January 5

It looks like we will get a little sun before the clouds move in giving us snow over night. The weather forecasts expect an inch or less. We'll see. The dental appointment went well after a bit of confusion as they had to cancel my original appointment for 9am and the it took a couple of tries to get a confirmed 10am appointment. At least it was the original day. Usually, I make the next appointment right after but decided to wait. I don't know what the idiots in Washington will do. Right now the Republicans are in the "government by ultimatum" mode and enough of them appear to be ready to burn the place down shut down the government. If they follow through I will have to tighten my financial belt because we are a household of retirees who depend on our Social Security.

Robert Reich continued his series on American capitalism with "How America's oligarchy has paved the road to fascism."

I don't know how many might remember Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN graphic novels. I remember them very well and at one time had the whole series. The story, based on Greek myths, followed the doings of a dysfunctional family, The Endless. The siblings included Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. Recently I re-read the volume which concerned Delirium and Dream searching for their missing brother Destruction who disappeared sometime in the 17th century. Delirium misses her brother and insists Dream help her although he feels it won't work out well for him (and it doesn't--but that is a different volume) and he suspects Delirium won't be happy with the outcome (she isn't because she can't convince Destruction to return but her disappointment is eased because he leaves her with his dog.) They finally do find Destruction who confirms what Dream suspected about his brother's motive. Destruction believed he no longer had a purpose on this plane because humans had become capable of as much, maybe more, carnage and devastation has Destruction himself was. I thought of that graphic novel from the the late 1980s to the mid 1990s while reading this post from Tom Englehardt.