There's nothing a cat likes better than a lever handle door lock. Lucky's hunky black cat Haystack was thrilled that I had not watched the hours of youtube videos showing cats handily using them to let themselves out. So: door ajar, no cat, mild panic. Later, I was saved by the bell: a handsome ship's bell, their wedding gift from Greg Rossel. Pavlov would be proud. A few dongs of that and Haystack came running in.

On the day after Thanksgiving, the seasons change like a light switch. Brian shows up and redecorates the library: lights, flags, bunting, oh my. And then the distraction season is upon us. Decorations, parades, craft fairs, shopping, parties. The dark is actually kind of delicious in contrast to the busy making. Our live tree came home on the top of my car because I love a good pagan ritual. Participating in the small business Saturday event brought a lot of new people into the library. Two of our senior events (bus ride to Boothbay and SAIL class) are bringing some new folks into the fold. The auction is going; fun to see who bids on what. An ALA LTC grant will take every minute of my time between now and Dec. 11.

Some quotes from Alderman's The Future.

Martha felt she could see the pixels in the world. A world made up of tiny pieces, like a pointillist painting; the truth is that everything is both pieces and a whole. And if you're really going to understand anything, you have to be able to go between the very small and the very large because neither one is the whole truth
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There is a thing in human life that can never be predicted or controlled. It is dangerous and terrifying; it destroys your life and fucks up your plans. That's why there are so many stupid songs about it.
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The work is never over, there is no final battle; the fight is the destination, the constant tense battle between the present and the future.

There are good Sunday recreational shopping options east or west. Today we went west to Wild Clover Cafe, the Record Connection, Bull Moose, and finally the grocery. The cavernous Bull Moose has a good selection of science fiction, and I searched it for the particular genre that interests me. It's science fiction, most often by women, not fantasy stuff, that thinks of a version of the future. It's not about technology; it is a given that it will be powerful and transforming. It's not about rockets or weapons or space travel itself or interstellar wars. It's about the societies of the future. It is about human evolution, human augmentation, relationships between humans and other species, cultural evolution. It is about a hopeful vision of the future for the world. I'm giving Naomi Alderman's The Future a chance. If it doesn't satisfy, I'll go back to reading books narrated by AIs and robots.

The darkest vision of our times is written by investigative reporter Sarah Kendzior. Her vision is almost without hope, without the possibility of change. She has spent a lot of time looking at evil. This is from her Substack blog.

They Knew covers a variety of actual conspiracies over which officials feign ignorance – child trafficking, climate change, covid, cults, coups – but above all, it is a book about elite criminal impunity. “The 21st century's most desirable currency is impunity,” I wrote. “Impunity, the sadist's conception of freedom, mainstreamed and marketed as the new American Dream.” Victims posing as oppressors, the powerful playacting as the powerless, lies told with the smirk of people who love to get caught because they know they will not be punished.

This is not a serious country, but a country in serious crisis. This is not a sovereign country, but a country under the tyranny of the minority regardless of who is in charge. We have elections, but we do not have choice.

I am not “making” anything: these are bad actions, and I am noting that they happened. They were bad under Trump, and they continue to be bad under Biden, and it is necessary to point that out. What matters is who gets hurt, and the victim list is long. Like most Americans, I cannot make policy but only try to survive it. That powerlessness – the knowledge that the worst things stay the same no matter who is elected – is the consequence of elite criminal impunity.

Ordinary people like me can make small changes in our world, but mostly, as she says, we try to survive whatever policies the powerful are making. We game it as best we can. I read about holocaust survivors escaping from one country to another across Europe and in the midst of it getting married and having children. I think of my Acadian ancestors caught up in a war between the English and the French, trying to have a life, and raising families. I cheer myself up by taking the long view of human progress: worker protections; the abolition of slavery; equal rights for women and gay people; science & medical advances.

HCR's new book spends a lot of time in the years I've been alive. I tried to remember what I thought of things like the civil rights movement or the Cuban missile crisis at the time. Mostly I was dealing with things in my own life and not paying attention to the larger world. And the news came in one version for maybe one hour a day. She covers two intertwined themes that repeat throughout US history: the rise and fall of authoritarian movements and the shifts between supply side economics that favor the rich and demand side that favors the poor and middle classes. The four years of the Trump presidency she sees as an authoritarian experiment, and the Biden legislative packages as a return to New Deal policy. New Deal prosperity with high taxes on the rich lasted from FDR until 1980 when Reagan returned to lower taxes on the wealthy and the deficit exploded. She quotes Hitler twice about the Big Lie. The Civil War could have gone another way; WWII could have gone another way. It feels like we are in a pivotal moment, but maybe all moments feel that way. Bodies is an excellent time travel series we recently watched. In time travel stories people are always trying to go back in time to change the present, and the point is that you are in the present, act now to change the future. Be a good ancestor.