The Unnamable

"Bah, the latest news, the latest news is not the last."

Many in Puerto Rico and on nearby islands are still without sufficient supplies of water and food, let alone electricity.  A firestorm has obliterated parts of a major city down 101 here in northern California, resulting in deaths, injuries, homes destroyed, dislocations and evacuations, while fires affect everyday life in every part of the state, including here on the North Coast.  Out of the media glare, thousands in the Gulf Coast, Texas and Florida struggle in the distant wake of hurricanes.  Someone used unspeakable firepower to kill and main hundreds in Las Vegas in ten minutes of gunfire, and they say no one knows why.

The White House is described as a pressure-cooker with a chief executive so dangerous that others must struggle to control him, though he continues to threaten nuclear Armageddon.  There's a feeling that it all could blow any time, any day. The world is locked into a US leader who many agree is deranged, and everyone seems powerless to do anything about it, not now and, absent an electoral alternative that has not yet materialized, not for years.  Meanwhile the administration relentlessly attempts the slow murder of the planet.

The Washington Post calculates that in 263 days, our dictator apprentice has made 1,318 false or misleading statements. A few days before, he reached a new low of 32% approval, with only a quarter of Americans believing the country is on the right track.  On the same day an analysis insists that he is on track to reelection.

Another poll says that more than half say that he is not fit to be President.  In one sense, extraordinary.  In another, the percentage should be higher.

We do what we can to bring attention to those in need, to help those we can.  We try to be prepared for catastrophe in what few ways we can.  But basically...we go on. We remember, we preserve, we fight on. It's not healthy to pay too much attention to much of this.  But we go on.

"...you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on."

(Both quotes from Samuel Beckett: The Unnamable, a 1953 novel, 1958 in English.)