I woke this morning depressed a bit, unusual for me... I am sure t was from an "uncomfortable" dream (I almost never have "bad ones"). After ten minutes or so, I realised I was feeling hopeless due to the corrupt and inept, inflation-amplifying Tory government we have now in the UK, and all of those, especially the sick and poor, who are suffering without much hope.
The once powerful and proud NHS has been dismantled, bit by bit, in the Tory pursuit (also mostly failing, since they are such pillocks) of private corporations for EVERYTHING, also donating to who increased their power, the Conservative Party Tory turds. Yes, turds.
Your eloquence has cheered me, and reminded me that truly, most people are good, or at least mostly so, and that the Tories are self-destructing every day in reality and the newspapers, even the conservative lying ones. But we must wait, probably until the end of 2024 or even early 2025 to rid ourselves of these corrupt, self-serving idiots, and knowing they will continue to wreck the UK with ever more Brexit-like stupidity and avarice, clinging to power like limpets on the rusting hull of Bri
But no matter what I do or read, I see the looming climate catastrophe, for which we can individually do mostly nothing, looking with hope to our governments to eschew the filthy lucre of corporate bribery.
We are stupid and greedy and will never change
We will "party on" while Big Oil ruthlessly lies and lies and chooses short-term profits over the survival of civilisation AND THEIR OWN FAMILIES
We have been self-selected by nature for extinction
Extinction! Are you certain we’re still here? This might be your day - dream 🛌 💭 😴 - time for a cold bath if you can find cold 🥶 water 💦 - on our scorched planet...
In the name of Jesus & progress, a Sunday morning oxymoron, look back, look up, look down, look in the mirror... just open your eyes 👀 and inhale.. no smoke today. That’s a start.
Actually, 2 million years was when the first of our hominid ancestors were learning to walk the Serengeti Plain. The last time the Earth was as hot as it's been this month was 25,000 years before the first Homo Sapiens appeared in southern Africa. No member of our species has ever faced what we face now.
Nothing is forever. All we can do is go sustainable living and walk the talk. If we all did that, we’d have a chance. Now, I bid you a good night - and my name is Kirsten 😉
Greg, like other episodes of Prevail (& one reason I subscribe), this post trembles with hope and connection. Who would have thought that LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS would be a gift I’d give my somewhat precocious 10-year-old granddaughter and the first “real” novel she would read? As it happened I was 17 that “Summer of Love” when LeGuin was writing this. Not knowing I was living 80 miles from Ground Zero of the sexual revolution I flew via Icelandic Air to spend one more summer as a virgin of sorts biking around a Europe still emerging from the ruins of WWII. The most common among the graffiti on those walls then was “Nie wieder Fascismus…” Thanks for the memories and for your own hopeful prophecy!
I always read comments after a posting like this. I think we all agree that was a wonderful (and hopeful) post. One of my teachers said (perhaps she was quoting?) at the bottom of every truth is a paradox. Whether it’s the left hand today, or the right hand tomorrow, we are all gathered in the middle of our collective human warmth.
Thank you Greg for a beautiful piece that brought me to tears. All those novels you mentioned are my favorites. Ursula K. LeGuin was my shero in college many years ago, but Stranger In A Strange Land made me gasp a little. I haven't read that since I was a teenager. Maybe it's time to revisit some of these great classics as I begin another trip this week around the sun.
A beautiful piece, Greg, but Trump is "plump"?? OMG, as a terminal TDS patient on experimental gene therapy, I have just experienced a major setback. (Sorry for nitpicking!)
"Left Hand of Darkness" is good; so is her novella, "The Word For World Is Forest," a metaphor for Vietnam. (BTW - "The Summer of Love" was 1967, the year before she wrote Left Hand - I know because I am old and was there for it :-) ). Also, "the Dispossessed" is the best discussion of the politics of that time and their natural end. I read "the EarthSea Trilogy" to my stepkids when they were little and they still like it. So do I.
I think my favorite s-f is my friend Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War," another metaphor for Vietnam. Joe's the only writer I know who voluntarily enlisted in the Army to go to Vietnam because he knew it was The Event Of My Generation (it certainly was) and would influence the writing career he hoped to have. We once talked about that and he said "Only a wannabe writer could be that stupid."
Isaac Asimov saved my childhood. I discovered him lurking around the corner from the boring Y-A novels, hiding in the big collection of science fiction the old Eugene Field Library had. I've read all the novels he wrote, and when I joined SFWA for writing the move "The Terror Within," I got to tell him that at that year's convention. He had particularly liked the movie, and I was invited to dine at the Great Man's table, a night I haven't forgotten because I got to meet all the magicians of my childhood and they welcomed me as a fellow member.
This is a great post, thank you, Greg. I whole heartedly agree that our better angels will surely triumph. As an example, my totally lovable, liberal husband is besties with a MAGA neighbor of ours. It amazes me how well they get along. When he shows up at our house, these two will literally talk for hours. (And they say women talk too much!) They sometimes go to lunch together (my husband mostly shies away from restaurants!) And for the past few years, he has insisted on giving my husband a ride to the airport in time to catch a 5:00 AM flight!
Hope you concentrate on getting some well-earned rest and relaxation in the next few weeks. We'll be here when you get back; that's a promise!
Thank you for this today. I too love The Left Hand of Darkness. I often think how important this novel is for us now.
Thank you, Greg. That was lovely.
I woke this morning depressed a bit, unusual for me... I am sure t was from an "uncomfortable" dream (I almost never have "bad ones"). After ten minutes or so, I realised I was feeling hopeless due to the corrupt and inept, inflation-amplifying Tory government we have now in the UK, and all of those, especially the sick and poor, who are suffering without much hope.
The once powerful and proud NHS has been dismantled, bit by bit, in the Tory pursuit (also mostly failing, since they are such pillocks) of private corporations for EVERYTHING, also donating to who increased their power, the Conservative Party Tory turds. Yes, turds.
Your eloquence has cheered me, and reminded me that truly, most people are good, or at least mostly so, and that the Tories are self-destructing every day in reality and the newspapers, even the conservative lying ones. But we must wait, probably until the end of 2024 or even early 2025 to rid ourselves of these corrupt, self-serving idiots, and knowing they will continue to wreck the UK with ever more Brexit-like stupidity and avarice, clinging to power like limpets on the rusting hull of Bri
But no matter what I do or read, I see the looming climate catastrophe, for which we can individually do mostly nothing, looking with hope to our governments to eschew the filthy lucre of corporate bribery.
We are stupid and greedy and will never change
We will "party on" while Big Oil ruthlessly lies and lies and chooses short-term profits over the survival of civilisation AND THEIR OWN FAMILIES
We have been self-selected by nature for extinction
#GOPtraitors
Extinction! Are you certain we’re still here? This might be your day - dream 🛌 💭 😴 - time for a cold bath if you can find cold 🥶 water 💦 - on our scorched planet...
In the name of Jesus & progress, a Sunday morning oxymoron, look back, look up, look down, look in the mirror... just open your eyes 👀 and inhale.. no smoke today. That’s a start.
The last time CO2 was at this level was about 2m years ago, and WE WERE LIVING IN CAVES or perhaps the veldt Haahhaaahhaaahaaa
Humans will survive, but perhaps not many.
Don’t Look Up, Don’t Inhale.
Actually, 2 million years was when the first of our hominid ancestors were learning to walk the Serengeti Plain. The last time the Earth was as hot as it's been this month was 25,000 years before the first Homo Sapiens appeared in southern Africa. No member of our species has ever faced what we face now.
Ouch!
Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal.
Difficult standards for people to live up to. - Alfred A. Montapert
Which is why The Jamieson Avenue Felines, who own this house, are my best friends over all the humans I know. The best human I know is #11 on my list.
The myth that human beings are superior to non-human animals is the most important lesson that I ever unlearned 💟 #AnimalRights
#Speciesism
May the Coyote gods save the elephants.
Extinction is forever.
Human Extinction? "Pity the monster, manunkind. "
I do not recignize time.
I envision no beginnings and no endings. The "big bang" (and gods) is a human theory.
I see no stop signs in the existence of universes.
ET.
The 6th extinction includes all life on planet ocean. We are the asteroid.
OK Kristen your correct
I guess stars really die?
But whatsa i know. im not a scientist.
Just an uneducated dude born on a farm
kitchen floor in midwestern soil country.
No birth certificate.
Meanwhile im enjoying the Great Sonoran Desert heat.
Shoveling snow in a heatwave is fun.
Soon the human interlopers will be gone.
Thats the "Good News"
Sorta of a science fiction novel by the late great Edward Abbey.
Nothing is forever. All we can do is go sustainable living and walk the talk. If we all did that, we’d have a chance. Now, I bid you a good night - and my name is Kirsten 😉
Greg, like other episodes of Prevail (& one reason I subscribe), this post trembles with hope and connection. Who would have thought that LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS would be a gift I’d give my somewhat precocious 10-year-old granddaughter and the first “real” novel she would read? As it happened I was 17 that “Summer of Love” when LeGuin was writing this. Not knowing I was living 80 miles from Ground Zero of the sexual revolution I flew via Icelandic Air to spend one more summer as a virgin of sorts biking around a Europe still emerging from the ruins of WWII. The most common among the graffiti on those walls then was “Nie wieder Fascismus…” Thanks for the memories and for your own hopeful prophecy!
Beautiful. Your optimism keeps me going because I know it's from a learned place, not just a hopeful one.
Thank you Greg!
Your Sunday literary pieces are stunning. Thank you.
I always read comments after a posting like this. I think we all agree that was a wonderful (and hopeful) post. One of my teachers said (perhaps she was quoting?) at the bottom of every truth is a paradox. Whether it’s the left hand today, or the right hand tomorrow, we are all gathered in the middle of our collective human warmth.
Love this. Sharing.
Kindness and hope holding hands.
Thank you Greg for a beautiful piece that brought me to tears. All those novels you mentioned are my favorites. Ursula K. LeGuin was my shero in college many years ago, but Stranger In A Strange Land made me gasp a little. I haven't read that since I was a teenager. Maybe it's time to revisit some of these great classics as I begin another trip this week around the sun.
A beautiful piece, Greg, but Trump is "plump"?? OMG, as a terminal TDS patient on experimental gene therapy, I have just experienced a major setback. (Sorry for nitpicking!)
"Left Hand of Darkness" is good; so is her novella, "The Word For World Is Forest," a metaphor for Vietnam. (BTW - "The Summer of Love" was 1967, the year before she wrote Left Hand - I know because I am old and was there for it :-) ). Also, "the Dispossessed" is the best discussion of the politics of that time and their natural end. I read "the EarthSea Trilogy" to my stepkids when they were little and they still like it. So do I.
I think my favorite s-f is my friend Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War," another metaphor for Vietnam. Joe's the only writer I know who voluntarily enlisted in the Army to go to Vietnam because he knew it was The Event Of My Generation (it certainly was) and would influence the writing career he hoped to have. We once talked about that and he said "Only a wannabe writer could be that stupid."
Isaac Asimov saved my childhood. I discovered him lurking around the corner from the boring Y-A novels, hiding in the big collection of science fiction the old Eugene Field Library had. I've read all the novels he wrote, and when I joined SFWA for writing the move "The Terror Within," I got to tell him that at that year's convention. He had particularly liked the movie, and I was invited to dine at the Great Man's table, a night I haven't forgotten because I got to meet all the magicians of my childhood and they welcomed me as a fellow member.
This is a great post, thank you, Greg. I whole heartedly agree that our better angels will surely triumph. As an example, my totally lovable, liberal husband is besties with a MAGA neighbor of ours. It amazes me how well they get along. When he shows up at our house, these two will literally talk for hours. (And they say women talk too much!) They sometimes go to lunch together (my husband mostly shies away from restaurants!) And for the past few years, he has insisted on giving my husband a ride to the airport in time to catch a 5:00 AM flight!
Hope you concentrate on getting some well-earned rest and relaxation in the next few weeks. We'll be here when you get back; that's a promise!
Levels of CO2, not heat
https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2/
Is there a work of fiction written in English you haven't read?