Today’s walk to Murray woods.
Colter Wall’s cover of “I Never Go Around Mirrors” is the distilled essence of country music. His voice, the classic lyrics, stripped down music, the harmony. It’s just perfect. 🎵
I got a handmade straw hat from the local Amish community. My family and friends’ reaction has been … mixed. 😂
Wendell Berry’s agrarian values
From this interview, via Sarah Hendren An elated, loving interest in the use and care of the land. An informed and conscientious submission to nature. The wish to have and to belong to a place of one’s own, as the only secure source of sustenance and independence. A persuasion in favor of economic democracy; a preference for enough over too much. Fear and contempt of waste of every kind, and its ultimate consequence in land exhaustion.
One thing I learned from my fundamentalist upbringing, which has served me well: I have never expected or needed the world around me to live by my values.
Erik Davis has a worthwhile piece on the supposed trend of a Silicon Valley Christianity. He calls it Christian transhumanism. When I read things like this, I feel that same discombobulation I felt when I first learned of The Church of the Papal Mainframe in Doctor Who.
The night of a thousand buckets
So how’s climate change going for y’all? On Wednesday, April 2nd, a big storm rolled through the area. Thankfully, we were spared the worst of it. Many, many people–including folks in the area–were not so lucky. We went to the basement when the tornado warning was issued for our area at around 11pm. While we were down there, we found a few leaks. One was in the wall: And, bizarrely, one was flowing like a water feature up from the floor:
In the course of a tariff discussion with friends in a group text, I threw out this statement of political priorities and, on reflection, I do think it captures most of what I care about at the moment:
In any case, my preferred outcome is not on the table: managed degrowth of the economy; discrediting and banishing the American dream of increasing consumerism and reliance on personal debt; and breaking up Big Tech and fundamentally slowing and limiting technological advancement.
If you need a cause, if you need a purpose, if you need a crusade that will do the most to produce the world you want, it is this: Class war. The same damn class war! Taking wealth away from the rich and giving that wealth to the less rich. Our democracy, such as it is, will never, ever be stabilized until that happens. Do not allow yourself to be hypnotized by the myriad results of the rich having too much money. Keep your mind instead on the problem itself. The rich are too rich.
We’re all okay this morning. Thanks for the expressions of concern. No significant damage but it was a crazy night. I’ll tell the story when I get some time today.