Wednesday--

Well, I guess they had their Vice-Presidential debate yesterday. No, I didn't watch. I live in Indiana and I was so glad that Pence wouldn't be running for re-election as governor but I really didn't want to see him inflicted on the rest of the country. I won't link but the stories I have seen so far (unless they are part of the Repthuglican Ministry of Truth) think it was something of a mess in which neither candidate came off well.

Over the last year or so, I have noticed a problem trying to view some of the blogs and alternative sites I normally visit--usually prepper/suvivalist/homesteader sites or Naked Capitalism and other alternative news/economic sites. This little story is intriguing in light of that history. Interesting coincidence--if that is what it was. The timing is more than a little suspicious.

Thursday--

Tom Englehardt has a really good essay with a twist on the place of Donald Trump in American history. In many ways there is really nothing new about Trump. We have seen something of his type before as salesman/conman/huckster. We have even seen them in politics. What we haven't seen is the Donald's appeal to a nihilist strain in American society, the strain that doesn't mind if the loose canon they will vote for would bring the whole edifice crashing down. Most of the time we have wanted change but not catastrophic change. That after all is what Obama's campaign of "Hope and Change" was founded on. Trump's campaign, however, appeals to the notion of "No Hope and Burn-The-Sucker-Down Change."

Friday--

The New York Times has a long but interesting article asking "What If PTSD Is More Physical Than Psychological?"