

Yeah, yeah, how about this? If you're so fucking altruistic, why don't you leave the little clean spirit wherever it is right now? Okay? Horrible act, childbirth. Nightmare. Bringing - I would never bring a kid to this fucking planet.

(Happy Thanksgiving, all!)

[Mike Roberts]

Best wishes to you Dave. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in this country so I don't really know what it's all about. As for this being the worst of your 63 years, for me the years seems to be merging into one long mess; it's difficult to separate out each from the last. However, this has, at least, been an interesting year, for the wrong reasons. Lowest average annual Arctic sea ice extent, Brexit, Trump. Next year will see the end of the TPPA and TTIP, which could be regarded as positive though that may be the only positive for next year.

Have a good one if you can.

[Buck]

Thanks for your traditional posting of that video Dave. I am a long time reader bit rarely comment. I lost my dad this past August and one day, lost in the blues, I thought of this video. I watched it over and over and felt better. Don't know why and really doesn't matter I expect.But thanks Dave. Sometimes our actions have have unintended consequences on others and it is a good thing.

[knoelle]

Well, wouldn't you know. I've made the same decision as Krystyna, and been through similar things...It was hard for me at first, even with my poor health (it's not popular these days to tell potential mothers that their medical conditions should stop them from getting pregnant). I felt entitled to start a family to make up for the one I'd lost, but now a year on after my decision I feel a sense of relief, on many levels. No, I won't contribute another involuntary contestant :P She is lucky to have a friend who understands as well as you, Dave.

@Clancy I lost a relationship over the same disagreement, only it was the guy who wanted the babies. "All women want children, you'll regret it once you're older," he said, "you just don't know what you really want yet." Uhhh...we are apparently living in different bubbles...

Happy Thanksgiving. Mike, I live in the States and I'm not sure any more what Thanksgiving is about either, but Happy Thanksgiving!

[jay moses]

dave;
you would have a more positive view of events if you could reject speciesism--the irrational belief in the supremacy of homo sap over other species. think of the end game not as a net loss but as an opportunity for other and new life forms to flourish. who knows what wonderful things might transpire in the future once homo sap stops screwing everything up? highly evolved rats? sentient cockroaches? think positive and have a great thanksgiving.

[Ben R]

I'm a long-time lurker, but I had to pipe up here to send Dave and his readers my best regards and wishes for the future.

Clancy, that's a Hicks' quote I've never encountered. Wonderful!

This is something I think those with an anti-natalist bent will enjoy for the holidays. I don't usually link videos, but this one's short and worth it just to hear Larkin's voice:

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qahT62n8tcA

[Starstruck]

humptydumptytribe is a channel on youtube where a non-flatlander rants about clueless fucking morons, often with some humour. A "birds of a feather shout out" is all. I thought the title was self-evident. I'm not above masturbation though.

I have a hard time taking a holiday that is nothing more than a post-hoc rationalization by a bunch of genocidal religious zealots too seriously. Up here in Soviet Canuckistan we choked on our turkey a couple weeks ago.

Happy Thanksgiving, black Friday...and soon enough the big show! Peace and contentment?

[Robert]

Dave, thank you for providing the place I never knew existed. A place of shared discomfort and disgust, shared anger and sardonic hilarity. A place of "Well, thank fuck I'm not the only one who sees this shit." Just the knowledge that others suffered the same sense of dismay at their fellow Homo Sapiens and sought explanations and reassurance that the disappointment they felt at how their own kind comported itself and were able to discuss it without being cast out of the village as a heretic or a subversive element is comforting, especially during these times when the craziness has intensified to a nearly unendurable level. You provide an invaluable service. I hope you find that knowledge at least a bit comforting on this holiday.

[Starstruck]

@ Robert - Exactly! I appreciate Dave's work and insights a great deal, along with others wherever I can find them. Being the village idiot (in real life) can be amusing, and alienating. blueislandgirl posted a Moby video the other day that I enjoyed. I hadn't checked in on Moby in a good long while but Moby gets it. "Let them fail".
These Systems Are Failing Manifesto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrW8ctlV5V8

[Hanson]

Dave, I've seen the movie at least 20 times and still cry at the end. We're going to watch "The Shawshank Redemption" later for more cleansing tears. Sweet stories about friendship...no zombies, no super-heroes... And I send my very best wishes to the wise Krystyna.

Ben and Clancy, thank you for the good stuff. I've been something of an anti-natalist for over 50 years, even before I knew there was a term for it. As a child, I always felt the Disney version of life was a con and started reading Thomas Hardy in the 7th grade. And I read Dave's blog now because I appreciate genuine outliers who don't color within the lines.

[Starstruck]

humptydumptytribe wrote a thanksgiving blessing:

AN ECO-NAZI'S THANKSGIVING BLESSING

Our Earthly Mother, hallowed be thy name:
We, your humble little crew of clueless fucking morons
Are gathered here together on this glorious day
To stuff our fat greedy faces with planet-eating grub
Before the football games begin
To celebrate the Black Friday sales at Wal-Mart beginning tonight.
But before we stick the first fork into this poor tortured fellow Earthling
Who sacrificed his short brutal life in a Satanic factory farm
So we can bloat our swollen bellies another notch of the belt
We pause in our woeful ignorance to give thanks to you
And the rest of our fellow humans and other Earthlings who made this meal possible.

First of all, thank you to the global industrial agriculture system
For coming up with such an ingenious scheme
To bring a once-thriving planet to its knees
So we can share this ecocidal cornucopia of riches
Spread before us on this tropical hardwood dining table
Like so much plastic flotsam trashing a beach in Paradise.

Thank you to the fossil fuel corporations:
The oil drillers and the pipeline builders for fueling the giant trucks bringing us this bounty,
The frackers for giving us heat to roast (or, in Texas, to fry) this beautiful bird,
For the mountaintop-removing coal companies for heating this McMansion
Where we are gathered together in our gluttony.

Thank you to Monsanto and Dow
For the gift of GMO corn and soy that fed this bird in its short dreary life,
Thank you to Big Ag for the petrochemical fertilizers
That fed these toxic veggies,
Thank you for Big Sugar
For giving us these tooth-rotting desserts.

But above all thank you for all our Fellow Earthlings
For sacrificing their lives and their futures
For going quietly into that good night
So we, the top of the heap in the global food chain,
Can stuff our fat clueless faces for another year.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,
Amen.

[Jacob Horner]

Starstruck...here's an earlier and more concise version

"Thanks for the AMERICAN DREAM to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4nSxArk9g8

Odd thing...I had a golden retriever I named Sancho Panza
He moved on though

Thanks

[Ben R]

@Hanson, you sound very kind. Most anti-natalists are!

@Starstruck, I can't agree with you about Hambone (humptydumptytribe), but we all have our own tastes, certainly. His grating voice ... unoriginal, repetitive, superficial thoughts ... and lack of true humor encouraged me to quit watching after a few episodes. Originally, I was expecting a watered-down version of Bageant, but Hambone doesn't have the mental or emotional breadth to pull that off.

I peeked at the video for the extremely derivative poem above, and he doesn't even allude to Burroughs to give him due credit for inspiration. I'm not surprised.

My second, and last, video link for the pleasure of Burroughs' voice:

William S. Burroughs
For John Dillinger
In hope he is still alive

Thanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts
thanks for a Continent to despoil and poison
thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger
thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcass to rot
thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes
thanks for the AMERICAN DREAM to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through
thanks for the KKK, for nigger-killing lawmen feeling their notches, for decent church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces
thanks for Kill a Queer for Christ stickers
thanks for laboratory AIDS
thanks for Prohibition and the War Against Drugs
thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business
thanks for a nation of finks — yes,
thanks for all the memories all right, lets see your arms you always were a headache and you always were a bore
thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4nSxArk9g8

[Jacob Horner]

Just got back from dinner and a rented movie...was graciously invited by my neighbors in the apartment above. For what it's worth, the movie was outstanding at the least...Hell and High Water.
Anyways, saw Ben R's comment and...well, guess my comment preceding it was just too concise? Oh, well.
One last link to add. This has been increasingly on my mind for months now, and today especially, and I hope someone will watch and have a thought as well... "notwithstanding my idiosyncrasies and defects of character."

https://vimeo.com/192823556

G'Nite

[T e Cho]

Happy thanksgiving Dave!

Yes,that was a great movie, a work of art in comedy with a good ending.

What a miserable November tho...

Best wishes, best of luck.

[Dave Cohen]

Krystyna's mother died shortly before 2:00 AM on Thanksgiving Day.

-- Dave

[Brian]

Dave, I am truly sorry for your friend's loss. Losing someone during any "special" time makes things even harder because the reminders each year become so strong. Time doesn't really heal, but it does provide perspective. I hope (in the admittedly useless human nature way of things) that time will help your friend focus her memories on the best parts of her life with her mother, and not as much on the loss I sure consumers her now. I hope that future Thanksgivings will allow her to be thankful for both what she will have at that time and those positive things she has had the chance to experience in her life, even while she misses those that are no longer there.

I wish you and yours well during this holiday season in this messed up year, and sincerely hope that no additional tragedies or losses find you or those you care for.

Be well.