Daniel Immerwahr, via @tinyroofnail:

If small, rugged farms have not filled the countryside, what has? … For the past century, rural spaces have been preferred destinations for military bases, discount retail chains, extractive industries, manufacturing plants, and real-estate developments.

Yup, about right. The small town I live in depends economically upon a Navy installation, a GM plant, a cement plant, and Indiana University. The Ford/Visteon plant closed in 2007, and its space was filled with defense contractors. There are seven Dollar Generals within a ten minute drive.

If there’s a new Romanticism on the horizon, I’m here for it.

Thankfully most of my CPA continuing education can be done via webinar—but today’s is on the north side of Indianapolis, requiring ninety minutes of driving in heavy traffic to listen to an eight hour talk in a drab office park about what’s new in accounting. sigh

It appears that the president will be making a case for more war funding tonight. Remember: he may be on death’s payroll but you don’t have to be.

So I’ve been using Kagi for search and I like it. Unfortunately you can’t make it your default search for Brave so I thought I’d try Orion, Kagi’s own browser. It’s too buggy for me. Freezes a lot. Switching between tabs doesn’t always work. So back to Brave for me.

Hopefully I’ll get back to the “These Weird Times” series at some point soon. When I said a few weeks ago that I was about to do my annual post-audit reboot, this one ended up being more extensive than usual. I’m working on some personal issues that have me doing some very useful exploring–and the more theoretical exercise of something like “These Weird Times” would be too tempting to use as an escape from the more emotional and spiritual work that I need to focus on for now. I don’t know how much I’ll write about that work but hopefully I’ll come through the other side a bit more integrated than I have been. Sacrifices of goats to chthonic deities welcome–or whatever is more your style.

Once you decide that you are on the side of life, you suddenly have a lot more clarity about thorny issues. Problem is, the side of life is manifestly out of power right now. The powerful–rather, the Powers and those aligned with them–are bent on blood and domination.

Started using Kagi as my search engine after @JohnBrady recommendation and I’m already getting more fruitful search results on something I’m researching.

Indiana persimmon—straight off the ground and warm—an absolute delight.

Happy Hobbit Day! Unfortunately I won’t have as much time for celebrating today but I will certainly have this music playing in the background.